Misc feedback requests

Did player character Bash and level 55+ Kick skills stun level 56+ NPCs?

Any comments regarding the chance for bash/slam/kick to interrupt would also be helpful.

 

Paladin bash was always good for interrupting non-raid casters

 

Yes, bash/slam/kick will have a chance to interrupt any level caster, even if they are immune to stun. I remember specifically having melees on Zlandicar raids bash/slam/kick in order to stop him from gating. Same with VT caster trash, many of them would try to gate away at low health as well, and would wipe the raid if they were successful.

 

On a similar topic, is push back consistent? Does regular melee have a chance to do push back or do only special attacks like bash/slam/kick have a push back component? I seem to remember stun having a chance to interrupt, as well as push back doing so as well. I also remember pets causing push back by default, making them highly effective against casting mobs of all types on AK.

I also remember monk special attacks dragon punches etc... having a push back component that interrupted NPC casters as well.

 

Bashes and kicks have three means of interrupting casts: The stun, the non-stun interrupt, and the pushback. Parsing the chance for NPCs to stun is very simple, and I have figured out the function Sony used. The pushback component is already implemented and the amount of pushback was determined from a client decompile. (thanks Haynar) Whether or not the channeling skill is implemented accurately, I couldn't say.

Non-stunning bashes and level 55+ warrior kicks also still have a chance to interrupt casts immediately. (the 'casting is interrupted!' message appears before the bash damage) Figuring out that chance is very difficult. I have not found an instance in a log where stun immune mobs, like dragons, were interrupted by this. If they get interrupted, it seems to be from the collective push. Note that there is a difference between the immunity of spell stuns at 56 and complete stun immunity. My question was whether or not bash stuns will stun non-stun immune level 56+ NPCs.

 

Unless somebody gives me evidence to the contrary, pets will lose the ability to taunt anything above level 50 next update. I have zero 'I'll teach you to interfere with me' messages for pets from any NPC above level 50 out of approximately five thousand 'interfere' messages in my logs.

Also, an important question regarding taunt: Was it possible to taunt (with the skill, not including the warrior AA) NPCs 6 or more levels above you at level 60 or higher?

 

I can't speak for summoned pets, but charmed NPCs were definitely capable of overtaking massive piles of PC hate against high level mobs much faster than could be accounted for by their DPS alone, and I can't imagine what other than taunt could have been behind this phenomenon.

 

Don't think so. As a Ranger there was always a upper limit to what I could taunt without using spells.

 

Taunt never worked reliably on live during the early days through PoP, I am not sure if their function was broken or not.(This is why hate weapons were so very needed for warriors) Taunt in general on EMU's does work properly and warriors can much more efficiently hold aggro on average mobs here. Raid bosses during the Velious days required hate procing weapons to hold aggro. I believe a 6+ level cap on taunt would be appropriate until possibly PoP when normal exp mobs can be 71+ in EP's....I would look for some feedback on whether those could reliably be taunted.

Pc pet taunt was always quite weak on live/AK and if there are 0 messages from 50+ mobs it would make sense it just flatout stopped working....the epic mage pet and the 60 necro pet had stuns to increase aggro output.

"I can't speak for summoned pets, but charmed NPCs were definitely capable of overtaking massive piles of PC hate against high level mobs much faster than could be accounted for by their DPS alone, and I can't imagine what other than taunt could have been behind this phenomenon."

NPC's do not taunt players, therefore I would highly doubt they would taunt each other. Their damage output+procs could however hold MASSIVE aggro. I remember boxing the Avatar of War with a couple enchanters during PoP using charmed giants.....and they could hold aggro over a ch chain and nukers going at it.

 

i can't even fathom what it would mean for an npc to taunt a player.
i'm not sure how the fact that players don't use npc AI to determine what to attack implies that npcs don't use that mechanic when interacting with each other.

 

Because there would have to be code telling NPCS to use a taunt function and that does not exist. Taunt is a player and pet function.

I checked out the code to see what we had in there...

Code:

[ Only registered users can see the bbcode. Click Here To Register... ]

Seems early eq anything over your level couldn't be taunted, we are currently using 2006 era taunt code thus Torven tweaking it makes total sense. We just need to find the median that is accurate for our era.

 

Back when I was first learning the game, I created a macro to taunt then kick then disarm. I used to use the macro instead of clicking taunt etc... in my command palette. After a while I made it to raiding level and began learning to remove that button from my interface because I kept hitting it and occasionally I would steal aggro from the MT if I hit the button too often. I started raiding around level 45 on AK and would regularly steal aggro from a MT 20 levels higher than me by just mistakenly hitting taunt at the wrong moment.

The first time it happened to me was during a Kael raid on Vindi (level 70 raid mob on AK). I was DPSing as usual when I mistakenly hit the taunt macro button, and sure enough Vindi switched targets and flattened me in 1 round.

I'm not sure how much aggro the kick or the disarm attempt created, but I'm fairly sure the taunt stuck and the raid mob instantly made me into an ink spot.

If a level 45 toon can steal aggro from a level 65 warrior with aggro weapons against a level 70 raid mob with a taunt, I would think it's safe to assume that players can taunt an NPC that is > 6 levels above your level.

 

Against regular mobs, a successful bash/slam/kick would usually 100% interrupt a casting mob at or below your level up until level 51 or so. Level 52 mobs and higher would occasionally successfully 'channel' through the bash/slam/kick and you would see the message 'so and so continues casting'. 56+ mobs of the non raid variety would have a higher chance to 'channel' through a successful bash/slam/kick as well, and their chances of recovering their spell cast seemed higher. With raid mobs, I think the only chance we had to stop them from casting was to push them when they would start to cast. Bash/slam/kick, monk special hits, stuns with a push back component all needed to be heaped upon the raid mob to keep it from casting horrible raid wiping spells like CH or gate.

 

Yes, I am making changes to taunt; some of which will go in with the next update. I'll outline some of the the things I've discovered.

First, for summoned pets, I have absolutely zero 'interferes' directed at pets from any NPC level 50+. It actually may be a little less than that (no Clerics of Innoruuk named a pet). I had a magician and I did the Seru earring quest, so I was killing talking NPCs with pets with taunt on using a PoP era pet-- the sub 50 NPCs would name the pet, but not the post 50 NPCs. It's not just my logs either, I searched every log I have (as always).

I actually have zero 'interferes' from ANY charmed pet at all. I also cannot find a 'Taunting attacker, Master' message while having a pet charmed.

I can say that pet melee hate measured on Live (and here) is very high: it's ~1/2 the max hit per swing, so if you charm something that hits for 500s, it's going to do 250 hate per swing, hit or miss. A quadding charmed 63 pet will do the hate equivalent of a strike of solusek in 3 rounds, not including procs. Haste it and that's like a strike of solusek's hate every 4 seconds. Heal hate has a cap per spell, and a 50% chance to not even be 'witnessed', so one of these pets is basically doing a CH's worth of hate PER ROUND on average.

As for PC taunt, I have found the following information:

A March 2001 patch note included this:

"– Level 60 players with the taunt skill will now have a chance to
taunt creatures that are level 60 to 65. Previously, players could only
taunt creatures below their level."

Rashere, a Sony developer, posted his changes to the Taunt skill in 2006 here: http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/soearchive/viewtopic.php?t=81156

Some of his comments include:

"Before these changes, your taunt skill was irrelevant if you were above level 60 and taunting something that was also above level 60."
"The chance to taunt an NPC higher level than yourself dropped off at double the rate if you were above level 60 than if you were below level 60 making it very hard to taunt creature higher level than yourself if you were above level 60."
"The mininimum chance to successfully taunt an NPC has been increased."
"You now gain a bonus to your chance to taunt an NPC that is lower level than yourself with that bonus growing as the level difference increases."
"The only change for your statement would be replacing the 4th time with the 10th time (on average)"

Taunt worked differently for players under level 60, which could explain why sub 60s could taunt raid bosses and 60s could not if that happened. I have no 'interferes' from NPCs more than 5 levels above the tank that I could verify, but Luclin NPCs cap out at level 66 and PoP NPCs don't talk, so there aren't a lot of NPCs to check. I have 'interferes' from the Dain (level 70) but the log doesn't show the player levels.

 

Excellent Torven, this really hits it on the head. Don't forget Dain is a weird mob...with his aggro decrease proc....might not be the best to use for info. (although for npc messages it may not effect)

From the article it seems there was always a lower % on AK to taunt post 60 mobs.....where it was then fixed since most of the game was 60+ mobs...so the current code we have really would not apply to us once we got into PoP....taunt would be far too effective.

 

Ok so, PoP charms had a small chance to mem wipe on breaks. My question is, which charm spells had this happen? I can't remember if this happened on druid charms or not. Did this happen on lower level enchanter charms? Necro charms?

 

I did a lot of charming on AK, and never had a charmed pet not agro on me when charm broke. So I'd have to assume that if there actually is a chance, it is infinitesimally small.

 

I had two 65 enchanters with TD3. I can say with confidence that it not only happened, but probably happened something like 10% of the time. There is forum evidence of this and I could probably dig up some logs if anybody contests.

 

I had TD3 as well. If the mem blur ever happened, I never noticed it. Maybe some other enchanters can chime in. I might just be really unlucky.

 

I don't remember memwipes on Druid charm breaks...ever. Its not really a big deal for Druids though since they had the tools in PoP to get away rather easily as long as they're paying attention. So, it would make sense if they were the exception.

 

Yeah, I did a lot of charming on my druid and I don't recall it happening on him, just the enchanter. Problem is we're two years since shutdown so the memories are fading.

 

Mem wipe in the sense that the mob wasn't aggro on anyone? So that a pet who was non-KoS, or perma-pacced, or merely out of aggro range of players would simply break charm and walk away? I never saw that happen.

Occasionally a surprising player (say, a mage who'd done nothing to the pet except casting malosinia) would appear to top the hate list.

 

I'm not sure precisely on the details. It's difficult to search for in logs, but I found these examples:

[Sun Sep 01 15:50:57 2013] Your charm spell has worn off.
[Sun Sep 01 15:50:57 2013] You vanish.
[Sun Sep 01 15:50:57 2013] Your Ceramic Shield of Valor sparkles.
[Sun Sep 01 15:50:57 2013] a zek initiate says 'You have chosen me as your opponent? This gladiator shall not lose!'

[Tue Nov 05 20:59:39 2013] Trooper Lyendejek tells you, 'Attacking Veteran Surlren Master.'
[Tue Nov 05 21:03:11 2013] Your charm spell has worn off.
[Tue Nov 05 21:03:11 2013] Trooper Lyendejek says 'Your bones will be crushed by the Kromzek of Kael Drakkel!'

[Sat Sep 21 06:19:52 2013] Your charm spell has worn off.
[Sat Sep 21 06:19:52 2013] You vanish.
[Sat Sep 21 06:19:52 2013] Your Ceramic Shield of Valor sparkles.
[Sat Sep 21 06:19:52 2013] Your Silken Augmenter's Sleeves flickers with a pale light.
[Sat Sep 21 06:19:52 2013] A vind militis tosses a small funnel storm in your direction.

Those are aggro emotes right after charm breaks.

Here's an example of a mob going after my paladin instead of my enchanter after a break, but with no emote:

Enchanter
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:07 2013] a War Wraith's corpse stumbles, falling lifelessly to the ground, its wings tattered and torn from the long battle.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:24 2013] You can't reach that, get closer.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:26 2013] Your Silken Augmenter's Shoes shimmers briefly.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:27 2013] You begin casting Improved Invisibility.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:30 2013] Your charm spell has worn off.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:30 2013] You vanish.

Paladin
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:37 2013] a War Wraith's corpse stumbles, falling lifelessly to the ground, its wings tattered and torn from the long battle.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:37 2013] A War Wraith is consumed by a visage of flame.
[Thu Sep 26 06:55:59 2013] You begin casting Quellious' Word of Serenity.
[Thu Sep 26 06:56:00 2013] Diaku Armsman tries to slash YOU, but misses!
[Thu Sep 26 06:56:00 2013] Diaku Armsman kicks YOU for 103 points of damage.
[Thu Sep 26 06:56:01 2013] You regain your concentration and continue your casting.

I don't think I'll put in anything like this without knowing more about it though. One day I'll have to see how charm breaks are handled on Live.

 

Zek initiates don't see invis, do they? Is the initiate in the first example aggroing the enchanter, or someone else?

 

I zoned out after that. It didn't hit anybody I don't think. Druid's log wasn't on though. It's easy to not get hit in the pit with snare on pets.

What happens on charm breaks is probably some weird logic and not something simple like X% chance to mem wipe else go after enchanter.

 

Would a character sitting in close proximity affect who gets aggro first on a charm break or would the mob's hate for the enc override a sitting character?

 

Some NPCs look for new people nearby to hate constantly even after aggroing on somebody, while others don't. Generally in PoP they don't do that. (can't really think of any that do) It's more of an old world thing.