Range > Agro , for which target mobs attack? (low level)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Baler, Jun 1, 2018.

  1. Baler

    Baler Well-Known Member

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    preface: This is my low level 1 to 20 experience.

    Example 1: My alt is sitting alone and a mob paths into it then begins to attack it. I run over on my main to attack it and start dealing damage to it, it turns to my main. I then try to back up but the mob doesn't come after me it turns back to my alt and continues hitting my alt. Even if I beat the mob down to low life, if I move away it will turn to the closest range pc. Even if that alt does nothing.

    Example 2: My alt heals my main who has been fighting a mob and the mob leaves my main to attack my alt due to healing agro. I run over on my main and attack the mob which turns to my main, after a bit I try to back up on my main but the mob switches to my alt and continues hitting my alt.

    I have to physically move my alt away to stop the npc from trying to attack it if my main isn't near the mob. I can't pull it away from my alt with my main through agro alone.

    Sorry if my wording is confusing, Can anyone explain why this happens?
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2018
  2. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    Proxy aggro is the strong force that holds gluons together.
     
  3. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    Yeah, what you're seeing is a flat proximity hate bonus of some value or other (100?) that washes out the effects of all other aggro at low levels. This is apparently how it works on EQLive now. It's very strange, and nobody thinks it's AKurate, but nobody really knows exactly how aggro should work at low levels to fix it.

    As you level up and mobs start to have a bit more HP, aggro mechanics should start to look more like what you remember.
     
  4. Dairmuid

    Dairmuid Active Member

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    I've had a similar experience with agro as i've been leveling up (L42 now - Monk/Shm/Clr).

    At low levels, aggro seemed to be primarily associated with proximity to the mob (much like root aggro). Now that i'm higher up, it still seems like proximity plays a roll, but now my heals & slows will rip off mobs unlike lower levels.
     
  5. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    To clarify: mobs adding people in their melee range to their hate lists is entirely accurate, and this server doesn't have enough of it.

    The unknown is how large should the melee range hate bonus be at lower levels, which is currently set to Live's value. The bonus is actually rather small but it's large at lower levels because mob HP scales from 20 hp to millions and the function is shallow but it has a floor value. (floor is 100)

    There is also a 'first in melee range' bonus of 35 hate; meaning the first target the NPC finds inside melee range gets an additional 35 hate on top of the melee range bonus for all melee range targets.

    The problem I have with changing these is that on AK, nobody really spent much time at the very low levels because MGBs made everybody God there, and I haven't found hard evidence that any other part of Sony's hate mechanics were altered. I'm just not convinced this was different than AK, but I certainly would not be surprised at all if it was changed in some way.

    Also the bonus is a linear function, so changing it would affect all levels. Unless I added more logic or changed the entire function, just lowering the floor would reduce the bonus for all NPCs with less than 4000 hitpoints and effectively make the bonus vanish at higher levels.

    People recall Fansy the bard who trained people with Sand Giants on the 'no rules' PvP server, yes? Under current mechanics, he would need to stay under 135 hate for the giants to attack those he trained. That's not much room. If I merely lowered the floor, it quickly becomes not possible to train for more than a very brief period. A level 26 casting level 25 Selo's was doing 18 hate/tick (after witness checks, so effectively 9 avg) on Live. I didn't check the level 6 version or lower level bards. A lot of other songs did 2 hate/tick however.
     
  6. Ransom

    Ransom Well-Known Member

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    I spent a lot of time at low levels on both AK and TAKP. This definitely seems to function the same way it did on AK. I avoided MGBs for the most part trying for a clean nostalgic run on AK. Low levels, distance matters much more.
     
    Torven likes this.
  7. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Appreciate the feedback
     
  8. Devour_Souls

    Devour_Souls People Like Me

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    There was a big stink on AK when DC killed TVK, due to the nature of the way they did it. I remember Karpan writing a detailed description of how proximity agro worked(Which had nothing to do with TVK), in the "DC sucks for exploits" thread, and not one person refuted the claims that he made. My memory is fuzzy, but I do remember him stating, and I witnessed examples of, mobs being limited to one proximity hate target. DC had many strats that people considered exploits, and this mechanic was a huge part of many of those strategies. Essentially a player could train mobs past the raid, the raid could move past the spawn spot/pathing node of the mobs, and the toon doing the training would clear agro and none of those mobs would be aware of any of the toons that they had ran right past.

    I saw many examples on AK of mobs being trained and demonstrating this behavior, once the person training would clear hate, via death, fading memories, FD, zoning etc., the mobs would begin pathing back and then a moment or two later aggro a toon in proximity. If the TAKP mechanic is AKurate, those mobs would already have toons within their proximity aggro radius, on their hate list, they would not have begun pathing back. They would have immediately made a bee line to anyone already within their proximity.

    I may not be articulating this well, and perhaps some zones had different mechanics, and perhaps I'm mistaken about the nature of things I witnessed. But I am certain that the behavior for proximity aggro here is not the same as it was on AK.

    Another example: The other day, I was running across Eastern Wastes to Kael, and my druid and enchanter were auto following my SK. I ran right over a giant and he tried to hit my SK, and I just continued to run, once I got far enough away I feigned death. The giant continued towards me. I did /assist and he was coming for my druid. On AK he would not have had my druid on his hate list. I did this exact scenario 100+ times on AK, seeing completely different behavior than on TAKP.

    I may just be old and forgetful, I'm not denying that, but I am certain that the above examples were completely repeatable on AK.
     
  9. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    I'm surprised by this. I have leveled plenty of toons without level 60+ buffs over the years. Many of them pet casters (enchanters, necromancers, magicians), starting out in Nektulos and then moving on to Lavastorm. I have plenty of memories of overdoing it with the lowbie caster and dying because a tree snake or black mamba wouldn't stick to the pet. Here, that would never happen. People talk about skeletons and undead aggro because that stick-to-the-nearest-target-no-matter-what behavior is unusual, even at low levels.

    I don't think that's a big deal. It's an oddity that I believe vanishes at higher levels, and even without MGB KEI, nobody spends too much time at level 6. I do think that the fact that it's one of the first things a lot of new players likely notice when they start up on TAKP is unfortunate, because it gives the impression that the hate system is untuned on a server whose accurate and well-researched mechanics are actually a huge selling point.
     
  10. Fadetree

    Fadetree People Like Me

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    I noticed this early on in my TAKP adventures, and posted about it. I got basically the same explanation, and in fact it did seem to gradually get back to what I was used to as I leveled. I was never on AK, but as someone who was on live in the era I definitely noticed it as being different than what I had been used to. But its relatively easy to get used to, and if it's Akkurate then thats great.
     
  11. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Mobs adding people in melee range to their hate lists was much rarer beginning in Velious. It's mostly in Classic and Kunark. It won't be enabled in VT for example. I speculate that Sony began limiting its use to prevent faction hits in Velious. Frost and Storm giants should probably not have it enabled, but I'm not familiar with the NPCs you are talking about. (Some giants had it though, like Vindi)

    This mob AI still exists on Live, it was just removed from most classic zones because they were mostly revamped, or perhaps they just wanted to prevent griefing. You can still see it in a lot of Kunark zones and Plane of Fear and other zones. Some PoP mobs also do it, like armors in HoH.

     
  12. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Pets could have been different. I didn't do a lot of experimenting with hate on pets on Live actually. I suppose I could check.
     
  13. Ransom

    Ransom Well-Known Member

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    I actually think pets is key there. I've never ran a charm or pet tank group. Always had a hybrid, monk or warrior as my tank so that might alter things a bit?
     
  14. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Hate bonus for pets on Live seems the same as players. But pets tank with players in range now, as Sony has been changing that logic for pets, so it means little.

    I'm going to change our logic to make pets have no hate bonuses.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2018
  15. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    When you say you've eliminated hate bonuses for pets, do you mean you've eliminated the melee range hate bonus, dropped the +100 from the melee range hate bonus formula, or really eliminated all hate bonuses, including e.g. the low health frenzy bonus?

    I don't have any reason to believe pets were hated differently than other entities. I used pets as an example because my most recent experience of this situation at the low levels involved soloing or duoing with pet classes. It's been a while since I've been in an honest to Bristlebane group situation at those levels.
     
  16. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    All bonuses. If the melee range bonus doesn't apply to pets, then I would think low-health aggro also wouldn't.

    Unfortunately at this point I have to consider what are the most likely possibilities rather than relying on data, which is no longer obtainable; so if something is 51% likely, that's going in, even if it's so far from certain. Give me anecdotes to lower that percent if you disagree. There is time before the next patch.
     
  17. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    I feel reasonably certain that I've witnessed frenzy aggro on low health pets in multiple charm pet situations on Al'Kabor. We've discussed it before on these forums, although I can't seem to find the thread right now.

    Baler is not the first person to remark that the 100 hate floor of the melee range bonus causes low level mobs to behave strangely. It's come up periodically on these forums - for example, here - and to the best of my knowledge, I am the first person to mention pets in relation to the subject.

    I can understand preferring to stick with the current EQLive mechanics in the absence of other verifiable evidence. I can also understand becoming frustrated with the fact that people keep bringing it up. Announcing that barring the discovery of persuasive non-anecdotal evidence, this isn't going to change and the subject is closed would not be unreasable.

    If you are inclined to respond to these concerns by taking a shot in the dark, however, the logical step would seem to be tinkering with the low-level formula, not exempting pets from it at all levels. For example, what if the melee range hate bonus for NPCs with less than 4k HP scaled from 20 up to 100 (20 + HP / 50), rather than simply remaining a flat 100 from orc pawns to hill giants?
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2018
  18. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Any way it's done at this point is 'a shot in the dark'.

    The melee bonus function is linear. There is no way to keep it linear without causing an issue at some level range, that I can see. Adding another linear function as you suggest would make it piecewise (two linear functions instead of one).

    So I have to try and guess what happened:

    1) It's correct and you all remember wrong at a level range you've probably spent 5% of your EQ time at with super buffs

    2) Sony decided to change it after AK's time and completely removed a chunk of the logic (not merely a variable change) while leaving the following alone:

    (highly likely)
    melee damage damage hate
    spell damage hate
    hate cap on spells
    healing hate

    (not as certain, but somewhat likely)
    hate bonus for higher level NPCs
    low health aggro bonus

    ...then implement a function that is almost certainly wrong, even if closer to accurate if we assume scenario 2 is true.

    I am on the fence on this issue, admittedly. Leaning toward 1 without further evidence.
     
  19. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Also influencing my decision:

    Consider that at very low levels with contemporary weapons, (rusties or whatever) the effective hate per melee damage will be something like 66%. Without a considerable melee range bonus, casters would not be able to do anywhere near PARITY damage-- let alone more-- with melee using junk weapons, at range, without aggroing. Hybrids don't get spells until level 9, and proc weapons don't appear for well after that. It simply makes a lot of sense for Sony to have implemented a significant melee range bonus at the lower levels.

    I played a wizard at launch in March 1999. I recall nuking trains at the Blackburrow zone-in and getting solo exp, grouping with monk tanks, etc. In fact I intentionally caused trains by dropping eyes of zomm into the pit to do this. (which, at first, I didn't realize I was causing them, but what's a groupless wizard to do. Incidentally this also bolsters proximity aggro existing, otherwise I'd have been toast)

    I also recall a solo wizard KSing our group in Crushbone, outdamaging me + a rogue. Not possible without a significant melee range bonus. We can, of course, still debate on how large it should be, but it was not small.
     
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  20. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    This is a possibility I'm perfectly happy to concede. I would give longer odds, however, to the possibility that we're wrong about low level hate for players but right about low level hate for pets, and that this means pets operated at a considerable hate disadvantage at all levels.
     
  21. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Well, you're the one posting that your pets couldn't hold aggro. Sony clearly didn't want pets replacing players as tanks, which is why they coded the AI to ignore pets with PCs in range. Pets not getting hate bonuses would make sense. That's not much in the way of evidence, but it certainly doesn't hurt the argument.

    I've long suspected that I had pet melee hate too high, incidentally. When I check raid bosses, I see pets up there near the main tanks. I'm not comfortable with reducing it though.

    For charmed pets, you won't notice the difference with or without the melee bonus. Maybe if you tash immediately after one melee round.

    The fact that we're debating this issue is because it has such a minor impact on gameplay for all but the lower level summoned pets, otherwise it would be obvious. A 10k mob's melee range bonus is 500. Kunark pets will do something like 100 hate/round (possibly more with good rolls; I'm assuming 3 swing rounds avg) before procs/spells/backstabs. With mask + burnout that's 500 hate in 7.5 seconds before spells/backstabs. Pet stun procs do 400.

    With contradictory claims here, I'm not going to please everybody. I could solve this in 3 minutes if AK were up. Frustrating. If people have more to add to this, I'm all ears.
     
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  22. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    True enough! I do appreciate the thought and attention to detail you give to these questions.
     
  23. Tryfan

    Tryfan People Like Me

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    I also remember this time and I have very distinct memories of wizards nuking too early from outside melee range, pulling aggro, and then runnimg around like chickens with their heads cut off because the tank who had initial aggro could not get it back. Used to yell at people to stand still so that aggro could be regained by the tank.
     
  24. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Of course running around makes it harder for the tank if the wizard has the bonus and the tank does not.

    A single level 16 wizard nuke is more hate than the entire melee range bonus, so it doesn't take very long before they have to be careful. (not including the +35, which won't be there if somebody other than the tank pulled the mob) The level 20 wizard nuke does 179 AND stuns, so that's going to do much more. There is a world of difference between a level 5 and a level 16 on this matter.
     
  25. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Found this in one of my logs:

    eqlog_Torven_52.txt 40557 [Mon Nov 19 21:38:43 2012] [9 Wizard] Ellia (High Elf)

    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:48 2012] Auto attack is on.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:48 2012] You cannot see your target.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:50 2012] Emperor Crush says 'Death!! Death to all who oppose the Crushbone orcs!!'
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:50 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:50 2012] Emperor Crush tries to kick YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:51 2012] You can't hit them from here.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:52 2012] You can't hit them from here.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:52 2012] You were hit by non-melee for 13 damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:52 2012] YOU were injured by falling.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:42:54 2012] Auto attack is off.
    (ran out of castle)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:16 2012] You begin casting Shield of Brambles. (on myself)
    (crush beats on me awhile, I do nothing)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:49 2012] Ellia pierces orc legionnaire for 1 point of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:49 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but YOU dodge!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:50 2012] Ellia begins to cast a spell. (full resist; no finish text or interrupt. probably on legionnaire as 1 sec after melee, but he did land a spell on it prior so wasn't needed for credit)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:51 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:51 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:52 2012] Orc legionnaire was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:52 2012] Orc legionnaire hits Ellia for 1 point of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:53 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:54 2012] Ellia begins to cast a spell. (full resist. possibly Emperor if he switched targets; leg almost dead)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:55 2012] Orc legionnaire was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:55 2012] Orc legionnaire hits Ellia for 26 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:56 2012] Emperor Crush was hit by non-melee for 14 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:56 2012] Emperor Crush was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:56 2012] Emperor Crush hits YOU for 23 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:56 2012] Emperor Crush was hit by non-melee for 14 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:56 2012] Emperor Crush was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:56 2012] Emperor Crush bashes YOU for 6 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:57 2012] Ellia's spell fizzles!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:58 2012] Orc legionnaire was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:58 2012] orc legionnaire has been slain by Ellia!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:58 2012] orc legionnaire's corpse says 'You shall have all the Crushbone orc legions on your tail for my death!'
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:58 2012] Orc legionnaire hits Ellia for 20 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:58 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:43:58 2012] Ellia begins to cast a spell. (full resist)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:00 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:01 2012] Ellia begins to cast a spell.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:02 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:03 2012] Emperor Crush combusts. (level 4 nuke lands, 15 hate)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:04 2012] Emperor Crush tries to bash YOU, but YOU dodge!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:05 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:06 2012] Ellia begins to cast a spell.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:07 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:08 2012] Emperor Crush's skin freezes over. (level 8 nuke, 35 hate)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:09 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:10 2012] Ellia pierces Emperor Crush for 1 point of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:11 2012] Ellia begins to cast a spell.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:11 2012] Emperor Crush tries to hit YOU, but misses!
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:12 2012] Emperor Crush was hit by non-melee for 14 points of damage.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:12 2012] Emperor Crush was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:12 2012] Emperor Crush kicks YOU for 1 point of damage. (still on me)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:12 2012] Emperor Crush's skin freezes over. (level 8 nuke, 35 hate)
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:14 2012] Emperor Crush was pierced by thorns.
    [Mon Nov 19 21:44:14 2012] Emperor Crush hits Ellia for 19 points of damage.

    I had 'body' pulled Crush and the only hate I did was cast a DS buff (which either did 9 hate or 0). Level 9 wizard took 4 (possibly 5) casts + melee to aggro off me. (other's misses was off, log only shows one swing)

    We were both in melee range however. The 'proximity aggro'/undead aggro phenomena where an NPC adds new players (who are in melee range) to their hate lists while already aggro has another quirk that I haven't implemented here yet: the NPC will attack the closest person to it if all of them have around the same hate, even if somebody else within melee range has a bit more hate.
     
  26. J1zmak

    J1zmak Well-Known Member

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    Could this have been due to pets landing taunts on the raid bosses?
     
  27. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Pet taunts don't work on mobs level 50+
     
  28. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    I'm going through zones on Live to find 'proximity aggro' NPCs. I just checked our database for Eastern Wastes NPCs already flagged for it, and only two were, and they are Ring 9 quest NPCs. What you experienced is the behavior of NPCs adding every (faction appropriate) entity within aggro radius of it to the hate list simultaneously when the AI code checks for entities within its radius while the NPC is unaggro. Multiple people can run into range between checks, and they'll all end up on the list.

    This is how Live works. As far as I know, AK was the same. Otherwise when NPCs spawn on top of groups, they wouldn't hit the sitting people and would just hit the first (or last, depending on how it's coded) person who zoned in every time.
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2018
  29. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    I think the two examples given are different.

    In the first, the mob is in unaggroed state. It will continually to search its aggro radius while it remains in this state. Anyone who enters this sphere who is KoS will be added to their hate list. At which point to goes into an aggroed state. In a running across a zone scenario, only one person will be in its sphere while it the unaggroed state. This is because the other toons are lagging behind the main character running and they weren't in the sphere when the SK was.

    In the group camping scenario, when it spawns it checks for anyone in its sphere and it happens to find 4 players and adds them all simultaneously. Then it goes through all the sitting players first due to an increased hate priority.

    I 100% agree that some zones existed where mobs continue to check their sphere even when they are aggroed. But I don't believe that was a majority of zones.
     
  30. Mokli

    Mokli I Feel Loved

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    News to me.