Domination and Charm...

[Reent]

I started my Cipher solo run and... i am quite frustrated, charm/domination not working when it's the only enemy alive may sound good, that's not even a problem for me... but why? There are more CC abilities that work against "all remaining enemys"?

But that is not the Problem here.

A Strategy i had was: charm/dominate some enemys and run away, let them kill each other... however that didn't work, when i got out of range for the enemys, the charm simply stopped... okay, looks good, no easy way to abuse it - if it wasn't so hard, sometimes i was using hit and run against one enemy while most enemys where fighting with the charmed monster... charm simply stopped, i got killed.

I accepted that charm is a tool that is not intended to help in hit and run fights...

I used figurine summonings to "force" the charm status to stay, it made the fights quite frustrating, the moment my figurine died i had to be in "the right position" or the charm would end on all enemys... and "the right position" isn't always easy... 

 

 

but the last case i had was too much, i was fighting 6 enemys, used "ringleader" took 4 enemys, had my figurine out... was shooting with my bow... and the fight simply reset (figurine deactivates and the auto pause activates)

 

After that i started some tests... look for yourself and judge if it's working as intended

 

An easy one:

Start a Cipher, use charm on one wolf, walk around him until the wolfes hit each other, hit the one that is charmed... ANNND you get:

(18.3 sec charmed remaining)

 

 

17.x sec should be remaining:

 

Charm ends prematurely (with Combat reset), nice one, i have to attack the stronger wolf? Why?

 

 

Clearly, the checks for "Combat" aren't taking Charm/Dominate into consideration

 

For those that don't work with Cipher:

If you Charm one Monster the Cipher will still target the Charmed Monster, leading to the Problem that you have to manually change the target or the System could restart the fight, if you are unlucky with the aimbot (sure, it could be a good for you to get your "focus" back, but... that is really wrong).

 

A Situation that can easily happen:

Start a game, create a Cipher, use a bow...

Charm a wolf, don't look at the cipher (auto target the charmed wolf, with a bow) get Calisha killed, the wolfes will (most cases, tested it once) start hitting each other, fight will reset... easily more situations possible, much more... targeting the Charmed Monster is a good Strategy... but... it can lead to the resetting of a fight (the poor Chanter that to start Chanting from zero...)

 

The things you want most (easy hitting the enemy (Charmed enemys have reduced deflection) and not charmed enemys hitting charmed enemys) get yourself out of combat... 

 

 

 

Another thing: Flanking, enemys can't be flanked by you+charmed Monster, i don't know... should be possible...

[Reent]

Maybe it was answered in another thread, but i didnt find the answer:

 

Is the "fight detection" unchangeable?

 

 

This thread shows a clear case where it fails - hard. I can show you many many many cases where it fails - (playing a chanter with 2 or 3 dex and plate most of the time, i lost fights (or had to restart them) because i didnt react fast enough to cases where the fight detection fails (for example: i am standing in the way to the spawn point of the enemy, my summons despawn - i am trying to summon something however i am in my long long recovery - the enemy is walking past me, he didnt aggro me (i almost was in range for an disengagement attack because thats how near he got) before the summon comes out (or sometimes right after) the fight stops - since the enemy is right next to me - a new fight starts - my chanting goes on recovery (if i had the speed chant buff, because the fighting ends the speed chant buff stops) my stacks get reset... so now i am standing right next to an enemy, with no stacks to summon something, with no speedbuff to kite him, with no stack in sight - great. - in groups i am playing witout AI active, if the current target dies, they dont take another target - i dont always attack the next enemy, sometimes i let all of them cast something or reposition themeself - so even in teamplay it could happen (its harder but its still possible for the same case to happen)

 

And if it is unchangeable? Thats fine - i'd just like an answer - (however, if it is - i really want the answer to be something like - jeah, its not possible for the us to change it for pillars, but we will keep such problems in mind for the next games with engagement type fighting)

And if it is possible to change but its working as intended? Okay - thats something i want to know too.

[Aarik D]

Hey Reent,

 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. There might have been some changes made to charm where it will break on attack, I will confirm if that is the case. Combat however, should not restart when doing so. I have written up a bug on the issue and added it to our database.

 

Thanks a bunch!

[Reent]

You missed the problem (i think) i just tested it again, charm doesnt break on attack (if it should, it could be a bug - but thats not nearly the point)

 

The problem is: (if all your characters attack a charmed enemy and all your enemys attack a charmed enemy -) the game stops the fight (every non forced fight (raedric, thaos etc are forced fights) stops when no enemy targets you and you dont target enemies directly - non target AOE spells, summons, heals etc etc can break combat if the enemy isnt attacking you but for example attacks charmed enemies.

 

The game stopping fights is the problem (not just because of charmed but in all its glory), charmed can just lead to the problem - fast. Other things can do that too however thats a little bit harder for a group, in solo play it would trigger about every fight if i didnt know how to avoid it (when i play my normal build - changed it so it doesnt trigger as easy... thanks to retraining i can change it up when i come to harder fights)

 

Charmed is a single case, there are much much more cases where the game stops the fight and it should never happen: lets take withdraw - there are very good reasons to stop it when the fight ends (in your favor) - you arent stuck for up to 30 secs - but what if the fight isnt going in your favor? What if you want to heal your tank for 100 endurance with withdraw and let him finish the fight after - but your healer dies before that, your tank is the only one alive - in withdraw - the fight ends, withdraw ends, the fight starts anew - with your tank almost dead - you die... sure, you can say that withdraw is a defensive mechanism that could be abused to get the enemies to return to the starting point and you can just walk away - what is more important? That the player can be assured that his spells work - or that the enemies dont get abused???

Look at shadowing beyond - your rogue is engaged by a tanky enemy, your tank has the aggro of everything else, you use shadowing beyond (your tank is bad, your rogue can finish the fight as long as he kills the enemy healer/caster/(whatever) you use shadowing beyond, the tank dies - the pathing system suxx and you have to manually move your character - fight stops, shadowing beyond stops, you loose the fight.

One more trigger for fighting would do the trick: as long as an enemy is in aggro range of one of your character, the fight doesnt stop.

(okay, it wouldnt stop all the problems, but almost every "game stops the fight->i die problem")

 

Okay, so all the examples have only one character left - so what if you still have 3 ranged characters left, you kited the enemies a bit and now you are using healing/buff spells with your priest, summoning with your 2 dex plate chanter, your X is unconscious - since you kited them a bit at the start of the fight, the aggro range isnt very large - so they dont always aggro onto the backline...

 

 

 

 

"Every non forced fight (raedric, thaos etc are forced fights) stops when no enemy targets you and you dont target enemies directly" - is a bull**** way to stop fights, its the highest form of knowledge in such games that you make enemies kill each other while standing near and laughing- doing nothing else - i really want to kite enemies using max int chanter with come come wind chant and kill them without weapon attacks - not possible, the chant is no targeted ability, so the enemy can simply start moving back and stop the dot - so even if you are damaging the enemy... the system ignores it... so much wow... i have to ignore my mass damage spell, my summon, my DoT chant... just to fire one arrow, move one step (enemy targets you after the arrow and stops targeting you after the step) no matter how long it takes to fire that one arrow, the fighting doesnt stop - but if i try to summon something or use my damage spell - while the enemy is moving back... the fighting stops before i get the effect (2 dex plate chanter - you may get lucky enough, but i would never try - not worth it)

[MaxQuest]

 

 

the game stops the fight

At first this bug was quite annoying. But hey, it can be actually quite useful, if you want to reset per-encounter abilities

[Reent]

 

the game stops the fight

At first this bug was quite annoying. But hey, it can be actually quite useful, if you want to reset per-encounter abilities

 

 

They say one picture says more than 1000 words... no - you are simply wrong. If the fight reset occurs you dont get your per-encounter abilities back, i NEVER not once have gotten anything but focus back with the fight reset.

To show it i created a cipher - used 2 knockdowns with Calisha, charmed one wolf and made the charm fight reset occur - as you can see, fight restarts and no charm no knockdown.

[MaxQuest]

^ Oh that's weird. From my current understanding, per-encounter abilities are reset on combat/encounter end/reset. And if it doesn't (yes, I see from your screenshot that it actually doesn't), it can be quite.. unpleasant, softly speaking.

 

On the other hand, it would be interesting to know the exact definition of what an "encounter" represents.

Edited March 18, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Reent]

You think so?

Want to know more? Every buff ends, chants go on cooldown - so no new chant for the first few secs... now tell me - is there a real reason you want the fight to reset?

[MaxQuest]

Provided this info, I would avoid such 'fight resets' by any means.

[Reent]

Hey Reent,

 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. There might have been some changes made to charm where it will break on attack, I will confirm if that is the case. Combat however, should not restart when doing so. I have written up a bug on the issue and added it to our database.

 

Thanks a bunch!

As much as i like "official answers" - and dislike "bumping" - this thread hasnt been answered at all - the answer is to the most irrelevant part.

 

So - sry but *bump* - until i know that the "answer" to an irrelevant part doesn't mean the relevant part gets overlooked.

 

If my post about "why the answer is to an irrelevant part" (its the post with the big big letters that are underlined - sure, its not the way you should write a post, however i hope that my focus is clear - its not about one single sentence in one example - its somewhere else... and this time i tried to make it clear what is relevant and what isn't) is unclear - tell me, i can try to make the problem clear as many times as its needed until i get an answer thats on topic.

 

its not really about charm - its about the game stopping fights at wrong times - charm is only one case that can lead to the problem (why end the fight if all enemies are charmed?

Why end the fight if all enemies are attack each other and you start healing/buffing yourself - not attacking the enemies?)

Sure, ending Charm if all enemies or your group is dead is fine... but if you stand next to a group of charmed enemies, you are fully buffed - the game stopping the fight is... wrong)

--

The above are cases with charm, but charm isn't the focus - as i said - and will say again - fight detection (thats what i call it) is - the enemy is almost in melee range... i am casting an AOE spell - the enemy was moving towards me... however the game decided to stop the fight since the enemy wasnt focusing me, he was focused on getting back to his spawn point and i wasnt focusing him since my AOE spell focused a place, not a creature... so now the fight stopped... however the enemy is still next to me... and the aggro system in and out of fights is different - so he aggros me again, my spell was stopped since i lost my stacks (chanter) and my chants went on cooldown - since thats what chants do.

Looks almost like the example i gave in a former post? You dont think it happened only once or twice do you?

[Aarik D]

Hey Reent,

 

As I have mentioned before, I have written up a report and have forwarded to the appropriate department and we are currently looking into the issue. 

 

Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

[PeaceGuard]

It's been over a year from this game's release and charm/domination still don't work properly at all. For a cipher it's very irritating, because it makes no use of his abilities of this kind. Paralyze (mental binding) works properly and once you overcome enemy's defence you get a paralyzed enemy with the duration defined by your intelligence and graze/hit/crit. But if you get your enemy charmed/dominated (whisper of treason, puppet master, ringleader) they "break free" within the duration of this ability. So for example you dominate an anamy for 25 seconds, but after 3 seconds he breaks free and attacks you again.

 

This is happening with the newest version of the game. Honestly.. I'm very disappointed than a bug that makes an ability unusable still exists after 14 months since release. This game is still in it's beta testing after release.

[Reent]

It's been over a year from this game's release and charm/domination still don't work properly at all. For a cipher it's very irritating, because it makes no use of his abilities of this kind. Paralyze (mental binding) works properly and once you overcome enemy's defence you get a paralyzed enemy with the duration defined by your intelligence and graze/hit/crit. But if you get your enemy charmed/dominated (whisper of treason, puppet master, ringleader) they "break free" within the duration of this ability. So for example you dominate an anamy for 25 seconds, but after 3 seconds he breaks free and attacks you again.

 

This is happening with the newest version of the game. Honestly.. I'm very disappointed than a bug that makes an ability unusable still exists after 14 months since release. This game is still in it's beta testing after release.

Its not a bug that it stops earlier (at least not every part of it) - at least it does what is intended (no matter how much we players dislike the decision behind it)

 

They break free if:

a) you attack them

b) no other enemy is alive

c) no enemy attacks you and you attack no enemy

 

[a)] was implemented after the release, since its a charm you can understand it. Since this was implemented you can understand [b)] - however its still a bad case, enemy is charmed so you can heal up - wrong, the game stops the charm, its a BAD decision (not if you are charmed and the enemy is gone - then its a good one)

[b)] has the bad synergy with Ringleader - it tends (or tended, didnt use it in a year) to dominate/charm all enemies, leading to a big big group of charmed enemies for 1-2 sec and a restarted fight right after that.

[c)] is the gamebreaker for me - that needs a rework.

 

 

The real big problem with [a)] (called d) ) is... the bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad decision to keep the focus on the charmed target, so... you have a cipher with a ranged weapon, he charms an enemy and attacks the charmed enemy right after, so the charm is broken instantly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

If you know [a)] [b)] [c)] and [d)] and work around it... charm is quite usefull.

 

So, its not a bug, its just the worst feature i know (without thinking too deeply).

 

(the one thing i consider a real bug: i used charm to play around with my naked chanter (the summon that can charm), i encountered a case where it stopped after 1-2 secs despite one more enemy around, i tested a bit and it looked like the 2 enemies (that were clearly allied, in the expansion - one ghost and one vessel in the battery) were in different groups, so if i charmed one it counted towards [b)]... just utterly stupid... could be another problem too, but then i would have no clue what the problem was...)

Edited May 18, 2016 by Reent