3.0 party AI seems significantly improved.

[Mercbeast]

So, I just let steam install the update and the difference so far is very noticeable. 

 

An hour ago with 2.03 my priests would basically never heal. If heals came, they came late, if at all, and totally sporadically. Now, the priest AI is healing aggressively, it's even using consecrated ground, which I've never seen it do before.

 

I'll edit/update this as I go since I am a big fan of party AI.

[AndreaColombo]

Any improvements in enemy A.I. that you can tell?

[HawkSoft]

Any improvements in enemy A.I. that you can tell?

 

So far, only to nerf engagement even more than it was by exploiting its pixel-perfect knowledge of engagement distances

[Mercbeast]

Any improvements in enemy A.I. that you can tell?

 

I didn't get to play much last night. I literally cleared just the top level of Raedrics keeps switching to 3.0 halfway through. 

 

Couple things.

 

Druid on the shapeshift script, will stand and cast every single spell rank 1 and 2 spell it has at the start of a fight including nature's vigor. I'm not sure if this is desirable ;p I know the script says it emphasizes casting low rank spells, and since my druid doesn't have rank 3 yet I can't comment on if this is part of the issue.

 

Priest AI is absolutely on point regarding the healing script. It heals very promptly and very aggressively. On support, the priest if it is ranged, tends to cast blessing ranged characters missing the main furball. I have a feeling it is targeting its closest ally for bless at the start of the engagement. I've not tried aggressive as of yet and I can't really comment on the healing prowess of support, although I want to say so far it is not as efficient at healing as the pure healing script is. If you want a fire and forget healbot though, it is working very well.

 

The decision making process of the AI is also very much tied to attack/recovery speed. Faster weapons and recovery means the AI is more responsive and pro-active. This is because the AI gets to make more decisions over time. Your tank might get chunked just after your priest fired his/her blunderbuss, and it will take a full recovery time for the priest or paladin to get a chance to think about healing.

 

I'm running a priest of skaen right now, and DWing stilletos vs a warbow made an enormous impact on the performance of the priest. Doing the nyfre battle at level 4, is very telling using JUST ai scripts. If I use the priest with he warbow, it's a 100% wipe every time 5x and counting. If I use dw stilletos, it's 100% victory rate, either flawless or a couple of ko's on my side.

 

If the enemy AI is using the same healing scripts then I think it will be far more aggressive and proactive healing as well, though to be honest I always felt like the enemy AI did a good job of healing.

[Boeroer]

Oh, Schemer's Needler time! 

[HawkSoft]

I've seen some odd things with a monk using Disruptor/Defensive script, she's run off in the middle of several fights to attack previously unspotted enemies

[Boeroer]

Yeah - now I had some encounters where my barb just ran away from the fight and stood there - 15 meters away - doing nothing - then coming back. And he's not supposed to see ghosts or stuff since he isn't the Watcher in the family.

[HawkSoft]

Just had the monk wander off again, this time to attack an already known enemy (small bonus).

They stopped smacking on a troll just after it got stunned and went to help smear a slime.

 

Is this some kind of warped code-of-conduct? Monks don't kick opponents while they are down

[Ganrich]

Just had the monk wander off again, this time to attack an already known enemy (small bonus).

They stopped smacking on a troll just after it got stunned and went to help smear a slime.

 

Is this some kind of warped code-of-conduct? Monks don't kick opponents while they are down

I had the enemy AI do something similar. It was a Xaurip Priest, and he turned and ran into the arms of 2 trolls. It nearly wiped me, truth be told. It luckily reset the encounter while I was chasing him, and I had all my per encounter abilities back up. It was the western side of the map with the broken bridge north of Defiance Bay.

 

Also, I had a Lumbering Mound (or whatever they are called) root Eder, and proceeded to stand out of Eder's reach and keep whacking him. I swapped to Eder's ranged weapon and all was ok.

 

The AI has done some interesting things so far, and I just got to Defiance Bay. It has made the game more enjoyable. It requires a bit more attention to be be successful.

[Mercbeast]

Yea, the Disruptor script for monks seems to be broken, and has been for some time. It's on the bug boards as reported and obsidian has noted and confirmed its messed up.

 

Incidently, the Barbarian berserk script seems to be working fine. The issue with disrupt is a general issue though. I just a battle in the ethos temple where I was fighting in a doorway and 2 of my melees wanted to bug out and go attack a group of shadows/shades that they couldn't  see, were very far away in terms of pathing, but were just on the other side of a wall.

 

Need to reiterate, the healing script for priests is night and day compared to what it was. Yea Boeroer your skaen melee priest build is really quite awesome. It gets right in there, heals like a boss and actually, reliably, casts consecrated ground, like, all the time.

[HawkSoft]

OBS have confirmed that the *wandering* behaviour is an old bug that has regressed back into the beta build.

[Boeroer]

They call them "The Returned". There's a whole TV show about these special OBS-bugs.

[AndreaColombo]

They call them "The Returned". There's a whole TV show about these special OBS-bugs.

 

4400 reference, FTW. I loved that series.