Let's gather feedback for AI customization here

[AndreaColombo]

Bit late to the party here, but I've finally tried this out.

 

This feature is AMAZING. Kudos to the team for going above and beyond with this custom A.I. tool!

 

My feedback:

 

• Add an option to prioritize either ranged or melee for auto-attacks.
  This is relevant especially for characters who dual-wield pistols with a melee one-hander (or the blights with a melee one-hander); it would also be useful for characters whom you want to use ranged attacks until engaged in melee, then switch to a melee weapon if the condition "melee engaged" is met.
• Add an option to use the Druid's Spiritshift form.
  Unless I'm blind or mentally challenged, there isn't one. The standard Druid A.I. presets have it, but if you try to make a custom one, you only get your Druid spells to select from.
• Add the possibility to use quick slot items.
  Fundamental for chugging healing potions if your health is low, buff at the start of combat, or make use of scrolls. As already suggested in this thread, you could code this as "use quick slot 1/2/3/4" and it's up to us to position our consumables accordingly.
• Add the option to prioritize targets who are casting spells. (as suggested by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy)
• Add the option to activate or deactivate weapon modals. (as suggested once again by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy)
• Add the option to switch weapon sets.
  Not just via a generic "switch to the next weapon set" command, but rather with specific "switch to weapon set X" commands where X is the number of the weapon set.
• Add two conditions for Sworn Enemy.
  One condition for "existing Sworn Enemy target dead" so the Paladin can mark a different enemy right away; another more specifically for the Goldpact Knight: "Gilded Enmity is gone [because you've been hit enough times]", so you can mark another enemy and regain the AR bonus.

 

And definitely add a tooltip to the action delay; it's impossible to know what it does without reading this thread as Cheston mentioned

Edited January 10, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[Boeroer]

Very good suggestions. Please do that. Especially the automatic weapon switching would be nice. Would be even nicer if it could have special if-clauses like "if enemy is vulnerable to pierce, switch to an according weapon" (if there's one in my weapons sets). Or "If my gun is empty and I'd have to realod, switch to a loaded gun instead (if there's any in my weapons sets)". THis would make the Black Jacket so much better. Because currently - let's be honest - that class is Captain Poopyshoes.

[AndreaColombo]

Guys,

 

a quick experiment.

 

Here's a quick and dirty, very simple A.I. script I made for a Crusader character. Since this character was relying a lot on consumables, which cannot currently be governed by A.I., it only has two instructions to use Sworn Enemy and Disciplined Strikes. Condition is "Always True", to be checked every X seconds where X is the duration of the each ability.

 

It appears that these instructions are never executed by my character. Can anybody else try and confirm?

 

Every other instruction set I've made for my characters seems to be working fine, even though sometimes it takes them a while to acquire a new target for some reason.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I've just started to fiddle with this great AI system, and I'm so impressed, and I know this:

It'll definitely encourage me to do even more playthroughs. I have so many cool ideas.

[Madscientist]

I just looked into the game and I wanted to have this:

- use items from quick slots ( already mentioned )

- turn on and off modals (already mentioned)

For my fighter I want something like: When there are two or more enemies in melee range and you have a melee weapon equipped activate cleaving stance, else activate warrior stance

- change weapon set

If engaged by enemies switch to weapon set 2 (melee) else  use weapon set 1 (ranged weapon)

- "at the beginning of combat " as condition (already mentioned )

- At the moment you can select several conditions, but they are all connected by AND and they can be negated.

It would be nice to be able to select other logic operators like OR or ( if then else ), maybe others.

 

When playing, I want to use the AI to keep buffs and modals on automatically and use emergency abilities (heal or status cure automatically if I do not press pause fast enough), but I want to use active abilities myself because:

- I want to play myself, not watch a video

- I do not trust the AI to move correctly and select the correct target all the time

 

But I do not want to activate disciplined strikes every combat and look all the time if it is still active.

 

In general, I like the AI customisation a lot.

I did the same thing in DA:O and FF12: pause a lot, select abilities yourself and use AI for buffs and heals.

 

Edit:

Ok, we already have "if then else"

You select one condition for one action and then you make a new slot with the negation of the condition for another action.

But if the condition is complex, the negation will be complex too.

Adding an "else" option might make some things easier.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Madscientist

[AndreaColombo]

^ Technically you can say "OR" by creating the same action twice with different conditions.

[AndreaColombo]

Would be good to have a "Target: Not in melee range" or "Enemy: Not in melee range" condition to use with pull effects like Into the Fray.

Edited January 17, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[Doppelschwert]

^ I think it would be more intuitive to have 'Target: In melee range' and take care of the opposite through negation.

[AndreaColombo]

Following up on my request to grant us control over a Druid's Spiritshift in our custom A.I. sets:

 

• Include a condition called "Self: Is Spiritshifted (Form)"; one for every form available (including one for Tekehu's in the final game.)
• When selected, this condition should make the specific form's special ability selectable from the subsequent action menu.*

*E.g. "Self: Is Spiritshifted (Cat)" would make "Cat Flurry" available in the actions menu.

 

What this accomplishes:

 

• Enables us to use custom A.I. to make our Druids shift and use their form's special ability without our manual intervention.
• Enables us, through negating the condition, to instruct a Shifter to go from a form to another right away in a specific order of our choosing without our manual intervention.

 

In the case of a Shifter, it would be good to have the option to set a behavior that shifts to a random form, then to another random form of those available, etc.. This would be for the convenience of those players who don't want to set multiple conditions in a specific order. You may even go the extra mile and add a box which, if ticked, makes the randomly selected form activate its special ability first thing after the transformation.

Edited January 21, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[IndiraLightfoot]

For the first time now, with this latest Feb 1 patch, I'm doing an entire beta playthrough with AI customization on all my characters, including my main, and wow. It's absolutely fantastic if you feel like not micromanaging after say 5 or 7 playthroughs. I'm pleasantly surprised. The art team has already been praised, now it's time to praise the programmer(s) that set this up for us.

Thank you, dear code monkey(s)!

 

EDIT: One word of warning, though, that mercenary wizard had a wall of fire in her grimoire, and let's just say that the AI don't understand that you shall not stand in the fire and fight. It will actually self-destruct the entire party this way.

Edited February 3, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[CottonWolf]

Have briefly tried the new system. And even through haven't done anything complex yet, absolutely lovin' it.

 

Just issue the attack, grab popcorn, and watch your party decimate the enemy: link

 

This is great.

 

This whole system is great. 10/10 Obsidian. Would program again.

[AndreaColombo]

Has any feedback from this thread made it in?

[Wormerine]

Has any feedback from this thread made it in?

A better question would be: Is this feedback taken into account for the 1.0 release. Not so long ago Josh twitted an image of passives, and those aren't available in the BB, even though they have been requested and confirmed a while ago. Overall, BB received relatively few fixes & improvements. I suspect that BB built is a seperate beast (right now, it looks like they shoved in ship mechanics, but many of it's threads are completly dangling unconnected to anything - like shop, or items) and they simply don't impliment into it things they don't want us to have a look at. 

 

It makes sense - developing and updating different built might not be the best use of resources, considering the only build which will really matter is 1.0. It is a test beta, after all, not Early Access title. 

[AndreaColombo]

I never thought it would be an Early Access, but what’s the point of having veterans test your game if you don’t give them your game to test? If the beta isn’t a good reflection of the product they’ll ship, it holds very little value.

[KDubya]

I never thought it would be an Early Access, but what’s the point of having veterans test your game if you don’t give them your game to test? If the beta isn’t a good reflection of the product they’ll ship, it holds very little value.

 

Not to mention that all of the deep and detailed discussions that we have here on the official Obsidian forums NEVER get any participation or feedback from Obsidian because they only discuss on other forum boards.  

 

It makes me wonder what the point of having a beta was in the first place.

 

Things we've identified as being a concern:

• Resolve not having a use - 'fixed' by trashing Might and making one or the other a true dump stat for many and a massive headache for any hybrid.
• Dual wielding being 45% better than anything else - 'fixed' by slowing down all combat recoveries. A better solution could have been to reduce penetration and damage but keep the speed.
• Multiclassing, especially of two melee powerhouse types being decidedly better - 'fixed' by reducing the benefits of many abilities such as berserker rage, lightning strikes and flames of devotion. Sure that makes them weaker but it makes single classes as weak if not more so.
• Power levels affect some abilities massively and others are untouched but both are non-described in game and only by trial, error and taking notes can you determine what might be the effect.
• Early abilities being much more powerful than their higher level upgrades - Consider Constant Recovery; the free ability is much better than the higher level upgrade. Swap that around and single vs multi gets a little more balanced.
• More things that I can't recall

 

If the game was going to be based on the game elements from PoE then that'd be fine but they are massively changing everything and it does not appear that they are doing a very good job of it.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

I never thought it would be an Early Access, but what’s the point of having veterans test your game if you don’t give them your game to test? If the beta isn’t a good reflection of the product they’ll ship, it holds very little value.

 

Not to mention that all of the deep and detailed discussions that we have here on the official Obsidian forums NEVER get any participation or feedback from Obsidian because they only discuss on other forum boards.

 

It makes me wonder what the point of having a beta was in the first place.

 

Things we've identified as being a concern:

• Resolve not having a use - 'fixed' by trashing Might and making one or the other a true dump stat for many and a massive headache for any hybrid.
• Dual wielding being 45% better than anything else - 'fixed' by slowing down all combat recoveries. A better solution could have been to reduce penetration and damage but keep the speed.
• Multiclassing, especially of two melee powerhouse types being decidedly better - 'fixed' by reducing the benefits of many abilities such as berserker rage, lightning strikes and flames of devotion. Sure that makes them weaker but it makes single classes as weak if not more so.
• Power levels affect some abilities massively and others are untouched but both are non-described in game and only by trial, error and taking notes can you determine what might be the effect.
• Early abilities being much more powerful than their higher level upgrades - Consider Constant Recovery; the free ability is much better than the higher level upgrade. Swap that around and single vs multi gets a little more balanced.
• More things that I can't recall

 

If the game was going to be based on the game elements from PoE then that'd be fine but they are massively changing everything and it does not appear that they are doing a very good job of it.

 

 

 

I suspect that (given the holidays) we're still within the dev cycle loop on a lot of this stuff. So far each beta has introduced new stuff for feedback but we've only seen one round of changes. It's about time for the next balancing pass, so let's see what happens then.

[KDubya]

 

 

I never thought it would be an Early Access, but what’s the point of having veterans test your game if you don’t give them your game to test? If the beta isn’t a good reflection of the product they’ll ship, it holds very little value.

 

Not to mention that all of the deep and detailed discussions that we have here on the official Obsidian forums NEVER get any participation or feedback from Obsidian because they only discuss on other forum boards.

 

It makes me wonder what the point of having a beta was in the first place.

 

Things we've identified as being a concern:

• Resolve not having a use - 'fixed' by trashing Might and making one or the other a true dump stat for many and a massive headache for any hybrid.
• Dual wielding being 45% better than anything else - 'fixed' by slowing down all combat recoveries. A better solution could have been to reduce penetration and damage but keep the speed.
• Multiclassing, especially of two melee powerhouse types being decidedly better - 'fixed' by reducing the benefits of many abilities such as berserker rage, lightning strikes and flames of devotion. Sure that makes them weaker but it makes single classes as weak if not more so.
• Power levels affect some abilities massively and others are untouched but both are non-described in game and only by trial, error and taking notes can you determine what might be the effect.
• Early abilities being much more powerful than their higher level upgrades - Consider Constant Recovery; the free ability is much better than the higher level upgrade. Swap that around and single vs multi gets a little more balanced.
• More things that I can't recall

 

If the game was going to be based on the game elements from PoE then that'd be fine but they are massively changing everything and it does not appear that they are doing a very good job of it.

 

 

 

I suspect that (given the holidays) we're still within the dev cycle loop on a lot of this stuff. So far each beta has introduced new stuff for feedback but we've only seen one round of changes. It's about time for the next balancing pass, so let's see what happens then.

 

 

I'd expect that this is it for beta updates.

 

Its two months from release, I'd assume that the gameplay is set and from here on its all about QA/QC and bug hunting/polishing.

 

Considering that the beta version is much older than what the devs are looking at, I'm not even sure that our bug hunting is of any use. Obviously our gameplay suggestions are moot so we'll just have to see what we get.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

 

I'd expect that this is it for beta updates.

 

 

 

Nah, I expect one more balancing pass fairly soon (taking into account general feedback so far), then probably one final patch day of release. That's about how it worked last time from what I remember. Mostly because of the past few posts Sawyer has made on SA and on his frog helms fan club blog which implied there were some significant balance changes upcoming. i don't think he'd mention them unless they were coming reasonably soon (next few weeks).

 

I do think they're listening, but yeah, we might not get the concerns we're voicing addressed fully until release (or possibly thereafter).

Edited February 5, 2018 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Cheston]

One issue I've noticed in the last ~20 hours of beta: There's no way to specify "do not hit friendly targets". (Or if there is, I didn't spot it.) It'd be really useful to have this as a predicate for AOE spells like Chill Fog that target both enemies and friendlies. As-is, I removed Chill Fog from my Mercenary Wizard's AI because the fighter & rogue were getting Blinded every fight.

 

Retargeting (or just canceling the cast) when allies get in the way would also be great, though I can see that being harder to implement.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I've noticed another thing that would be lovely to have, on top of having Empower as an option in the upper bar of a custom UI window:

Please add the use of healing potions and other consumables under the custom AI options.

[PatrioticChief]

For me it is a must have in terms of self-buffing. Going through .5 second casts every skirmish is a massive headache and turns me off of those builds. I want to cast leaps, fireballs, and crippling debuffs. I do think some more conditionals need to be added to keep some abilities from spamming out unnecessarily. 

[IndiraLightfoot]

I'd love to see some overtime damage and standing in a non-paralyzing AoE conditionals, since we still have the problem of our custom AI party members not getting that they are in trouble in those cases. A Wall of Fire still melts any party member, for instance.

[AndreaColombo]

PatriotChief — you can make the AI evaluate the condition every X seconds to avoid spamming. Works really well. Set the seconds to the duration of the buff and your characters will renovate it when it expires.

[dunehunter]

One problem with customization AI, 'Action Set Cooldown' still ignore conditionals. So if you set the action cooldown to 10 (10 second) the AI will use the action without check conditionals every 10 second. Only the first time AI will check conditonals.

Edited April 3, 2018 by dunehunter

[AndreaColombo]

That should definitely be addressed.