Teleporting Merc + Monster AI Issue
#1
A merc will 'teleport' next to you if they become stuck on the scenery or otherwise fall too far behind us as we are playing. However, I've noticed that sometimes when they do this, the monsters will proceed to ignore them, as if they aren't even there, and will come straight after me. The merc, meanwhile, goes on attacking monsters just fine.

Taking a portal or wp or just running into town fixes the problem.

I specified realm games because I haven't noticed this behavior in my singleplayer games. It could be a latency issue.
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#2
It's caused by lag, you will also find sometimes that you will reach an area and the monsters ignore you!!!! Basicaly, the game still thinks your merc is several screens away, but your computer displays it next to you. The merc script means that on your computer it is attacking monsters, but I think you will find that it takes none of the monsters life down. A way to fix this is not to run off like a bat out of hell, and if it does happen run back untill the merc is acting normal again.

Thank b net for this :P

Kier
What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
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#3
I'm sorry Kier, but it happens in single player 1.09 as well ;)

Although it seems to be fixed in 1.10 beta :)
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#4
This seems to be tied specifically to the 'teleport' they do if they get stuck on terrain or otherwise end up too far behind. The bug doesn't always happen. I suspect a flag isn't getting set consistently, or something.

To recap, the merc was killing just fine. Monster health was dropping appropriately and they died when the hp bar reached zero. I was also killing just fine. The bug was that the monsters were completely ignoring the merc, in spite of the fact that he was there and he was killing them as per usual. Again, this only occurs after a merc 'teleports', or instantly moves from one place to another due to my being too far away from them.

Glad to hear this (so far) is addressed by the beta.
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#5
Scary :blink: :blink:

Similar sort of thing happened to me. An ama was stopping me getting my corpse in pvp, so I set up a shaddow as a distraction. The ama shot at the shaddow of course, which was level 1 (usualy higher with skills from items) yet this did nothing. In the end she had to change to her titan and jab it (giving me enough time to get corpse :D ).

So for some reason ranged attacks had no effect, and I haven't done this before or after :P

Could this be to do with some similar thing, effecting NPC's that fight?
What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
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#6
Just a note to let you know I've encountered this bug in 1.10 singleplayer, with expansion, though only once since the patch came out. My merc had just teleported to me after getting stuck on the jungle terrain.

The bug is slightly worse now, when it does manage to occur, in that now you must exit the current game and make a new game before the monsters will recognize your merc as being there with you. Town Portals and Waypoints no longer seem to fix monster awareness of mercs. Resurrecting a dead merc might fix the problem too, but my mercs don't die as much when they're being ignored.

My zon had Decoy, fortunately, because she found a massive wave of flayers going AROUND her fully healthy merc and heading straight for her. The merc tried to attack them as they went by, but they paid him no attention, even though he could damage and kill them. I went through probably 20 battles like this and finally quit that game and started a new one.
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#7
Smoketest,Jul 16 2004, 05:05 AM Wrote:The bug is slightly worse now, when it does manage to occur, in that now you must exit the current game and make a new game before the monsters will recognize your merc as being there with you.
One of the changes in 1.10 was that many monsters will now deliberately go straight for you rather than your mercenary. I think you're probably seeing an example of that - it's improved monster AI, rather than a bug.
You don't know what you're talking about.
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#8
Quote:One of the changes in 1.10 was that many monsters will now deliberately go straight for you rather than your mercenary. I think you're probably seeing an example of that - it's improved monster AI, rather than a bug.

I don't think there was an AI change to this extent for monsters in general but rather a perceived change since folks are trying harder to notice things they never happened to notice before. In specific cases like an act boss I can see this being the case, but melee monsters will completely ignore the merc whenever this happens. They never even glance at the merc even when the merc is merrily poking away at them, even when blinded. It's not a range issue either since when the merc is not being ignored, blinded monsters do attack back.

Whenever you see this "improved AI" in effect, rejoin the game and get back to where you left off. You'll find that this AI improvement, as you call it, is nowhere to be found.
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#9
Possible nit,

The walking undead in Act 5 seem to have an improved 'charge' ability. I do not know what the change was, whether it was increased frequency, increased range, or increased damage, but now they are rather formidable killers. This is not exactly a change in AI, although I do notice that they frequently attack me over my mercenary, even before there is any "teleport" bug, etc.

-Munk
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#10
Quote:Taking a portal or wp or just running into town fixes the problem.

I have had this problem on realms play(1.10), and it persists the whole rest of the game. What I'm experiencing my be triggered by something different though. Usually it happens if the merc has died alot. Switching acts or tps to town do nothing to fix it. Only new games cause the behavior to cease. Well actually, maybe the merc dying would fix it too, but the merc doesn't die much when he's not attacked. maybe I'll try to test this later.

No monsters will target the merc, though he does still attack(and kill), and take damage when hit by area effect attacks. It's actually very useful in general to me. I use aura mercs on many of my chars, and the benefit of the aura is worth more than having a sheild most of the time. It's simply amazing vs act bosses as well, since the merc can often survive considering that the boss won't target him at all.

EDIT: Just to mention, I don't think I've seen this happen until the second season of 1.10. It may have been happenign earlier, but I didn't notice it until now.
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#11
I seriously doubt that the AI upgrades itself during a game, and only after a merc 'teleports' back to my character's side after getting stuck one too many times. The point I implied was that everything was going normally prior to this bug occuring. That is, monsters targeted my merc if he happend to be closer to them and/or seen by them before my character was. The ONLY times I have ever normally had a monster ignore the merc and go after me have been with the Ancients and certain act bosses.

I don't think merc deaths factor into the cause of this bug, because in some games my mercs never die, and the bug can still occur. It seems to be connected in some way to the instant 'teleport' they do whenever you get too far away and some internal timer expires, as was the case in 1.09d.

Oddly, I don't have this problem with summons, just hirelings.

The reanimated horde type monsters only ignore the merc if they see me first, which is often the case when the merc is lagging behind or getting stuck (again!), or if this bug occurs.
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#12
Quote:It seems to be connected in some way to the instant 'teleport' they do whenever you get too far away and some internal timer expires, as was the case in 1.09d.

I agree that it most likely has something to do with the teleport, but there must be some other factor(s) as well. I've been playing alot lately, and my mercs teleport often to catch up (playing in normal/NM, I run ahead of them all the time). This bug very rarely occurs though. I still have no real idea what actually triggers it.

EDIT: Occasionally the merc just vanishes completely, and never reappears in the same area. The portrait is still there, but the merc is not on screen(or map), and doesn't reappear after a few seconds. Only returning when a wp(or teleporter) is used. This one happens even less often than the monsters ignoring merc though.
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#13
Baajikiil,Jul 20 2004, 11:51 AM Wrote:EDIT:  Occasionally the merc just vanishes completely, and never reappears in the same area.  The portrait is still there, but the merc is not on screen(or map), and doesn't reappear after a few seconds.  Only returning when a wp(or teleporter) is used.  This one happens even less often than the monsters ignoring merc though.
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Just an update to this note.

Sometimes the hireling will remain on the map, but will stand in one spot and do nothing. You can bring monsters to the area and fight them and the hireling will remain motionless. At other times the hireling will simply disappear from the map. In either case, the hireling's portrait remains visible and you can examine it's inventory. However, you will not be able to modify the hireling's inventory while they are in this state.

As noted, taking a portal fixes the problem. As to rarity, it seems to be tied to server latency. Today the hireling locked up several times in a single game session, under very laggy conditions. Everything was warping around on the screen due to lag preventing a smooth flow of positional data to my computer.

Context: 1.10, closed realms, private game, 56k connection, act 3 normal, rogue hireling(fire arrow)
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