Tree of Savior Forum

Hunter Pet AI issues (AI in general..)

Gameplay Bug Report Game Content
#1

10:00 AM - 28APR17
Server Name: Klaipeda
Team Name: Firelights
Character Name: Sieghart

Bug Description :
Much like all AI in this game, Hunter AI is horrifyingly bad. Pets do not do commands you tell them to. The skills still go on cooldown, and the SP is still consumed. I have attached a video below, and will be referencing this thread when I submit a ticket on this issue. I know this is a known problem by the userbase as a whole, but it needs to be addressed as many times as possible for it to be fixed.

Steps to reproduce the issue :

  1. Use pet skill
  2. Pet refuses to use skill, your SP is used and it goes on cooldown
  3. Pet stands around doing nothing
  4. Rinse and repeat

Screenshots / Video :

Game Control Mode (Keyboard/Joypad/Mouse): Mouse

6 Likes
#2

As you can see, and as I have stated in the description on the youtube video, there are 5 attempts at using Rush Dog in this short video. The video is just a snippet of an actual fight as a hunter though, so don’t think for two seconds that this is an outstanding situation.

Also for note, I have my pet’s auto-attack disabled. This was supposedly implemented to help with Hunters being able to skill with their pets, but it doesn’t really improve anything.

0:03 - first fail
0:08 - second fail
0:14 - third fail
0:19 - fourth fail
0:28 - first success

This is also not limited to only Rush Dog. It happens with Coursing, Retrieving, Snatching, etc. The skills waste SP, don’t work, and still go on cooldown.

My recommendations for fixing these problems may benefit other summon-based classes as well, but specifically for Hunter I would suggest the following;

  1. Companions now function as skill catalysts first and foremost, their secondary actions (auto-attacks/movement) are placed on a significantly lower-priority to skills themselves.
  2. Skills now have a proper targetting action. The companion will no longer use an activated skill just on whatever monster it happens to collide with on the way, or on the enemy they are auto-attacking. If there is a pack of mobs, A, B, C, D, and E - and you say ‘Snatching on D’, the pet should run to ‘D’ and execute Snatching.
  3. Companions “traveling to a skill execution” is now top-priority (continuation of point 1). If an enemy is in range of a skill, and you activate that skill - the Companion should IMMEDIATELY stop doing anything else, and then proceed to travel to the enemy and activate the skill. NO EXCEPTIONS.
  4. Growling now has a ground-target Reticle instead of simply activating wherever the pet is standing at the time. MAKE THIS AN ATTRIBUTE.
  5. Rush Dog now has a ground-target Reticle instead of simply activating at the first enemy struck. MAKE THIS AN ATTRIUTE.
  6. Increase the hitbox range on all of the skills triggered by pet so that instead of chasing a moving enemy until they stop moving, they can activate the skill.

Companions are a tool for Hunters to use their skills, they need to start acting like it.

4 Likes
#3

Also, @STAFF_Max - Since you are the only one that has responded to me so far I’m pinging you on this.

#4

High quality post @lorechiefdocs

Pinging @STAFF_Letitia @STAFF_Yuri and @STAFF_Ines who I know are all very active here on the forums.

This is basically a list of every problem this class has, and a very well thought through list of solutions.

I have some responses to those “solutions” though.

1+3. Agree completely. Using a skill at any distance to any target should ALWAYS work. If the target is out of range then the pet should run towards the target and then initiate the skill. Rush Dog triggering from 50m would be stupid, but there is no reason the dog shouldn’t run until getting to 10m and then triggering the skill.

2+5. These skills already function the way you want to as far as I am aware. Both Rush Dog and Snatching will always trigger on the enemy you currently have targeted. They run past enemies in between them to get to the target.

4. I don’t agree with this unless it’s an attribute. Growling currently synergises with other skills like Rush Dog to get them to the middle of a large group. I would prefer instant casting of this skill as it is used constantly every cooldown by high level Hunter3s. Making this a targeting reticle would cause a significant nerf to the skill rotation of classes that rely on it.

5. Rush dog doesn’t function that way. What you might be experiencing with this is aoe limitation in v large groups of enemies. Both of these enemies can hit more than one enemy and if there is a large group then the aoe defence ratio of nearby enemies can eat up the aoe ratio of Rush Dog or Snatching.

Using a targeting reticle won’t solve that.

I would also like to add a couple more.

6. Change moves that have zero range to no longer “queue” after one another, but to only queue after moves with range(Rush Dog). This would make it so Coursing and Retrieve or Snatching can no longer be accidentally used on 2 different enemies causing the pet AI to lose its mind and be indecisive about whether it should be using one skill on one enemy or another skill on another.

7. Skill CDs trigger on pet using the skill. Not on player using the command to use the skill. This would eliminate all wasted uses of skills that lose their CD without the skill triggering. This mainly affects Rush Dog.

EDIT:

8. Defensive skills that are triggered when using a pet attack should hit the pet performing the attack, not the player.

This occurs when attacking vs things such as Subzero Shield or Revenged Sevenfold.

It doesn’t make any sense that the player is the one hit when the pet is the one performing the attack.

3 Likes
#5

Hey thanks for the support. The issue I’m pointing out with Rush Dog is pretty easy to reproduce as well. I see it mostly on the Paota & Glass Mole dual-fight.

  1. Use Rush Dog on Paota, pet uses rush dog on Paota
  2. Use Rush Dog on Glass Mole, pet uses rush dog on Paota again

It never seems to care that I’m targetting the mole, if the companion is near a different enemy, it just uses the skill there.

As far as Growling having a reticle, sure if attrib is required thats fine. My problem is that, say, on the Torch fight you want to Growl around the Torch to work as a barrier - you have to run around in circles at strange distances a few times so that the pet is close to where you want it before you activate Growl. Otherwise the pet just uses it wherever and isn’t very effective in that situation.

Rush Dog also makes the pet run to a specific mob in order to do AoE, where many times it would be more beneficial for the skill to activate in the area before the AoE as it would hit more mobs. Making it a ground reticle would make it so you could aim it better for hitting packs. Maybe this is an attrib fix as well though…

#6

It never seems to care that I’m targetting the mole, if the companion is near a different enemy, it just uses the skill there.

Yeah this is caused by aoe defence ratio. It’s getting eaten by the other nearby monster. Large monsters have a larger aoe defence ratio.

#7

As @Awoooo has mentioned, hunter skill now do go after your target.

The “target the first thing in the block” was a thing up until december 26 last year. (They forgot to make rush dog and snatching use the targeting thing, retrieve/coursing were enabled to do so a month before)

I’m not agaisnt skills failing when an enemy is outside your range, but, this is mostly because I already know how to play the class through a lot of trial and error and many, many failed skills. So, perhaps a dotted circle surrounding the pet could help with this? Instructions in general are blurry in this game…

So, since people have summoned GM to this thread I present to you my main issue with this class (falconer also has this issue, but it is far more rare)

Bad, pathfinding:

1 Like
#8

About the “run around in circles to growl” are you aware that we’ve got this command : /comeon ?

It makes the pet go to your character cell, anyway that issue is also minimized by having a TP companion, but since /comeon appeared I’m more reliant on that command instead of mounting my companion.

#9

Hows it work with TP companion any differently? As far as /comeon, yeah I know about it - its a poor bandaid and still doesnt get the job done though. He just comes -around- you, not where you want them to go.

I guess that explanation for the AoE ratio with Rush Dog makes sense. Pretty annoying imo, but I’d rather have my pet use the skill on SOMETHING then just continue doing absolutely nothing.

Yeah Long Chase is also an issue I agree. I’ll append that to my first post.

#10

Well, since you cannot directly command your pet to a place. you can command your pet to be at your side, at the place you want.

TP companion? how they help? well, they were implemented way before comeon was there, they can be ridden by any class.

If you are under the impression that hunter is a hide behind your pet class, wrong, mostly because the way the game handles things you’re supposed to be at the midst of the battle to do anything… (not quite an archer, eh?)

Could this be fixed? well, since the open beta things haven’t changed, the main issue was pet targeting, they fixed that after nearing the 2 year mark (beta inclued there).

#11

I have edited my post to add the following:

8. Defensive skills that are triggered when using a pet attack should hit the pet performing the attack, not the player.

This occurs when attacking vs things such as Subzero Shield or Revenged Sevenfold.

It doesn’t make any sense that the player is the one hit when the pet is the one performing the attack.

#12

I have yet to invest in a TP companion despite the obvious benefits they have, mainly because the food cost is astronomical and we need a large amount of that food to unbug the pet frequently.

#13

Oh you can just lock the food, won’t get used. I’ve a video on that.
let me look for it…

Here:

I'm a little salty about this though

I gave up with this spoiler thingy, it always break when I’m linking a video in here

And it broke regardless, man I hate that thing.

2 Likes
#14

That is an incredibly useful find. A pain in the backside, but very useful. When Leaf Penguin gets given out and has all the equipment slots normal Penguin has I’ll be quite happy.

#15

I’m also in the same boat, I love hunter class, but the pet bugging out is the major flaw of the class.

The class is actually the main dps of my char, so my build is entirelly broken if the pet bugs out.

#16

Regarding the initial bug report, I believe it’s working as intended.
Your companion is out of range to use Rush Dog.

While I understand it’s not very beginner-friendly, the need to judge distances before using skills isn’t much of an issue.
Every non-targetted skill requires you to judge distance, and targetted skills do have a maximum range as well.
Though I do dislike the fact that SP is used on failure as well, keeping in mind where your companion is at any time (and if it’s close enough to your target) is part and parcel of playing a hunter.
Having a sort of indicator on the range is a good idea for players starting out, but it’ll honestly get annoying eventually.

Skills are targetted now after that patch several months ago.
They shouldn’t collide with anything “on the way” and use the commanded skill on that collision.
If you’re encountering difficulties regarding this, you may be having problems with the targetting system instead.
Try using the keyboard layout for some time and see if it still happens, and try to follow suit on mouse.

Regarding the defensive skills triggering, subzero shield’s behavior was explicitly mentioned as “fixed” in the October 10 patch.

  • Attacking targets affected by the Cryomancer’s Subzero Shield skill with Hunter or Falconer companion skills will no longer freeze your own character.

Well, the bug is still around, though.
As for R7, you may want to think about it in the sense of where the damage is coming from rather than the one performing the attack.
Rush Dog’s damage comes from the companion while Coursing / Retrieve’s damage comes from you as well.

TP companion maintenance isn’t much of a problem from personal experience.
You can spend 3TP from the free TP you get, refilling 600 stamina every now and then (playing casually, that’s once every few days).
I do agree the silver version is overpriced for the little stamina it refills, though.
You can also conserve stamina by hiding them when you don’t need them around.

Companions are a tool for Hunters to use their skills, learn how to play effectively with them by your side (and not trying them to run ahead of you).

#17

In my experience, boss targeting in mouse mode is such a PIA right now. Unless that boss’ info bar appears on your screen, your skill will likely hit nothing unless it’s something you can cast on the ground.

I don’t know what they did but this used to be not a problem because before this started happening, we used to be able to see monster info/hp bar and click on them whenever they’re in draw distance (of course attacking and using range-limited skills would still require you to be in range - your character usually automatically closes the required distance).

Speaking of which, there’s also that problem with targeting range. The monster is already in your shooting range but you still need to get a little bit more closer to be able to click on them or use a targeted skill. I’ve been noticing this more when using Kneeling Shot.

#18

If you lock the food item and use the interact menu on the pet to feed them, you can get the AI effect of feeding but not consume the food.

#19

But if you use like, a falconer skill and it fails, you don’t send the skill on CD or use SP. It really seems like a bug…

Also sometimes the skill will fail even when the pet is clearly in range.

#20

I know. But that’s a pain in the butt every 60seconds.