Niche behavior

[Ziggurat]

OK, I had this battle recently. I was leaving the T'Rang house near Arnika. I have a four party: Rogue, Monk, Ranger and Bishop. Lev 13 more or less. We ran into a bunch of Juggernauts and various weeds and found a certain niche behind the house. No problem. We decided to head to Arnika with no rest after that. And ran into 9 Juggernauts and 4 Rank Weeds (lev 12?).

So we went into a different deep niche. They were in attack mode because we were strolling down the road. Then, as we waited, they all retreated. So we went out and waited for them in full view. They kept retreating! So we continued on and most were out of range, and then they spotted us. So we went up to the Arnika wall in a corner, not as good as a niche. Got them all. That isn't the problem, it is the way they responded.

My question what is the AI on niches? I know if you go too deep the attackers can retreat, but what happens when you poke your head out? With bats, they keep coming. Maybe a different algorhythm on other critters that walk.

This is a conjecture question.

[ 10-29-2003, 10:58 PM: Message edited by: Ziggurat ]

[Scatter]

There are a lot of factors involved in whether mobs attack. Your Stealth, their Senses, and the terrain are probably the important bits. If you have high stealth, or Chamelion, you can move quite a bit away from a funnel, especially if you stay along a wall, before mobs react to you. Sometimes if they are facing away from you they'll continue to walk away. If your stealth is high you can even be surrounded, but not attacking (Defending, casting defensive spells) and they'll retreat after a couple rounds.

Well, one possibility is that their scaling size was too big and they could't fit into the niche (scaling size= how big they are). That seems like a probable solution.

zig - i'm not clear. were they moving away outside of combat or during combat? in other words, had you/they engaged?

[Ziggurat]

Sultan - no, but it looked they were following me and then changed their mind. I have seen this before with rogues. The Crimson Poopies, however, seem to keep coming. I do have all 4 up to stealth 10 or higher, but that wasn't true in earlier parties. The best I can figure the AI is:

1) you get spotted and the party approaches but is not engaged

2) they have to be a certain proximity based on the critter stats and yours before they can engage

3) some aggressive critters like plants and Stalker Seekers keep approaching to where they last saw you (perhaps) and then engage if they see you or at least keep approaching

If this is the case, it's pretty amazing. My 2 cents.

zig - i've never thought about it, but that AI description you gave sounds right from my memory of hiding from, and in other cases preparing for, encounters. particularly at night, i've found you can duck in, but if you go to far, they stop coming. some creatures keep going, others just hover til you show yer mug again.

so, yeah, that is pretty amazing.

isnt this game great?!

[Starfire]

I've run into the same sort of behavior a time or two. Usually with parties at levels 10 or higher who either have decent stealth or chameleon running. So I suppose it's possible stealth and that spell could have something to do with it? Just a guess on my part.

yeah, it's definitely chameleon. i was recently very disappointed by how little benefit an all-stealth party got in sneaking relative to an all-magic party (4 purecasters and bard with no stealth but all wearing light armour).

in my experience, the two biggest factors are chameleon spell and armour type. that's assuming similar terrain and lighting, which have large effects of their own.

[Scatter]

Yah, stealth comes more into play during actual combat when considering AC and how often mobs ignore the stealthy. If everyone has high stealth, you can make most mobs go away after they've engaged simply by defending for a few rounds--most of the enemy will be defending for a couple rounds, then start retreating, right on out of contact. I know stealth causes that, because i've observed my parties during stealth training, and that behavior starts right around 70 Stealth, and gets more noticable as it goes up from there.