Increase aggression of the minions, they should not be running by enemies ignoring them. If I am a full minion build my minions should not ignore stuff and run by them just to come to me, while the AI update makes them feel a lot better this would make them a lot better.
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Its not an aggression problem. They switch into a passive mode everytime the player moves, ignoring anything on their way to the player until they reach a certain radius around the player, or the player itself, before they switch into aggro mode again. Its easily noticable on skeleton archer and mages for example.
They just need to be in that āaggroā mode all the time, not just when they are near the player. They should attack anything whats in their threath radius by default, no matter what the player does. At least in a certain range, lets say, 1 or 1 1/2 screens maybe, bevore they go passive and catch up, if there are still enemies around them.
2 Likes
ahh I was not sure since im running an all melee minion build, it gets a bit annoying since as im running they just ignore stuff and run up to me then go and attack. Dont get me wrong it is a lot better than previous AI but it still needs work.
Just give us 3 buttons to manage our minions.
attack
move
hold
Thereās two of those already, pressing āaā functions as both attack and move.
Mike in yesterday stream say that they are working in something in those lines
Having them always in aggro mode would be exceptionally bad. You could never skip content or retreat and have them folllow.
It must be hard for them to code an AI that pleases everyone. One option would be what is found in other games where controlled entities have a 3-way toggle like Aggressive/Defensive/Peaceful but that would essentially require writing three AI routines, or at least adding considerable code for such branching. And even then, those three choices might not cover all situations.
I think this is where these problems crop up. Maybe they could increase the minion-player leash radius a bit. Would probably help a little. One problem that minion builds seem to run into in almost any of these games is that player movement speed makes the effective leash radius feel smaller than it actually is. You will notice that if by default you have to walk for (just making numbers up here) 1.25s before they stop what they are doing and leash to you, when you put on movement speed and it now takes you 0.8s to reach that radius, now your minions feel like they donāt do anything but pointlessly wander around.
I think thereās supposed to be some kind of ādeadzoneā where you can move around before they will respond to your movement, but I donāt know if this game has that for minions.
I would assume that they would achieve that by tweaking the various ai stats such as aggression, leash range and so forth. But Iām not a programmer.
Nor am I, but I think itās fair to use past experiences with other games to try to deduce what is going on what might be done about it. Even if we end up being wrong on some technical level, itās possible that the ideas discussed might inspire the correct answer for a dev who can bridge that gap.
It would be great if you could post a video of minions behaving in a way you are deeming wrong or needs a QoL tweak and then describe what you wished they would have done.
It would help the development team understand where the problems are in the new AI if we see an example case(s).
2 Likes
It is easy enough to reproduce, especially if you have a large number of minions. Step one summon all your minions, step two start walking, as you walk by mobs your minions will disengage or kill the mob and walk back to you ignoring other enemies then once they get back to you they get the āaggressiveā tag again and go out and attack. It might not seem to be a lot but if you went like me and have a full melee spec necro then that is MASSIVE in terms of dps, thats a huge time of minions basically doing nothing but being killed by my own stupid ābuffsā which is something else i personally take issue with, necro minion buffs already take an investment of mana and a precious slot, stop making them slaughter my minions so fast. literally every 4 seconds im recasting a minion, every 2 if it happens to get both buffs.
This is why I tend not to like minion builds in these games, donāt see much appeal in LEās version of the āhammerdin,ā and didnāt like BV or WOrb that much in PoEātoo much maintenance to run the build, very spammy, and most of it goes to waste because you either spam or move (and doing one costs you the other). Itās very lame.
2 Likes
They need to feel like they have the Feeding Frenzy mod from POE
1 Like
This i can get behind but the whole run away mechanic is extremely annoying
To add to my earlier notion that increased leash range might help, having higher base minion movement speed would probably help too.
Also, skelly projectiles travel at a glacial pace. I just canāt see playing Necro in this game until many more improvements are made. Itās hilarious (and kinda sad) that Wolcenās minions feel better than LEās.
I agree with the higher base minion speed, it still feels like thats where the issue is, i have suggested minion speed shards to even get it on your gear, maybe as a boot affix or something.
With the forge weapon ability you can get up to 50 minions fairly easily, i have video immediately after the minion ai update and right before, it sometimes feels like they donāt know what enemy to attack, and what i find the most unreasonable is when they leave a boss enemy they are attacking to attack the closest enemy to you (this was part of the ai update) so even though i have 10 swords who almost have a boss or a major rare defeated they will all leave to hit the nothing white enemy that has moved closer to me, leaving the dangerous boss with one hit left stillā¦
I am running 12 skele rogues 5 deathknights a golem and some Wraiths, as i run by stuff the minions all run to me, then run out to the target, kill the targets and then run all the way back to me instead of just going to another target. If i wanted them to come back to me i can force them to attack, running past stuff so i can pet them for a job well done for every single mob they kill is irritating at best, rage inducing at worst
3 Likes