Darkness/AI bugged.

[Dreams]

Darkness is bugged, or the AI is bugged in the way it responds to darkness.

At the moment the AI is causing NPCs to suddenly see through darkness. It seems that they do this whether they are the ones in the darkness, or whether they are targeting something that is within darkness.

I think this might be occurring due to a problem with the order of actions in the AI script?

[miesny_jez]

I don't see that happening truly saying, but I may have too limited sample to verify

Which specific NPCs You found this behaviour happening?

What is the exact sequence of events when You see that?
Can You reproduce it reliably?
Does the 50% Conceal apply on NPCs attacks against Your char?
Do Ranged NPCs shoot/cast spell at You?
Does the darkness happen BEFORE fight or DURING it ?

Does the NPC "walk" to Your character in Darkness or does it rush in at full speed?

[Dreams]

Happens to all hostile NPCs.

I'm not sure about an exact sequence. It happens every time I cast darkness on myself or darkness on a group of mobs. Originally I tried to shoot out of the darkness but immediately picked up aggro, but now I try to stealth or stand in darkness and let my summon attack. Neither of these work, the NPCs seem to see through it without Ultravision/True Seeing.

It happens every time I use darkness.

50% concealment doesn't seem to apply.

Ranged NPCs can target me for the purpose of ranged attacks or spells.

I've used darkness before, or during, and both of these have the NPCs attacking me.

The NPCs 'walk' to my character when they can't see him, but rush in at full speed when they're attacking.

[goodriddance]

I confirm it’s odd. Sometimes enemies will walk in, smash you a couple times, then run away.
Some times they’d walk in and just beat you to a pulp unless you run off.
For sure if they ‘see you casting’ is more likely to have them charging at you no matter what and I’d say the concealment bonus is denied (but can’t tell for sure this always applies).
I noticed the real issue is mostly with archers. Talassian marksmen and desert orc sharpshooter, will ignore darkness completely some times. The minute you cast on them they turn to you even ignoring the concealment, they see you flat.
Same goes for the undeads of Minmir battlefield. Archers will likely shoot straight at you and infantry often charges you from miles (not to mention the large bone golems there, they seem to pick a target and following it no matter darkness, invisibility or whatnot).
And there’s still the bug I reported a few days ago, where an enemy under the bigby ‘bull rush’ effect, will stand and walk in the darkness just to have the ‘bull rush’ effect reapplied once inside it.
It’s like the anti-darkness AI script overrides the spell effect.
Another ‘weird’ behaviour I had happening to me while using darkness, was having all the spawns in the map to suddenly start walking towards it (This happened in the Foof area, with Talassians coming down the slopes like the three wise men following the star, made me feel the Xmas spirit).
And finally ettin priests, seem to target dispel directly to whoever is inside the darkness and not the darkness itself. Not really an issue though, since their dispel seems to be the weakest ever.

[ExperimentAlpha]

I can confirm as well, happens most often with ranged mobs shooting at you willy-nilly into your darkness and hitting you 100% of the time. I was running the Jungle Pirates earlier today and ran into trouble with them....Moreso when that big old giant started hucking boulders at me, ignoring my summon, and beelined straight to me while I am sitting still, not casting, inside my darkness.

[Cihparg]

Casting hostile spells through darkness will allow an enemy to find you immediately.
Having a familiar aggro something in distance will also drag the enemy to you.
Summons I believe will also aggro everything to you, assuming you are in darkness.

Do you mean that? It's not a bug. That's a feature.

[Dreams]

Yes, those things happen. Why the hell would those be considered features?

[goodriddance]

Casting hostile spells through darkness will allow an enemy to find you immediately.
Having a familiar aggro something in distance will also drag the enemy to you.
Summons I believe will also aggro everything to you, assuming you are in darkness.

Do you mean that? It's not a bug. That's a feature.

Is also a feature that you lose the concealment from darkness?

Cause the ranged enemies will flat see you.

And not all the enemies seem to "find you immediately".

I just had this happening (again by the slopes where Foof plays hide and seek with the tiny skeletal lord of Benwick):

- Tiny dagger of sacrifice scouts ahead, I'm well behind stealthing
- Ogre, Marksman (the trashy one, not the sniper) and Storm Crow aggro the dagger
- I cast darkness and throw a IGMS for the party
- Marksman forgets tiny dagger and rages at me (no concealment for me)
- Ogre rages at the dagger cause he doesn't like daggers, meanwhile Storm Crow buffs
- I win the little shootout (IGMS > puny bolts)
- Ogre kills the dagger and starts walking towards me
- Ogre is held by Bigby forceful hand
- Ogre stands still with the little stars around his head and walks into the darkness
- Ogre goes back down once he's in the darkness
- Storm Crow is done buffing and goes like "Lel ogre? What you doing?" and wonders who killed the marskman
- Foof is like "I can smell someone in this darkness from a few miles too..." and hurries my way

I run...

but then come back and kill them all (Happy ending).

[Cihparg]

Yup. That's normal.
You had a summon, cast darkness upon yourself and aggroed your targets.
Darkness cheese was changed either somewhere early this year or somewhere late last year.

The concealment from darkness is right out the window once you aggro anything.
All aggro from your familiar will be redirected to you, if you're in darkness.

[Dreams]

So what does darkness do?

[Ozzy.nl]

Nothing XD

[If Valor Were Inches]

It allows you a way to escape, and still harder to hit you in it.

[goodriddance]

It allows you a way to escape, and still harder to hit you in it.

The bug being reported is actually concealment is not calculated by people shooting at you and the 'darkness peekabo' bit of AI overriding stuns.

It does weird things at times, but I believe is quite balanced now, save those executions by archers.

Mobs run to cover, will come to say hello.... will try to dispell it... I think an archer who can't aim inside a bubble of impenetrable darkness, should run to cover, not suddenly gain true sight and apply the fatality =)

Oh by the way is still great for meleers... free sneaks and cotillons!

[Dreams]

Maybe the wiki could be updated with whatever the change to darkness is? All it says there is that it is now non-hostile and that friendly NPCs won't attack you when you use it.

[greatfanfare]

It does weird things at times, but I believe is quite balanced now, save those executions by archers.

Have you tried to cast darkness on the archers also?

At least when you have uv on Suspi.

[goodriddance]

No, I will try. But playing more I can say is overall ok. Only two ‘anomalies’ are the ‘I walk in the darkness while stunned’ (no big deal as the go back stunned/kd once in the darkness) and this ‘sticky’ targeting from archers. The fact that sometimes they seem to come for you is the same that happens when you cast invisibility and they will still follow you. I think is sort of hard coded and kinda makes sense as they know where you are. But is annoying with archers cause negates the concealment, that applies correctly in melee. Moreover I think that fact they sometimes just come for you, means that they heard you. Wolves with their insane listening, reflex saves and improved evasion, are indeed my nemesis.