Familiars ignored by enemies

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CragOrion
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Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:51 am

This was posted in the old forums, and is still happening.

Once a spawn sees your familiar, they rush straight at the caster, regardless of whether they have line of sight, how far away the caster is, or what he/she is doing. This makes things extremely hard for low-level casters. At low level, you need your familiars to help distract your enemies while you're casting, or shooting, or running, etc.

As said before, this is a deadly bug for casters, and makes it far more difficult to play them than before the changes to the summons/familiars were put in. Before its seemed like it was fixed, but it always goes back to this a matter of days after the fix. These suped up familiars are useless to me with this bug going unfixed, and if it cant be fixed, id rather have the familiars back like they were before. Super cool familiars are no good to anyone when they cause you to die just by being present.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by The Man of the Moon » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:11 am

Or allow the familiars to guard the mage (automatically)
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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by DM_Ironfist » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:24 am

Familiars have been intentionally re-written so that they can not be used to guard the caster. The new familiars are intended to be 'Non Combat', the improvements have been made to ensure they can be out and about during combat and not constantly die all the time as was previously be the case, but at best they are a pest.

Given their new AC/Health/DR, they would be more than broken if they could be used to -guard a caster, and more-over would not fit the new theme.

I believe this is currently a case of 'Works as Intended.'

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Faye » Thu Oct 30, 2014 1:58 pm

I'm going to get hurt for saying this, but parties. They're way better than familiars. EXCEPT FEY FAMILIARS, EW, BLEH!!!!!

And if they went back to the way they were before, you won't be able to watch hilarious shows of Paladins fail to hit Imps. Which is entirely my new favourite thing.
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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Sat Nov 01, 2014 1:13 pm

i cannot believe this is "works as intended"

and parties are not always available.

the mere presence of a familiar should not draw enemies directly to the caster. the only case that this should ever happen is if the following conditions are met:
1. the enemy has line of sight to the caster
2. the enemy is actually intelligent enough to realize that the caster probably summoned the creature
3. the enemy makes a will save to force themselves to ignore the familiar and any other summons to go after the caster

this "works as intended" as you claim it makes things extremely hard for casters. if this is intended, then whats intended is broken. it only makes me want to not play casters. and i want to play casters, dammit. and i want to do so without being killed half the times i go out or being forced to turn back after two fights. they way things are right now, it is not fun. And this is supposed to be fun.
not to mention that im still sore that all my favorite familiars were taken out (mephits & dire wolves)

I agree its cheesy to have them able to use -guard on you, but having them out shouldnt cause you more danger than not having them out.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Rystefn » Sat Nov 01, 2014 6:54 pm

Familiars aren't for fighting. They never have been.
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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by IndifferentPerson » Sat Nov 01, 2014 7:06 pm

Rystefn wrote:Familiars aren't for fighting. They never have been.
My old level 31 panther was a killer I'll have you know!

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Mon Nov 03, 2014 3:28 am

Rystefn wrote:Familiars aren't for fighting. They never have been.
Then why can they do things like knock down your enemies, confuse them, slow them, etc.
The familiars were obviously intended to take some part in battles. So their mere presence in a battle shouldn't make them useless in a battle.
CragOrion wrote: having them out shouldnt cause you more danger than not having them out.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Meglith » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:44 am

I really gotta agree with Crag. My lvl 6 wizard was with a party today, i summoned my familiar during a boss battle we were on the edge of losing (not understanding the new familiars as i was away from Arelith when that change happened) and was surprised to see a Toad rather than a hellhound. Still, the toad stunned the enemy boss long enough for our fighter to kill it, thus providing us a clear tactical advantage.

I did notice, as we continued to new dungeons after that, that enemies would begin zeroing in on my caster, despite that i stayed at the back of the group - well beyond their line of sight. Several times, enemies would make me a target before they could have actually seen me. I thought it was just random chance or maybe a new "attack the squishy one first" AI change, until i saw this topic here.

I can't really believe it's "works as intended". The familiar provided a clear tactical advantage, yet also causes enemies to zero in on someone who they hadn't even seen yet?

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Meglith » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:49 am

Not saying i want my familiar to -guard me, by the way, not saying that at all.

Just that i don't want more "heat-seeking missiles"

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Twily » Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:28 pm

The sight of the familiar I dont think is enough. Im fairly certain its set so a mage is permanently guarding their familosr from any distance. If you keep your familiar out of the fight unless you need certain abilities it should be very efficient.

I remember on my mage the familiar was extremely useful if I did this and possesed it to use the right ability at the right time.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Meglith » Mon Nov 03, 2014 5:50 pm

That makes sense and matches my experiences.

Ok, then I guess I'll need to learn a new style of play. It's a bit of a hassle, trying to RP and micromanage Summons at the same time... I think a different system would help me RP better, but hey, if that's how it is, that's how it is

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Preacher » Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:13 pm

if your possessing your familar and kill a monster, does the player actually get any exp? also does the rpr tick give exp?
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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Faye » Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:30 pm

Preacher wrote:if your possessing your familar and kill a monster, does the player actually get any exp? also does the rpr tick give exp?
AFAIK, no to both of these.
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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by RockandRollOutlaw » Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:18 pm

Summoning your familiar mid battle and having it unleash its bolt attacks works great. As does summoning it before a battle and having it buff you and your party members.

Familiars cannot however be used to tank and yes the monsters will target the caster instead of the familiar. A very easy solution to this is tell your familiar to hold position at the start of the area. Then you can proceed with a summoned creature and agro works as it always has.

Pretty sure this is working as intended. Familiars are not tanks, but if used correctly they can be of great benefit.
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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by DM_Ironfist » Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:42 pm

Faye wrote:
Preacher wrote:if your possessing your familar and kill a monster, does the player actually get any exp? also does the rpr tick give exp?
AFAIK, no to both of these.
Faye is correct.
In addition and all to easy to forget your rest/water/hunger ~Will go down while you're controlling your familiar. Extended periods of familiar RP may in fact cause you to die. You have been warned.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:08 am

It sounds like the problem is coming from a measure taken to keep people from having their familiars use -guard on them, ie, setting the caster to perma-guard the familiar. I understand the motevation behind the attempt, but there HAS GOT to be a better way to go about it. I have an idea slowly forming and may try to post something in the suggestions forum later.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Meglith » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:23 am

I look forwards to your suggestion, Crag. If there's one thing i hate... it's micromanaging while gaming.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by Quaragh » Tue Nov 04, 2014 2:53 am

I think the reason has more to do with the fact the uber powerful mage can summon multiple creatures, making it like fighting three characters.

By making the mage be targeted, it merely puts the mage in the same situation as every other type of class(many of which have no familiars or summons)

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:53 am

not really. all these other classes can handle a head-on fight. theyre not so squishy and can wear armor. if a caster gets into a head-on fight, they die. flat out. that is why they were designed to summon distractions. take away those distractions and youre left with dead casters.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by HurinWillSmite » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:03 pm

As it's far from a well thought out suggestion I will ask in this thread. Why don't some mage npcs summon their familiars?

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:17 pm

alot of the higher level ones do. the lower levels dont, im guessing because it would make it too hard on lowbies

or if youre talking about non enemy npc's, then they most certainly do. its usually one of the first things they do when a fight breaks out. the guy in rosewind summons a direwolf, griff summons a tiger, haulfest summons an elemental, the dryads all summon elementals.

(also, this started out as a bug report, not a suggestion. a suggestion is just what its going to become)

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by HurinWillSmite » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:31 pm

Tigers, direwolves and elementals? Sounds like you are talking about summon creature 1-9 while I am speaking of familiars. I was hoping a dread mage master could summon an elder elemental AND a raven.

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by CragOrion » Tue Nov 04, 2014 12:41 pm

my mistake. i'd just guess it was something that was overlooked when the game writers were making the AI, or they didnt think they would make that big of an impact on the fight to write the familair into it. the good guy npc ai is likely something that didnt have a whole lot of thought put into it because the game wasnt designed to have the npc's be combattants, so the script was likely left lightweight and simple.


edit: thinking more about it, the henchmen you get in the campaign mode didnt summon their familiars because it would have given you a virtual army to storm through the game with (player, familiar, summon, henchman, henchsummon, henchfamialiar, plus if you dominate something, giving a possibillity of 7 partymembers, which would overpower alot of the obstacles in a single player campaign)

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Re: Familiars ignored by enemies

Post by DM_Ironfist » Sun Nov 09, 2014 10:46 am

(If I possess an NPC, I can not summon it's familiar. Regardless of what I do. I believe this means familiars are hardcoded to be an PC only thing. Like XP.)

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