Sit-agro mismanagement

[Nightblade]

Sit agro is now a 'bubble' that ignores line of sight in regards to mobs in a given area around a player. I've seen Drolvargs in KC ignore pullers, and run THROUGH walls to get to casters or freshly rezzed individuals around the corner on the 'safe' side of the zone in to KC itself. Sitting generates so much agro, in fact, that casters are having trouble taking a seat even if the tank has beaten the mob down to sub-70%'ish, immediately making the mob turn towards the caster to knock him standing again before returning to the tank.

I've tested this in KC, Befallen, and Neriak - green mobs will agro from out of line of sight if I'm sitting and they wander into that 'bubble' agro radius that sitting now generates. Guildmates have reported that mobs will ping-pong between groups in Unrest, if the groups are close enough and casters on either end sit at varying times, pulling the mob away and making a run for the offending sitter.

[Uteunayr]

I believe the bulk of the discussion on this is in the Mage thread about pet aggro (not saying a more appropriate thread isn't necessary, just offering the information to others that are curious about this occurrence). I believe the best way to put it is that sitting isn't just putting you on the aggro table, it's putting you on the aggro table as if you've dumped a hammer charge into the mob.

[odiecat99]

I appreciate trying to make it as classic as possible but something smells funny about this whole sit aggro thing.

I.e. someone beats the piss out of mob to 50% and if I sit even once without casting anything it makes a line to smack me.

guess tanks can just spam sit beg and taunt now for aggro better than before..

oh wait warriors dont need to med

[odiecat99]

I believe the bulk of the discussion on this is in the Mage thread about pet aggro (not saying a more appropriate thread isn't necessary, just offering the information to others that are curious about this occurrence). I believe the best way to put it is that sitting isn't just putting you on the aggro table, it's putting you on the aggro table as if you've dumped a hammer charge into the mob.

Exactly.

[Man0warr]

Update to this -

Seems like sitting next to a mob (that is rooted/stunned, otherwise it will try to attack you) and not casting on it or touching it at all will give you a faction hit JUST FROM THE NEW SIT AGGRO ALONE.

That is totally not classic. Looks like this new mechanic is adding you to a mob's aggro list for sitting and it's never dropping it off even after aggro is established.

[bartly]

Wow so now I will get faction hits for medding near a guard when someone else is killing it in town?

[Nightblade]

Sitting agro, while patched, is by not means 'fixed'.

I was in an Efreeti group last night with a bard, cleric, and warrior. An enchanter was charming the protector imps outside while we hosed the camp.

Every time charm broke in EITHER case, from EITHER class, if ANYONE was sitting, the mob immediately beelined for them, bounced to whoever else was sitting, and returned to the bard/enchanter who initially charmed them. Sitting is either generating so much on the hate list that it's overriding everything but warrior taunt (or several), or charm has suddenly been given a mem-wipe component. We nearly wiped on multiple occasions because the cleric was simply afraid to take a seat to get mana back during some of the fights if we ended up getting more than one mob.

[Vega]

or charm has suddenly been given a mem-wipe component

I think it's some of the latter here actually (although not ruling out sit aggro still being off). If charm breaks, a single stun or snare will cause the mobs to change targets to the caster. I played with my brother's chanter a lot on live, and if a mob broke charm, it had A LOT of hate, much more than it seems to take here to peel them off.

[Telin]

This was a fun read describing hate in general and pets: http://www.magecompendium.com/pet-behavior-library.html

NPCs maintain a ranked Hate List of immediate enemies, and, in general, will chase down and attack whichever enemy within Attack Range is currently the highest on their list. The Hate List is constantly changing as characters against the NPC and its allies. The following discussion is simplified somewhat to focus on pets and their behaviour, but applies, with some modification and caveats, to NPCs in general.

Hate: Direct and indirect actions against an NPC add a specific amount of Hate to the score of that individual on the NPC's Hate List. The value of the Hate added appears to decay over time, so that more recent actions weigh more heavily than those a while ago. That is, Hate appears to "age," and become weaker over time. That is why one must be careful how often one nukes an enemy.
The primary determinant of the Hate Value of an attack is the potential damage that attack could have normally done. Thus Hate ignores both resists and criticals. All attacks with the same weapon or spell generate the same amount of Hate regardless of how much damage they actually dealt, even if they miss or are fully resisted. Spells that do not do damage have a Hate value assigned to them. Some, like Tash and Slow spells, have a high Hate values. Others, like Cancel Magic or Malosini, have a low Hate value. Healing and buffing an NPC's enemies also generates Hate.

Taunting a second time: When a character successfully Taunts an NPC, that character moves up to the top of that NPC's Hate List, but just barely. By default, pets have Taunt On, which means they constantly try to taunt their enemies. However, because of special rules designed primarily to prevent abuses of Charmed Pets, an NPC will almost always chose to attack a Player Character if one is within melee distance, even when a pet is at the top of its Hate List. It is not known precisely what these "special rules" are, but in practice they prevent pets from tanking in the presence of player characters within melee distance of the mob.

Any creature that attacks a pet's owner is added to the pet's Hate List.

Pets cannot attack a creature which has been charmed by a player character, but such creatures remain (?) on the pet's Hate List.

If a Mezzed enemy reaches the top of a pet's Hate List, the pet removes (?) from its Hate List instead of attacking.

[Velerin]

[QUOTE=Telin;1339846] Some, like Tash and Slow spells, have a high Hate values. Others, like Cancel Magic or Malosini, have a low Hate value.

Nice to finally see this somewhere. I've been saying this for a bit. the cancel magic and malosini line of spells have too much aggro here. They should be very low compared to tash and slows.

[Yoite]

did some testing again tonight. I did each of these multiple times to prove repeatability before coming here to post.

case 1 - Body pulling.

can body pull and bring mob into camp. Before mob has a chance to attack sitters I would engage with a taunt, bash, and attack. Even when taunt worked (got you will not evade me soandso) and even when bash landed and stunned them, and even when both of those worked and mob was attacked by my melee dmg before bash stun wore off, the mob will still attack sitter before returning to me.

In this case where the taunt landed, and then I was the only one to perform actions after mob was taunted and while it was stunned with bash, I should have been at the top of agro via taunt and well above anyone else with the bash and attack since no one had done anything to the mobs at this time.

Case 2 - Attacking mob with melee attack and bash.

In this case i would bash and then attack the mob with 1 melee round before bringing into camp. In most cases this would still result in the mob attacking ALL sitting players before coming back to me.

The only exception was if my bash and attack round did enough dmg to lower the mob past appox 85% hp.

case 3 - attacking mob for several rounds before pulling into camp.

If i soloed the mob to 50% of hp before then pulling back to group, it would stay on me and not attack any sitters.
If i soloed the mob to 85% of hp before then pulling back to group it may or may not attack sitters.
If i soloed the mob to 95% of hp before then pulling back to group it would still attack sitters before returning to me.

While this is by no means a viable way to pull as you will usually die trying to solo a mob before bringing in I was able to test this using a twink that could take the hits and do enough dmg.


This shows a few things to me. One is the sit agro is still way to high, on live a single attack was enough to hold the mob on you over sit agro. remember agro from melee attacks does not matter if you miss or hit. The other is sit agro is either so high or is not taking into consideration taunt or something else weird. I cant understand how the mobs are still attacking sitters even after a successful taunt, bash stun, and melee round.


i hope this helps =)

[odiecat99]

Thanks for testing

[Fysts]

Originally Posted by Fysts View Post
Quote:
Melee Hate: Dmg + Dmg Bonus*class modifier = hate per swing (before hate mods/buffs)
(the class modifier is different for every class, and is fairly small so not significant for the purposes of 'fuzzy math' calculations of hate per swing or hate per minute via swing.)
NOTE: tests have shown that you generate hate per swing based on the above formula - how much hate you generate is NOT changed by whether you 'hit' or 'miss', it is NOT changed by how much damage you do in the hit - ie, a low damage or high damage hit, or a crit, etc.
Quote:
How Hate and Aggro works:
All mobs have a Hate List. Think of this as a spreadsheet - the spreadsheet has the name of every person the mob AI is aware of, and a numeric value assigned to them. The person with the highest number is the person who the mob attacks.

Special notes and rules about hate and how it works:
1. The person with the highest numeric value on the hate list is who gets attacked.

2. To make a mob change who it is attacking, you need to have +3 hate more than the currently highest person on the hate list (ie, if a rogue gets aggro and has 1000 hate, you need to generate 1003 hate to make it attack you)

3. Taunt sets your hate as equal to the highest person on the list +1 - meaning that taunt, by itself, can NEVER change aggro from someone else to you.

4. Pressing taunt when you're already on aggro does nothing.

Special notes and rules on how mobs deal with hate and how their AI works:
1. The first action you performed on a mob with no hate list is hard capped - you can not generate more than 150 hate on the first action against a mob. There are 3 exceptions to this rule, and 3 exceptions only: Sk terror spells, paladin stun spells (not AAs), and paladin crush spells - these all bypass the hard cap and give you the full amount of hate listed in the spell, so these should *always* be the first thing you use against any mob.

2. Mobs have a dynamic hate modifier based on several factors and actions, and certain types of mobs have additional rules. Example: mobs assign dynamic hate values based on proximity, so moving away from a mob actually reduces your hate on it and gives bonus hate to people closer to it. Undead and animals have a double value for this proximity bonus. sitting gives you bonus hate, but only while you're sitting. certain mobs are flagged as 'smart' and assign bonus hate to heal spells and debuffs.

3. pets and hate: this is somewhere between a bug and just a quirk of how the game works.
a pet (mage pet, necro pet, bst pet, etc) can and will tank if two conditions are met: it's highest on the hate list, and no PCs are in proximity.
if a player is in proximity of an NPC, the NPC will attack the player regardless of its position on the hate list relative to the pet.
(ie, if the pet has 1500 hate and the player has 500 hate, it will still attack the player)
this can result in the following scenario:
player A and pet B are attacking mob C, with tank D standing a short distance away.
tank D uses spells/discs to generate hate on mob C, to the point where they have more hate than player A.
however, pet B is attacking and has taunt on, meaning it keeps pulling aggro, but since player A is in proximity the mob keeps attacking player A, even though tank C has more hate.
Quote:
Generating Hate: the numbers behind the sparkles.

1. DD spells give 1 point of hate per 1 point of *base* damage - ie, the number listed in the spell. Bonus damage from focus effects/mods do NOT cause additional hate. bonus damage from critical hits do NOT cause additional hate (this includes procs).

2. Heal spells give 1 point of hate per 1 point of healing done - the bigger the heal, the more hate it generates. A heal cast on someone with full HP will generate effectively 0 hate.
(Note that some mobs are coded to have a hate modifier regarding heals, but these inconsistent in the game world and not something you normally need to worry about)

3. Rune spells give 2 points of hate per 1 point of rune to every NPC that has you on its hate list - meaning that runes (and rune procs) are basically AE hate.

4. Stuns scale really weird and are very difficult to figure out how much hate they generate. Basically, stun spells generate hate based on a formula which uses the mob's max HP as a modifier, so it's functionally impossible to work out the exact hate value of a stun spell. Also there are lots of weird rules about whether the stun lands, or if the mob is immune, or level capped (exception to this being #6 below).

5. Melee gives a set amount of hate *per swing* regardless of whether you hit, miss, are dodged, parried, riposted, how much you hit for, and whether you get a critical hit (ie, how much damage you do per hit, and even if you hit at all, means nothing - it's a set amount of hate per swing).

The formula for how much hate you generate per swing is: damage + damage bonus (times hate mod, if applicable) = hate per swing.

6. The exception to ALL of these rules are what are called 'hate override' spells.
These are: SK Terror spells, pal crush and stun spells, war aggro disciplines.

*If you go to lucy.allakhazam.com, you will see these spells have a special 'hate generated' field, any spell with this field bypasses all other normal rules for hate generation and always gives the amount listed.

7. Hate mods (ie, from masks or buffs) add their listed % to *everything* that you do... spells, melee, healing, everything.

[Fysts]

Originally Posted by Fysts View Post
4. If you sit down WHILE you are on a mob hate list, you will infuriate the mob.\

Aggro can be broken down into Hate + bonus

The hate portion is what you would commonly call aggro by itself, this is
the actual value of hate you have.
The bonus part, varies with a few things, like distance to mob, if you are
sitting or not etc. The closest person to the mob gets a bonus for proximity
more than others. (Low hp aggro is also a result from a huge (would say
almost infinite) bonus)

What this basically means is, you can have less hate than a caster who is
sitting far away, and more aggro - but - when they sit for example, their
bonus takes them over you're total aggro, and the mob makes a beeline for
them.

Taunt as a skill, puts you to the top of the hate list. Chaining taunt when
you have aggro already is pretty much futile, it does nothing if you are the
one at the top. However, periodically taunting can be a good thing, as this
makes sure that its not just bonus thats keeping the mob fixed on you.

This is from old school everquest live, it specifically states sitting just modifies the hate you currently have generated on the mob.

Therefore, on a pull only proximity aggro mob would go after a person sitting, as both people would have generated 0 hate, but the sitting person bonus hate would make them the target. If warrior has 200 hate generated and healer generates say 170 hate then sits he draws aggro due to the sitting bonus, but HE HAS TO BE ON HATE LIST!

[Fysts]

did some testing again tonight. I did each of these multiple times to prove repeatability before coming here to post.

case 1 - Body pulling.

can body pull and bring mob into camp. Before mob has a chance to attack sitters I would engage with a taunt, bash, and attack. Even when taunt worked (got you will not evade me soandso) and even when bash landed and stunned them, and even when both of those worked and mob was attacked by my melee dmg before bash stun wore off, the mob will still attack sitter before returning to me.

In this case where the taunt landed, and then I was the only one to perform actions after mob was taunted and while it was stunned with bash, I should have been at the top of agro via taunt and well above anyone else with the bash and attack since no one had done anything to the mobs at this time.

Case 2 - Attacking mob with melee attack and bash.

In this case i would bash and then attack the mob with 1 melee round before bringing into camp. In most cases this would still result in the mob attacking ALL sitting players before coming back to me.

The only exception was if my bash and attack round did enough dmg to lower the mob past appox 85% hp.

case 3 - attacking mob for several rounds before pulling into camp.

If i soloed the mob to 50% of hp before then pulling back to group, it would stay on me and not attack any sitters.
If i soloed the mob to 85% of hp before then pulling back to group it may or may not attack sitters.
If i soloed the mob to 95% of hp before then pulling back to group it would still attack sitters before returning to me.

While this is by no means a viable way to pull as you will usually die trying to solo a mob before bringing in I was able to test this using a twink that could take the hits and do enough dmg.


This shows a few things to me. One is the sit agro is still way to high, on live a single attack was enough to hold the mob on you over sit agro. remember agro from melee attacks does not matter if you miss or hit. The other is sit agro is either so high or is not taking into consideration taunt or something else weird. I cant understand how the mobs are still attacking sitters even after a successful taunt, bash stun, and melee round.


i hope this helps =)

Only issue here is taunt will generate 0 aggro is noone else has generated aggro. All taunt does is give you the point value of the highest aggro on list. A warrior could actually have 800 aggro and hold aggro over say a cleric with 1000 aggro if he is tanking due to proximity aggro bonus, which i believe does not exist on p99 or atleast not in the correct form.

[Yoite]

the mob was already in camp enough that it the sitters were on the hate list. I know how taunt works and that is why i did a bash and attack after it as well.

Now if mob was in camp close enough to attack casters, and i taunted it at that point, i should be +1 over the sitters, and the bash and attack should have held it on me.

This case was much different than just a plain body pull (prox agro) with no further actions once mob is in camp

when you do just body agro and nothing else, when the mob comes in and attacks a sitter, it will continue to attack the sitter. In this case i preformed actions to build hate on it, yet it ignored my hate until it had attacked all sitters, once all sitters were attacked and standing, only then did it come back to me.

So the taunt bash attack did work somewhat in that it built hate and put me on the list, and at the top of the list too it would seem. However it still wanted to attack sitters 1st before being concerned with me.

[odiecat99]

Shit needs to be tweaked is the problem

[Fysts]

the mob was already in camp enough that it the sitters were on the hate list. I know how taunt works and that is why i did a bash and attack after it as well.

Now if mob was in camp close enough to attack casters, and i taunted it at that point, i should be +1 over the sitters, and the bash and attack should have held it on me.

This case was much different than just a plain body pull (prox agro) with no further actions once mob is in camp

when you do just body agro and nothing else, when the mob comes in and attacks a sitter, it will continue to attack the sitter. In this case i preformed actions to build hate on it, yet it ignored my hate until it had attacked all sitters, once all sitters were attacked and standing, only then did it come back to me.

So the taunt bash attack did work somewhat in that it built hate and put me on the list, and at the top of the list too it would seem. However it still wanted to attack sitters 1st before being concerned with me.


You are correct. When the mob came into camp and you intercepted it, technically all you needed to do was and attack and with proximity bonus the mob should never have went after the sitters. The thing they did not code right is that sit aggro is just a bonus on what hate you have already accumulated. By taunting you generated 0 hate, as noone sitting has actually produced any hate. It has been stated some mobs were flagged with a higher sit bonus/aggro modifier. Raid mobs in particular.

A sitting player should NEVER NEVER NEVER aggro a single pull mob, that was pulled with a spell or damage, UNTIL he has been added to the hate list by a spell on the mob or player. A sitting player SHOULD SHOULD SHOULD only have a chance of aggroing an incoming mob that was pulled by proximity, if the tank doesn't get in front of them and engage before mob is in camp. Proximity aggro was HUGE HUGE HUGE on live. Sitting Aggro radius was small also, except on raid mobs and undead, then it was roughly 2x the size. Also on animals for some odd reason.

[Nirgon]

Direct and indirect hate just ran so many bells when I saw that line.

I think faction hits need to be a result of direct hate only.

Not sure how to flesh this out codewise.

I'd rather people were able to suck in free faction for a while (AND BEFORE VELIOUS!) than we were missing out on proxy aggro tbh.

If this has brought other threat issues (like pets!) to the table? Great! It should! I also think of Haynar is having a particularly good day soon he will bang that shit out np.

Startin' to feel like some real EQ lately.

Hate aggro for sitting was always very high. You just did not sit around hostile NPCs, especially raid npcs.

[Yoite]

did a bit more testing and it would seem as once a mob has it in his mind hes going to attack a sitter, there isnt much to stop that action. Did some more intercepting of mobs today with just me and a shm. As i brought mob into camp (i would out run mob in most case) i would be close enough to shm so as to be in sit agro range, and as the mob came in i would bash and attack (no taunts this time).

before the mob could get to shm but was for sure heading to him, i stunned with bash for 11dmg, then double attacked for 34 and 48. This put the froglok mob at like 80% hp. even with a stun and double attack, and bringing the mob into 80% range, it still continued to move to shm and attack him and then come back to me after.

we repeated this some more but this was the best example of several actions vs mob and extreme dmg and it still continuing to attack sitter on inc.

[Danth]

The stun from bash doesn't add aggro like a spell stun does. You can pretty well ignore it. In addition I think most of what you're seeing is the rather flaky (read: seemingly low) aggro from normal melee attacks. The change to sit aggro seems to have brought that other potential issue more into the limelight.

Danth

[Honest]

I was in MM today on my 60 mage, was in the hallway before Xicotl room. I popped a pet then sat to mem sword of runes and thats when every mob in every room near me regardless of closed doors or line of sight jumped me, nearly died and had to gate. Somethings up.

[baalzy]

I was in MM today on my 60 mage, was in the hallway before Xicotl room. I popped a pet then sat to mem sword of runes and thats when every mob in every room near me regardless of closed doors or line of sight jumped me, nearly died and had to gate. Somethings up.

I was in MM on my 57 nec prior to the patch (last friday or saturday night i think) in the room just outside Xicotl (i saw Lasna casting and figure'd i'd murder her). I didn't go through the tunnel behind the room, instead I went through the main big room just outside the pool (xicotl) room. She agro'd me through the wall & caused everything else to add.

Additionally, all of the green living mobs still agro me if I have invis down.

Not sure if this is right or not. I know 2 years ago when Kunark first launched Lasna did not agro through the walls and I could just use rest the dead on undead mobs to get from Dhampyre to Lasnas room without catching any agro (not using the tunnel)

[Nirgon]

Mistmoore (inside the castle) going completely ape shit sounds about right lol

[odiecat99]

I was in MM today on my 60 mage, was in the hallway before Xicotl room. I popped a pet then sat to mem sword of runes and thats when every mob in every room near me regardless of closed doors or line of sight jumped me, nearly died and had to gate. Somethings up.

Los and pet pathing are also completely fkd up right now. My mage pet just floats through walls now rather than pathing correctly (was in sol a).

didnt have this issue prior as I camp sol a quite often for gimblox rings and pendants.
shits bad man.

[Honest]

Los and pet pathing are also completely fkd up right now. My mage pet just floats through walls now rather than pathing correctly (was in sol a).

didnt have this issue prior as I camp sol a quite often for gimblox rings and pendants.
shits bad man.

I was at top of stairs. but no in any of the rooms. Casted pet without problem, probably waited 5 seconds as i stared at other screen then sat down to mem Sword of Runes and immediately upon sitting I got agro. I dont Remember it being like that a year or more ago last time I was through here.