Reporting bugs in summon AI and necessary improvements. We've seen during maybe last 6 months a great deal of work put into developing AI for monsters and summons in the game.

Much has changed for the better, and a few changes have failed to change what they have intended. Also a few things have been ignored that are worth attention. There have also sprung up some new problems, tho most of them have been fixed in consequent updates.

I'm sure we all appreciate this work, but also many of us see the potential of this work if players could directly communicate actual issues in game to the AI developers.

I would like to collect in this topic discussion, opinions and discoveries of the problems with summon-AI that still need attention. The intention is to support the work on AI, guide it on problematic issues, attempt to pinpoint the problems and possibly even suggest solutions. The intention is not to criticize the work done on AI in this topic.

To bring more attention these issues i encourage everyone reading this topic to report these bugs and issues using tickets (yes even issues that do not concern you personally), which is maybe the most important tool Ankama has to become aware of the problems in the game and work on them.

Wyrmling has a bad habit of unbewitching allies when fighting fouxes rather than unbewitching the fouxes.

Gobballs will not necessarily stay next to the enemy when you place them if another enemy with weakness is nearby. This often ruins the intent of the placement as a block.

Osamodas should controll their summons exept chaferfu it would be easier

It would be far too overpowering.

-MaryMoo

It's a buff and kind of a nerf at the same time.

If osamodas can control creature everything will easily fall into plan and no timing skill would be needed since you can do as you like with the creature and that is overpowering. The bad thing is that what if the player lags out or goes afk? Basically the whole creature would just be standing there and you have harder time with srams because only the npc version of the creature can see the invisible object.

Bwork is indecisive and defensive. It will hit 2 monsters on one side then hit 4 monsters on its next hit. It also prefers to hit with the edge of it`s AoE then run away, i do not know if this is a feature, but it is pretty annoying because damage is significantly lower.

After the AI update concerning reflection, some summons refuse to attack targets with reflection. This is especially silly when using a summon that causes an effect besides the damage of the hit. (same peoblem probably applies to targets with high damage-resistance)

For example, gobball can not be used to prevent Xelor from teleporting or using flight. Also Crackler will not take ap and increase %resistance of allies, also mafus bwork will not pushback and steal mp. Wyrmling will not +dmg allies, and so on.

The strategical use of summons against targets with high resistance is very weakened, and the summons are simply useless in these cases, which simply is caused by very stupid AI.

Eventho this thread has been up for quite a while, it seems to me there are many more problems with AI still.

Biggest problem for osas now is: unbewitch of Wyrm.

It is upredictable, does not make sense, and much of the time incredibly stupid. Whatever the formula is for comparing buffs with debuffs on a character it's not working. The Wyrmling can unbewitch enemies with enormous debuffs and only small buffs, while an ally they may unbewitch with only small debuffs and multiple powerful buffs. The AI is so stupid, it even causes the Wyrm to unbewitch an ally with a vitality buff on low hp, this is same as instantly killing the ally. Another stupid thing it does is unbewitch ignorably small effects, for example -chance to avoid AP/MP removing. Many times the Wyrm chooses to unbewitch the wrong character, obvious example is when an ally will die without unbewitch or an enemy would die if unbewitched. Of course after the turn summoner summons Wyrm, there is even less controlling the unbewitching of the wyrm and it is completely based on AI. Overall the Wyrm Unbewitch-AI has many serious flaws, and it needs to be completely reworked.

Still remaining big problem: Summons lock themselves into enemies.

I'm sure everyone has noticed that this is still far from solved. Typical example is Wyrm moving next to enemy and cause itself to be locked. It can do this even when it would have the MP to attack from range. Wyrm, Magus, Prespic and other summons that can attack from range should quite obviously never move next to an enemy who locks them. Several reasons can be mentioned; first they completely lose control of the battlefield, they can nolonger use attack or other spells freely, so often they become effectively useless. Secondly the summons have low HP, which usually means lockdown comes with instant death, but even if they had high HP they would still have no protective value being locked next to enemy. Third, when locked to enemy they give no protective value except for the enemy. The enemy can use them as a block of LOS, and even more often a block of another character moving into CC, when locked they become puppets of the locker, not the summoner.
All summons that can work from range should only have one AI available, which makes them avoid moving next to a locking target at all times. Magus with pushback should only move to a locking target if it can be pushed back. Even with enemies that can not lock the summon, the summon should avoid ending turn directly next to the enemy in most cases. Locking the enemy will only cause the enemy to kill the summon, which is easy unless the summon has 1000+ hp, which would make it survive a few turns.

Common problem with AI: they do not take into account other characters when moving.

Instead the block LOS and path of other summons and allies, even if the summon/ally is clearly stronger. There are some cases that are a bit unclear, like Gobball blocking movement of Magus. Yet many cases are very obvious, like Tofu blocking movement or LOS of Crackler or Wyrmling. This stupidity of blocking commonly causes problems. In a typical situation a Gobball, Magus and Crackler can move next to a target. However Gobball and Magus will block the Crackler. Even a smart Osa who can see the situation, and who decides to kill one summon to avoid this, only can kill 1 summon with Whip. In PVP this often leads to death because of stupid AI.

A smaller but constant problem: Summons running too far away.

Currently the summons run too far away from enemies to be useful in any way, this applies most of all to Wyrming, but also to Magus, Crackler and Prespic when MP-buffed. Once summon runs away from enemies so that they will be unable to reach them for several turns, this is even worse than if they would only pass turn. Because they keep running they take time but have no effect in the battle. When the summon also moves away from summoner, then it will neither be able to protect the summoner, nor attack the enemies for several turns.
The obvious solution to this AI would be to have the summons stay close to the summoner. If the summon has an AI that makes it run away, it should still stay close to the summoner. Good reason to this is that if the summoner decides to go into attack, the summons can then support the summoner, and if the summoner decides to run away like the summons, then the summons will also move away but still be able to protect their summoner. If the summmoner choses not to run away from the enemy, then why should the summons run away and leave the summoner fighting alone? In case the summon cannot move closer to summoner without moving into enemies, then the summon should atleast try to stay at about same distance from the enemies as the summoners distance form the enemies. Naturally if summoner is being attacked, then a summon running away is only a waste, instead it should immediately start attacking too. Moreover a summon very far away from summoner is out of range for Whip and healing and buff spells.

Smaller AI problems:

Magus attack-AI is not working properly. It often fails to use maximum AoE to do greated damage to enemies. Instead of attacking multiple enemies it might just attack one for no reason. It also fails to combine Tornado with Serial Lightning to cause maximum damage. It often pushes a target out of the AoE then hits the remaining targets with AoE, instead of pushing a target towards the center of the AoE and doing maximum damage. It also sometimes chooses not to attack at all, or not attack when it could hit a target at the edge of the AoE, for example when target is behind an obstacle but the AoE effect could still reach it.

Magus and Boar suffer from stupid pushback-AI. In many situations it is not obvious how the AI should act, but there are also situations where pushing target is the obvious wrong thing to do. Boar AI however seems to have had some improvement as it usually chooses to push target back as many squares as possible instead of pushing it into a wall etc.

Stupidity against reflection. Summons seem to properly take into account the damage they do against reflection and often do the right choice in avoiding attack. However the summons do not take into account spell-effects. For example Boar chooses not to push back, which ofc is very stupid as the damage it does is ignorably small. Also Gobball should attack when it can inflict the Gravity-state, especially since the usual target with reflection is a Xelor, who use 2 spells that can be prevented with Gravity. Magus should also attack when able to pushback, and Crackler always because of AP removing and +resistance buff.

This will be enough issues for now, and probably the most important ones.

My prespic now thinks its a great idea to walk right beside the enemy right after ap-raping. Gobbs still don't attack through counters.