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*Spoilers ahead*

Act 4, Arx. Sewer fight.

With Isbeil.

During the fight Justinia can assist you, but she's not considered an "ally". So all attacks from you that normally ignore allies will affect her, and vice versa.

Problem is, Justinia doesn't give a whit if you're in the way of her AoE attacks. So if she hits a party member, and they have Retribution, she will take reflected damage, and THIS MAKES HER HOSTILE, forcing you to fight her too. Running away then coming back doesn't clear the hostile flag.

It's not such a big deal, all in all, but I don't understand how an issue like this was never noticed and fixed. It's so freaking obvious and is a bother when it happens.

Last edited by Try2Handing; 02/10/18 05:07 PM.

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I was retrying the fight and here's something else:

[Linked Image]

It's the combat log from my game.

"Queen Justinia used Battering Ram on Deathfog Crate"

...

But... why...?

I don't think this needs any explanation for why it is so absurd.

The Battering Ram hit my Lohse, and, well, the Deathfog Crate. All remaining enemies were in the opposite direction. Justinia died. Lohse would've died too, but this one time it bugged out and she was lying in the deathfog, alive.

Now, if Justinia realized that Lohse was having Shackles of Pain on an enemy, and wanted to take advantage of the piercing damage from the deathfog to kill that enemy, that would actually be pretty deep. But she also could've just basic attacked them, since I had gone through all the trouble of teleporting enemies to right next to her. And she *probably* forgot that she was NOT immune to deathfog.

Last edited by Try2Handing; 02/10/18 06:45 PM.

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That's a problem with AI (neutral AI/charmed/mad). AI don't have the concept of friendly fire. Instead they consider player is a legit target. If AI ultimately can do damage to the enemy, they don't mind hurting the players or your companions.

Neutral AI and Retribution is a problem. I have seen neutral AI casting Reactive Armor hurting enemy and my character. I am not 100% sure my character have Retribution but I the Paladin AI is being aggro once (warning text is displayed).

Last edited by Core One; 02/10/18 05:45 PM.
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I remember that in classic edition Justinia allows you one or two friendly-fire attacks. She will give the warning "Watch what you're doing, idiot."and won't turn hostile right away. Other neutral NPC's when in combat behave in the same manner, I think.

Now in the DE Justinia doesn't allow friendly-fire at all, apparently, even though she does give the same warning. Any attack you land on her including Retribution damage will make her hostile.

Last edited by Try2Handing; 02/10/18 06:45 PM.

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Originally Posted by Core One
That's a problem with AI (neutral AI/charmed/mad). AI don't have the concept of friendly fire. Instead they consider player is a legit target. If AI ultimately can do damage to the enemy, they don't mind hurting the players or your companions.

ooh, I like it. I have the same view on the game. if I can kill enemies I have no problem killing all friendly targets nearby laugh and sometimes I deliberately kill friends with 1 ap spell to proc executioner.


as for justinia, the only problem I saw when I had a fight(from a point that you want to let her survive) is that you can't use teleport on her (it damages her), though nether swap works I think. though I've never though about letting her live after all she did. even if she was deceived. so I haven't tried.

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The AI logic with charm/mad/taunted needs an overhaul.

Last time I had Lohse casting the Madding Song to two enemies. These two enemies are next to each other. I suppose they would attack each other where they were standing. To my surprise, one of the enemy in mad state (they have wings) flied to another location and casted Laser Ray, it strike through my companion first and the hit the other enemy.

Yeah they are in mad status but their mindset is very clear that: I want to hurt you too!

Last edited by Core One; 03/10/18 06:43 PM.
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I think what Mad really does is that it simply adds all combatants in that fight, allies and enemies alike, to the list of "valid targets" for the mad character to consider. It doesn't simply make enemies attack one another. Mad enemies will still go for the most vulnerable targets, finish off whom they can, and try to maximize the efficiency of their attacks. If they see that they can finish off one of your party members, chances are they will go for it, even if that character is far away.

As for Taunted, it seems to just increase the priority of attacking the taunting character, but then you have no idea how effective that is, exactly. In one fight, I had Beast taunt an enemy and stand right in front of it. When it took its turn, it turned around and threw a ranged attack on someone else in my party who was on high ground and at a distance, ignoring Beast altogether. The way Taunted works clearly favors enemies.

As for Charmed, the problem with Charmed that I perceive, is that enemies seem to be much less effective with their attacks when they're charmed, compared to when they're not. I get the impression that they tend to waste a lot of AP on walking around.

Of course, when your own party members are charmed or taunted, more often than not they move with unholy cleverness and efficiency.


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The description of Madding song makes me think that they will just attack each other where they were standing.
Sing, causing characters in your target area to become Mad. Maddened characters will attack those nearest them, regardless of alignment.
In fact the enemy mindset is very thoughtful, not quite 'Mad' at all.

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For Maddening Song, recently, I tried it on the final battle with Lucian and Dallis. They are next to each other. The result is disappointing, Lucian ignored the Mad status and attack my companion (the closed target should be Dallis).

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That's why if you have 2 AP to spare, just go for Love Grenade or Terror Grenade or Mind Maggot Grenade. No point in bothering with the iffy "Mad" status.

Except for Fane's game-changer Time Warp and Sebille's Break the Shackles, the other origin characters' unique source skills kinda suck, tbh, considering they all cost SP. I'd rather go with the Dome of Protection from a custom character - cheap, consistent, reliable, and most importantly, it works as you expect it to.

Last edited by Try2Handing; 18/10/18 09:17 PM.

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I got free SP to use at the final battle. The point of using Maddneing Song is to make sure they attack the enemy closest to them, instead of having them to move and attack other target further away.

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There is almost no such thing as "make sure someone attacks a specific someone." Without certain conditions, such as someone is one basic attack away from death and it's most certainly that they will be targeted, or a melee character is rooted and you know for certain they can't do anything else other than attacking a character right next to them.

After you have used Charm enough in combat, you'll realize that, you have NO idea how AI selects their targets. And Mad is even more finicky than Charmed.

Last edited by Try2Handing; 19/10/18 04:32 AM.

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That is the problem of the game. The effect of Maddening Song does not match with the description.
https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Maddening+Song

Sing, causing characters in your target area to become Mad. Maddened characters will attack those nearest them, regardless of alignment. (Maddening Song now targets only enemy characters as of Patch v3.0.168.526)

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Yeah that description probably represents their initial idea about what the skill does, but unfortunately the way AI works doesn't quite facilitate that.

Honestly, I get the impression that even though Larian pay a lot of attention to the aesthetics of their games as well as to building an interesting world with hidden objects and secrets and all that, they don't spend nearly as much time playing their own game seriously or very thoroughly - as *gamers*. It explains all the inconsistencies in the way things work, questionable mechanics, dumbed-down and half-finished systems, blatant balance issues, QoL issues, as well as the lack of original and unique character "builds".

Think about all the headache with Sir Lora and most recently the addition of the mini HP/armor bars that pop up whenever characters get hit by skills. As someone who has done my fair share of modding in video games, to me there's only one explanation for why such things happen: you don't play the game after implementing your own stuff.


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This was sadly already during the demonstration of EE obvious, that the devs don't really play the games. They prepared a few scenes, but the team they used for it never felt 'organic', not to mentioned that they were net well at playing those scenes. No feeling for combat and characters.

Also many of the issues of this game prove it over and over, just remembering the old attribute system gives me issues.

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justinia probably shouldn't be considered a neutral AI in this instance; you're both fighting the same enemy, she should be on your side, at least for the moment

i don't mind how neutral AI behave in this game, but that's a pretty glaring issue


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