FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

[Melody]

Ok, I'm pretty sure that I've played Starcraft and I know what a zergling rush is, but did SE seriously take a page from Blizzard? I'e been doing duty quest and I get through them a good 80% of the time. The 10% is those pants on head retarded zerg duty quest. There were quite a few that pissed me off and some of them had me almost wanting to throw my controller at my damn 70 inch. Some examples of quest below.

https://pay.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ala_mhigo_lnc/

The guy was a LNC and hard trouble, I found the same issue as the Ai didn't wish to cooperate and didn't even respond to the /beckon command prompted in the game to move NPC's out of aggro range.

Now granted I was doing this on Arcanist and I was leveled and I got through it just fine, but now I can see his frustration at the current quest I am on. Usually it's not your fault, but when the Ai doesn't pick up on things such as being low on health and keeps on fighting what is to stop a player from rage quitting?

I am currently doing the last Arcanist Quest. Level 30 you sneak onto the ship and what not, your NPC partner is in disguise. Then the battle commences. When you begin the fight it tells you your Vulnerability is buffed. So that's cool, but what they don't tell you is the zerg rush that happens AFTER you take down the main crew which then consist of what I saw (due to the chaos) of 3 lancers behind you, a PUG to your front along with another LNC. To you right is a GLD who is spamming sword skills and then a THM who is behind him using Stone II. Now that part is fine. After you kill the main crew then shit really hits the fan.

Carbuncle who is an ARCs main buddy (cool little blue/yellow rat/mouse/pikachu thing) can only focus on one person at a time, even in tank form he won't switch targets unless commanded and even if commanded he will jump back to the last target he attacked if prompted to a new one. That being said I found myself heal bombing Carby while trying to keep myself alive, keep my NPC OUT of weaponskill rushes and then trying to keep myself from being zerged to death.

I have to say when fighting along the NPCs they have a bit of an issue of standing in one place and taking the heat (yeah that's cool) but let them at least try to move out of harms way during a red weaponskill lock. Watching your NPC get ripped to pieces by 4 LNC's isn't fun at all.

I'm not sure how you guys are fairing but I am a bit pissed at how some of these NPCs work with the player. Also even with echo you can't faceroll through the bosses (which is what I don't want) but at the same time I don't feel like being stuck in limbo on a quest that requires you to divert your attention to babysitting an NPC who should be well enough capable on their own.

I'm not saying SE did a bad job, but I think some of the boss/duty quest are a bit....much so to speak, depending on your class.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

I'm confused ... are you talking about class quests, FATEs, or what? Depending on what it is, I can answer your question. Class quests require certain tricks and you need to figure them out (or check with those that got past it ) FATEs, all of them, cannot (or should not) be soloed and if the mechanics seem wonky because you're doing it by yourself, then you should try to find others to help you with it. Any other quests, like I said, I can't really help unless you can break it down to a specific quest.

(You have a cure spell as an Arcanist, so please use it, because if you're not, then you're doing it wrong (tm))

Edit:

I just saw an important point you made:

"In tank form he won't switch targets unless commanded and even if commanded he will jump back to the last target he attacked if prompted to a new one."

Now, whether intentional or not, if you've ever played a pet class in WoW, then you should know that you need to (a) put pet on passive mode (always) (b) STOP pet from currently attacking, before issuing another command (c) as a pet class, you need to be able to micro-manage your pets, because that is the whole point of the class.

I can't say for certain if there are bugs or not, but it does sound like you've not completely grasp your class just yet, so you may want to create some macros for the control of your pet, ask around for opinions from other Arcanists and practice, practice, practice.

[Melody]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

Please do not make WoW comparisons, it's shameful. 2nd I have Carbuncle's moves all set up on my controller, so managing him isn't the issue as much as it is the Ai for him not taking commands. I've played Puppetmaster for 5 years on XI, and I knew how to weaponskill with my Automaton so that's not an issue as far as micro-management goes. The only real thing I am having trouble with is managing the flow of the battle and I also mentioned to you before I am keeping myself alive, Carbuncle and another NPC while keeping the flow and watching 6-7 Mobs at a time. Yes Carbuncle is a beast of a tank, but it does him no good if he can't stay alive. What my point is, is from my experiences with the Ai partners they're not the brightest at keeping themselves alive and usually when you see epic heroes and stuff from other games they know what they're doing and can handle themselves pretty damn well. An example, when Cloud/Leon come in and help you in Kingdom Hearts 2. You don't have to worry about them much, or better yet Donald/Goofy considering they're your partners. Going past all the technical jargon of (different ai scripts, blah blah blah) the point is, is that sometimes I find it hard to keep synergy with the Ai if they can't keep themselves alive while I am off trying to take care of myself and Carbuncle.

[DakAttack]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

I didn't have trouble with that particular fight; I kept Carbuncle and myself inside the bubble and fared well enough. I did have trouble with the fight on the bridge for the soggy grimoire. There, the AI seemed to make poor decisions left and right. The two non-arcanist NPCs would rush the far side of the bridge, well beyond where the enemy NPCs would spawn, so that they wouldn't be any help with the second and third waves. Sometimes a waved spawned and immediately aggro'd me. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, and just came back one level later and burned through it real quick.

[Firewind]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

In those fights you are supposed to let the NPCs tank. Pull out DPS Carby and wait for the NPCs to establish aggro. They will cure you and your pets too.

If you just charge straight in in those fights you WILL die horribly.

[DakAttack]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

In those fights you are supposed to let the NPCs tank. Pull out DPS Carby and wait for the NPCs to establish aggro. They will cure you and your pets too.

If you just charge straight in in those fights you WILL die horribly.

Theory and practice may sometimes differ.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

Please do not make WoW comparisons, it's shameful.

LOL ... okay. Apparently you're being an elitist jerk in here makes it all better.

2nd I have Carbuncle's moves all set up on my controller, so managing him isn't the issue as much as it is the Ai for him not taking commands. I've played Puppetmaster for 5 years on XI, and I knew how to weaponskill with my Automaton so that's not an issue as far as micro-management goes. The only real thing I am having trouble with is managing the flow of the battle and I also mentioned to you before I am keeping myself alive, Carbuncle and another NPC while keeping the flow and watching 6-7 Mobs at a time. Yes Carbuncle is a beast of a tank, but it does him no good if he can't stay alive. What my point is, is from my experiences with the Ai partners they're not the brightest at keeping themselves alive and usually when you see epic heroes and stuff from other games they know what they're doing and can handle themselves pretty damn well. An example, when Cloud/Leon come in and help you in Kingdom Hearts 2. You don't have to worry about them much, or better yet Donald/Goofy considering they're your partners. Going past all the technical jargon of (different ai scripts, blah blah blah) the point is, is that sometimes I find it hard to keep synergy with the Ai if they can't keep themselves alive while I am off trying to take care of myself and Carbuncle.

There's a lot of factors into your fight but there are things you can do to prepare ahead of time. As already outlined by others here, on Reddit, on FFXIV Pads, etc., there are times when you have to let the NPCs take aggro before you do anything. Take for instance Limsa Lominsa level 15 Main Story Duty. If you rush in (as a MRD) and use Overpower, you're toast. Yet, in the level 25 Duty for MRD's quest, if you DON'T use Overpower on all those mobs, you'll fail your duty (your NPC companion that was so tough and strong in the level 5 Duty all of a sudden becomes wet toilet paper here - and that's intentional, because they're showing you through the story that YOU are the one that's getting stronger, because you're the (cliche) hero here)

You said you know how to use weaponskills on your pet. That's not what I was asking. I was asking if you know how to use ALL of the commands that Carby has. For example, do you ever use the "move here" command, or do you physically move YOURSELF to a spot to make Carby move? Do you use that command to get Carby out of enemy conal or aoe attacks? Most players I've seen don't do jack squat with their Carby, and instead, use the temporary lolOP status (because SE will nerf it at some point, but not with their network issues still hanging over their heads) as an excuse to not do anything. That's just one ability in the arsenal of your pet. TBH, Carby is way overpowered, and in the hands of the right player, they could exploit the shit outta this game and probably solo many dungeons.

I brought up WoW, because the moves that Carby currently has (which did not exist in FFXI btw) are exact templates ripped out of Blizzard's game. Since you're allergic to that game, you probably didn't know, but it existed for the Hunter class and I played that class for 8+ years, so I should know what I'm talking about.

[Firewind]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

Maybe you also shouldn't say that ARC/SMN is an exact copy of Warlock from WoW. And the THM/BLM takes many of the control elements from the Mage from WoW and Sith Sorceror from SWTOR. Though then again WoW Mage and SWTOR Sorc is were based on D&D Wizards anyway.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

Oh, I'm not arguing lineage, but the fact that Arcanist (that I played with so far) reminded me so much of my Hunter in WoW that I felt right at home. It's nothing like Warlocks in WoW because they have very limited control over their pets. However, Hunters got full control over their pets, and being able to customize their pets with the talent system took it even further. In that respect, the Arcanist class is somewhat similar and yet not as "advanced" as the Hunter class from WoW, but then again, we've still not resolved the issue about the possible appearance of the Beastmaster class in FFXIV ARR.

Here is the Hunter that I used to look up to when I was really into WoW.

[Melody]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

It's alright Firewind. I've moved my questions and such over to another forum. I'm too much of an elitist so it seems to be here.

[Firewind]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

I've honestly found a lot of the game's difficulty is quite fair like with Dark Souls and Demon Souls. Occasionally you do fall victim to a bug or a lag spike, and EU players will suffer from latency issues no matter what server they play on, but a lot of the time death does seem to be down to player error. My best suggestion is to keep practising with Carby Micromanagement. Some of the stuff you can pull off with pets in this game is pretty insane and rivals SWTOR in some of the crazy stuff you can attempt.

[Aeni]

Re: FFXIV: ARR - Wonky Ai and Starcraft Tactics

Don't waste your breath, Firewind, because he apparently "thinks he's too good to take advice from others" and would rather place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Square-Enix for creating a "buggy" game. Good players tend to (a) figure out how to play their class better and (b) figure out how the mechnics of duties, boss fights, etc., works. They don't come in with guns blazing, quoting anecdotes from Reddit, and essentially telling Square-Enix that their shit doesn't work.

If there's a legitimate bug, then 9 times out of 10, other players will encounter the same issue. I looked over his examples and many of those stories were countered by people who have had success and they did provide solutions, but apparently they weren't deemed "acceptable" to this generation of gamers that want it now, want it perfect and want it the way they want it.