AVATAR OF WAR: “OKAY, NOW WHO AM I SUPPOSED TO HIT AGAIN?” [Author: Tick]

Except is wasn’t, like, a bug. They put it there on purpose…

In the June 27th patch message, Absor posted (among other things):

– Aggro Changes: We’ve made an adjustment to the way that NPCs choose their targets. It’s a rather simple change, one that makes a lot of sense. But we want you to be aware of it so that it won’t surprise you too much, and so that you won’t think that it is a bug. NPCs are now much more aware of the vulnerability (or, more precisely, the invulnerability) of their targets. NPCs will now be very unlikely to waste their time attacking a target that they can’t harm.

Well, it appears that perhaps instead of making the aggro AI a little more dynamic, they added a single line: If pet=TRUE, attack pet. This works just fine when the pet is one of your standard summoned throwaway jobs with fewer hit points than the meatshields it’s attacking along side of. Pet dies fast, stops doing damage. On the other hand, when an Enchanter brings a high level giant (some of which have between three and five TIMES the number of hit points of a high level Warrior) into the fold against a mob like the AoW, it can make the encounter a “trivial” one, if you call having 75 people die between one and three times each “trivial.”

Okay, so now it aquires “bug” status. But don’t worry, Absor won’t ban you for it:

I know the next question, and let me answer it right now. This is a new bug, and it could be argued with some conviction that players using it to their advantage were unaware that it wasn’t purposeful code change. In the case of the abuse of safe zones, it is well known that using such locations is against our rules. It can’t be reasonably argued that any player with a character over 50th level doesn’t understand that.

The emphasis is mine; see, they meant to have NPCs target the pets (and the classes that summon them), ’cause that’s supposed to make it harder. When it turns out that simply targeting pets is a two-edged sword, well- they didn’t mean that other bit. They won’t ban you for it, though.

This time.

I hope they told their GMs that.