Finally! (beat the ambush!)

[itastelikelove]

http://te4.org/characters/692/tome/5254 ... 1cc000edf0

This cute little guy was finally the one to do it. He also managed to unlock the Mindslayer class for me. Let's hear it for Geek the Yeek!

Used Movement to get into a spot where only the fighters could get to me, then built a wall of summoned critters around myself. I was fine for most of the fight (could have benefited from an extra point or two in Resilience, perhaps), but still had to use the Movement/Rest trick to recover a couple of cooldowns once. I'm not proud. Or dead.

Anyway, that's definitely the best I've done in that fight so far, despite some buggy AIs, and a couple of less-than-perfect decisions.

Woohoo!

Now let's see if i can get this guy to the final fight before the next beta comes out and distracts me.

[yufra]

Nice job! How are you finding the tactical AI for summons in beta21?

[itastelikelove]

Nice job! How are you finding the tactical AI for summons in beta21?

Buggy. I hear the problem of things running away is being fixed, so that's good. Other than that the biggest problem is with targeting. I'm not sure if it happens on it's own, or if it's only after I've used the 'Give Order' option to target, but sometimes new summons will appear already targeting a creature that no longer exists. And then they just stand around without doing anything. I can always manually target them again, but they still lose that first turn's action, and it's a huge pain to check every time I drop a new summon.

I would also like to see a little more intelligence for targeting AoE talents. If there's an ally in the way, my Hydra won't use any breath attacks, even if there are lots of other targets in a slightly different direction. Sometimes (i think) even if they could hit the target, but not the ally, by firing at a different angle. I feel like summons with AoE attacks should be able to do some target-of-opportunity re-selecting of targets. Maybe if a preferred talent (as set in the Tactical Talents Usage option) is available but can't be aimed at the current target, it should do a check for maximum number of targets that can be affected, and fire in that direction.

I would also like it if summons could remember invisible targets, especially if there aren't any other targets around. If there's a mummy wrapping down a hallway and nothing else in sight, for example, summons will just walk toward it when it's visible and back to me when it's not. If they have no other target, they should search the area, or fire an AoE ability in that direction. I suppose that could possibly be a problem if they can't tell the difference between something going invisible and something teleporting away, but if I can tell which of those things the enemy just did, shouldn't my summons be able to as well?

It might be nice to have an option to allow summons to hit other summons with their AoEs, as well. Sometimes I really wouldn't mind having my hydra vaporize a War Hound in order to hit the boss for a few hundred extra damage.

And elemental immunities...This doesn't come up too often, but I just did the orc pride with all the dragons, and it can be a big deal there. When there are huge crowds of storm and fire drake hatchlings, it would be nice if my hydra made an effort to hit more of the ones that will actually take damage when it uses its Lightning breath.

Getting your summons to do the right thing on the first turn is another big one. It could be nice to have an option to Give Orders immediately upon summoning. That way, you can make sure that the one shot your Hydra gets off before that swarm of archers murders it is pointed in the right direction. Actually, a better way to do it would be creating an interface to Give (some) Orders (especially talent use and some behavior settings. targeting wouldn't really make sense) to any of your summons without having to summon them.

As a general suggestion, I would say that making the AI as smart as you can will help, BUT giving the player more options for customizing the AI will probably make the biggest difference in the end. The AI will never be smart enough to know what the player wants, and what the player wants WILL change in different situations. Sometimes I want my hydra to breathe over my other summons - sometimes that well-placed minotaur is too important to get hit by some other summon's wild blasting.

[Snarvid]

Anyone tired of getting confused by their own Minotaur?

But grats on the win.