Mechanist proves that AI pets can work. Shouldn't be something judged off of Vanilla AI development

[Knighthonor.4061]

Mechanist proves AI can work.

The old vanilla AI minions may been poorly designed,  but that's because the development philosophy was much more conservative back then. Lot of Anti-W** stuff going on in the original development.

 

I bring this up, because before EoD I would see a lot of arguments against AI, especially for the request for a AI themed elite spec for classes like Necromancer.  Most people assume it wouldn't work because the Necro Minions are so badly designed. But yeah it can if developers truly focus on making it work. 

 

[Serephen.3420]

You mean if you overload too much power onto the AI pet right? 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Serephen.3420
Typo

[Wolfb.7025]

15 minutes ago, Serephen.3420 said:

You mean if you overload too much power onto the AI oet right? 

Literally this.

The only difference between jade mech and necro minions is that the jade mech does 20k dps by itself and minions hits by like 500 damage per hit This has nothing to do with Artificial intelligence.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Wolfb.7025

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Mech is not comparable because the engineer trade all his toolbelt skill and an entire branch just for a pet. 

So yeah, Anet had give the Mech a lot of power and utility to compensate for everything that's been lost. Otherwise why play a spec that reduces your own firepower to give it to a mech when you could play something like Holosmith and have all the power to yourself without relying on an AI.

 

But if you look at the Mech AI, it isnt any better than any other AI. Just use melee weapon on the mech and ask him to attack a mob that's barely a foot above the mech height and you'll see him take a long trip to somewhere just to get to the target. And god forbid if the target jumps down. The differences only rely on the power it deals when it can hit

[Minax.3284]

If we take the (arguably over-the-top) power of the mech out of the picture for a little while, and just focus on its mechanical design, I think it works real well. You can change its loadout with your traits; make it melee or ranged; power, condi or support - lots of ways to tailor it to your playstyle; you can force-move it with Shift Signet which helps dealing with AI quirks every now and then. The elite skill can be a DPS increase or an emergency re-summon, so there's some minor decision-making involved in when to use it. It also feels like it gets stuck in combat or on terrain way less often than ranger pets. 

From a design perspective, I think the Mech is a perfect example of a good pet-focused spec and I'd love to see a similar treatment for other pet-focused classes.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Minax.3284
typos

[Zyreva.1078]

7 hours ago, Minax.3284 said:

From a design perspective, I think the Mech is a perfect example of a good pet-focused spec and I'd love to see a similar treatment for other pet-focused classes.

There is nothing well designed about mech. It is just op (in PvE) and faceroll and shouldn't even exist in it's current state.

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

it can actually ruin your runs by taking aggro. ankka cm final phase, the uhh 2bear strike, although not important it happens.

the mech randomly despawns sometimes when using shift signet or rifle 5. (it seems to happen more often with long range leaps)

it also gets stuck on random terrain islands, blocks etc (skorvald in fractal99)

you have to constantly babysit it by spamming f7 so it doesnt get stuck on a rando trash mob

 

its a dumb pet class

[prototypedragon.1406]

I get it now why Warrior Hammer and maces in World versus World are the way they are now. They are now  AI you carry in your hands but instead of getting compensation or damage boosts the AI's gears are gunked up from the sticky fingers from the year 2020 so all they make is revving sounds and sputters. It all makes sense now.🤯

[Infusion.7149]

If the Mechanist specialization had more traits that were active when the mech isn't active it would be a more interesting spec IMO. Right now the mech is rather low on management of the mech besides "return to me" if it is out of position while ranged. The melee condi mech deserves extra DPS but the ranged version with Jade Cannons doesn't ; the heal mech doesn't really need DPS so it is fine if a melee mech pumping out might doesn't have high DPS uptime.

If you want to see just how bad the spec design is, just play Mechanist underwater without J-Drive. It turns into a core engineer without a traitline. If the mech did far less damage (say 4K or so instead of upwards of 12K+) while using the ranged trait and had the damage loaded onto skills it would be better. If you look at ranger pets the ranged ones generally are lower DPS. If it were up to me I would just drop the damage on all the ranged mech skills and the autoattack as well to be less than 5K DPS auto-ing before skill usage. According to SC rifle mech benchmark the contribution of the ranged mech is 14.6K currently which is extremely high considering you can autocast mech skills (and just about 40% of the full benchmark). That's comparable to a melee autoattack on some specs.

Rangers don't have this problem and neither do necromancers. Necromancers still have scourge spec carrying them (harbinger is arguably harder due to shroud management) and rangers still have condi shortbow soulbeast to fallback on.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[wasss.1208]

I am sometimes forced to play Mechanist, because I'm too lazy to swap characters, whenever the team needs alacrity... and let me tell you, if they gave me a trait, that turns the mech into a ventari tablet, I would pick that all day, every day. It irks me to no end, that the AI sometimes feel like it wants to yeet itself 2000 units away from me, wait for a few seconds, then maybe return. Especially, when the team is all stacked, and we want to preboon. Or when on 99cm 1st boss I can't give stab and aegis to my team, because it permanently laggs behind us, or I can't give might/fury at the start of the burn phase, because the mech didn't port back to the main platform, and get into position. I also hate the fact, that I had to bind F6 F7, because that is the only way to make sure, that it is on me, because it sometimes decide to stand on the other side of the boss.

The mech currently proves one single thing: if something is OP, people will flock to it.

[prototypedragon.1406]

Next elite spec for warrior can I get AI that follows me and I can pick them up and hit the enemy with them or trait to throw them as projectiles?

[felix.2386]

when FF14 is deleting AI skills from classes.

anet is making more.

 

AI just shouldnt be the main mechanics in game.

may as well just sell bots at this point.

[prototypedragon.1406]

Oh but they do sell jade bots skins but no one ever sees them kinda like horses in tyrian except for that one jackal skin🤣😂

[Sobx.1758]

On 9/8/2022 at 7:25 AM, Knighthonor.4061 said:

Mechanist proves AI can work.

The old vanilla AI minions may been poorly designed,  but that's because the development philosophy was much more conservative back then. Lot of Anti-W** stuff going on in the original development.

 

I bring this up, because before EoD I would see a lot of arguments against AI, especially for the request for a AI themed elite spec for classes like Necromancer.  Most people assume it wouldn't work because the Necro Minions are so badly designed. But yeah it can if developers truly focus on making it work.

Explain how you think mechanist works "because of the mech AI" (and not because of stupidly inflated numbers on mech).

Edited September 10, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[draxynnic.3719]

On 9/9/2022 at 3:07 AM, Infusion.7149 said:

If the Mechanist specialization had more traits that were active when the mech isn't active it would be a more interesting spec IMO. Right now the mech is rather low on management of the mech besides "return to me" if it is out of position while ranged. The melee condi mech deserves extra DPS but the ranged version with Jade Cannons doesn't ; the heal mech doesn't really need DPS so it is fine if a melee mech pumping out might doesn't have high DPS uptime.

If you want to see just how bad the spec design is, just play Mechanist underwater without J-Drive. It turns into a core engineer without a traitline. If the mech did far less damage (say 4K or so instead of upwards of 12K+) while using the ranged trait and had the damage loaded onto skills it would be better. If you look at ranger pets the ranged ones generally are lower DPS. If it were up to me I would just drop the damage on all the ranged mech skills and the autoattack as well to be less than 5K DPS auto-ing before skill usage. According to SC rifle mech benchmark the contribution of the ranged mech is 14.6K currently which is extremely high considering you can autocast mech skills (and just about 40% of the full benchmark). That's comparable to a melee autoattack on some specs.

Rangers don't have this problem and neither do necromancers. Necromancers still have scourge spec carrying them (harbinger is arguably harder due to shroud management) and rangers still have condi shortbow soulbeast to fallback on.

My gut reaction is 'don't engineers have holo and scrapper to fall back on', but I'm guessing part of your point is that scourge and soulbeast are meta (albeit not as meta as mechanist), while scrapper and holosmith really aren't, so engineer falls down completely in situations where metanist falls due to design and/or AI flaws?

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

My gut reaction is 'don't engineers have holo and scrapper to fall back on', but I'm guessing part of your point is that scourge and soulbeast are meta (albeit not as meta as mechanist), while scrapper and holosmith really aren't, so engineer falls down completely in situations where metanist falls due to design and/or AI flaws?

Ranger and necro are also "pet classes" in that they actually have traits for the pets and minions (unlike say elementalist where the elementals are just a convoluted utility skill or elite, or renegade where the "minions" are temporary).

The difference is they don't hinge on the pet entirely. Imagine if the entire beastmastery line or death magic line were all minion traits. It's just poor design.

It's also important if you're filling the alacrity role and have to do the underwater fractal since you can't apply alacrity without mace and the mech (via barrier engine and the crisis zone skill).

Both scourge and soulbeast are exceedingly strong underwater but that isn't due to pets ; they both aren't filling a support role either unlike quickness harbinger or alacrity untamed / alacrity druid.

If you fill alacrity in a fractal group you are more or less going to swap to alacrity renegade underwater or alacrity tempest for underwater content (aquatic). Alacrity mirage doesn't work because staff ambushes, alac chrono is horrible to play due to the wells and so is alac specter. See https://discretize.eu/builds/engineer/heal-mechanist/
 

Quote

When underwater, Heal Alacrity Mechanist is unplayable due to your Jade Mech skills not being availible, which leaves you with a couple of options. You can either swap class to a Alacrity provider that will work underwater (Renegade or Tempest). Alternatively, if you want to stay as an Engineer your best option is to swap to Heal Quickness Scrapper.

Before mechanist was even a concept I was mainly playing scrapper quickness and power holo. Power holo is rather decent underwater but if you're filling in as a support it doesn't really cut it.

[Gorem.8104]

Didn't they nerf the health of Necro minions cause they never wanted AI to be anything good? 
Same deal with Rangers, we had our weapon damage low due to pets existing. Meanwhile everything else kept doing more and Rangers weapons stayed the same for a very long time. When we got new elites, Druid has the pet nerfed, Soulbeast removes it entirely sometimes and Untamed is just a terrible class to play that was renamed the unplayed. 

Mechanists is like what all rangers wished the pet class could be, a pet that can actually do something while they themselves can still dps. Pet Anet never really wanted AI to be anything good, which is why the pet's AI gets stuck on pebbles and has bad pathing and we need to use the smokescale to have it actually hit anything that is moving. 

It's really odd that we finally get an AI that can actually do something, but then they overtune it massively. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Ranger and necro are also "pet classes" in that they actually have traits for the pets and minions (unlike say elementalist where the elementals are just a convoluted utility skill or elite, or renegade where the "minions" are temporary).

The difference is they don't hinge on the pet entirely. Imagine if the entire beastmastery line or death magic line were all minion traits. It's just poor design.

It's also important if you're filling the alacrity role and have to do the underwater fractal since you can't apply alacrity without mace and the mech (via barrier engine and the crisis zone skill).

Both scourge and soulbeast are exceedingly strong underwater but that isn't due to pets ; they both aren't filling a support role either unlike quickness harbinger or alacrity untamed / alacrity druid.

If you fill alacrity in a fractal group you are more or less going to swap to alacrity renegade underwater or alacrity tempest for underwater content (aquatic). Alacrity mirage doesn't work because staff ambushes, alac chrono is horrible to play due to the wells and so is alac specter. See https://discretize.eu/builds/engineer/heal-mechanist/
 

Before mechanist was even a concept I was mainly playing scrapper quickness and power holo. Power holo is rather decent underwater but if you're filling in as a support it doesn't really cut it.

Ah, if the point was that they're all pet specs with options to respec without a pet, my initial reaction was correct. Was a bit thrown off, though, since non-pet necromancer doesn't generally require switching spec, just your utilities and maybe your traits.

I am inclined to agree that the metanist has a bit too much weight on the pet, though.

And yes, alacmeta being unable to perform its function underwater is definitely a problem. Not a problem unique to metanist, mind you - heal rev has similar issues, it's just less noticeable because it's a little more niche to begin with. They really should make the mech able to swim. Asura golems do, after all.

[Xenesis.6389]

On 9/8/2022 at 3:35 AM, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

Mech is not comparable because the engineer trade all his toolbelt skill and an entire branch just for a pet. 

Rangers have been doing that for 10 years. 🙄

[itspomf.9523]

On 9/8/2022 at 3:35 AM, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

But if you look at the Mech AI, it isnt any better than any other AI. Just use melee weapon on the mech and ask him to attack a mob that's barely a foot above the mech height and you'll see him take a long trip to somewhere just to get to the target. And god forbid if the target jumps down.

Path detection in this game has been embarrassing since launch.  Pretty sure it's a remnant from the GW1 engine (where there were no jumps and thus few if any "obstacles" that couldn't be walked around).

Same reason the "no valid path to target" bug persists to this day, despite numerous reworks.

[itspomf.9523]

23 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It's also important if you're filling the alacrity role and have to do the underwater fractal since you can't apply alacrity without mace and the mech (via barrier engine and the crisis zone skill).

Both scourge and soulbeast are exceedingly strong underwater but that isn't due to pets ; they both aren't filling a support role either unlike quickness harbinger or alacrity untamed / alacrity druid.

You realize this just justifies the counterpoint that the continued over-reliance on boons is a deficit to the game, right ...?

(Though likewise, it's also a glaring admission that underwater content has languished too long.  Why in name of kitten do most elite spec skills NOT function underwater?)

[Infusion.7149]

40 minutes ago, itspomf.9523 said:

You realize this just justifies the counterpoint that the continued over-reliance on boons is a deficit to the game, right ...?

(Though likewise, it's also a glaring admission that underwater content has languished too long.  Why in name of kitten do most elite spec skills NOT function underwater?)

You can choose to say that but we've come a long way from chrono+druid. I used to play chrono most of the time then , and I have been through just about every meta. It's possible to beat content without alacrity or quickness but why would you do that intentionally? Before we had elite specs it was mostly warriors and elementalists.

Balance has now devolved into handing out boons to everything. (see quickness warrior, alacrity rangers; alacrity mirage which was an afterthought since it doesn't work underwater either, quickness herald, alacrity specter, alacrity tempest, alacrity willbender, etc.) With the amount of options it often comes down to what is easier to play and/or more effective which is why firebrand is generally taken over all else. Before that it was full boon chrono which did nearly no damage because diviner's gear didn't exist at the time but there were no options.

None of this changes the fact that mechanist illustrates just how bad its design is underwater. Even ranger pets and some necro minions work underwater. On mechanist you can't apply alacrity since there is no barrier on underwater weapons even if you trait for it ; you can't apply might per hit because the mech isn't there, and since mech commands don't work underwater the Jade Dynamo trait is also useless. The F4 underwater skill replaces the crash down button, so there really isn't a good reason why F1-F3 could not be used for underwater replacement skills if the mech's animation or modeling is the problem. If anything it's a good reason for the mech robot to have less power and influence and to shift more traits and skills back to the mechanist itself. Right now you more or less have J-Drive and nothing else that works from the entire specialization.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Infusion.7149