Problem - Can't stop targeting myself

[manydills]

Version of KissAssist.mac?

12 Beta5, 12 Beta4, 11.005

When did your problem start?

Two days ago or so

Character Role?

1. Assist

What class is having this issue?

1. Ranger

How often does this issue occur?

Always

Can you reproduce the issue?

Start KA, start fighting. Eventually my target ends up back at me and won't stay on anything else.

I've had this happen recently using KA 12 Beta5, but when I switched back to 12 Beta 4, and then back to KA11, the same problem occurs. I run KA in manual mode on my MA with BuffsOn=1. (the problem occurs with BuffsOn=0 as well.) I'll go to pull, and I can target my target for anywhere from a quarter second to about 5 seconds, and then my target sticks back to me. I try to target something else, boom, snaps back to me.

When I first started running KA, this didn't happen, and so I wonder what changed. I can't figure it out. Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[Zebadiah]

Greetings. I have had something similar happen. I would target a mob and my group would then abuse it till dead. I would then go to the next mob and find that the group keeps targeting the corpse. I click on the mob and within a second it switches back to the dead one. The same thing happens when I try to talk to a merchant or quest giver. I would target them and bam it would switch to another. I would have to set the group on MQP on just so I can interact with the merchant or quest giver. I would then take pause off and right back to the same target it keep trying to switch to. I am not sure what is causing it.

 

[ctaylor22]

@manydills I would need a debug log to try and trace down where your character is targeting them self. I would say it has something to do with the buffs routine, but you mentioned it happens even when you have buffs turned off.

 

[manydills]

@ctaylor22 I was able to generate a log of it happening (in Beta5). Here is the sequence of events as best as I can reconstruct them:

M**** is my manual-mode MA Ranger. ID = 21714.
B**** is my assist-mode magician box. ID = 21705

Log in, start KA, everyone buffs up. This all goes fine. MA is in Manual mode with BuffsOn=1.
[11:29:32-ish] Start combat with a bixie. This combat goes fine (the first combat after logging in is almost always fine.)
[11:30:19-ish] Combat ends. Shortly thereafter my target sticks to me at seemingly all times.
[11:30:26-ish] I start combat with a small group (3 mobs?). My mercenary and boxed magician do the work of killing; I'm trying to retarget the enemy and cast spells/kick/disarm throughout with little success.
[11:31:02-ish] Combat ends.
[11:32:21] Start new combat with a small group (2 mobs?), pulling with Burning Arrow.
[11:33:05-ish] Combat ends.
[11:33:11] Debug logging ends.

I'm happy to generate a log under alternate conditions if it would be helpful. I'm not good at parsing these logs but it does appear that my Ranger maybe tries to taunt himself occasionally? My ini does have AggroOn=1 but my understanding is that that should not be active in Manual mode. My ini does contain the line Aggro1=Taunt|100|<|Me which I had used in the past to level up my Taunt skill, but that worked fine in the past. That's not a recent change. I will try setting AggroOn=0 to see if the problem recurs.

Edit: In Beta5, setting AggroOn=0 seems to have helped.

 

[ctaylor22]

Well the Aggro1 entry you have would make you target yourself. Try turning on ArrgoOn and remove the me from the entry or remove the whole entry and see if it helps. We did make some changes to the AggroCheck routine to help get a better count of aggroed mobs for out of group characters. It could be those changes that is causing you to try and execute that aggro entry, where in the older version of the kiss that entry was being skipped.

 

[ctaylor22]

@Zebadiah Kiss is designed to have all assisting characters target the MA's Target. So if all the assisting characters have targeted a corpse, then at some point the MA targeted that corpse. With that said, The Assist Routine validates the target and if the target is a corpse, then it clears the MyTarget Variable, but not the Target. Reason for this is, if by chance the MA's target is a mob that is not a valid mob to attack, If we clear the target, then all assisting characters would /assist /target clear, /assist /target clear, etc... If you clear the MA's target the assisting characters will not clear their targets.

There are a bunch of factors that have to be considered here, but the 2 main issues are when assisting the MA. First in group characters have it easy when getting the MA's target and can tell if the MA does NOT have a target, but out of group characters have to /assist the MA or Target the MA and use TargetOfTarget and that just doesn't work very well. You end up with a ping pong effect of the out of group characters /targeting a mob just to /target clear, so we dropped the /target clear when the Target is not a valid target. If the MA changes his target then all other characters will /assist the MA and their targets will change, until they are on a valid combat target. At that point all characters fall into the Combat routine and stay there until the target is dead(corpse) or the target poofs.

We have gone full circle on the What/how assisting characters should react when the MA switches targets. There are 2 flags that have been created to help with configuring groups and how the group(s) should react to target switching. Currently Kiss defaults to following the MA as he switches targets. Also by default kiss will keep the MA on the same target until dead.

If you want to be able to switch the MA's target manually, while in combat, then you need to turn on TargetSwitchingOn. By default the characters in the same group as the MA will switch to the MA's new target. Now Out of group characters are a real PITA, because they have NO clue that there is even a mob to target. Until a mob shows up in the XTarget window, kiss thinks it is time to drink tea and read the morning paper. So to get the out of group characters onboard with the rest of the crew, the MA Calls his target when he is ready to enter the combat routine. He will also call his new target if you switch targets. Now the out of group characters are monitoring for the MA's call, so they can point their first XTarget AutoHater entry to the MA's current target. That tells the out of group characters that Tea time is over. Now there is a way to override this functionality for the out of group characters. That brings me to the XTarAutoSet flag. This flag was added to kiss a while ago but never documented. This flag is on by default, but can be turned off by using a hotkey.

Now on top of all that there is still the /switchnow command. This command allows you to force a character to assist the MA and get his current target.

Also TargetSwitchingOn is only used by the MA. Non MA characters ignore this flag.

 

[Zebadiah]

That is one great explanation and I think I can follow it. Thanks ctaylor22 for it. Gives me a lot to think over. But (and I say this with all due respect) The problem is that when the MA targets and attacks the mob or mobs, everything functions as explained above. When the MA reaches 95 health the rest of the group goes into action. The mob or mobs are quickly dispatched and loot is then taken. It is what happens after this sequence of events. Example: Mob dies, loot is taken, and some loot is left on the corpse of the mob. This leaves the corpse on the group for a while. The MA still has the corpse on hit target (the corpse has not vanished) Now we move the group to a different place and the MA targets a new mob but before he can attack it the target switches back to the corpse of the recent kill. The MA now has to move to the mob and try to get it to attack so the target switches back to the new mob.

To further this example there is a chest next to the new mob that has good loot in it but the MA can not hold the chest targeted because it keeps switching back to the dead corpse. Nothing is cleared on the MA and the target continues to want to stay targeted to the dead corpse. This makes it very hard to loot said chest because the target keeps switching.

Most of the time during fighting in an area its not really noticeable the group moves from one fight to the next and everything is working well with KissAssist. It only happens when you stop fighting and so go to do something else (like sell stuff or get a new quest). It then becomes apparent that the MA still has the last kill targeted. In the KA's ini file on all characters the TargetSwitching is off or 0 in the settings so that everyone in the group still has the MA's target. Nothing is cleared on the MA and trying to clear it becomes a chore. I have tried to /MQP on (this does not work MA still switches back to the corpse), I have tried to stop or unload MQ2Melee this also does not work. But I have noticed that once the corpse vanishes I can now have the MA target someone else (merchant, quest giver. banker ect.)

I have also noticed that if say going through a city and the (use a iskar as ma) and the guards or quest giver tag him as undesirable that will activate the target window and now we are in the same spot. MA tries to target a merchant and the target in the target window switches back to the said guard.

I hope this makes some sense... Any thoughts on this is greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!

 

[manydills]

Well the Aggro1 entry you have would make you target yourself. Try turning on ArrgoOn and remove the me from the entry or remove the whole entry and see if it helps. We did make some changes to the AggroCheck routine to help get a better count of aggroed mobs for out of group characters. It could be those changes that is causing you to try and execute that aggro entry, where in the older version of the kiss that entry was being skipped.

Yep. This helped. It seems the aggro routine runs even in manual mode.

 

[WOnce]

Makes sense to me. I've run into the same thing lately. Maybe because my current group has a Merc tank. Otherwise, same issue as Zebadiah.