Problem - My KA 12 Woes

[Black_]

Version of KissAssist.mac?

12

When did your problem start?

11 and 12

Character Role?

1. Assist
2. Tank
3. PullerTank

What class is having this issue?

1. Bard
2. Monk
3. Shadow Knight
4. Shaman

How often does this issue occur?

Always

Can you reproduce the issue?

Explained in post.

Hey everyone,

First i'd like to say good job on getting this far with KA it's a great macro! As a raider and a regular grouper these are the common problems I've had with KA11 and same with KA12. Feel free to ignore the suggestions part because I'm just a customer and don't know the limitations of the stuff under the hood but I like to treat macros as routines that are close to regular player behavior.

The following format of my woes are like so:

Role:
- <woe>:
- reproduce instructions
- expected: suggestion or best attempt to describe how human behavior would work methodologically

Puller:
- If mobs warp and even drop from Xtar sometimes the puller stays focused on the mob instead of dropping it and trying again (or atleast this process takes a LONG time):
- reproduction steps: Set up in an area where mobs have bad pathing and warp or maybe start a puller but /nav stop and /mqp and move far away from the mob and /mqp off and drop it from xtar (not tested)
- expected: if warped mob drops from Xtar it should be safe to assume it's not coming, try pulling another mob

- If nav target somehow gets stuck, the puller doesn't stop and try again but rather keeps trying to nav to target (or atleast this process takes a LONG time):
- reproduction steps: too hard to reproduce
- expected: I think this can be fixed by Nav UI's "attempt to get unstuck" so i'll try that from now on and see whats up! otherwise if pulling and location hasn't changed in X amount of time then you're probably stuck

- As I'm typing these right now my puller ran to a mob (that juked my puller) -- mob is now out of LOS of puller and puller hasn't disengaged to return to camp or attempt pulling on return (that variable is set to 1 in my ini, had to manually fix):
- reproduction steps: too hard to reproduce unless you're in an area with obstructions and mobs constantly moving
- expected: after X amount of time has passed when pulling, return to camp (it should be safe to assume something went wrong)

Tank/Pullertank:
- Since Tanks engage at /meleedistance and the group ends up fighting mobs at that range, if a mob gets mezzed slightly beyond that range the tank won't engage even if mez wears off (unless it somehow enters range after mez wears off). The secondary problem to this is that it seems the melee will 100% attack the mob even past /meleedistance (if it drops to assistat hp %) but the tank does not engage.
- reproduction steps: everyone should eventually see or have this problem if fighting in an open field (and not in a corner where engage only happens when a mob comes around the corner). Can easily see a different version of the same problem if you set bard to mez at a higher radius like 100-200 or and /meleedistance to something like 50-100.
- expected: cycle through xtar - kill mobs that aren't mezzed, if a mob is actively attacking the tank then disregard meleedistance and kill it, if all mobs are mezzed and outside of meleedistance return to camp and wait for mez to drop and them to come into distance

- My SK will tend to cast AE's before facing a group of mobs which leads to it getting hit from any angle (and worse, from behind) until the routine is complete. (This happens even if facemobon=1)
- reproduction steps: should be reproducible if SK is set to pullertank and gets adds, AE's seem to go off first no matter positioning or facing of a mob.
- expected: face mob before AE or DPS routine

- If camping near an NPC that's even listed on MobsToIgnore in KissInfo file (so puller doesn't try to pull it since it's non aggro) the AE routine won't fire and it believes it'll "grab more mobs"
- reproduction steps: start puller in radius of a non-aggroing NPC, pull in enough mobs for your AE routine to start and you'll get warnings about it not wanting to AE
- expected: maybe we need QuestMob in KissAssist_Info since we know MOST of the time these don't aggro

- Tank or Pullertank will tend to run in at a mob as it enters /meleedistance and tend to run ahead of the mob and turning it's back to all other incoming mobs. (I imagine this happens cause /nav is called as it enters distance but that's an old location since the mob is moving forward)
- reproduction steps: I imagine most ppl have seen this happen because it happens to me almost all the time on inc
- expected: I don't know the answer to this but if tank gets hit from behind they should adjust -- if i'm manually playing i typically just move back(easiest) or strafe until all mobs are in front of me -- This is the most stressful one cause it causes the most wipes


Assist:
- If assisting someone outside of the group and they target a new mob, toons don't switch -- is this just a limitation? (I know of /switchnow but was hoping even in raids that they'd follow MA)
- reproduction steps: set MA to someone outside of group and switch targets, the assisting characters won't switch.
- expected: check for new target occasionally

- If mob is a non aggro mob and MedOn is on (and toons need to med) my toons immediately just sit back down even if i issue /killthis -- regardless of MedOn it's a hit or a miss if they'll assist with the non aggro mob [/killthis should overrule medding -- it's a safe default not attack a non-aggro mob and enforce a user to call a kill command but i've seen mobs in escort missions get wrecked by a group because of accidental auto assist even though it's non aggro so that's why i said it's a hit or miss]

Healing:
- Ok this one I haven't cared to check enough but it's something I noticed but the healer seems to heal the first character under a heal percentage vs the lowest health target -- so I've seen my healer heal a character at 60% over a character at 9%. [Find lowest health and under the heal %]

 

[B_I_G__D_A_D_D_Y]

I've experienced most of these issues at some point or another. It can be frustrating for sure. Then I remember that KISS is just a loose approximation of what a human operator would do. I will try to find methods to make it easier for the macro like changing the position of my camp, or running my SK manually, or adjusting the mobs I pull or the distance or direction I pull. Mostly I just run my SK in tank mode and then run him manually and keep overriding the movements forced on him by the macro.

I know this post isn't very helpful but I wanted to let you know that you're not the only one! Sometimes you've gotta open the macro in a text editor and scroll through it. Then think in terms of how difficult it can be to adjust behavior without breaking something else.

 

[Black_]

Agreed, and thanks for responding and letting me know I'm not the only one. I don't expect all these things to be fixed or even worked on I just wanted these things to be known. Kiss is really close to being the perfect macro for me and these are just the nuances in the way.

 

[deathlock]

I've experienced most of these issues at some point or another. It can be frustrating for sure. Then I remember that KISS is just a loose approximation of what a human operator would do. I will try to find methods to make it easier for the macro like changing the position of my camp, or running my SK manually, or adjusting the mobs I pull or the distance or direction I pull. Mostly I just run my SK in tank mode and then run him manually and keep overriding the movements forced on him by the macro.

I know this post isn't very helpful but I wanted to let you know that you're not the only one! Sometimes you've gotta open the macro in a text editor and scroll through it. Then think in terms of how difficult it can be to adjust behavior without breaking something else.

KA can be set up so the tank never moves unless you move him. This is how I run my SK.

[General]
KissAssistVer=12.001
CharInfo=Shadow Knight|115|GOLD
Role=Tank

##  For Manual Movement: If StickHow ="I" and MeleeDistance = CampRadius this toon will Ignore all /stick commands.
CampfireOn=0
CampRadius=40
CampRadiusExceed=400

[Melee]
AssistAt=98
MeleeOn=1
FaceMobOn=0

##  Mobs outside this radius will not be engaged.
##  For Manual Movement: If StickHow ="I" and MeleeDistance = CampRadius this toon will Ignore all /stick commands.
MeleeDistance=30

##  Examples: I, !front, behindonce, snaproll rear, front.
##  For Manual Movement: If StickHow ="I" and MeleeDistance = CampRadius this toon will Ignore all /stick commands.
StickHow=I

AutoFireOn=0
UseMQ2Melee=0

 

[Smoke020]

Not sure if others are experiencing this as well, but ever since KA 12 was launched, melee characters navigate extremely close to the mob regardless if UseMq2Melee is set to 1 or 2. Often times, they're directly on top of the mob and cannot hit them. They do not correct themselves either. I've often found myself checking on why characters are so low on dps and then see that they haven't been able to hit the mob due to navigating on top of it. This never happened in KA11, only since KA12 was launched.

Is there a way to adjust this?

 

[ctaylor22]

Well Ka12 changed to using Navigation to move to the mobs. Navigation does not have a way to tell it, how far away from the mob is close enough to stop moving you. /moveto does have the ability. kiss 11 used /moveto and then stick, where ka12 used /nav and then stick.

@Smoke020 setting UseMq2Melee=1 requires you to also set the StickCmd entry in the MQ2Melee.ini settings file with proper stick commands. Setting UseMq2Melee=2 turns off stick mode in MQ2Melee.

 

[Black_]

@Smoke020 I've had the same problem and setting /melee stickrange=100 seems to have allowed them to adjust but I find myself pressing that button often but idk if it's cause one of my 20 other hotkeys or an event i have turns it off lol.

@ctaylor22 StickCmd seems to be a pretty advanced feature with tons of options that a person can combine to get what they want it would be awesome if those that have a good value share them. Personally I need to be able to /melee stickrange=0 and pull my characters off of a mob and i've seen to lose that ability whenever i use a StickCmd and instead they just go running back to it. I guess i could just use whatever KA used by default for sticking (cause this was perfect for me) within my StickCmd and this should solve my problem correct?

/Backoff seems to be completely broken now so I can't rely on that. Whenever I set it to off the characters infinitely try to nav to the mob.

 

[ctaylor22]

@Black_ Are you using /backoff on and/or /backoff off regular /backoff is just a toggle. I will have to test the issue with the character running back to the mob when turned off. The character may try and return to camp, but they shouldn't run to the mob.

 

[Black_]

@ctaylor22 I have hotkeys for /backoff on (which stops them from attacking) and /backoff off (continues the attack) --- when I turn it off the character infinitely trys to nav to the mob never finding a position to attack.

My concern with StickCmd is my characters not honoring stickrange=0 and instead finding their way back to the mob. This was in KA 11 though, i'll have to test with 12.

 

[Black_]

@ctaylor22 Before I forget, the infinite navigation to the mob also happened when I did /mqp on mid fight then /mqp off. Then the character just kept trying to navigate to the mob and spammed the hell out of the MQ2 window.

So right now the /backoff and /mqp on features are not working properly.

Also then tried /dpson 0 and then /dpson 1 and when turning back on it paused my macro a couple of times (i'll get logs for this if you're interested) but two things happened here, when doing /dpson 1 the MQ2 window actually spit out "/dpsonn 1" (extra n) and so when I /togglevariable DPSOn 1 it works fine but something within the loop messes up and pauses the macro.

So that makes /backoff, /mqp, /dpson all broken in KA12

 

[ctaylor22]

Well /mqp only pauses a macro, it does not pause plugins, so if you use any plugin command like /nav target, and then use /mqp. The macro will pause, but the plugin will keep running you to the target the macro told him to /nav too.

/mqp is an MQ2 command and if you issue the /mqp command first none of the macro commands will work. even if you issue /backoff if the /mqp command executes before the /backoff command can execute, then there is no way to fix that in the macro. Because you told the macro to stop executing(/mqp), but none of the plugins, I know of, respect the /mqp command.