Problem - Nav to mob - sometimes attack, sometimes follow

[BigDorf]

Version of KissAssist.mac?

11.005

When did your problem start?

First notice today June 16th

Character Role?

1. Hunter

What class is having this issue?

1. Beastlord

How often does this issue occur?

Sometimes

Can you reproduce the issue?

It has done this several times intermittently.
I'll explain details in the main post section.

Hello

This is my first experiences with KissAssist. This is running Molo, a beastlord with warder and merc healer.
KissAssist has been started as Hunter mode.
The character settings have been applied as per the video guide. That is, taken from the KissAssist .ini library ( "Lvl 20 BST ini w/o conditions for KA11"), and pasted into the character file then start KissAssist macro. .


Background

Hunting in Crescent Reach has worked.

In the KissAssist_info file, the names of the mobs to fight are listed against 'MobsToPull'. Example: "a vicious cave bear,a skeletal ogre". I saw no issues there. This is important as the bears are indifferent, while the skeletal ogre are aggro.

The trouble appeared in East Karana.

The same setup that was working before with regards the KissAssist_mychar, and introducing the 'MobsToPull=a crag spider' in the [The Eastern Plains of Karana] section.
I moved to the desired are to hunt with a few spiders visible and started.

The spells and buffing management went through and it looked for a target and Nav to a crag spider and fights. Great! We win, the fight over looted and gets ready to continue.
A little time later, I noticed this strange activity.

Troubles

The spider is selected and the nav activity takes place. The character gets to melee range of the spider, but doesn't attack. Instead does a short 'nav' towards the spider again, and doesn't attack, and again, and again etc. The best way I can describe this is as if the character was "/follow" on the spider. On one occasions the spider had walked so far it gave up, and some comment about hunting radius and the character turned and ran back.

This is what is frustrating about trying to figure out what is wrong as some of the time it initiates the melee attack whereas other times it decides to follow with no attacks.

The thought that comes to mind, whats different? Bears and Spiders? Both are indifferent, and won't aggro until attacked. The bears are static in the cave, the spiders are roaming? Yet the ogres are both static and roaming, although they aggro!

From there I came to the thought, is it the direction of approach?

For discussion sake, if the spider is moving north and the character is coming from the south to then follow north it isn't able to attack? speculation by getting close to the spider and following it in a series of 'nav hops'. The attacks that did work, did they approach 'head on' or perhaps 'flank' as opposed from the 'rear' of the spider?

Part of me feels it doesn't matter what class this is, and likely see the same for any melee that close-in to fight.

Sorry if this is too wordy.

Welcoming advice and suggestions to what needs looking into.

Regards

 

[vsab]

It is possible that the mob is moving, then what comes into play is the distance of the mob from you when you finish your nav to when you start to attack. e.g. you are 10 away, but by the time the attack is called it is OOR for combat). I got round this by using a disc to pull with (Throw stone), but a spell or ranged weapon would work too.

 

[ctaylor22]

If your using levitation on the puller take it off. levitate can interfere with melee distance.

 

[BigDorf]

thanks for the feedback.

I can confirm, no levitate. This has been seen with a solo beastlord, with warder and cleric merc.
The only buffs are those a 20 BST can do, and given by the cleric.

From what Ive seen so far, there is a short pause when the character gets to the target mob before auto-attack starts.
(short, half second to a second perhaps? a kind of brief thinking time)

Not so bad if the mob isnt moving, or aggros. But as described, if the mob moves the code decides to nav a short hop again and repeats this cycle.

 

[Magidragoon]

What is your pull settings?

 

[BigDorf]

@Magidragoon here they are from the character KissAssist ini file.
I dont think these have changed since....

[Pull] PullWith=Melee PullMeleeStick=0 MaxRadius=450 MaxZRange=100 UseWayPointZ=0 PullWait=5 PullRadiusToUse=90 PullRoleToggle=0 ChainPull=0 ChainPullHP=90 PullPause=30|2 PullLevel=0|0 PullArcWidth=0 PullOnReturn=0

 

[ctaylor22]

set PullMeleeStick=1 when pulling with melee the terrain can play a part in being close enough to the mob to hit(/attack) it. Setting PullMeleeStick=1 will have the macro keep making your default stick distance smaller and smaller if you keep getting the, can't attack mob. Get closer message.

 

[BigDorf]

Thanks, more advice noted.

In this case I don't think terrain was a problem. It was east karana, and there was nothing to navigate around. The space was open and flat.
There were no messages like can't attack, get closer. Same as, there were no red texts like, can't see, or, can't hit from here.

The character runs the initial distance without trouble and gets right by the target and pauses, doesn't start the attack.
No errors, no strange movement. It then decides to nav hop to the target again, that very short distance.
The EQ regular windows aren't reporting anything out of the ordinary. It's the MQ2 window that doesn't show 'attack', but does show repeated 'nav' messages.

As a player, I would have turned on the melee auto-attack.

 

[Magidragoon]

I tried my pull settings in E Karana and had success. I use a spell to pull

PullWith=Impose for Honor
PullMeleeStick=0
MaxRadius=1500
MaxZRange=200
UseWayPointZ=0
PullWait=5
PullRadiusToUse=0
PullRoleToggle=0
ChainPull=0
ChainPullHP=90
PullPause=30|2
PullLevel=0|0
PullArcWidth=200
PullOnReturn=0
ChainPullPause=30|2

Hope this helps

 

[ctaylor22]

Try pulling hoppers with a gnome using melee, and you will see that it has to do with the hit area of the character, they just can't get close enough to the mob for the EQ client to turn on attack, And if the mob is moving, you can just forget about it.

 

[BigDorf]

There is a term I picked up years ago, "hit box", to do with the space of actually hitting a mob as opposed its graphical presence.
Thanks for the further recommendation about using spells or disc to workaround the problem. I try battle on with details for melee, until run out of things.

Appreciate you mention a gnome and the trouble they have reaching things, mobs, the top shelf, getting up regular steps etc.
This scenario is a beastlord barbarian versus crag spider.

I will paste in some images that show better what I see.
First, the nav to mob and the rapid short navs.


Another test and this one had an odd result. The spider stopped moving, and so did the beastlord.
The mob target shows the range, and i was able to pan the camera around to the side for screen grab.



Another nav, and this is very close but no fight, no attack made.


Lastly, target box from when a fight actually took place.

 

[ctaylor22]

It looks like /nav is still active in the last pic taken from behind the BL and spider. It doesn't look to be getting into the section for attacking the mob, in the pull routine.

 

[BigDorf]

It looks like /nav is still active in the last pic taken from behind the BL and spider. It doesn't look to be getting into the section for attacking the mob, in the pull routine.

Edit: this post comments on the penultimate BL and Spider image taken from the side. I had misread the original message. Opps.


The last thing on the MQ2 window was:-
[MQ2Nav] Stopping navigation

I had watched the usual chase the spider, then wondered what was happening.
It had stopped, the beastlord behind it. No movement. No updates to the window.
Saw the range in the target window, and wondered why it was neither moving or attacking.
Turned the view around to see from the side and took the screen grab.

Also coming to mind in the side view screen grab, the "line" for nav/find movement, isnt there. That is what I would expect to not be there, if it isnt navigating. Some line would likely be there, if it was looking to follow a path to a nav point.

 

[BigDorf]

It looks like /nav is still active in the last pic taken from behind the BL and spider. It doesn't look to be getting into the section for attacking the mob, in the pull routine.

Opps yes, you have referenced the last screen grab, as said behind the spider which has the nav line on it.
it gets very close in that one, "6" whatever units.
it should have gone to melee after, but didnt.

screen grabs arent the best, but was trying to show some things better than just a few words describing what is seen.

adding, the MQ2 window that goes with the behind view of BL and spider.

 

[ctaylor22]

That line only shows when /nav is active. So Nav was still active.

 

[ctaylor22]

Looking at the code, this shouldn't be happening. Can I get you to get me a debug log and PM me the log file?

 

[Magidragoon]

So did some testing. noticed that I am at the same place I am unable to pull with melee. I used a high level toon but in East Karana. This was my first time pulling with melee so it could be that. The toon would run up to a chasm crawler and chase it. If he was lucky to hit it then the mob would not engage. I don't know if this helps

 

[BigDorf]

Looking at the code, this shouldn't be happening. Can I get you to get me a debug log and PM me the log file?

Yes.

I have captured to logs, and also found how to get the debug active as well.
PM of fiiles to follow.

You may find this interesting:


Extract from the log:

[2020/06/27 02:45:05] [MQ2] PULL-001 L:8430 T:212 Sub: PullUsingNav Enter Pulling a_crag_spider02 2.35 17.20
[2020/06/27 02:45:05] [MQ2Nav] Navigating to spawn: a_crag_spider02 (1200)
[2020/06/27 02:45:06] [MQ2Nav] Reached destination at: (-1372.50, -2459.88, 132.15)
[2020/06/27 02:45:06] [MQ2Nav] Stopping navigation
[2020/06/27 02:45:47] [MQ2] PULL-001 L:7900 T:254 Sub: L Pull Loop Count: 3 TRUE FALSE 0.00 17.40 15
[2020/06/27 02:45:47] [MQ2] PULL-001 L:7907 T:254 Sub: Pull Decrease pull distance to 2.35

The screen shot was taken during that ~ 40 second standing still, taking no action.


The debug log will cover the hunting of three spiders.
The first two, are follow the spider for a while with lots of short nav hops as discussed before.

 

[ctaylor22]

That should be a lot of help. Are you running your BL in hunter mode or normal pulling mode?

 

[BigDorf]

Hunter.

Reported this with KA 11, and have also tested with KA 12. No joy.

 

[methodx]

Just to say, I was running KissAssist in EK last month and ran into the same problem. Just switched to pulling with a spell instead.

I think part of the problem is that the mobs are all roaming and quite quickly so by the time nav is set and moves to where the mob was it's no longer there. Then you can end up chasing the mob in autoattack but never getting into range.

I saw one of the changes in MuleAssist changelog was this;

/stick 13 has been changed to stick 8 to take running mobs into account
kiss was to slow to ever catch up and hit a fleeing mob when it was set to stick 13 from it,
but at 8 it will.

 

[BigDorf]

For the benefit of others following this, or perhaps reading later.

Investigations are still ongoing!

Synopsis:
This is looking at "pull with melee" troubles, against indif mobs.
Seen initially with KA11 and also in KA12.

Update:
KA12 has been used, with full debugs and provided to CTaylor22.
By return, some amended KA code, which have re-tested with and looks like more debug information comes out.

BST Barb on crag spiders on snakes etc, has "follow the [indif] mob" fun, and "stand by [indif] mob" waiting games.
I have also seen similar with dwarf rogue going after the snakes in the Blightfire Moors.

The key element, is the indif vs the aggro.

The BST is playing "hunter", permission to free roam and clear spiders & snakes.
The ROG, that was - you can laugh - "tank pull". Run out from camp, tag a rat or a snake, come back to camp and fight with it. Generally it worked great. But several follow the indif snake, without engaging, and also the stand by the snake for a while ( many seconds ) without hitting.
(A side subject, on a postive note - what was exceptionally great, if going for an indif snake and trying to get it to fight, an aggro rat engages first; the ROG breaks off from the snake to "pull" the rat back to camp and deal with it. Perfect.)


If anyone else is playing with indif mobs, it may benefit if you can report your observations too.

 

[ctaylor22]

The problem is how close you have to be before the character can actually /attack the mob. when trying to get position on a snake you have to be on top the the snakes head before the character can actually Hit the snake. We have had to make changes to the PullWithMelee routine to keep moving(/stick) closer, and closer until the character can finally connect with melee. Snakes and Spiders require you be near the head of the mob, so chasing behind the mob, while in melee range does no good. It is working much better, but I am not sure this will ever be 100% due to other factors.