I’m not sure if this is the correct place for this, but there isn’t a general combat forum; basically, I’m hoping to get some discussion on or insight into the aggro/hate mechanics in this game. I completely understand that there are no explicit taunts/deaggros/etc., but there has to be something driving the AI decisions on who to target—and, from my vantage point both as a player and as someone who has done AI development in the past, those decisions don’t make a whole lot of sense in many cases. Even worse, when they do go haywire, they don’t produce very enjoyable battle situations.
The most obvious example is when a mob or group of mobs decides all of a sudden to fixate on a particular player like a heat-seeking missile. When this happens, nothing—absolutely nothing—will cause the mob(s) to move to or attack anything but that player until one of them is dead. I play a mesmer, and when this happens to me, I can dodge, stealth, spawn clones, shatter clones, teleport, yank mobs away from me, slow them, root them, on and on and on. Stealth may or may not cause them to break momentarily (there seems to be a timing bug where stealthing at the exact moment your autoattack fires will cause the stealth to not take effect but still cause the full cooldown), but the instant the stealth wears off, they’re right back chasing me again. All the while, my phantasms pour damage into them and, assuming the mobs don’t have especially nasty crowd control or ranged attacks, eventually they die without ever having even tried to do anything but run in circles after me.
This isn’t something class-specific, either. Most of the time, I play grouped up with a thief, and we’ve had situations where he will hit a mob once and then have it chase him around from 99% health to death while I and my illusions whittle it down—with him never attacking it again. Furthermore, it isn’t limited just to players; I’ve had mobs fixate just as hard on a particular phantasm, to the point where an iWarden supported by two iDefenders actually face-tanked a champion mob for an entire fight with myself and several other players burning it down. Either way, it’s not especially fun to run in circles for an entire fight or to plink away risk-free at a mob chasing after someone.
Then, there are the aggro mechanics which aren’t as obviously bugged but which still seem annoying/unenjoyable, at least to me. Downed state seems to pretty reliably cause mobs to fixate on players in the manner previously described, and the only reason I don’t consider this a bug is because it makes some sense that they would want to “finish off” someone who’s downed. It isn’t particularly conducive to fun, though, when being downed almost inevitably ends up meaning dying shortly thereafter unless you rally due to a coincidental kill on a low health mob.
So, have other people noticed this and found rational explanations, or am I just imagining things/personally bugged (don’t laugh; it’s been known to happen)? Also, are there any other odd aggro mechanics people have noticed?