Guild Wars 2

It’s been close to 9 months since release and we have… nothing. Don’t get me wrong I can handle and adapt to a lot of things that are going on with engies, but this is one issue that is downright gamebreaking for me.

Since release, turrets have had 2 gaping flaws in their design.

A) They don’t distinguish between invulnerable targets and vulnerable ones. Take the Champion Modniir Ulgath (I think thats his name… the centaur shaman). He spawns an army of invulnerable air elementals to toss you left and right. All of my turrets focused entirely on those elementals, instead of on the shaman! Not a single turret shot the shaman!

B) They don’t fight dragons. They seem to have some sort of religious conviction against hurting dragons, because they just refuse to do it. I have placed my turrets between the toes of a dragon’s target able foot… nothing. Not even a puff of smoke from my flame turret in its general direction. This, of course, nullifies my supply crate during those battles too.

Of course, there are also the annoyances of having turrets give target priority to things they shouldn’t- like destructible environment items (tables, supplies, etc in centaur camps) or mobs that are on the opposite end of the fighting area than the one that is beating your face in with a giant wooden club.

This isn’t a small issue. For a turreteer like me, this is beyond game breaking and it’s a real shock that it has lasted as long as it has. :-\ Not only do they not help, but they become a liability to me because their existence on the field neutralizes my ability to use any of my toolbelt skills. So keeping them out at all is a detriment. That means that during dragon fights and during fights with invulnerable NPCs, all of my utility skills are rendered worthless and I have to play with utilities that I’m not specced for :-\

So I have to ask… what’s the word on this? Is it being looked into? Is it even on Anets radar? Or should we just get used to the fact that turrets simply don’t work right and never will in the future?

Even a forced target acquisition button, like that ranger’s F1 skill, would be all I could hope for. If I can just MAKE my turrets attack my target, then that’s all I need.

Turrects actually don’t have AI currently—they shoot at the nearest thing within range, no exceptions, even if there is no LoS or if there is a major obstruction (like a wall or building) in the way. They will always shoot targetable environment or WvW gates if they are closer than an actual enemy. (Yes, even net turret shoots gates…heheh).

Hope that info helps somehow. I don’t want to sound too pessimistic—I love playing my engineer and I think engineers are in a pretty good place overall—but unfortunately this is not a matter of fixing turret AI. It’s a matter of introducing it for the first time.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Turrects actually don’t have AI currently—they shoot at the nearest thing within range, no exceptions, even if there is no LoS or if there is a major obstruction (like a wall or building) in the way. They will always shoot targetable environment or WvW gates if they are closer than an actual enemy. (Yes, even net turret shoots gates…heheh).

Hope that info helps somehow. I don’t want to sound too pessimistic—I love playing my engineer and I think engineers are in a pretty good place overall—but unfortunately this is not a matter of fixing turret AI. It’s a matter of introducing it for the first time.

Ouch. That does actually help, though, yea. Though I do wish Dragons fit into the category of being a “nearest thing”. They just ignore those entirely.

Honestly, just an “attack my target” hotkey would be perfect to fix the issue.

Tolmos.8395:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Turrects actually don’t have AI currently—they shoot at the nearest thing within range, no exceptions, even if there is no LoS or if there is a major obstruction (like a wall or building) in the way. They will always shoot targetable environment or WvW gates if they are closer than an actual enemy. (Yes, even net turret shoots gates…heheh).

Hope that info helps somehow. I don’t want to sound too pessimistic—I love playing my engineer and I think engineers are in a pretty good place overall—but unfortunately this is not a matter of fixing turret AI. It’s a matter of introducing it for the first time.

Ouch. That does actually help, though, yea. Though I do wish Dragons fit into the category of being a “nearest thing”. They just ignore those entirely.

Honestly, just an “attack my target” hotkey would be perfect to fix the issue.

The thumper turret used to hit the dragons, as for everything else… +1 to NevirSayDie.6235

Unfortunately no amount of breaking the engineers most popular features every month is eve going to make turrets good until they have some A.I. and last longer than a second vs aoe.

The moment you move, your turret more or less becomes useless.
Even the long ranged Rocket Turret, which has an amasing 1200 range untraited, simply shoots the CLOSEST thing in sight.
This is a total waste of the turrets long range.

Turrets are designed for duels in an arena setting… in a game which has neither duels nor arena’s.

- When questing I move because the mobs die and I need to target others who reset if I pull them back.
- When doing dungeons, I need to keep up with the moving pace of the group.
- In WvW you move all the time, only at a door you’re standing still for a while. At that door the turret never finds a viable target beyond that door…

Point defending in pvp, that’s a bout the only place I can see how a turret can be stationary and still functional.
IF the other guy doesn’t have a pet close to the turret…

So a turret AI?
Yes please:

1. my target
2. If no target, enemy player attacking me
3. If no target, no enemy player attacking, than npc attacking me (pets are npc’s)
4. If none of the above: don’t bloody attack anything!

Tolmos.8395:

Honestly, just an “attack my target” hotkey would be perfect to fix the issue.

I agree, just that would improve turrets in PvP and WvW by 100%. Although it would be nice to also have an option to stop them from firing. Also, it would be nice if they would automatically not waste shots by firing as soon as something comes into “range,” even though that target is on the opposite side of a wall.

Also, hitboxes, survivability, damage, traits, cooldowns, and utility should be improved. After that, turrets will be pretty good!

NevirSayDie.6235:

Tolmos.8395:

Honestly, just an “attack my target” hotkey would be perfect to fix the issue.

I agree, just that would improve turrets in PvP and WvW by 100%. Although it would be nice to also have an option to stop them from firing. Also, it would be nice if they would automatically not waste shots by firing as soon as something comes into “range,” even though that target is on the opposite side of a wall.

Also, hitboxes, survivability, damage, traits, cooldowns, and utility should be improved. After that, turrets will be pretty good!

So, what you are saying is that maybe we just need a remote control?

I would be quite interested in that. Perhaps instead of having the detonate button on our tool belt, we had 3 modes to chose from once the turret was placed: Standby, attack nearest(or defend yourself mode), and attack what I am attacking.

Perhaps a “Remote Control” trait would do away with detonating turrets manually, or do away with overcharging if you wanted to keep detonate, and place the 3 modes in a cycle on your skill bar.

lunyboy.8672:

So, what you are saying is that maybe we just need a remote control?

I would be quite interested in that. Perhaps instead of having the detonate button on our tool belt, we had 3 modes to chose from once the turret was placed: Standby, attack nearest(or defend yourself mode), and attack what I am attacking.

Perhaps a “Remote Control” trait would do away with detonating turrets manually, or do away with overcharging if you wanted to keep detonate, and place the 3 modes in a cycle on your skill bar.

Yeah, that sounds pretty sweet! I’ve been thinking of it from the angle of “which frustrating actions do I want to be able to prevent my turrets from taking?” In your “remote control” setup, I think any player would fairly easily be able to prevent turrets from:

—Not attacking (dragons, etc)
—Attacking something useless (clones, gates, etc)
—Attacking through an obstruction (walls, buildings, etc)

That would be a huge improvement! Even after that, there would still be the other issues I mentioned: hitboxes, survivability, damage, traits, cooldowns, and utility. But I think the most important thing by far is the ability to prevent turrets from being absolutely worthless in some situations. (Like fighting a necro or doing WvW in front of a gate…who would do such foolish things?) It sounds like the system you’re describing would do that.

Ideally, I think the detonate could be the replacement for overcharge, so that when the overcharge was active, or on cool down, the detonate was available on that some button (the one on the skill bar). Sort of an overcharge>OVERCHARGE EXPLOSION! So the tool belt skill would become the remote, with 3 modes:

Mode 1: [Default] Turret Defense – Fight closest, defend itself. Fix LoS, prioritization of enemy NPCs or PC in sPvP, and even marginal improvement with a basic aggro table (like a worm would have since they are stationary).

Mode 2: Target My Target – If I choose to target a door in WvW for some PvDoor action, the net turret would uselessly oblige me, but when I switch to an incoming invader, it immediately updates it target and fires at it on it’s next cycle. A VERY useful addition here would be a time indicator on the turret for its firing cycle, perhaps a little circle with a sweeping animation that is translucent. This would allow for target changes as the cycle is coming around for ranged-remote combat.

Mode 3: Standby – Turret hangs out, smokes a cigarette, talks about indie music. This might be overkill and be handled by not targeting anything in Mode 2.

lunyboy.8672:

Ideally, I think the detonate could be the replacement for overcharge, so that when the overcharge was active, or on cool down, the detonate was available on that some button (the one on the skill bar). Sort of an overcharge>OVERCHARGE EXPLOSION! So the tool belt skill would become the remote, with 3 modes:

Mode 1: [Default] Turret Defense – Fight closest, defend itself. Fix LoS, prioritization of enemy NPCs or PC in sPvP, and even marginal improvement with a basic aggro table (like a worm would have since they are stationary).

Mode 2: Target My Target – If I choose to target a door in WvW for some PvDoor action, the net turret would uselessly oblige me, but when I switch to an incoming invader, it immediately updates it target and fires at it on it’s next cycle. A VERY useful addition here would be a time indicator on the turret for its firing cycle, perhaps a little circle with a sweeping animation that is translucent. This would allow for target changes as the cycle is coming around for ranged-remote combat.

Mode 3: Standby – Turret hangs out, smokes a cigarette, talks about indie music. This might be overkill and be handled by not targeting anything in Mode 2.

Hmm, and if this were bound to the toolbelt skill button, it would be nice to have only two functions to swap between rather than three. I like it. I hadn’t thought of giving turrets an agro table before—I suppose that would be another way to help them. Honestly though, just having the ability to control what your turrets shoot would be huge.

NevirSayDie.6235:

… I hadn’t thought of giving turrets an agro table before—I suppose that would be another way to help them…

They sort of already have an aggro table, but it is incredibly basic, in that they shoot at the first “enemy” that gets their attention, whether they are obstructed or not. Bosses have a more complex table, with information about the target, dps for all potential targets, and then gradients for higher aggro “events” like rezzing, create aggro spikes.

The turret algorithm should look at all potential targets and prioritize by what kind of target they are, what type of turret it is and then whether or not it is obstructed. At least in the default defense mode.

This idea is stuck in my head now, we should do a separate post about it.

Turret AI is very easy to test on dummies:

pick a dummy in the row of light-medium-heavy.
Drop your turret where it stands and kill the dummy.
Than start hitting the middle dummy, the turret will shoot that one.
… until the first dummy spawns again and the turret changes target to that first dummy right where the turret stands.

It’s that simple, and it’s that stupid.

Especially on a rocket turret with a range of 1200 or more, I absolutely am baffled by this ‘closest target first’ mechanic!
It totally ruins the whole range this turret has. There is ALWAYS another target in between the turret and your target at 1200.
Be it another player, a pet, a door, an npc animal, a respawn… always!
The 1200 range is only usable in duels in empty ‘arena’ settings, of wich this game has neither duels nor arena’s.