Showing Posts For taranwalker.4981:
I just wanted to pop in and say that this is now working for me. It was bugged for me for what felt like ages, and today, I decided to randomly check and it’s now working for me. I am relieved. I hope this means it’s resolved for everyone.
Here’s some more information from one of the devs, as posted on Reddit
Hey all – Just wanted to throw a reply on this thread, and point out there’s a few different things that could be at fault with these kinds of reports. Our characters have several layers of “AI” which interact with each other and sometimes create unpredictable results like the kind you’re describing. At the basic level there’s hard-coded combat behavior, then there’s some level of designer-specified behaviors, and then on top of that designers can hand-script characters to do very specific things through actions on script handlers.
One of the biggest problems that we have in trying to solve these sorts of issues is, because of the variables inherent in a complex system like character behavior/scripting is being able to reproduce the issue in order to debug it. Even when we know that an NPC is exhibiting unpredictable behavior on Live (which gets reported on the forums or elsewhere), in order for us to determine how to fix it without introducing other, riskier problems, we need to have our own internal QA or one of us designers repro the issue consistently. Many times I’ll get a report of a stalled NPC, and I will run through the mission 5-10 times and never see it happen myself. This doesn’t mean the report is invalid, it simply means that there’s some variable unaccounted for (of which a huge game like GW2 has MANY examples) that is likely causing the issue, but without knowing what that variable is, there’s nothing the designer can do to resolve the bug without such work being a “shot in the dark” which is just as likely to break other things as it is to resolve the original issue. Other times, it’s a very simple matter to find and fix, but we don’t know which it is until it’s reported and QA can write us a bug.
As for why NPC allies sometimes don’t fight until they are attacked, this is often done by design, because one of our design pillars is that NPC’s should not be allowed to complete content for the player. We think it’s a bad player experience if they can simply get up and go make a sandwich and let the NPC’s tank everything until they win. Having said that, we also believe that NPC’s should look and feel useful to you when you are actively playing the game, but sometimes getting that balance right can be tricky, and the AI or the scripting doesn’t always cooperate. In cases where the allied NPC’s are literally doing nothing, even if you are getting ganged up on and/or attacked, that’s a bug and should be reported, definitely.
In the examples above – Braham stalling out in the HoT story instance looks like a bad scripting bug, whereas the Into the Labyrinth clip looks to me like it might just be some balance/AI changes that have made the instance more difficult than it should be. Both are issues worth looking into, so hopefully we can get them looked at.
tl;dr it’s hard to resolve these issues because they are difficult to reproduce
My additional interpretation: also use the in-game /bug reporting tool and try to add details that help the developers to literally retrace your steps. The more you can flesh out how you approached the step when the bug occurred, the easier it is for them to do the same thing.
This is a great point, actually. I’m a developer myself, and part of my job is fixing production issues and bugs in development software. I don’t even get handed either one unless a QA can reproduce the issue AND outline steps for reproducing the issue. I hadn’t considered this aspect, and this really brings great context to it. Thanks.
I opened a ticket, they said it was a known issue, and to keep an eye on the forums for when it might be fixed. This is disappointing. Depending on your build, this is a show-stopping bug. I hope this is fixed soon.
same issue here; my squishy engineer is getting crushed while my NPCs stand around and only revive; it’s almost a special kind of hell; they won’t even just let me die