Mammoth AI changed?

[Sol]

Since I came back in december I have noticed the MMk2 AI behaving not as I expected. Maybe it is because I hadn't played for 3 years but I dont think so, I know this game pretty well. I am thankful for everything you guys do for the game, adding features and fixing bugs. ❤️

BUT I think you went too far when you fixed the "mmk walking off service depot and exploding" bug. That bug only happened when it was placed there by a carryall while still having saved an attack command. My guess is that instead of actually fixing the bug you changed the targeting AI, so that when the target is out of reach it looks for a new one instead.

 

Lets say you give a carryall the command to pick your mmk up and before it does you tell your mmk to shoot unit A. You then fly your carry out of range of unit A, but unit B is now in range.

What used to happen:

After the mmk gets dropped off it remembers the old "shoot unit A" command and it will walk towards unit A to try to shoot it.

What is happening now:

After the mmk gets dropped off it remembers the old "shoot unit A" command, but because it is out of range, he looks for a new target and shoots unit B instead.

 

I've made a video showing some of that stuff, but because I dont have the old game version I can't confirm how the old AI worked.

https://youtu.be/UrcMZIWCw8c

All of this might not sound like a big deal, but I think it is. I've witnessed countless mmk fights where a landing mmk instantly shoots down the other guys carryall with no skill involved, just because it got autotargeted. Most of my videos from december are gone, but the next time it happens I will show you.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Sol

[Sol]

yo I wouldnt mind some other players confirming my suspicions but I also wouldnt mind some official statement whether you guys actually did what I think you did. THX"!!!!!11

[anon1]

I'm surprised there aren't more WW players talking about this. Perhaps they are all out there happily taking advantage of the unintended glitch created by the patch?

It used to be rare for an MKII to 1-shot-kill an enemy MKII while it is being lifted by a carryall. Even skillfull players couldn't pull it off consistently therefore we put it down to bad luck when it happened. Now, players seem to be able to pull it off almost every time and the game was never intended to make it that easy. 

So yes Sol, I can 100% confirm something has changed with the mammoth mkII behaviour, and with it being such an important unit on TS,  it has ruined the game for a lot of players except for those who know how to abuse it. 

 

[JustNate]

Yeah ive noticed for a while now that the mk behaves differently, I genuinely thought it was just me but obviously not 

[Tibermach]

sucks ass even more op vs nod on tezz now... but yes its changed to balance the game again huh?

[Weaponx]

and gdi "isnt" OP.....

 

it needs a fix, so people actually have to target, carrier /mk like this is OP.

[dkeeton]

What else has changed? I only see that the MK will not target or chase things that go out of range anymore. Is that the only thing?

People used to kill a light infantry with the MK to pre-charge it, but now they only have to shoot the ground.

 

[Sol]

this changed!

i had my mmk target his mmk but when it got untargetable because of his carryall landing, my mmk automatically retargeted onto his carryall and shot it down. i am almost certain that was not in the original game. thats extremely frustrating, because to prevent that you have to perfectly predict the delay of your lift off command, which is impossible because its different every game and sometimes might be up to half a second.

[dkeeton]

37 minutes ago, Sol said:

this changed!

i had my mmk target his mmk but when it got untargetable because of his carryall landing, my mmk automatically retargeted onto his carryall and shot it down. i am almost certain that was not in the original game. thats extremely frustrating, because to prevent that you have to perfectly predict the delay of your lift off command, which is impossible because its different every game and sometimes might be up to half a second. 

That's the same thing. When the target goes out of range* the MK picks a new target. I think this was added by a patch that fixed some other things.

*(Goes out of range, dies, or is placed on/inside a transport)

Edited February 4, 2019 by dkeeton

[Sol]

yeah, that might actually be the only change, which would make it an easy fix if people agree that the change wasnt good

[REDRUMURDER]

4 hours ago, Sol said:

this changed!

i had my mmk target his mmk but when it got untargetable because of his carryall landing, my mmk automatically retargeted onto his carryall and shot it down. i am almost certain that was not in the original game. thats extremely frustrating, because to prevent that you have to perfectly predict the delay of your lift off command, which is impossible because its different every game and sometimes might be up to half a second.

this would have happened before. if target is not in range, mmk would walk toward it. if it's got a carry on it, MMK is still active and cannot shoot the target cause carry is on it. that's always been the case. but yes, now every unit is the same as mmk. antis' used to stay targeted to a scout walking by if the scout lived, now they wait for new target as soon as one is out of range. it changes inf battles drastically as well. none of it bothers me terribly, but I did like it the way it was before.

 

[dkeeton]

26 minutes ago, REDRUMURDER said:

this would have happened before. if target is not in range, mmk would walk toward it. if it's got a carry on it, MMK is still active and cannot shoot the target cause carry is on it. that's always been the case. but yes, now every unit is the same as mmk. antis' used to stay targeted to a scout walking by if the scout lived, now they wait for new target as soon as one is out of range. it changes inf battles drastically as well. none of it bothers me terribly, but I did like it the way it was before.

 

The crummy part about the anti-scouts and why I think it was okay to fix it was that they would pursue the target and shoot 1 single shot at it and then go back to their original position. It was the same for rocket infantry, they would follow the aircraft out of range and to the ends of the earth to take 1 single shot at the plane and then go home. It was dumb, and it's clearly a bug.

(and even same thing for titans, and every other unit)

[Sol]

Okay, so the question is: Is it possible to reverse these changes just for the mmk but keep them for the rest? Because I haven't talked to anyone yet who prefers the new way the mmks are behaving.

[anon1]

The earlier changes were okay because they didn't affect the gameplay and the ones that did were made optional. This time they forced us to play with the change and didn't even tell us what the changes were and how they would affect the game - we had to find out for ourselves. Clearly the direction we seem to be heading in now is one where a small handful of people can change the game however they like without consulting the community and that isn't healthy for the game. 

On 2/5/2019 at 4:50 AM, Sol said:

Okay, so the question is: Is it possible to reverse these changes just for the mmk but keep them for the rest? Because I haven't talked to anyone yet who prefers the new way the mmks are behaving.

Yes sol, at the very least the MK changes should be reversed IMO.

[dkeeton]

It will be fixed in the next update.

[Sol]

thank you so much, for everything you're doing. nobody could have anticipated how big the implications of this small change are.

[c0rpsmakr]

Thank you for bringing this up Sol, the new change drastically changes the meta allowing for people without decent control to be able to do things they shouldn't just by targeting the ground with mk.