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Alright, since the bug at hand has surely already been recorded, I post not so much a report of the bug but a suggestion on how to patch it until the coder(s) is/are able to fix it.

The problem:
Merchant Caravan Guards! Aside from being fairly useless due to the fact that no one attacks merchant caravans & even if they did the mob would likely not have items on its corpse, they also...

Auto assist!
Now, this'd be cool if they didn't auto assist evil aggro mobs like, say, bandits. They also...

Wander!
Right along with road bandits, they wander right up to the entrance to Waterdeep, meaning that just as SOON as you walk out onto the big wide world map, you're beset by bandit and his friend, caravan guard.

The solutions (short of fixing the assist code):

1. Put a shorter leash on how far these guys can wander, optimally not into the same room with one another

or

2. Remove the assist flag from these guys, it hurts more than helps.

or

3. Delete these guys, they do essentially nothing but aesthetics and/or kill pcs for no reason.

Because it's not only really ridiculous that my level 20 character leaves Waterdeep to get her errand on & is killed by bandit & big brother, buuut...

It's also more than likely a deal breaker for a potential regular player if they leave Waterdeep for the first time to be eaten alive 4 steps from the gate.

Main problem here as elsewhere is the bugged auto assist system.

Wouldn't it be better to deactivate the auto assist system for the whole game (hardcode wise) till it's fixed?

Will remove all the frustration coming from it and probably reduce the application numbers of the bug consequences :p

El

This happens a lot of other places too?

): sadpanda

Fun fact: There are characters that do, in fact, assault road merchants. A rarity, but happens.

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=13215&start=0

Plenty long enough: contains reports, suggested solutions, and that it was placed as highest priority bug. I am disconcerted, though, that this is still an issue so long after it was first reported..

This problem is a little more complex than you've suggested. We do not use an AUTOASSIST flag, we only have an ACT_NOASSIST that prevents mobiles from assisting others in combat. The nature of this problem is such that we would have to flag nearly every mobile that is not in some kind of training/leveling area in order to curtail it for the time being. That's possible, but the easiest solution in the interim is simply to look before you leap (i.e. look into the next room before you walk in and you will probably avoid 99% of these happenstance encounters upon the Trade Way).

I think a related issue that should be of concern is the effect that these events will have on new players.

If a player has their character killed (in apparent defiance of all logic and when they clearly have done nothing wrong or even risky) it can be traumatic, to the point where they discontinue playing. If they ask about it and find out it is a long-standing bug... Well, don't you start looking for another game?

Looking down the road every time you change rooms seems like it'd be a ridiculously tedious process. The problem here is wandering aggro mob + wandering reallystrong assist mob + heavily traveled road. I'm not calling for every mob to have the noassist flag put on them, just these ridiculous ones.

<51%hp 68m 46%mv> Trade Way
The sky is warm and stormy and a warm southerly breeze blows.
A bandit wizard is here.
The priestess of Selune is here.
A bandit wizard begins to chant.
You guess a bandit wizard is casting armor.
You attack a bandit wizard as he gets within your weapon's reach.
A bandit wizard ducks under your slashing attack.
You weave out of the way of a bandit wizard's punch.

<51%hp 68m 42%mv>
Your slash nearly bisects a bandit wizard's right leg.
A bandit wizard's severed right leg falls to the ground!
a bandit wizard is bleeding from several injuries.
The priestess joins the battle!
The priestess's punch hammers your left arm.

<43%hp 68m 40%mv>
Your slash nearly bisects a bandit wizard's chest.
a bandit wizard is leaking heart-blood.

<43%hp 68m 40%mv>
You weave out of the way of a bandit wizard's punch.

<43%hp 68m 40%mv>
The priestess begins to chant.
You guess the priestess is casting destruction.


You flee from combat!

REALLY? SERIOUSLY? THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

I also suggested fixing the specific ones that have been noted. That shouldn't take long if you're just editing a few mobs to no_assist, right?

Just kinda fix 'em as they pop up, yeah?

Harroghty wrote:That's possible, but the easiest solution in the interim is simply to look before you leap (i.e. look into the next room before you walk in and you will probably avoid 99% of these happenstance encounters upon the Trade Way).

Pity that doesn't work well at night, unless you are a darkvision race. Humans won't see the problem, a race many newbies would likely take on their first character.

Beyond that, I agree. If you can see ahead, taking 2 seconds to type "look east" takes less time than returning to life.

On a couple of notes. I hardly ever leap before I look. A habbit of several years of playing here. Also, its encouraged repeatedly for code and rp purposes to always travel with a companion. The caravan guards are combat veterans, not just out of school novices. So a level twenty anything will rightly get tore to bits, but I personally attack guards/militia men/knights and so on on my evil characters. They are killable. Just my two cents.

Yes, well, after a revisit to my strategy page, I've found that these guys can be toppled by a level 20ish character with sufficient tools. It's just that not everyone is a huge powergamer & some new players will want to leave Waterdeep after a few hours & get killed in 1 round by these mobs. I'm not sure how that will effect our traffic, but I think it can be only negative. I agree with adding noassist flags to some of these mobs on an "as we go" basis.