Instance Botting, things to know and concider

[lisa]

First thing to know about instance botting is no matter how well geared your character is or how much higher a lvl it is to the mob lvles you need to do more then just walk through an instance with createpath pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.

The bot detects mobs that are nearby regardless of whether you can actually see them, If there is a mob directly above you and if they are in range the bot will target it and try to kill it, which is of course impossible. Same goes for walls.

So as you are making your WP inside an instance you need to consider a few things each step of the way.

If solo or if party leader am I using ranged skills to pull, if so can I easily see where the mobs are I am detecting. If not then you may need to change some options at some waypoints to allow for this. An example would be change type to run instead of normal so it can get up some stairs, or around a corner.

Another thing to concider is bosses hit hard, very hard in some cases. So may need to step up healing skills usage when in a boss fight, so instead of using urgent heal at 70% use it at 90% and use heal at 70%, things like that.

A WP file for an instance very rarely has just a list of waypoint coords and nothing else. So plan as you go and think ahead.

Also don't assume the bot is a player, a player tank will see a healer or dps getting hit and agro that mob back onto itself, a bot tank won't.

With the release of my party bot yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to put this out there so people can get more from their party botting experience.

[rock5]

A handy feature for such careful path creating, that a lot of people may not be aware of, is the "NUMPAD_0" option of createpath.lua menu. It allows you to enter commands on-the-fly. So if you are coming to a narrow tunnel where you want to reduce the combat range, after pressing '1' to mark the waypoint, press '0' to enter code. Then you can type

Code: Select all

changeProfileOption('MAX_TARGET_DIST','80')

for example, and it will change that setting when it gets to that waypoint.

Also don't assume the bot is a player, a player tank will see a healer or dps getting hit and agro that mob back onto itself, a bot tank won't.

Hm.. why not? I would have thought that in a cooprative party, such as a botted party, if a team member is being attacked then it should assist. Even the leader should assist members if not currently being attacked itself. The only difference there should be between the leader and the other members is that the leader should be the only one looking for new mobs (and marking them for attack).

[lisa]

The way the bot works at the moment it kills it's target then goes to next. I have party leader set up that it will give priority to mobs attacking the other party members but it still kills it's current target before going to the next target.
It finds and enemy, kills it, then finds the next enemy.

Where as a player would see the mob attacking the healer and immediately attack it instead of waiting until it's current target is dead.

[rock5]

That's ok then. So the leader finishes killing it's current mob then helps party members if they are attacked.

Is the same true about the party members? If the member dps finds itself in combat but the leader hasn't targeted a mob yet and another member is being attacked, does it help the other member?

[lisa]

DPS will defend itself if there is no icon target to kill, but it won't defend another party member without the icon.

Basically the party leader starts combat by 1 mob and placing the icon on it.
DPS will then target that mob and kill it.
party leader then looks for a new target to kill, if any mobs are targeting party members they get priority. It is still how ever 1 target at a time.

The issue arrises when you pull a group of mobs and the party leader doesn't us an aoe, therefore it has only done any damage/threat on the current icon target. If the healer heals party leader then it may pull agro from any aditional mobs. It has to survive until the current icon target is dead and then party leader decides which mob to kill next.

Best case scenario party leader is a knight tank and it pulls the mobs and then uses its aoe agro when they are in melee range, if this happens then the healer won't get agro and it will be very smooth sailing.

There are many ways to deal with multi agro and it will vary quite a lot depending on the classes used in the party.

[rock5]

Didn't think of that. If a fellow member is under attack and the leader has no target then he will help the attacked member at which point all other members will help.

I nearly tried it out today but now I'm working on this other project. I will eventually try it and look forward to it.

[lisa]

Yeah it works ok for now, I am going to look at adding in another findenemy inside player:fight() So that even before first mob is dead it will do a scan of other mobs and sticking with same priority system it will target anything attacking a party member and it can go back to original target later.

I'm not sure whether to leave the dps killing the original target or to get them to switch aswell. If party leader has built enough threat on original target then dps could easily stay on it till it's dead then move to next but you wouldn't want a dps to out threat party leader, can turn ugly.