Thralls not attacking enemies → Investigated, hard to reproduce

Conan Exiles [PC] Updates and Bugs
#1

Continuing the discussion from Issues Status - PC:

Is this still the case? Or have you seen it happen now?

This has been going on for nearly 5 weeks now on most servers. Reproducing it is easy, just get 20 players to all join a server together and you’re free to explore the entire map uncontested by anything. If just 1 or 2 devs are logging into a clean map, the thralls will most likely attack.

This issue did get slightly better after the most recent patch, maybe now 40% of the time we get some agro from mobs, our thralls however will still run to the scene of the fight but then not join in.

Otherwise, you’d be welcome to jump on to our server, none of our thralls or mobs attack with more than 10 players online.

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#2

I have captured the following footage to help you see what we have going on. Some mobs will agro right away, others are delayed by 5-10 seconds, others rarely agro.

As for our trained thralls: The thralls in the video are not spawned in, they were captured, trained and placed. You’ll see how they rush to the spot of the fight, then just watch, never joining in. The same thing happens if you’re ever purged.

At the time time of this footage being taken, we had 19 players online.
Our server hasn’t ever been modded and it was a fresh map/server installation on the 10th May 2018.

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High priority bugs
#3

We know it’s happening and don’t need confirmation of that. We need to hunt down what the exact steps are that lead to thralls going from attacking to end up being unresponsive to be able to fix the bug. That is what we are trying to do internally.

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#4

There is also an issue where thralls will attack some enemies as they approach but not others even after they’ve been attacked.

On my server, there is an old base up by temple of frost. The owner of the base is long gone but his thralls are still there. I can kite sabretooth over there and the thralls will make mince meat of them. Even running headlong passed me to initiate combat. However, if I kite a mammoth over there, the thralls won’t attack the mammoth at all. The mammoth proceeded to stomp attack a group of 5 of them, with no response by the thralls and then charged through them with no response at all.

I found it very weird that the thralls would attack the sabretooth but not the mammoth.

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#5

Thralls are especially glitchy against big / tall ennemies and mamoths definitely belong to the category they seem struggling to target correctly (has probably sthing to do with hitboxes) ,The number 1 ennemy in that categaory being the undead dragon of course.

#6

It appears to be certain thralls too.

I have a large base by the sinkhole that is constantly being attacked by demon dogs.
They come right up to the gate that is guarded by Captain, Black Hand Captain an Mei the Blade. None of them will respond until I’ve been bitten.
Senk the Pillowdancer and a Hyborian bearer III come running from the top floor of my tower 50m away to take the dogs on without provocation. My other 20 odd thralls stand and watch. Some of my archers attack also but all they do is shoot the signs of my walls.

#7

From the looks of things it is like the Thralls are treating enemies as if the enemies are either considered passive or as if the admin cheat cloak is active on enemies until in some cases the player is hit. Then the Thralls seem to notice the enemy and will target said enemy type after till server restart.

#8

I’ve often felt like the thralls are seeing the danger, moving to the location but then decides that the enemy is a friend. Checks and a few seconds later, moves and sees a friendly again.

Display their status somewhere?

Edit. I only posted the video because the bug report page claims it’s hard to reproduce and I thought it would help.

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#9

based on observation, looks like the server is overwhelmed and cant simply execute the AI? . it happens more often when the server is with many people on., there is hundreds and hundreds of orphan NPCs, and i am pretty sure each one of htem is eating server computational resource.

to test properly. find a server that has plenty of buildings. and lots of thralls,

it also started to happen after the big patch… cant recall having this issues. i do remember thatn not all the thralls entered the frey.

few things that are likely related to the thalls…

World bosses like the dead tree like world boss in the world . DOES NO DAMAGE, even when aggroed, and it soom looses interest to attack.

there is also the possibility of database with typos. ?

watch out for this, funcom developers seems to have serious conflict with the keyboards they use… )

there should be a tool that checks lines for errors? … for instance callinig for certain NPC, if the code line that has the name of the NPC has a typo, then it will simply not spawn. what is the likehood of having typos in the game code? i believe its quite high.

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#10

they do the same if they see a neutral player getting close to them. they do not engage,. but they all move …

sadly i believe we are seeing a typo… thinking of it we have less load now , as to when we had 40 people on 24 hrs a day,

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#11

This started after the 500 patch. Maybe rollback every change to AI behavior in a hotfix while you figure out which one caused this internally? Just a thought.

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#12

From their own postings and streams, it seems they have no idea how to do that without breaking things. They seem to have really bad version control and/or documentation.

#13

and barely no attention to details, (typos over stufpid things can be found even in the newest DLC) , exiles Ii and IiI (note the non capital I, among others)… and user found that the crafter thralls are not spawning in purges due to typos in the databases (wrong names Cimerian (instead of cimmerian. stuff like that)

i am starting to believe devs drinks a lot of alcohol, while trying to fix the game. :frowning:

i hope things gets better…

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#14

It’s not just the 500 patch. I’m on PS4 and they attack certain things but not others, even if they’re attacked.

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#16

Hi Tasha, would it be possible to take a copy from an official server onto your internal test server? I also believe it is related to performance and stress from all the structures/thralls.

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#17

Ok, I’ve seen the following cases of this issue:

  1. Special periods of aggro. For example, 2 hours all the mobs (and thralls too) are not aggressive, then something triggers them (maybe entering a specific place?) and they are gaining aggro properly. So 2-3 hours of normal aggro - and then “pacifist mode” again

  2. Certain thralls are not attacking and some of them are normally agressive. For example, 3 of my thralls are just staying peacefully around the mob (that is attacking me) and 1 of thralls suddenly becomes aggressive and attacks the enemy.

  3. Mobs that are aggressive only for some players. For example, I walk somewhere (in jungles, in the north, whatever) with my clanmate and mobs are attacking only my clanmate (and for me they are not agressive at all). Then after 1-2 hours they become aggressive for me too.

Official PVE #1053 server.

#18

This is general QA procedure and it’s part of the internal testing process. We are doing this already :slight_smile:

Yeah, that specific thread has been very helpful but it might actually be related to a similar bug but no the main issue.

This is a typical example of an issue that is wide spread and we know players do experience it but at the same time it’s hard reproduce the detailed steps needed to actually trigger the issue (in this case the thralls going from attacking to being unresponsive). So when we mention “it’s hard to reproduce” we don’t mean that we don’t see it happening but we mean that it’s hard to get the exact steps needed to trigger an issue.

That is also the reason we have the bug post template and need as much information as possible including steps that led to the issue you are experiencing.

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#19

Exactly the same thing on PVE #1726. I experience this all the time. Sometimes I am getting attacked. Sometimes I’m not. I walked through the Black Keep the other day and got the recipes and nothing hit me.

#20

Well for what it’s worth, I can confirm that NPCs not aggroing is pretty consistent in the afternoon/evening when more people are playing, but if I pop on early in the morning when the server is otherwise empty, they seem to work a lot better. Whether that’s a cause or just a symptom, I can’t say. This is on an official server, I don’t remember the number.

I haven’t tested my own thralls’ response during those times. I usually only have 15 minutes in the morning which I use to mine the iron near my base and maybe do a quick lap of the nearby pirate camp to see if any interesting crafters are available - and in the evening when I have more time, AI generally does not work at all.

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#21

I wonder if it has something to do with attempting to give NPC and creatures a warning stance before they attack.
I remember reading about plans for that somewhere around the time before the mother load patch.

Not sure if it was implemented or not but if so, maybe its too much for the ai to handle.