Servers with Mercs enabled: don't hunt and text

[Shiny151]

For those of you playing/running servers with mercs enabled...have you ran into an issue with cleric mercs suddenly forgetting what they are supposed to be doing? It's like they are on their phones farting around texting with their BFF while the rest of the group is busy dying or almost dying.

I have Akk's PEQ updated repack on a windows 7 server using Journeyman Tier 2 mercs and it seems like this issue is more prevalent the higher level you are. Or, it's my perception because at lower levels you don't depend on them quite as much. It's random but usually starts happening about half an hour into a session; however, it's been as long as an hour or two before a first occurrence. It doesn't matter what zone you're in or what client you're using. My community mainly uses ROF/2 and UF. But the bottom line is, they stop buffing and healing altogether. Once I suspend them and unsuspend they return to normal. But even suspend can be flakey at times because it doesn't always refresh the unsuspend button unless you camp out and return.

If any devs or admins have any thoughts on this I'd be interested in hearing what your experience is. Or, if you've addressed this by adding any customization or special settings to mercs that make them more dependable and consistent overall I'd be interested in how you achieved that.

Overall the mercs are good; much improved since they were first introduced and I appreciate all the work that's been done to achieve this. Thank you!

[shadark]

I play in Shiney's server and would like to add a few things about problems with the healer merc.

When I reached lvl 54, the problems with the healer suddenly out of the blue would stop healing as well as buffing. It happens at various random times, be it 15 mins, be in when I zoned in, be it 30 mins or can it go as long as 3 hrs before the healer merc quits on me.

Another note in the differences in levels with the healer...

At 54, I would group with a lvl 8 to have the healer buff him, it would cast the first buff just fine, then comes the second buff, it would suddenly go berserk and rebuffs the 2nd buff repeatedly and would not stop in order to give out the 3rd buff.

Then I tested it with a lvl 52 with the healer, no problems, gave out all 3 buffs without borking out.

At times before lvl 54, the healer would suddenly stop healing, but not as often as lvl 54. Some days I play for hours without a problem, it would be semi-rare that it quits on me.

Just wanted to add in what the healer merc's been doing in hopes that someone gets some idea of what's going on.

The mercs are great, tank mercs gave no problems at all and I realize it takes time to improve the mercs and hope this info will help the devs see what problems it has in hopes that one day some of the problems can be fixed.

Thanks

Shad

[Uleat]

Back in the days when I used to play...


I play on my own solo server with bots.

If I'm not mistaken..I believe that bots and mercs were cookie-cuttered and modified for their respective classes.


I noticed this same problem when I would tank for my group..but, I had written it off to the use of HoT spells since the problem seemed to compound at higher levels.

I never really took notice as to what factors were playing a role or whether they were occasional...


I would like to hear more from people who have had a similar issue with mercs, or bots, so that we can gather as much information as possible.

I can't look at this immediately..but, I may be able to in the near future..and having more symptoms on-hand may help with discovery.

[provocating]

If some commonality on the issue can be found it will be easy to fix. The more information on which ones do it and what was happening at the time will help greatly.

[Shiny151]

Originally Posted by provocating

If some commonality on the issue can be found it will be easy to fix. The more information on which ones do it and what was happening at the time will help greatly.

Indeed. That's what I'm trying to make sense of. Due to the randomness of it it's hard to pinpoint what may be going on. However, there is one other issue with clerics I noticed when I hit level 59. They continually cast Ethereal Remedy on themselves until they are at 50% mana. Once they dip below 50% they stop until they med to 50 and spam themselves again. It's almost as if they are misreading their hitpoint value and are trying to close the gap. I just hit level 60 last night and they are still doing it.

[provocating]

Originally Posted by Shiny151

Indeed. That's what I'm trying to make sense of. Due to the randomness of it it's hard to pinpoint what may be going on. However, there is one other issue with clerics I noticed when I hit level 59. They continually cast Ethereal Remedy on themselves until they are at 50% mana. Once they dip below 50% they stop until they med to 50 and spam themselves again. It's almost as if they are misreading their hitpoint value and are trying to close the gap. I just hit level 60 last night and they are still doing it.

It has been a year since I looked at bot code but even then Clerics would only heal when a player got below a certain amount. It almost seems like health and mana are getting confused, probably not though.

[Shiny151]

Well here's some further info about cleric mercs:

As the code currently stands; A level 59 cleric merc will spam him/herself until their mana is at 50 percent with what appears to be Ethereal Remedy (due to the, 'so-and-so's wounds fade away' message) until level 61 where it stops. I'm not sure if there's a problem with that particular heal/spell or there's something else buggy going on in level 59 and 60 but this our experience on my AKK's PEQ server updated repack.

Hope this helps.

[Shiny151]

Here's some additional info on ways to break mercs from the most recent pull-down compile from Akk's repack; (9096 I believe):

If your merc gets charmed by a mob/NPC and then the charm wears off, it basically leaves your merc just standing there broken. There's really no way to fix it in battle. Only a suspend or relog will reset the merc.

If anyone wants to confirm or test this, engage Lcea Katta in Katta Castellum.

[EQEMU2010]

Theyre really buggy at times camp them out if they bug hit your own camp button and stand back up and resummon/invite or maybe redo the commands. I have had them work off and on not at all and pretty great theyre just un perfected really it seems goodluck...

[cannon]

Originally Posted by Shiny151

Indeed. That's what I'm trying to make sense of. Due to the randomness of it it's hard to pinpoint what may be going on. However, there is one other issue with clerics I noticed when I hit level 59. They continually cast Ethereal Remedy on themselves until they are at 50% mana. Once they dip below 50% they stop until they med to 50 and spam themselves again. It's almost as if they are misreading their hitpoint value and are trying to close the gap. I just hit level 60 last night and they are still doing it.

If you want a cheap fix for this. Provided your using the latest peq database for mercenaries. The merc level will still match the player level but will use the level 61 method for casting. i just narrowed down to the 7 healer and 7 caster entries for j1-j7.

update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=11 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=12 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=13 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=14 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=15 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=16 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=17 AND 'clientlevel'=59;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=11 AND 'clientlevel'=60;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=12 AND 'clientlevel'=60;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=13 AND 'clientlevel'=60;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=14 AND 'clientlevel'=60;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=15 AND 'clientlevel'=60;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=16 AND 'clientlevel'=60;
update 'peq'.'merc_stats' SET 'level'=61 WHERE 'merc_npc_type_id'=17 AND 'clientlevel'=60;

EDIT: So I went back into the database to narrow down the healer mercs. you can change back any that obviously dont have mana, but I notice there is from what I assume J1-J5 casters (should be 5) J1-J5 for healers (should be 5), I have what I believe is 7 entries for each caster and healer.

[Shiny151]

Originally Posted by cannon

If you want a cheap fix for this. Provided your using the latest peq database for mercenaries. The merc level will still match the player level but will use the level 61 method for casting. i just narrowed down to the 7 healer and 7 caster entries for j1-j7.

Ahh I didn't try scaling up, I tried scaling down a while back and that didn't seem to work.

[cannon]

Originally Posted by Shiny151

Ahh I didn't try scaling up, I tried scaling down a while back and that didn't seem to work.

Trivial, but don't forget to restart your server after making changes.

[Shiny151]

Originally Posted by cannon

Trivial, but don't forget to restart your server after making changes.

Indeed. One other thing; notice once you hit 70 both the Apprentice and Journeyman cast Balikor's Mark rather than Hand of Conviction? That doesn't sound right to me and I'm trying to figure out the logic on that one.

[Uleat]

Look up the merc's npcid and see what spells are available to them..probably a non-implementation issue.

[Shiny151]

Originally Posted by Uleat

Look up the merc's npcid and see what spells are available to them..probably a non-implementation issue.

I made this easy and just removed merc_spell_list_entry_id 536 and 403. That removes Balikor's Mark from their spell lineup altogether. In my opinion there's really no instance in which that buff offers any major benefit over Hand of Conviction other than less mana and a faster cast at the sacrifice of 300AC, an additional 600HP and another hour duration.