Unofficial MxO NPC EXPLOIT tread

Continuity amongst Live Event characters...

Why is Ghost 55 and Niobe is 60? Shouldn't they both be at 55? Are we saying that because she had more lines in the movies she gets a higher level? Also, why is Agent Gray so much lower than the spawned Agents? They should all be 60. And lastly, why can't some of the Event characters be between 50-53? I'd like some orange and red, as the purple ones seem close to invulnerable.

 But as for actual NPC's, yeah... Everyone's just about listed the exploits I've seen.

• NPCs using abilities above their level - As far as I am aware this is by desgin. However if you see a level 10 using the Destroyer Debuff though you should probably mention it. And for the most part the ability wont be more than 5-10 levels above them but also remember the effectiveness of many abilities are directly linked to their Style level.
• NPCs walking out of mission areas - Definately a bug, unfortunately we dont have a solid repro case making it very difficult to fix.
• NPCs having faster reuse timers for weapons - I dont think this is occuring as such. Remember what you see on your client in a lag situation may effect animations and/or you chat window. However a stop watch is the best way to tell as all weapon types have the same reuse timers. (Pistols, Rifles, Submachine Guns, Shot Guns, ect.)
• NPCs not obeying the reuse timer for initiating Interlock I haven't seen this issue nor been able to repro it. More information would be helpful. "Mission Name, character level, opponent names among other things."
• NPCs shooting through mundane objects - This is intended as you can do it also Trees, dumbsters and what not do not block a player's LoS either (Line of Sight)
• NPCs shooting through walls - There is currently a bug where openned doors do not appear as open allowing NPCs to fire throught them. This gives the appearance that NPCs can magically fire through them however a player can return fire if you can target the mob in question. I have done it on my RSIs several times.

Has there ever been a word on NPC interlock timer? I't makes evade combat almost useless for NPCs.  I did a search and found the problem is almost a year old and still isnt fixed!

 Also there has been a random bug with gang NPCs that I have seen.  I remember it happened quite a long time ago, but it still happens sometimes.  A gang member will attack me and then follow me right into a building, up an elevator, into a mission area, and even if I travel to another hard line in the same district, or run halfway across the district, I will be doing a mission and the gang member will suddenly appear again shooting me.  Once it even happened in an elevator that was on a mission only floor, so I couldn't open the doors, and for some reason I couldn't access the elevator control, and the gang member was stuck outside the elevator shooting me, where I could do nothing but sit there taking damage.

I've seen NPCs be able to fire "magic" bullets that can go through walls and turn corners. 

WM's Npcs = the most anoying thing ever. roll in, roll out... :/

Most of these I don't think are a big enough deal to waste the devs' time, but in my experience, the NPCs seem to walk out more when I'm using a spy loadout. I dunno if it's running to the elevator to put on a disguise, goign to the elevator to heal/gain IS or if it's the loadout for some reason or what not. It's really annoying, but not so bad if they're already at 0, 0, 0 by the time you get there. Then they don't free fire ^^ I would like to see this fixed sometime in the future, it's no fun having to go 300+ m to find your npc

The npcs shooting through walls.... the only time this has ever happened to me is when they tried to break shield and the animation pushed them back into another room. Just back up some and they'll come back into the room. When this happesn I dont think you can free fire using guns or whatever, but hacker attacks will still go through.

 I hate the WM NPCs... it's not so bad with the lower level guards or whatever, but it gets annoying with the boss. What I did was interlock before he could. When he rolls out (and you know when it's gonna happen cause there's a pause and your special's won't go through even though they should have) back up and then run up to him and interlock. About the specials misfiring... I've had this happen, but it wasn't that big of a deal with hacker cause I had a high IS regen. It also happened to him, which helped A LOT. ^^ He would use those 1000+ damage specials but miss and i'd only take a few points of damage. 

Yesterday I was running missions on an alt and every time I ran into a Machine "Ballista," it was using one of the MA trees O_o Was nice though, cause then I didn't have to break shield :P ^^

 I haven't seen any NPCs that have fired faster than normal. Most, MOST (this excludes any NPCs using guns unless they are mach/whatever SMG and MA since they use rifles) of the time they are using SMGs though, and those have the shortest reuse timers.

It does seem like they are able to attempt interlock faster, but using 01 isn't really a good example IMO. Not unless you're killing 1-3 at a time. Any more than that and they will all go at your shield and you may only see one attempt interlock, but more than one is trying to break your shield. Now, the only non interlock builds I can think of are MKT and proxies if you're gonna use those. MKT is fine in interlock, but as a low level, the specials just DRAIN your IS. I will usually just roll out and put on a disguise... but seriously... when you pvp people will break your shields all the time.

The gang NPCs following you.... I always hated that, but if you just go up to different floors in the elevator as fast as you can, I think they lose track of you and go away.

About taskmaster shooting through those boxes... I've seen this happen, but then I've noticed him slide around the platform like I was lagging even though it didn't seem like I was. Maybe it's some NPC lag bug haha >_< What I mean is I'll see him behind a box and taking damage from his hits, but then in an instant he's behind me or somewhere else that DOES have a clear line of sight.

Also, the only NPCs I've seen use those hybrid loadouts are the Unlimits and the Elite Commandos. I don't think I've see any others, especially not the standard mission npcs. One more may be the EPN Crusader NPCs, but I can't remember. They're either handguns or MA, I cant' remember if I've seen any use both though.

IMO, the only one that's really a killer is when the NPCs walk out. The rest we can deal with. They're NPCs and nowhere near as hard to kill as a real player. Most of the time, you can fix it yourself and not have to go very far out of your way.

Hrm....I've been getting one lately that baffles me.  It seems to only happen when I'm missioning with other players, and I haven't found a pattern to it yet.

 What I do know, is that it only happens when I'm running my "Jack of all trades" loadout.  When I mission with a group, I'm often the non-healing "helper":  I'll have just enough of my trees to Pick Locks, Hack, Download Mission Map, a bit of Proxy (cannon fodder), and Sneak.  I'm currently level 32, by the way.

 When I get into Interlock, at some point in the battle I'll start doing only 1 point of damage, no matter what it is.  Naturally with this tree I could Interlock as Spy, Hacker, or Coder, but I've also seen this pattern using Self-Defense.  This will occur for any of the stances:  Speed, Power, Grab or Defend can all kick it off.  There will be times I'm Interlocked, doing 130-150 points damage on Speed, and not change a thing.  Suddenly, I'm missing a lot and only doing 1 point of damage, every time I land a blow.  Sometimes the NPC will do 1 point as well, and we're just toe-to-toe mussing each other's hair.   This includes special abilities for them, but not for me:  Logic Barrage will do over 100 points, but I've had a vamp Exile use Blood Drain and only do 1 dmg.

If there'd been some sort of special move used on me, that debilitates or debuffs me, I could see it, but often this is just typical fisticuffs.  I've also wondered if any of my buffs are triggering it, so I'll not use Gaussian Blur, and even turn off Evade Combat.  I'll fight with unbuffed clothing.

Last detail:  sometimes when I change stances back and forth, it'll reset the loop and I'll go back to doing normal damage again.  Sometimes it won't.  Ditto for breaking out of Interlock and back in again.

That's what's so odd about this GypsyJuggler--I actually have more of the Spy tree loaded than any other, so my profile indicates "(Spy)".  The Interlock icon in the upper-right shows Self-Defense, and the active style icon (middle of the screen, beneath the toolbars) will be Self-Defense.  And yes, this looks like "Block" behavior, but it kicks in while I'm on Speed or Power or Grab.

 I think I'm going to try unloading the Hacker tree completely, just to see if that changes anything.  If so, then having Hack loaded is to blame.  If not, it's something else.

It just seems a bit odd when I see, for example, "+15 to Melee Damage" in the style I've chosen, do nice damage for a few turns,  then suddenly land 1 again and again.

Thanks pack-hunter:  that at least explains one side of the equation.

From the Hacker side (I have another character who's a Hacker), it's frustrating to start launching an attack, have to wait for it to build, and have the NPC step out of range, just before it fires.  Especially when they slip through a wall to do it.  NPC hackers seem to be able to shoot you out of the sky mid-Hyper-Jump, but something tells me PCs couldn't do the same.

Since this is an "Exploit" thread, I'd like to offer up my theory about NPCs exploiting the system:  I've always believed that any AI will "cheat" in order to win.  In other words, if you've programmed something to try to make the best possible decisions, and that something has the luxury of stepping outside the system's bounds, it will.  It doesn't mean the AI thinks it's cheating; it simply happens to learn (if it's truly fuzzy and memory is inherent) that performing action X receives favorable result Y.  The trick is to debug the AI's range of operation, and from what debugging I've done, I imagine that can be tricky indeed...

Update:

 I think my problem may have been a leveling one.  I've tried to replicate it in solo, groups higher than me or lower, and I'm not seeing the 1-point-damage loop.  What was puzzling about it was that an IL session wouldn't start off that way; it would just start happening, and not stop until I left IL or died.

The abils in that loadout weren't close to my current level.  I managed to scrape together enough cash to bring them along (I'm 35 and I believe most of them are over 20 now).  I don't know if this fixed the problem, or it's just a coincidence, but in several sessions I haven't seen it since.

I'll post more if it happens again, of course...

supersdcurge wrote:

WM's Npcs = the most anoying thing ever. roll in, roll out... :/

lol That's their way of RickRolling you. " /> Anyways.... yeah, that construct is really annoying and the drop rate for the caps are a bit messed up.


-Gerik