I am happy to report that I was once again able to solo the Nefarious Tower; this time on live.

It took approximately 4 and a half hours, and I ended up with 17 companions on bedrest. Better luck next time Ratbeard

ha ha har, ye be quite risk taker there I congrats ye on soloing the tower, bravely done mate yar.

Deadeye Jack Morgan

Very impressive. Can I guess from your forum image that you ran through as a Musketeer?

WAY TO GO, Morgrim!

I watched your video of the Nefarious 5 fight on Central and I must say, it was very impressive and some wonderful strategy came into play. I have to admit though that there were quite a few times were I thought, "There's no way he's going to make it another round or 2." Especially times when your musketeer was down in the red and one of the 5 got a critical hit Blade Storm or Double Tap-- luckily they left you alone and went for your summons for some odd reason-- that's what they are there for, right! Yeah, it had me on the edge of my seat, gnawing on my nails!

Again, amazing job and CONGRATS to you.....time to get to work on my Musketeer now-- long ways to go though!

Ratbeard on Sep 29, 2014 wrote:

The nice thing about summons (well, one of the nice things...) is that they are very squishy.

The AI will almost always (correctly) decide that it is more valuable to eliminate a squishy enemy than risk just doing damage-- but not finishing the job-- against another target. It definitely does not like to spread damage around if it can even the odds instead.

In fact, this is one reason that it has been so persistently difficult to make Buccaneers as enticing to the AI as they should be. The AI looks at the Buccaneer and thinks, "Why would I want to fruitlessly throw myself against that!?"

Well that does make some pretty good sense then, especially being that it is AI doing the 'thinking'. I certainly wouldn't expect the AI to think with the same mindset as us players and then respond accordingly. If so I suppose the AI in the case of 'eliminate primary target' (as in only pirate on the board), would react the same as we pirates do when we only have to eliminate a 'high priority target' (or boss only). So, I would imagine that in cases such as that instance with the Nefarious 5, the AI doesn't calculate or wouldn't account for the 'high priority target' being near eliminated and thus focus fire on it, or at minimum attack with 1 member with base damage that would be enough to finish the pirate off, leaving squishy summons left to clean up-- therefore possibly satisfying the AI's battle objective?

I was always curious as to how that worked in regards to the AI's own battle goals and/or objectives. So basically, to put it somewhat simple, is the AI always looking to inflict the most damage possible that will also eliminate the target? And what does it consider a higher priority, maximum damage or eliminating an enemy? It would seem that with Morgrim's scenario, when he had several members of the Nefarious 5 within attacking distance, and his pirate was in the red, that the AI would 'calculate' that any one more attack would finish the endangered target-- or even if necessary an attack from more than 1 of the Nef. 5 (especially seeing as they all have bonus attacks upon defeating an enemy. Does the AI account for bonus attacks from finishing (BS, DT, MR) an enemy in pre-calculations or is it more of a calculate then see what happens and then recalculate based upon outcome(s) from the initial calculation. And is the AI always 'looking to' eliminate the squishy target based on overall squishiness, not in regards to health and danger of being eliminated?

Again I am just curious and also fascinated about and by all this AI and programming stuff. I don't really have a background with, or in, anything of that nature, so I 'probe' for the purpose of possible gaining insight and it's just pretty neat to hear. Which again, I do appreciate you providing and sharing your insight.

(Sorry Morgrim for taking the thread off topic....Bonnie or Jack, could this possibly ,and possibly Ratbeard's previous post (if he is ok with it) be moved to a new thread called something like AI discussion with Ratbeard or Combat System Discussion? Wanted to quote and respond here, but also don't want to detract from Morgrim's thread and accomplishment)

Merciless Morgrim on Sep 27, 2014 wrote:

I am happy to report that I was once again able to solo the Nefarious Tower; this time on live.

It took approximately 4 and a half hours, and I ended up with 17 companions on bedrest. Better luck next time Ratbeard

Congrats, Morgrim! Hope your companions are feeling better soon.

Ratbeard on Sep 29, 2014 wrote:

The nice thing about summons (well, one of the nice things...) is that they are very squishy.

The AI will almost always (correctly) decide that it is more valuable to eliminate a squishy enemy than risk just doing damage-- but not finishing the job-- against another target. It definitely does not like to spread damage around if it can even the odds instead.

In fact, this is one reason that it has been so persistently difficult to make Buccaneers as enticing to the AI as they should be. The AI looks at the Buccaneer and thinks, "Why would I want to fruitlessly throw myself against that!?"

Ah. That's great. I remember a group I did through the Tower, and during the Nefarious fight, I was the last person standing out of three,(the fourth person was drunk - he drank the elixir, I mean) and guess what? I had to take down three of the Five, two with close-to-full-health, and so I summoned and summoned and summoned. Eventually it was me vs. the privateer. She was extremely irritating, charming me every round I wasn't love-struck. Plus, I had very low health. So what did I do? I ran across the map, the summons keeping her busy. Eventually, I had summoned about 8 or 9 minions, and it was a stalemate. So I healed, ran back across, and - making sure I didn't use a power - I shot her with my Shooty/Spooky weapons. Victory. My heart was beating so hard I thought anybody in my house could hear it.