I am running my little stable of characters through the Chaos Descending signature line (adventure, not tradeskill in this case) and have noticed something interesting about my mercenary's behavior. I asked in general chat and nobody seemed to experience the same thing as me which I found curious. Hence, this post. A few notes: I am not asking about mercenaries being more powerful or doing more damage etc. This is not a line of sight question or issue. This is not a "distance from mercenary" question or issue. This is not an issue with mercenary cowering due to being overwhelmed. I'm not complaining or looking for a fix - it's curiosity more than anything else. Here's the scene: https://eq2.fandom.com/wiki/Doomfire:_Elements_of_Rage_(Solo) While clearing trash mobs in the area where Manacrush spawns (before spawning, but spurious detail likely) my mercenary appears to be "disabled". What I mean is the mercenary appears to take no action at all. Just stands there. No heals. No combat engage. The mercenary is standing right next to me and follows if I move. This also appears to happen during the fight with Manacrush. If I take the mercenary "earlier" in the zone (i.e., "lower" or near the zone-in point) mercenary behaves as normal: does some healing and does some damage. Nothing to write home about, but I don't need more junk mail anyway. If I take the mercenary back into the geography where Manacrush will spawn it just stands there again as if disabled. The fact that no one else in general chat seemed to have experienced this surprised me since I've now seen it on the four characters I've run through the zone. So, I'm curious if anyone else has seen this, if I'm doing something wrong, or going crazy. Well, the answer is probably "yes" to that last part, but I mean specifically with regard to this. Cheers, Oradim
Yes, I too have noticed this lack of activity, at least on Perrin, whom alone I keep for a healer mercenary. With the thought of "any time now Perrin" as I watch my hitpoints decease. There were not LOS issues, and Perrin was quite close. Other engagements Perrin seems quite on top of healing and curing, with no noticeable delays. Friends of mine on other mercenaries have also noticed this intermittent lack of at least healing. However, I can not offer any correlations, apart from perhaps Doomfire and Air zones is where the apparent lack of mercenary activity has been noticed at.
Even if the merc's animation isn't active, it's doing its thing. Check your log files for the fight or ACT and look for damage, cures, heals, or whatever. If you can show via the logs/ACT that the merc TRULY isn't doing anything, then /bug it. I suspect this is a Doomfire problem. The fire and particle effects in the zone cause lag for many people a lot of the time, and right after release was kinda unplayable for some folks. It just may not be rendering merc animation for some reason.
Thanks, Ceyarrecks Wunnfirr and Sigrdrifa! I'm wondering if there is an animation or similar thing going on too. I tried to be careful in my wording and probably used "appears" too much. Anyway, next time I am there I'll do the ACT thing. I've just recently downloaded it so we'll see what it says. I might also try turning off complex shader and/or particles to see if that changes anything visually. Well, other than the effects of course.
Certainly the lack of replenished hitpoints is a dead (pun intended) give away that the mercenary is not healing,... /shrug
Over lunch I decided to test with another character (a Shadowknight because I would have mercenary and pet) and visually saw similar on-screen appearances: namely, "down low" in the zone everybody was animating on-screen. Up in Manacrush-land I saw the same appearance only this time my dread squire appeared to just stand there and do nothing (other than say scripted lines like, "Your blood calls to me.") while Zhugrus was doing all his animations/movements. So, even though visually my mercenary (or pet too) seems to be standing there doing absolutely nothing, that appears to be deceiving. Snippet from log: Code: Zhugrus Blightstrike flurries a crystal embernaut for a critical of 2120174 crushing damage. Zhugrus Blightstrike multi attacks a crystal embernaut for a critical of 2020532 crushing damage. Qyzen's Toxic Strike multi attacks a crystal embernaut for a Fabled critical of 28572243 poison damage. Qyzen's Toxic Strike hits a crystal embernaut for a Fabled critical of 28572243 poison damage. Zhugrus Blightstrike hits a crystal embernaut for a critical of 2301126 crushing damage. Here my dread squire is named "Qyzen" and the important thing for this exercise is that both Qyzen and Zhugrus are doing things. I don't care about the actual values for this test. I played around with some settings (complex shader, particles, stuff under Characters and Animation) for a few minutes but didn't get all three of us to be animating at the same time. Not critical. The important thing is my inquiry about others seeing this and proving there really is something happening (per the log, thank you Sigrdrifa) are both happily answered. I do have a fairly low-end system so maybe that is a contributing factor. Cheers, Oradim
In many of the newer zones, mercs suffer from line-of-sight issues. Line-of-sight is not measured from where their "eyes" are, but near/at the bottom of their feet. This can make a pebble "block" vision. Doomfire has a very uneven terrain, and this makes the issue even more apparent. The game didn't use to work that way, but it was changed on purpose because NPCs (MOBs) were "seeing" players before players could register their presense. It felt like the mobs could "see" through walls. The devs agreed to change it, but warned that there would be "unforseen consequences" (shout out to the Valve devs!) At least, that is how I remember it.
Yup.. it's not line of sight in EQ2, it's line of toes.. if their toes can't see your toes, they can't heal you.
Hi, Would a line of sight issue cause the mercenary on-screen animation to stop or "freeze" but the mercenary actually is healing? Here's an example from an additional test I did (different from above, abridged and edited for formatting): Code: Zhugrus Blightstrike flurries Manacrush for a critical of 1756459 crushing damage. Zhugrus Blightstrike flurries Manacrush for a critical of 1791870 crushing damage. Zhugrus Blightstrike's Warful Healing heals YOU for a critical of 30604375 hit points. Zhugrus Blightstrike's Atoning Faith heals YOU for a critical of 93511336 hit points. Zhugrus Blightstrike's Atoning Faith heals YOU for a critical of 15290054 hit points. Zhugrus Blightstrike's Atoning Faith heals YOU for a critical of 33300737 hit points. Zhugrus Blightstrike's Atoning Faith heals YOU for a critical of 5638361 hit points. In this case I dismissed my dread squire and just stood there for a bit and let Manacrush beat on me so that I would require healing. The log shows heals from Zhugrus even though he was standing motionless right next to me as shown here: After taking Sigrdrifa's suggestion of enabling the log and looking at it, it seems to me that it's an issue of on-screen animation. Can there be a line of sight issue in the above? You can see Zhugrus is just standing right next to me not in any heal or combat pose but there are damage and heal entries in the log. I set: Follow = me Protect = none Assist = me Cheers, Oradim
See my posted screenshot. This is why I said in my original post that I don't think it is a line of sight issue (plus there is stuff in the log now that I have learned about that). Also, I have my options set to always show mounts as I don't like the "popping off and on" when engaging and disengaging in combat. I have only seen this when on the mesa where Manacrush sits. Lower in the zone the mercenary performs animations. Cheers, Oradim
I have for a long time noticed simply by watching my health that the merc was healing when the animation showed nothing at all. Not all animations are rendered ime. Also, I just want to point out to everyone that while doing solo's in CD, I have literally been standing a meter from a shiny and the game is telling me you cannot see that object or whatever the message is. the ground is flat and level, and im almost on top of the shiney...but i cant see it. my conclusion is there are invisible elevation changes in the architecture that I would wildly guess was due to rushed creation.
I have seen that in harvesting too I have to move and stand almost right on top of what I'm harvesting to be able to see it.
Thanks Menko and Breanna - I think the problem for me when I take my Templar through Manacrush (and if the Templar dies) is: How can I blame a mercenary for not healing me when it's been shown in the logs that despite no animations heals are happening?!?! OK, for the record, that's a joke. Though I think it might be interesting when it comes time for the Templar. Right now the Wizard is, umm, blasting through.
There are a gadzillion mobs up on that mesa being animated. As long as the merc is actually doing whatever it is that it's supposed to, I'd just shrug and give it up in terms of adjusting your own settings, then /bug the animation issue. If I'm in the solo, I don't kill the elemental that triggers Manacrush to spawn. I kill all the trash that will be in the way for Manacrush and the drakes, including the nilboreans on the way to the next elemental, and only THEN run back and trigger Manascrush. I tend to kite Manacrush in a big circle, so this way I have nothing in the way to accidentally aggro. It might be interesting to see what happens if you get rid of all the other mobs on the mesa before starting the Manacrush fight, then see if the merc is animating.
I do the same (i.e., clear all the trash then spawn) which is where I noticed the behavior. Now that we’ve seen in log files that actions are taking place I think I’m moving into the “shrug” category. The screenshot posted above is from the “it might interesting” scenario you describe: everything cleared, Manacrush spawned, then the fight started. I didn’t kite Manacrush around though. Given all the input from everyone and the log data, I’m happy to call it a non–issue. If I stumble upon a setting that does cause the animation to happen I’ll try to remember what I changed. Though I tend to just leave my settings static other than disabling complex shader in some zones to help my frame rate. Cheers, Oradim
I have seen it as well, but you know what? As long it is doing the job it was brought along for, I really don't care one little bit if the animation is not working. I can't recommend that the devs use their limited time to track down an issue like this. Sorry. I find it far more worrisome when a healer merc watches you die and refuses to at least resurrect you.
I see a very big monster when I look at the screenshot. Could that be that the game graphical engine thinks that mercenary is on the background in one way or another and that it is not really necessary to play animation for someone who is obscured by the big monster/object in order to keep performance optimal? Well, as a player we can clearly see that the mercenary is on the foreground and not on the background, but does game graphical engine see the same as we see? … just to keep discussion going
