I’ve noticed several bugs with mob behavior. I play tauren so this may be exclusive or more common on tauren characters.
New Bugs:
Mobs storing autoattacks
It seems like all mobs are storing autoattacks when the player is out of range, and unleashing them when back in range. Usually this happens when a mob is slowed or rooted and not otherwise completely disabled i.e. polymorph, but not in range to attack. The mob “stores” attacks and then unleashes them when back in range. The most well known of these is Princess in Mara who will store up 5+ auto attacks and drop them when back in range resulting in 2k+ damage instantly. This seems to be a bug for all mobs, not just her or elites. For mages, this bug is well known due to mobs routinely not being in range the entirety of combat, and resulting in a one shot if the mobs they’re aoeing get in range for even a split second.
Mob Targeting:
I have noticed that Targeting mobs is bugged. When mousing over a mob, the mouse does not properly reflect the mob that the cursor is resting on. For example, a mob may be attacking a healer and you may be mousing over them but it still is indicating on the mob in front improperly because of hitboxes. It makes clicking mobs exhausting and forces players to cycle through with tab instead of just being able to click on a target to select it.
Here’s an image of what I’m talking about. I put an X where my cursor is since screenshots do not reflect this. The tauren in front is the one being indicated by my cursor even though my mouse is CLEARLY on the banker.
imgur.com/idB3AIz
Existing Bugs
Mob backpedaling - Mobs will routinely “back up” which is not vanilla behavior. Mobs only move in a straight forward line and turn to the player.
Backpedal autoattacking - while backpedaling and autoing, mobs frequently lag outside of the hotbox so that the character cannot autoattack them, but they are still striking the player, resulting in a situation where the player must stop to actually hit them
Mobs facing wrong direction - Mobs will face the wrong direction when stunned, appearing to look in one direction while the hitbox is actually different than what is seen in the client. Leading to situations where a player should be able to backstab but can’t because of a “must be behind” error
Mob loot bug - Mobs are sparkling though they have loot without having loot on them.
Agro sharing - mobs will agro onto players who are not grouped and have not assisted an engaged player in any way, especially after evading on that player if currently in the evade reset path of the mob.
See through walls - mobs will frequently ignore walls and solid objects to either agro or cast when clearly they should not be able to. The most common example of this is ruin walls in STV around trolls and the Bloodsail ships which are especially bad. Houses in general also seem to be hit or miss
Flee mechanics - mobs will routinely run in a straight line for hundreds of yards, even going outside of draw distance from the player. Also, instead of agroing allies immediately and returning to fight, they usually run the full distance and then agro on the way back which is improper. Mobs should run in random directions, usually towards allies, and stop when they reach them to return attacking and bringing them with them. They should not run HUNDREDS of yards and agro allies on the way BACK
Mobs glitched underground - Mobs are frequently found glitched under the ground or in a location that causes evade errors if you attempt to go outside melee range. Usually around mining nodes
Mob Tagging - Mobs are not tagged by Thorns, Fire Shield, etc after taking damage as is proper behavior. Upon taking any damage a mob should immediately be tagged by a player that causes passive damage from a shield. Direct damage is not required in vanilla
Spell Batching - Mobs will attack/interrupt while stunned or incapacitated. Example: I had a mob interrupt a regrowth that was cast while the mob was War Stomped. Mobs should not have spell batching like players do. I’ve also heard of rogues getting killed after gouging a target from a white hit. There are plenty of other examples of this with stuns etc. Mobs should NOT have player spell batching at all
These are just a few I’m sure I’ll have more soon
I have more:
Mob taunting - taunting a fleeing mob should cause them to stop running and attack the player taunting.
Pathing and mob behavior/aggro is broken in general. It makes the game even more cancer to play when stuff is actually dangerous, since they can go through walls/aggro through floors/etc, which is pretty much guaranteed death.
The most annoying one by far is how the mobs seem to always try to get behind you, even if you bow pull, if you move a small amount then a mob will move behind you when he should be in front. It’s not how mobs acted in classic and they likely don’t do that in BFA either.
Yep, they have the busted pathing from Legion. Happens when they use a legion client and try to hack it to work with 1.12. They still haven’t fixed it after years of retail so its not going to get fixed here, we’re stuck with this trash. This isn’t vanilla.
Can confirm that this is also an issue, I forgot to add it to the main post. Mobs seem to move lagged behind actual combat. For example, they may reposition randomly which results in them behind you, even after specifically moving to put them in front of you multiple times.
I think this is simply built into the artificial server lag or “batching” they have. If mob reactions were in real time I doubt we would see this issue. Mob actions are obviously purposely delayed, for whatever reason.
Definitely does not feel polished. Vanilla mobs should react quickly and instantly, the current system we have now feels laggy and delayed, seemly on purpose.
This is the most fundamental mechanic you can have so I agree this is priority one to fix.
A good example of this is when you shift into bear to feral charge, there’s a delay between shifting and generating that 10 rage from Furor. This puts EVEN MORE delay into charging the target and interrupting a cast. This combined with ON PURPOSE spell batching makes it near impossible to land a feral charge interrupt.
Fairly sure it is an issue with the engine revamp they did a few expansions ago, this behavior has been present since then and pretty sure they basically said it isn’t fixable. They did a lot of changes under the hood to try to push the limits of the old engine, but stuff like this was a side effect.
Obviously they haven’t been able to, it just isn’t as noticeable in live because a vast majority of the content is so faceroll.
I haven’t played since wrath so I know nothing of the engine changes. Thank you for educating me.
As far as I can see, this game is called classic, and so it should use the classic engine to run it. I can say for sure, that as a veteran player who’s experienced private server mechanics (actual 1.12), this embedded lag that seems built in to the very fabric of the game is probably going to be one of the major contributors to my eventual departure from this game.
It’s annoying and it’s impossible to “unsee” it once you’ve seen it. Vanilla is already a slow game, any added delay whatsoever is pretty much unbearable and compared to actual 1.12 speed the entire game seems like it’s slowed down
Which I may add was one of the features players were looking forward to with retail (no delay)
I must say it’s incredibly odd referring to retail which we pay $15 a month for as “slow” and “delayed” as compared to an experience on a server running 1.12 and based in Europe
The LoS issue is extreme. Mob behavior in general feels quite unpolished. Also, the amount of delay across the board for player actions is obviously too intense.
After putting in some hours I have Concluded the 1.13 client is garbage. Vanilla is better in some very important intangibles imo. I think the current Devs would do well to spend an hour each on Warcraft 2, Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, the 1.12 client, and then 1.13.
Something else to add to the mob behavior ticket: As a rogue I constantly try to backstab mobs who are gouged or stunned. I’ve noticed that when I use these skills 2 things may happen.
Mob who is facing towards my character gets stunned and randomly spins to face in any direction and will spin right back after effect wears off. Often times multiple stuns on the same target WILL yield the same facing degrees if I keep my character and the mob in the same location.
or
Mob will continue to face the correct direction while stunned, but moving behind the model and attempting to use backstab will results in the error message “you must be behind your target.” Often times I have to frantically rotate omni-directionally to find the ‘back’ of the mob which may be either side or even its front.
The difference is night and day running 1.12 client with 1.12 dedicated hardware backing it up (not whatever cloud bs they’re using atm). Actions are crisp and they flow
At some point in vanilla, I remember them adding some kind of system like this for when you had a bunch of mobs bunched up on you. Like they would try to fan out around you, rather than have 5 mobs standing on the same XYZ position.
This is a lag/spell batching related thing I think. I’ve only seen it a few times.
This has gotten me killed a few times now and is definitely a problem.
Definitely a huge issue right now. They will almost run so far away that they deaggro off you if you don’t chase them around. I’ve found this super annoying on my warlock for fear draining/sharding mobs.
They changed this during vanilla too to where it required a direct ability to aggro mobs. It was to prevent hunters and warlocks from setting pets on aggressive and afk farming. Same with thorns and fireshields.
Spell batching, but I’m still pretty sure even the mobs had it during vanilla. The servers would process and output everything in chunks, including mob mechanics.
At no point in vanilla would mobs ever “backpedal”. They also don’t purposely try to reposition themselves behind the player after a simple location move.
So unless you have some sort of video proving otherwise this is a bug.
Yeah I’ve noticed it less, but I still see backpedaling while attacking cause lag. it doesn’t seem consistent.
Agree
Exactly dude. The mob flee mechanic is completely wrong. Mobs should run a few yards, and then pick a random direction for a few more yards, then pick another direction. It should not be in one direction continuously for the entire duration.
Post the change notes, otherwise this is still a bug.
Mobs interrupting spells while still stunned is absolutely not vanilla wow. A server should recognize that the mob is stunned, and therefore it would be impossible for a mob to cast an interrupt at that point.
Spell batching mainly refers to player vs player, where delays in server timing between two clients caused such situations. Client vs server response should be much more polished and those situations where “spell batching” can occur should be blamed on literal server lag. In short, mobs don’t have spell batching.
Same. I’ve had mobs engaged in combat with other players randomly turn on me as I’m walking by minding my business WHILE the other player is still engaged in the fight.