AI ever cast stat breaking spells, in normal conditions?

[R999]

The only scenario where I can consistently get the AI to do this is to lower his PA to near non-existent, where he would tend to spam his stat breaking abilities without a thought. The other times, when he has 100 PA multiplier, he never uses them. Only time when he actually does is when he's out of range for some reason. He still prefers doing 300 damage normal attack, even though I gave the stat breaking skill a huge effect radius, long range, -50 PA, 100% hit, Unevadeable, instant cast, 0 MP, only hits enemies, no vertical tolerance,  (basically everything you can ask for, and apparently, none of these things matter).

Now the skill Terror from 1.3 comes to mind. I am not seeing anything special about it other than that it is using a -Brave formula. I wonder how often does the AI actually use it, when you are actually in range for other powerful attacks. Perhaps it is the fact that it is instant cast while her others are not?

Has anyone had the time to experiment with stat breaking skills?

[formerdeathcorps]

Why do you want the AI to consistently lower PA?  If I gave you the choice between -3 PA (at most 1/5th of a knight's PA) or 300 damage (at least 1/3 of someone's HP), with accuracy favoring the normal attack, you'd probably prioritize HP damage for the same reason the computer is doing so: it's far more efficient.  Now, of course, your extreme example points out the weakness of the AI, but the problem doesn't become severe unless you routinely make unmissable spells that reduce vital status by more than 40% of their level 99 value.

Now, from my observation, the AI will use stat breaking attacks, usually if that's the only thing the knight knows (especially at the early levels when WP, PA, and S/A-EV are low and armor bonuses usually exceed the damage dealt by weapons) and his sword deals less than 1/4th of the enemy's HP, or if (in 1.3) the knight just moved in range to use such an attack.

As for terror, the flag to make the AI use it more is add status since it'll make the AI use it deliberately to chicken foes.

[R999]

As for terror, the flag to make the AI use it more is add status since it'll make the AI use it deliberately to chicken foes.

One reason is because I am designing some special battles where it's basically, impossible to win unless you help healing up the special guest, who is designed to do primarily huge amounts of stat breaking.

Then, I have a new female job who is designed to do double stat breaking (Bare Hands, Two Swords innate, no martial arts) when the target is immune to Don't Move. This job's primary function is to act as a fast, melee, fragile disabler. I need the AI to do more stat breaks than doing ultra weak fist damage.

So two things to note are:

1) Make sure his damage is weaker than 1/4th of target's HP
2) Make sure Add Status is flagged, but even though status 00 is inflicted (nothing?)

I'll have to go test this out some more.

[formerdeathcorps]

Add status only works for terror because subtracting brave leads to the chicken status.  This won't increase the frequency for other status break attacks (it would be nice if permanent stop equaled 0 speed, but the game doesn't allow that),

[R999]

Add status only works for terror because subtracting brave leads to the chicken status.  This won't increase the frequency for other status break attacks (it would be nice if permanent stop equaled 0 speed, but the game doesn't allow that),

I haven't tested it yet, but I hope that isn't true. Since there's no formulas that can break stat and inflict status at the same time...

[formerdeathcorps]

If you look at an unmodified patch, you'll see that foxbird is flagged this way.  Remember, units with brave less than 10 are chickened unless they have innate immunity from their job class so lowering brave accomplishes both objectives.

Similarly, frog (wizard spell) is flagged with remove and add status since the spell is hard-coded to allow both the cancellation and infliction of frog.

[Zozma]

i really didn't read everything very closly on this topic but

i find myself very annoyed that my AI controlled "Arch Knight" does not like to use her "Destroy Sword" skills... u know? power ruin, mind ruin, magic ruin, speed ruin. they go out of their way to just do a physical attack or just stand there even if they are in range to use them. and the only times they WILL use them are if the enemy is charging (power ruin) or magic ruin on someone about to cast spells....

[LastingDawn]

It is true the AI seems to think of Stat Breaks as near anathema, yet we saw in the AI Tournament a couple Ruins here and there.

I think FDC has the right idea. Just tell the AI it does a bunch of things it really doesn't. Thereby that should increase it in their priorities list.

[philsov]

stat breaks will be actively used to prevent/cancel incoming damage.  Only kicker is that (vanilla) Charge sucks so the PA prompting just isn't there.

But charge some spell onto the enemies?  They'll MA/MP break rather readily.

[R999]

Well it's been a long time I have learned a lot of things of the AI since then.  For the most part, AI never checks for stats.  These skills (along with equipment break skills) are by and large terrible abilities for AI under most circumstances. Extreme scenario: If it's PA break is their only option at a certain range, and the enemy has 1 PA, the AI will use that ability. Stat buffs are also never checked either. There are ways to influence the AI to use some of these abilities in irregular ways, but it's still very limited. I will write about it in my FFT AI Mechanics and Enhancement Guide in the future.

[Zozma]

ive also given the "ruins" different things as a test as well such as Mind ruin randomly causing "confuse" and then checked the "adds status" button on the ai flags and it still doesnt really try to use them...

[R999]

@Zozma: AI won't explicitly check for (25%) status procs unless it's a choice between very similar spells and also that you have Add Status flagged.

For Mind Ruiin's case, the first thing that you need to do is remove all that unit's options from doing damage at whatever range. Make it so that all his targets have good evasion and possibly with a melee reaction such as Counter, Hamedo, etc. Give him a low damage weapon.  Make sure Mind Ruin is unevadeable, you may also unflag AI-evadeable. He should be spamming that skill indefinitely, assuming you flagged things properly.

[Zozma]

ahhh they show up as evadeable in the AI flags? that must be my problem because Alicia has absolutely no long range hp damage skills, only the 4 ruins. i do want them to be able to miss, but i want the AI to act like they wont...

[R999]

Edit: Never-mind about what I have said thus far.  I have did some experiments it seems that this Evadeable flag does not influence the AI in this way. I'll have to do more testing to confirm my results.

[Zozma]

I really need Alicia's AI to LOVE to use any of those 4 skills because she appears as a guest in at least 3 battles in my patch... sigh

[R999]

@Zozma: Why don't you just use the Weapon Damage formula and proc 25% of some of the stat break abilities? The AI never ever checks for Stats of the targets anyway; it's not like you really need a PA break vs a MA break; the AI will just choose whichever according to some random number, predetermined at the start of battle.  Beware that Formula2 requires one of the Knight ability slots otherwise no damage will appear when the proc happens.

The other thing you can do is force it so whatever skill you want her to use is her only option, other than Normal Attack. Reduce her PA to non-existent. That surely works too (and might be what you are looking for). As I have stated earlier, the AI will use PA break on a target with non-existent PA, etc.  Just beware of that.

[Zozma]

they do plenty of harm without doing hp damage... but perhaps that would make them allaround more useful... besides the only hp damage skills her job has is Shock and Omegaflare....

[VampragonLord]

make a specific class purely for breaking
Change the materia blade to have 0 PA and make it a "Break sword" or some such cleverly named item, give it 0 WP and use the limits as the break skills, so that you can only use breaks if you have the 0/1 wp sword, so they wont be dealing any damage, at all, forcing them to want to break stuff, or change the swords formula to heal even, thatd sure be interesting o.o The ai breaks and heals, only able to damage the undead. an offensive support unit...

[Zozma]

well i cant use the materia blade idea because i changed the item that is counted as the materia blade from "materia blade" to "chantage" which has been renamed "pheromones" an accessory that enables the "invitation" skill

but a fake sword maybe designed to look and be described exactly like another sword but with 0 pa might do the trick... but if she ever tried to actually hit anything the cover would be blown lol