AI Director/Spawn Rate vs Computer Power

This is a 1.0.7.1 follow-up to the issue I pointed out here.

In 1.0.6 I was always getting ~2-3k mobs in Legend with >100 specials in normal, non-deed runs. It didn’t seem to matter if I was the client or the host. After 1.0.7.1 hit, the issue seems better when I’m the client but I’ve noticed that when hosting, there are still a lot more spawns of all types at all times, though not as bad as it was in 1.0.6. I have a fairly beefy rig, which seems to be the cause from talking with others in game. Similarly, everytime I’m running with someone else hosting and the spawns seem out of whack, I ask what their rig is like and it’s always in the high end of the spectrum when it comes to CPU/GPU.

Does anyone else share this experience? It seems consistent that janky runs are always with hosts with powerful computers right now, in my experience.

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I have experienced this I believe. When I host with our regular group runs are quite a bit harder due to larger hordes, more specials and elites. When my friend hosts the runs on average do not seem quite as bad.
I am running 4770k overclocked to 4 .3Ghz. Friend running 2500k, overclocked but not sure of the clock speed.
Maybe I should start taking screenshots to try and collect some data.
That being saud there is some variance in AI director spawns and some runs I host are not too bad.
I feel like on average spawns are higher when I am hosting though.

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It feels like every host has their own quirks. Ie. They consistently get the same kind of director behaviour. Some hosts yield consistently tame runs, some get a healthy mix, and some have the bs-o-meter cranked to 10 permanently.

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Interesting, would never look this way to explain why some runs seem to be much easier than the others. I always relate it to average speed at which your party proceede. Going to keep it in mind.

I too found this kind of behaviour in previous iterations of the game. There was a week we couldn’t barely finish any legend run because the game consistently unleash hell upon us. This patch and beta patch seem to be behaving much more. The spawns generally don’t seem so focused on killing everyone, instead they seem to provide more of a balanced challenge. Even then, sometimes it would seem as if the game either tried really hard to kill you or didn’t put much effort into it.

What I have is a specific issue with the map Against the Grain. I find it the hardest of the maps in legendary, by far. The start is always horrible. My friend and I call that map the Cursed One. Somehow, everything goes wrong when playing that map, and we allways end up in a team wipe. I believe the mob density + horde + chance to boss + sometimes patroll may be the cause. I know it’s mostly anectodal evidence, but there it goes.

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Against the grain has a lot of director issues in the start for me as well. Someone I’m playing with right now has the same issue with the war camp.

This is a thing since VT1. Director behaviours, hordes size, ai tracking, alot of thing were bound to mainly the CPU.
Using a poor CPU while hosting would literally bug out the whole run, spawning really few hordes and specials and make mobs almost unable to track you for their attacks.
I’m almost 100% certain its the same in VT2. I’ve a really up to date rig and a stable but not powerfull connexion. The game literally congests and crashes runs because of the sheer number of units spawning when I’m hosting, making me unable to host.

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That’s gross. So another layer of stupidity thrown into the mix in that playing with someone with a lower end (but not too low) system makes the game easy ><;;

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i don’t experience any of this stuff in all my legend plays. every step of the way seems ‘normal’, ie. the first horde will always come at a sort of predictable timing, subsequent horde/ambushes have regular intervals (if not the party wouldn’t be able to advance at all)

we can be fighting up to 4 specials at any point of time, sometimes we get 4 disablers, after we kill them, another wave does not spawn immediately…

really not sure what’s going on with your games.

1.08 has been better for me as well in terms of fewer insane-o-rama runs, but it’s pretty much as bad as before if I am the host.

There is some variance of course, but the difference over an average of games is quite significant between me hosting (OC’ed 6core 12 thread and GTX 1080ti) and somene hosting with older/less capable hardware. I’ll still sometimes get quite intense runs when someone else host, but I’ve never been a client and had quite the same frequency of hordes and specials that can manifest when I am the host. We’re talking about 30-60 sec between a horde/ambush finishing and then the next horde/ambush.

This part is more anecdotal, but it also seems like enemies are better at timing attacks and locking on when I am hosting than when others are hosting.

Also more anecdotal, but I made a ‘new’ friend recently and have been playing with him as host. Then another friend wanted to join in, and we play for a day with me as host. This new guy that had never played with me as host before commented on “what’s going on, this isn’t normal.”

To which I could just reply “yeah this is how legend usually is for us”

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It improved dramatically in 1.0.7.1 but there’s still a noticeable degree to which different hosts orpeople seem to have consistently unique director behavior. Since the patch, I’ve partied with 1-2 guys who were more like I was in 1.0.6 and several people who say they simply refuse to host on account of this sort of thing. My director’s aggressiveness is about average in 1.0.7.1. Been with people who get weird, constant numbers of berzerkers, e.g. 12-15 in the very first area then abnormally steady, regular clusters of 6-9 thereafter. With one guy, every run had two simultaneous patrols in the same area. In every case except one, one of the patrols would be stuck and not moving; in the case where it was moving, the two individually full-sized SV patrols had merged into a fun little army, which was cool. Other times the quirk is more subtle but always seems consistent in any group.

Not sure what could be causing this. In 1.0.6, when ruling out deed contamination, the overall behaviour or vibe would change noticeably if one client left and was replaced by another, so it’s hard to nail down just what’s going on. Everyone in the group may bring something to the table. May not be exclusively the host.

At least now when it’s max-aggression for me it’s still at a fun, reasonable level. Even with myself and three of my most skilled friends, my 1.0.6 runs were basically, “director becomes more aggressive and buggy until you all die and it will blatantly break the rules if necessary to kill you.” It literally felt like the director would actually not allow us to win, especially when one time very near the end of a hard-fought Righteous Stand it dumped a full horde directly into play on us and proc’d the attacks and damage immediately, killing us all through block in ~1s from the first indication anything at all was happening.

The host, in instances where the quirk was really pronounced, affirmed they had it pretty much every time. As such, I’m confident there is no universally recognizable perspective of how “hard” the game is. What some people consider ludicrous director behavior is extremely tame or par for the course to others. This is probably why there are some outlandishly over/undervalued classes/weapons/talents in the forums. This is why I dramatically undervalued HM, for example. I still don’t consider it very good compared to most other classes but it’s definitely perfectly fine; I was just assessing it in a world where for a class to even be viable it had to be able to consistently shred 2-3k trash mobs and a hundo specials without being able to see them half the time. Some people I’ve spoken to seem to have consistently balanced runs, some consistently lite, some consistently ape. As a result, some people can get away with objectively inferior loadouts that don’t stand much of a chance against a more brutal director. Like, with some hosts, it’s a consistent recruit-level cakewalk to any player with any experience. I’m not ashamed to say I try to ride those hosts out for the long haul to compensate all the time lost to a bugged out director, though I do enjoy when it does its crazy business too and prefer overall balanced runs in general.

All of this is concerning in that it makes balancing classes nearly impossible. It also affects my choices in that I just won’t ever take Kruber, for example, because I want to be prepared for the eventuality that my pug host has crazy AI. As such, I feel obligated to stick to classes that can consistently obliterate both hordes and specials, as they tend to be the most problematic aspect of the director worst case scenario.

Yeah, as per my wall o text there, this really concerns me. It basically means meaningful gameplay/balance discussion is impossible with random players. It took me dozens of hours to come to the realization my director was just fubar and most on the forums initially dismissed my reports as impossible or the ol “git gud.” Explains why I sometimes see people claiming certain talents, for example, are the best when they’re objectively, both on paper and in practice, not good and in reality they’re probably only able to get by with them due to a generally tame director.

I didn´t read all right now, but i wouldn´t say it´s about the PC Power. It´s more like “how fast you going on.”
Did you guys saw the slayer gimmli rushing the maps? Nothing much spawned.
I would even say, that more assassins spawn, if the group don´t group and more gatlings etc, if you group.
Just get randoms, which don´t run in circles and know what to do and keep on forward and forward.

No, this was initially a common strawman argument of the “git gud” crowd. This is not about people who are getting a few extra waves because they were slow. This has been covered and debunked in detail. Some people’s games are just more ezmode than others. This was discussed extensively in the linked and associated threads in the OP.

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Well i hosted a few games and played with a lot of other hosts too.

I got a high End PC with 100k internet and the one of my friend is like… dead. and he only got 16k internet.
Since i got a bluescreen issue with this game, through the last windows update, he hosted for a while. The spawns didn´t changed to my hosts. I only recognized flying enemies and it sometimes felt like there is a lil delay. But i guess, that´s normal for his broken PC and “slow” internet as host. Same goes for randoms hosts.
I don´t know how much games i played right now, but there were only about 5 games, which were ez runs without bosses and instakills on assassins.

Yeah as stated earlier it’s hard to nail down what actually causes it. For example, as per the link in OP, my runs were “normal” in 1.0.5, insane for all of 1.0.6 even when I was client, then more-or-less normal in 1.0.7.

Well, all i mentioned was sometimes the feeling… if we win 8/10 legend games, or actually got quite good average, the games become harder. If we got a loosing-streak, the games become weaker… just like ELO /MMR in other games…

But it´s just a feeling.

So I can’t be host anymore. Ever. It’s as simple as that. The director will literally not let us win, and I’m not being incredulous; if we ever make it to the end event of any level, the director starts actually full-on cheating and spawning things that shouldn’t be possible (e.g. CW in the final event of Hunger, Blightstormers in Into the Nest, etc etc), then, after about a minute after the first not-allowable spawn happens, it crashes to desktop. These crashes happened three times today. Also, when I host, the first game seems normal but it gets progressively crazier and crazier until it crashes or we die… Every subsequent game I host gets harder, with 1-3 disablers at all times on top of 1-3 other specials, all spawning non-stop for the duration of the level. Sometimes, it’s obvious the game thinks deed conditions are active despite everyone having just restarted and no one running a deed (or the infamous deed exploit that’s already been reported). Eg. Every ambient clan rat will have a SV in its place and so forth.

This happened all yesterday and all today. The only thing that changed was there are upgraded Nvidia drivers.

AFAICT, if a host keeps getting utterly insane zany bullshit, they’ll always have zany bullshit and the best/only thing to do is break the party and go your separate ways into QP, hoping for better hosts and functional matches.

This game is in alpha. When I host, it feels exactly like playing a game that just takes your processing speed and limitlessly runs with it, akin to a lot of old DOS games for which you had to throttle your processor or the game ran at 10x speed. Something in the director coding is seriously haywire and it’s tripping all over itself.

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LOL ya that was definitely a thing in VT1. You could watch “lag” runs where rats would stop in their tracks and people could just waltz through levels.

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Please take me in!

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