[Repro needed] Murdering NPCs

Title: Accidental murder of NPCs in adventure scenes
Reproduction Rate: 100%
Blocker?No

Details: Firstly, I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended. When you are in an adventure scene, and have your weapon drawn, and a mob aggroes on you, you immediately begin attacking the closest target if you have auto attack enabled. If the closest target happens to be an NPC (like, say, Milde's mother in Middle Downs, or the hag in South Longfall Wetland) your character will straight up murder them. If you are using a ranged weapon, you don't even need to be talking to them- you can be approaching them to speak, a mob spots you, and immediately fire at the NPC you were approaching. I forget where it was, but once I wasn't even in combat mode. A ranged mob spotted me and put an arrow in my back; since this automatically triggers combat mode, my character drew her bow and started shooting at the innocent NPC.

I know that you can turn auto attack off, but given that auto attack is the default mode, and the ability to turn it off is not a user setting but requires learning how from a trainer and is often referred to as an "advanced technique," I feel like there needs to be something that prevents this from happening. I get that some NPCs should be killable, especially when it's a virtue choice situation, but I should have to actively decide to kill quest-related NPCs. Even more so in virtue choices; it's not a virtue choice if the game's mechanics killed the person and not me. I shouldn't have to unequip all of my weapons or disable auto-attack every time I spot somebody who may be a part of a quest. For one, it's difficult to remember to do that every time; and for two, since some quest NPCs use the same models as mobs, it would mean doing so every time you spot an NPC.

Steps to Reproduce: Approach killable quest-related NPCs while being aggroed.
User Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-9370 Eight-Core Processor (8) System RAM: 32734
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series GPU RAM: 4077

 

a: npcs in towns have white nameplates (are unattackable) but npcs in adventure scenes CAN have pale green nameplates (are attackable if you specifically target them, like bunnies). for instance, the nameplates of the three npcs in north midmaer way are all white, but the witch of the wetlands you mention is pale green. it's the devs' choice which way to flag these.

b: talking to an npc puts a hard target lock on them.

c: auto-defend introduced in release 40 to bitter tears from me (and i still hate it) will make you draw your weapon and start attacking when you're knocked into combat. you will attack anything hostile you are facing AND/OR have hard-targeted whether they're hostile or not.

turning auto-defend off when you're in conversation mode would not be enough: the hard target persists after you end a conversation until you cancel it seperately or move out of range.

possibilities:
a: don't hard-target npcs when you talk to them or drop the target lock when the conversation ends, whether naturally or from outside interruption. ..but as i don't know why that's in place, i don't know what removing that would break.
b: make all the npcs in adventure scenes white-nameplate. that seems like it make plot restrictions. sometimes you might want to kill your conversational partner; say, for instance, in the tower of the shuttered eye.
c: remove or allow the disabling of auto-defend! it's supposed to improve the new user experience, but these are the people who will be most disconcerted to find themselves having killed their conversational partners.

 

@Cora Cuz'avich, bug entered.

 

You don't have to specifically target them. I've killed many rabbits, horses, and pigs because I'm an archer and was attacked from the side or behind by a mob while I was facing the animal; it's symptoms of the same problem. Because of auto defend, you don't even have to have your weapon drawn; as soon as you get hit, you draw your bow and start shooting at whatever is in front of you. If I am specifically working a quest, I might have the foresight to turn auto attack off. But the Hag is a good example of why that's not enough- I wasn't working a quest at the time, I just happened to find her. The zombies nearby aggroed on me, my weapon was already drawn, and I shot the Hag.

 

then swords and bows are reacting differently to autodefend. i can unsheath my sword and run around chasing bunnies and does and i will never swing at them unless i hard-target them.

 

Maybe? I've hardly ever equipped anything other than a bow. It won't just start auto-shooting at bunnies/horses/NPCs when I get near them; it's only when aggroed by something else.

 

@Cora Cuz'avich
So, the only time I can attack one of these type of NPCs with a bow equipped is if I go up to them and click on them while I'm in combat. I'm talking about the NPCs you can decide to talk to or kill (always a fun game) bunnies, deer, etc. This is on default settings, with auto attack on.

I think we need to figure out what is going on here. Can you first try resetting all of your settings. Do you have any customization that could possibly be interfering, including your mouse?
Any other archers out there have a clue as to what may be triggering this?

 

@Lexie I reset to defaults. As for customization, I don't believe so? At least, not that I'm aware of. I just walked into Nightshade Pass from the Brittany side. I know I remembered always killing the horses there, so I went there to test things out. Once I got close enough to the bandit campsite and they spotted me, auto-attack took over. When an archer in front of me died, I immediately targeted and shot at the bay horse nearby. I made sure not to use any abilities. Went back to the top of the hill and waited for everything to respawn. Approached the bandits, autoattack kicked in, if I turned to face the horse, I started shooting at it. I then walked a bit further up the path where Xavara is, where there was another horse and a fighter, with my weapon draw. The horse was closer than the fighter, and both were mostly straight ahead of me. As soon as the fighter spotted me, auto attack shot the horse. At no point did I click on anything, it was purely auto attack doing all of the fighting.

 

Here's the /bug results, if they matter.

1/4/2018 6:07 PM
Title:
Reproduction Rate:
Blocker?
Details:
Steps to Reproduce:
User Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-9370 Eight-Core Processor (8) System RAM: 32734
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 Series GPU RAM: 4077
SotA.EarlyAccess.LIVE.Win.64.716.Date.12.19.17
Area: Novia_R3_Hills02_Hilt_Exterior
Area Display Name: Nightshade Pass
Loc: (284.9, 49.5, -106.5)
Debug: Tm92aWFfUjNfSGlsbHMwMl9IaWx0X0V4dGVyaW9yfHwoMjg0Ljk0MSwgNDkuNDUzLCAtMTA2LjQ5OCl8KDAsIDAuNjQxLCAwLCAtMC43NjgpfDI4MC41OTQ2fDM0LjAyOTQ5fDYuNDgzMTc=

 

I'm still stumped on this. If you were using multi shot and it was hitting the horse, that would make sense to me. But that's not the case here. There is something unique here that I need to find.
Would you be open to trying it out on a second account? A trial account would work.
I only suggest that because right now using a brand new character changes ALL the settings to default (even on the same client) as resetting the keybinds only does that, resets the keybinds.
Another option would be to use the same account on a different computer.

Before we go to that...you have no aggressive pets out, right? No buffs like ring of fire running that could draw aggro? My thinking is maybe something is causing the aggro to happen (thus causing you to auto shoot)
@Cora Cuz'avich

 

@Lexie
No pets, no buffs. There is aggro, just not from the random critters I'm attacking. I know it's not scene specific either. There's horses in Crag Foothills; as soon as a skeleton spots me, instant horsie graveyard. It actually makes fighting in that area a pain, since sometimes there's four or five horses and one skeleton. I've gotten in the habit of killing all the horses from a distance so that when I get close to the enemies, I'm not shooting at horses and bunnies instead of the mobs. There's also a spot by the east entrance where an obsidian stag sometimes spawns. If there is a wolf nearby, but the stag is closer, the same thing happens. The moment the wolf aggros, I start shooting at the stag.

There is one thing I've noticed, that might be related- sometimes, I will activate containers without clicking. Seems to happen most often with sarcophagi, I'll just be passing by them and they'll open up. Scared the crap outta me the first few times, as I thought I had triggered some sort of trap or that something was going to come out of them.

Actually, that makes me wonder if it could be a glitchy mouse? I can't say for sure, but I feel like I may have always been moving when this happens, so my finger was on the left button. I'll also see if I can scare up another mouse to try, and turn off mouse movement. If anything, it'll eliminate that as a possibility.

I'll try a trial account tonight or tomorrow (not sure If I'll get a chance tonight.) How do I go about getting a second one? Can I do that through the current install, or do I have to sign up online somewhere?

 

related?

 

I think so, too

I also encounter the behaviour mentioned there but the stag is not outside my range and i still don't use auto attack, so i wait till my recticle gets a red cross then i shoot and i kill the rabbit way out of my aimpoint but not the stag

so what is the difference between the white rectangle the red rectangle and the nearly unvisible white point?

 

Shh, you're depriving me an excuse to go buy a new mouse!

I get this consistently, every time. I didn't even report it as a bug at first, as I thought it was normal/as intended.

 

I only have to get in range with auto attack on and rabbits can get killed easily.

This usually happens in the bandit road side encounters.

 

Thankfully, I'm not quite that indiscriminate.

@Lexie I picked up a brand new mouse yesterday, and still had this issue. I was not able to set up another account yet, though.

 

@Lexie
I have the same problem. If an aggressive NPC targets me and there's a non-aggressive NPC (squirrel, rabbit, deer, the Venerable Elf in Solania Catacombs, etc) closer than the aggressive one then I will automatically target and shoot the non-aggressive NPC. To repro this, you need to have auto-attack enabled, be in combat mode and not have a hard-selected target.

 

Its not even really just auto-attack. I run with autoattack off (magic user) and, there can be 4 or 5 "combat targets" running at me, and unless I "hard target" one, if I fire off an ice arrow (or any single target spell, really), it 99.9% of time goes for the nearest stag, rabbit, squirrel, or other helpless creature. Even if they aren't right in front of me, and are off to the left or right of where I'm facing, hit spell....bam, dead bunny, doe, etc. They may have been 'closer' but, not targetted and certainly not what I was aiming at.

When I briefly played around with a bow some months ago, I also noticed that if I was in combat mode just moving into range of a helpless creature such as these, even if I didn't see it, my character would turn and shoot it 100% of the time. This happened to watchers as well, which can't have been good for my virtue, right? Not only that, but I was -wasting arrows-! I don't use the bow anymore, so I don't see it with autoattacks anymore and unsure if that's still an issue. But it seems that non-aggressive creatures still mess with target priority. I would suggest it be 'better' if these things require hard targetting rather than the reverse.

 

Yeah, but watchers probably deserve it.