[0.9.084] Naleen herm combat bug

[EP1CH34DSH0T]

For some reason she's completely immune to melee attacks now, countering any melee attack you use against her, while still countering your ranged attack after 2 hits. Any melee attack I use no matter what class gets countered, even if I switch between ranged and melee every attack.

 

[Animefan666]

The snakes can't be hit by ranged attacks, either.

 

[Jacques00]

Do you have a save file to test with? I don't seem to have a problem defeating the Naleen Herm. It may be possible that the opponent is overpowered for their level, but they are not impossible to beat.

 

[EP1CH34DSH0T]

Powered through the first bit of the game like I usually do to grab this. Encountered naleen herm so she's ready to be fought.

 

[Hanzo]

Isn't she supposed to counter the third consecutive melee attack, not all of them?

 

[Jacques00]

Isn't she supposed to counter the third consecutive melee attack, not all of them?

From the looks of it, it's always countered for melee, but for ranged it's every third attack (not necessarily consecutive ranged attacks as they both get counted at the same time for both melee and ranged attacks) but every third ranged attack will get countered. If the character is blind or immobile, it's misses for both, regardless. So an efficient pattern would be ranged-ranged-ranged, or ranged-ranged-melee--whichever returns the lowest counter damage for your character.

 

[Jacques00]

Powered through the first bit of the game like I usually do to grab this. Encountered naleen herm so she's ready to be fought.

Thanks. After testing and reviewing the code, it seems this is the intended way she was implemented. She counters all melee and every third ranged attack.

 

[Hanzo]

From the looks of it, it's always countered for melee, but for ranged it's every third attack (not necessarily consecutive ranged attacks as they both get counted at the same time for both melee and ranged attacks) but every third ranged attack will get countered. If the character is blind or immobile, it's misses for both, regardless. So an efficient pattern would be ranged-ranged-ranged, or ranged-ranged-melee--whichever returns the lowest counter damage for your character.

I didn't look before how her counters work, comments in her old flash file made made me believe her melee counter would work the same way as her ranged one.




Ranged-ranged-ranged isn't viable because her ranged counter action doesn't reset the v1 of the "Counters Ranged" status effect (her melee counter doesn't reset the v1 of "Counters Melee" either, but that doesn't matter since she always counters those). So after the second ranged attack, she counters all ranged attacks (tested it) until you use a melee attack (this means taking damage from her melee counter), because it is the only way to set the v1 value of the "Counters Ranged" status effect below two. And ranged attacks are the only way to damage her. So the only viable strategy, even for melee characters, is ranged-ranged-melee, and her melee counter deals damage.

She counters specials too, so melee debuffs don't work either. For example, a low level merc can't use headbutt to stun her because it's a melee move and she always counters those.

EDIT - I forgot to say that her melee counter sets the v1 value of "Counters Ranged" to 1, not 0, so the actual pattern is ranged-ranged-melee, then ranged-melee-ranged-melee-(etc).

I don't know how much of this is working as intended, but those were the things that made me rise an eyebrow when I looked at the code.

 

[Jacques00]

I didn't look before how her counters work, comments in her old flash file made made me believe her melee counter would work the same way as her ranged one.
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Ranged-ranged-ranged isn't viable because her ranged counter action doesn't reset the v1 of the "Counters Ranged" status effect (her melee counter doesn't reset the v1 of "Counters Melee" either, but that doesn't matter since she always counters those). So after the second ranged attack, she counters all ranged attacks (tested it) until you use a melee attack (this means taking damage from her melee counter), because it is the only way to set the v1 value of the "Counters Ranged" status effect below two. And ranged attacks are the only way to damage her. So the only viable strategy, even for melee characters, is ranged-ranged-melee, and her melee counter deals damage.

She counters specials too, so melee debuffs don't work either. For example, a low level merc can't use headbutt to stun her because it's a melee move and she always counters those.

EDIT - I forgot to say that her melee counter sets the v1 value of "Counters Ranged" to 1, not 0, so the actual pattern is ranged-ranged-melee, then ranged-melee-ranged-melee-(etc).

I don't know how much of this is working as intended, but those were the things that made me rise an eyebrow when I looked at the code.

Ah, okay, I see--I think I know where the issue is then. A fix is set for the next release that should hopefully correct this issue and make it perform as outlined in the comments. (Attack until countered, switch attack, continue until countered, switch attack, etc.)

It looks like there was no escape returns in the code for the NaleenHerm section of the counter attack checks, so when it hit the end of the melee one, it used the default counter melee function, which results in always returning a melee counter if the status effect exists at all on the character. Essentially, it had worked as intended until certain Zaika melee counters were added.

Also, my mention of the blind and immobile status check is actually related to the enemy (I had misread the code). so if you blind or immobilize (grapple, stun, etc.) the enemy, you should be able to bypass their counters (the counter won't tick for the NaleenHerm).

I'll also try to make these counter status effects visible to the player so is to not cause confusion, where applicable.