What can cause orcs to start attacking barricades?

[SenorBeef]

I'm fairly experienced with the game, I've 5-starred most of the endless modes, but every once in a while, I find myself in a situation where orcs will begin to attack my barricades for no apparent reason. This can often end your game deep in an endless mode.

More typically the big guys (ogres, elementals) will attack the barriers, but sometimes the small guys too. Often they'll be walking around my barriers in the correct path, and just seemingly at random turn around and start attacking the barrier. Or sometimes gnolls will head right to my barriers and begin attacking them.

Now I know that if you stand on barriers, enemies that are trying to attack you will attack the barriers. And sometimes if you have guardians on one side of the barriers, enemies will hit the barriers to try to get at the guardians (although I don't think this should be the case either, but I'm guessing it's a glitch if they're close enough). And obviously if you block the path to the exit, they'll attack the barricades.

But tonight I was playing the library, I had no guardians, I didn't ever jump on top of barricades. I made some barricade paths through the killboxes on either end, and on most of the waves, everything went through them correctly. But every once in a while, someone would just turn and start attacking barricade walls. Sometimes it would be after I jumped over a barricade myself, but not always, and I never stood on the barricades.


What can make things do that, and what can you do to avoid having that happen?

Edit:
Also, charming enemies sometimes makes them fight near your barricades, and if this happens, there seems like there can be collateral damage to your barricades. Is this intended? Should you avoid using charm near barricades? Or is there some way to work with it?

[Cougarific]

As you say, if the orcs have no clear path to the rift, they will attack the barricades. You may have left a path (didn't completely block access) but what happens - especially in Endless - is you get a big crowd of orcs jammed up in the killbox, not going anywhere.

If they can't go forward because the path is choked with other orcs, they'll start bustin' barricades.

Only thing you can do is unleash all your spells, weapons and trinkets on the choke-point to try to clear a few out and get them moving again.

Gnolls should never attack barricades - they just jump over them. I guess if the path is completely blocked they might but at 900 hours I've never seen it.

Charm, yeah that's one of the few disadvantages of it - you just have to be aware of it and try to avoid causing collateral damage to the barricades.

Question: which upgrade are you using - Tougher Barricades or Self-Healing? I recommend self-healing.

[Wyatan]

Every monster in the game does splash damage. Meaning that if you or an ally gets attacked near a barricade, it will take damage. So barricades + wandering allies (paladins, charmed mobs for instance) make for a very bad combination.
Gnoll grenadiers, Cyclops Magi, and late Endless Crossbows can also wreck your barricades in a flash.

Now, about the seemingly random barricade smashing... it's a trickier issue.
Basically when mobs get "disrupted" in their walking (getting hit, stunned, ragdolled, or simply taking a shot at you), they reassess their pathing.
And it would seem this reassessment can easily get confused, especially, as Cougarific mentionned, if the path to the Rift is blocked by other mobs, but also by certain specific barricade placements. I always assumed those coincided with "pathing checkpoints", but I may be completely wrong.
It's unfortunately a matter a trial an error. Some barricade spots seem to act as "smasher magnets". Avoid them.
Also, "advanced barricading" setups that lead to looping (as on Mirror Image or Caldera for instance) will cause a lot of barricade smashing.

Late Endless has more choking and mobs getting further through your killbox. That's why it can suddenly trigger a barricade smashing condition that went unnoticed up to that point.

Robot deliberately chose to err on the side of barricade smashing to prevent all the looping scenarios that ended up ruining the first game.

[Cougarific]

Originally posted by Wyatan:

Also, "advanced barricading" setups that lead to looping (as on Mirror Image or Caldera for instance) will cause a lot of barricade smashing.

I also noticed that if you do the "magic barricades" on Chilled Cavern (final Yeti map) you must stay upstairs *at certain points* or the orcs will smash the barricades for seemingly no reason.