Requesting help testing pawn AI learning.

[White Rider]

I think pawns are actually supposed to learn in DD2, and it's not actually meant to be as watered down a system as it is compared to DD1.

The only evidence I have so far though is certain pawn behaviours, and seeing certain "triggers".
Specifically, pawns are really inefficient in most fights against monsters.
That is until whatever monster they are fighting gets down to their last healthbar (sometimes their last 2 healthbars).

I've been testing with a couple vocations, but primarily testing with thief. My pawn is usually a mage, but thief's skills are easier to test with as they are more offence oriented and have more skills suited to certain "learned weaknesses" such as Cyclops' eyes.

I've got rid of all other pawns, and let my pawn solo different monsters (all of which i have badges for);

Chimera,
GrimOgre,
Armoured Cyclops,
And Medusa.

so far.



And so far I've noticed that when the monster has most of it's health, the pawn is basically retarded. It will use it's skills, but they don't really use them well. And their positioning can range anywhere from good, to not great, to "what the hell are you doing?".
(When you have a full party, this is less noticeable as there is probably going to be at least 1 pawn in a good position to deal damage)

When they are attacking normally, they also tend to just attack wherever they can get to. Doesn't matter if a Drake's heart is open for example; if the pawn is closer to the Drake's feet, it will attack it's feet.
It all changes however when the monsters get to low health.
The reason I think it's bugged normally is because it doesn't make sense that the pawn act so dumb for 90% of the fight and then suddenly the pawn gets very smart and actually use proper tactics to kill from that point onward.

They'll go for a cyclops eye, they'll try to get rid of armour if they still have any,
They will focus the main heads of the chimeras,
They will specifically target weakpoints and use skills effectively to reach those weakpoints.

What really sold me on this was the last medusa fight I did.

Pawn was running around getting stuck on it's tail. At one point is was sitting behind a wall instead of attacking even when the medusa wasn't using her glare, and when it did attack it would be attacking it's tail randomly. only getting the occasional skull splitter off in a good position.

However, when the medusa got low health... Pawn sprints to it like it is on a mission. Climbs it, and starts cutting it's head off. The last bar and a half of health got deleted in seconds.


I think that for whatever reason, the pawn learning behaviour is in the game, but for the most part it is not activating. Something seems to be blocking it or holding it back until a certain health threshold, and then it's like turning on skynet and they become brutal efficient killers.



The consensus surrounding the pawn badges has been that all they are is for bragging rights. That's all I thought they were too.
When I've seen people claim they were learning, I think most people are just assuming that because of DD1 and they are wrong. And technically they are wrong... but I think for the wrong reasons.

Assuming I'm correct and they are supposed to learn, but something is blocking their knowledge from activating until the very end of a fight.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just coping. But I find it really strange that from the minor testing I've done, they are full blown retarded until they suddenly go "♥♥♥♥ it, it's morbin time!" and they morb all over the place.


All this is very anecdotal I know, but that's all I have right now.



What I would like is more people to test similar things and see if they experience the same phenomenon. Ideally with monsters you have badges for, and with monsters you don't have badges for to see if there is a difference in behaviour.

Dullahan and Wights being specific edge cases too where they don't have badges so I'm not sure what will happen there.


I know this is a lot, but that's why I can't do this alone, so any help would be appreciated.

[Simbolic]

They should have added attack strategy commands. Instead of just get behind me, stop, and go forward. Should been command to concentrate only on vitals points and using knockdown/stagger attacks. Maybe having those would made game to easy and also constantly steal the players thunder. From being so accurate.

[1CMF]

Originally posted by DragynDance:

I don't think it's the case. My boyfriend started playing, so I hire his pawn just to get him RC, both my pawn and his pawn are warriors, and I even recommended him what skills to use (so both pawns have the same skills equipped), and despite one pawn being simple and one being calm, they start fights almost frame perfectly the same way, by both running up and charging the same skill standing almost on top of each other. They pretty much fight perfectly in synch until one of them gets staggered and the other doesn't, which desynchs them, but they pretty much flail around almost identically, despite my boyfriend's pawn being a level 20 babby that just reached vermund and my pawn being a level 90 that is on NG+2 with nearly every badge in the game completed.

Originally posted by DragynDance:

I can 100% confirm that changing a pawns skills drastically changes their AI. They seem to have a priority system on their skills, and it even seems to change the way they act accordingly as well? Like a fighter pawn will be hyper aggressive if you give them only attack skills, even if they're kind, but if you give them shield drum they'll stand away from the party and spam shield drum. Mage and fighter is probably the easiest vocations to really see how drastically a pawn fights by swapping out skills, but also thief and warrior can go from d tier pawns to s tier pawns just by having the right loadout,

This is an interesting case point. You would think inclinations would change the fights somewhat.

With the above example that goes closer to what DragynDance has said, and loadouts determine actions. I would think inclinations would change priority of those actions, as: calm would prefer defensive actions over offensive. Straightforward would go more for offensive and use defensive less. Simple may be, just use what ever. Kindhearted would use support actions before any others.

So with those, if you and your boyfriend change up skill sets to still mirror each other, but include one defensive skill to attempt to illicit a variation between your calm pawn and his simple pawn. That would be interesting.

Originally posted by Simbolic:

They should have added attack strategy commands. Instead of just get behind me, stop, and go forward. Should been command to concentrate only on vitals points and using knockdown/stagger attacks. Maybe having those would made game to easy and also constantly steal the players thunder. From being so accurate.

As far as attack strategy commands, the inclination calm is supposed to focus weak points over other parts of the body, and they also will go for knockdown/stagger with knowledge of the target. Such as cyclopes and ogres leaning on one limb and my calm pawn will run up and grab it to push/pull that limb and cause a knock down.

I will have to change her inclination to straightforward and see if she still does that.

[MP]

Originally posted by Shard of Manus:

In my experience, the Pawn learning in this game is awful compared to DD1.

I'm in my 5th playthrough, my pawn and I are both over level 100. We've killed thousands of enemies, and have maxed out all of my Pawn Badges besides Wargs and Lesser Dragons (courtesy of there being a limited number per playthrough, and me not killing all of them in the first two runs).

I've killed everything in the game many, many times over.

I have seen barely any change in Pawn AI at all this entire time. Pawns seem far more stupid than in DD1.

- They are inefficient at targeting weakspots or exploiting weaknesses. They don't go for Saurian tails deliberately, they don't target boss weakspots unless it's a Golem, they will cast lightning buffs when fighting Serpents, or Fire buffs when fighting Magma Scales.
- They just use their skills as they feel without caring about what you're facing. They'll use Meteoren against a single goblin, or Celestial Paean when fighting one small mob. They will cast Argent Succor on the Arisen even when at max HP instead of using it on the dying Pawn when pressing 'Help'. They'll prioritise Halidom to remove Drenched because it's raining, instead of using Anodyne to heal people.
- They don't assist the Arisen efficiently. If knocked down or pinned, they will struggle to pathfind to you or outright ignore you when pressing 'Help', or will often just stand next to you. When pinned they don't use their fastest attacks such as Shoulder Bash or Burst Strike, but will often prioritise their strongest skills such as Arc of Might or Maelstrom.

There are times when a Pawn will do something sensible or useful, but so far I have not seen any consistency to this, and I am thoroughly convinced it's the mere result of coincidence. They just so happened to decide to use the most sensible skill, or do the most sensible thing at a given time.

I must be playing a whole different game than you. That sucks man.

[White Rider]

Originally posted by Simbolic:

They should have added attack strategy commands. Instead of just get behind me, stop, and go forward. Should been command to concentrate only on vitals points and using knockdown/stagger attacks. Maybe having those would made game to easy and also constantly steal the players thunder. From being so accurate.

Dragon age priority settings for followers comes to mind.

Literally is just if = then statements but with a fancy UI.

Is someone injured - yes - then attempt to heal - but not if there are enemies in range- and only on Tuesdays.

[White Rider]

Originally posted by Tetsu:

Originally posted by White Rider:

I've had the custom difficulty mod for a good while but I've just used it to lock my XP gains so I don't level up anymore.

Well I fiddled with the numbers a bit and made it so enemies take much much less damage than they normally would.

What I will say is when the boss's last couple health bars effectively have more health than what they would normally have in total, it is VERY noticeable when the switch is flipped.
Pawns act normal up until the boss monster gets low, and then as soon as you get the music switch trigger on those last 2 bars, the pawns just go ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Kinda similar to how the trickster aoe buff works and the pawns get much more aggressive.

It seems like the pawns are coded to hold back and not actually use the knowledge they have until that point.


Quite easy to see for yourselves too if you want to.
Use that mod, and fight a monster until it's almost around the point where the music would switch, then pause the game, set the boss incoming damage to something really really low, and then watch as the pawns go absolutely mental when the trigger kicks in.

Can you watch the monster itself when the music changes, and see if the monster does its enrage animation? Now that (nearly) every boss has an enrage state after reaching a certain threshold, it's possible that the pawn AI is just adjusting their own aggression to match the aggression from the monsters.

Independent of monster enrages. Particularly noticeable with Gorechimeras as they enrage very often even when they have practically full health.

[Edelgris]

Originally posted by White Rider:

Dragon age priority settings for followers comes to mind.

Literally is just if - then statements but with a fancy UI.

Is someone injured - yes - then attempt to heal - but not if there are enemies in range- and only on Tuesdays.

Final Fantasy 12 also had this. It was called the Gambit System. I wish they could have applied it to more titles, tbh.

[nazerick]

I always figured that the 'learning' a pawn in dd1 would do was more of a tally system, where when a certain trigger action is taken, the more likely a certain behavior was chosen.

I did notice my pawn making a lot more use of the thief skill that throws a hook out after I used it a ton. Dunno if it was just coincidence.

[M]

Originally posted by Tetsu:

There is absolutely pawn training in the game, just remember that you yourself need to specifically train each of your pawn's vocations, with a specific set of skills you want them to use, and teach them how they should be using said skill.

For general combat, pawn AI needs to be taught just like DD1, but they learn much faster now. If you unlock a new skill for them but never use that skill in combat, you can go 10+ fights without ever seeing your pawn use it. Once you switch to their vocation, and use that skill, you'll see them start to slowly use it more often. They also use their skills to imitate the way that you used your skills: If you're a Warrior and respond to an enemy attack with Barge into light attacks, your pawn will imitate that exact combo. If you play poorly and instead do Charge attacks and just passively wait for enemies to walk into melee range of you, your pawn will imitate this same bad behavior. Pawns need to be taught each of their core skills as well, like Warrior's Chain of Blows (timed light attack combo) and Breakneck Strike (perfect releasing Charged attacks). If your hired pawn doesn't use core skills, even with the skill unlocked, it's because their Arisen never taught them to use it properly.

For monster specific matchups, pawns rely on both their Arisen to train the skill, as well as an invisible Bestiary system, just like DD1. Small monsters have a similar "Pawn badge" system as bosses, where more kills = smarter pawn against that monster. DD2 also has the "3 star bestiary system" that DD1 had, where your pawn needs to see how an element interacts with each monster (Fire makes stout undead explode, but makes it so they don't drop their material. Thief pawns can be taught to either use Ignited Blades to kill it quickly, OR don't use Ignited Blades and let the mage kill it with another element so it can drop its material, again it completely relies on how often that pawn's Arisen actually bothered to train them to do/not do a certain thing). You can teach them which monsters you want them to Grapple more often, you can teach them to pick up and throw monsters into other monsters, you can teach them to throw monsters off cliffs for quick kills.

One other thing is that you can teach your pawn specific "combos" based on how you use them. You can teach Thief pawns to always use Ensnare on the more distant enemies like casters and archers, then immediately respond with another skill of your choice. You can teach Mage pawns to always start a fight with Palladium (shield that negates all damage for 3 hits), cast elemental boons on any physical damage vocations on the team, and then cycle Palladium and Celerity regularly in combat. If you regularly get into range of your team before casting Palladium or Celerity, you can even teach your pawn to properly space themselves so they buff as many people in one cast as they can possibly reach, instead of selfishly buffing themselves and just hoping another teammate happens to get it.

For Bosses, pawn AI will still imitate your playstyle, but also rely on the "Pawn Badge" system for their overall performance using those skills. When a pawn encounters a Boss they haven't killed even once, their AI is absolute trash: They'll use the skills you taught them to use, and use them often, but will not be smart enough to use them efficiently, or even aim them at weakspots. This is very noticeable with Drakes, where pawns don't even try to aim at the head or exposed heart, and will usually facetank the Levin/Meteoron spells it casts. After 3 or 5 kills, Pawns will position themselves more skillfully and actually move out of the way for spells, running away to avoid the stamina draining roar, and even DPS the heart during knockdowns after about 8-10 kills. The Pawn Badge/bestiary system also influences pawns taking advantage of boss "behavioral" tactics, like push/pulling golems to knock them over.

For Inclinations:

Straightforward is THE combat inclination. I don't mean "it makes pawns prioritize attacks" I mean it just makes pawns very efficient in fights. They'll use their skills very often, they'll be both aggressive when they need to, and defensive if they can be. Fighters and warriors will always rush into the fight first for aggro. Archers will use Steady Shot regularly for headshots, and cover their red vocations from any nearby enemies. Straightforward Mage pawns are also very active with their buffs (as long as their Arisen taught them how to buff properly) and will cast Anodyne when needed, or attack if everybody is full health and buffed.

Calm is like a combination of Guardian and Utilitarian. Sometimes you'll see a Calm pawn just stand around in combat, because they respond reactively to things that happen in the fight. If the arisen gets attacked by a mage, they'll focus the mage first. If they see a Boss stagger, they'll do whatever they can to force the boss to stagger again for a knockdown. If the arisen is playing well and isn't getting attacked at all, sometimes their AI will just shut down and they stand around doing nothing. They also sometimes like to just run off and grab a barrel or a rock instead of just fighting. They also seem to utilize Pawn Badge/Bestiary traits more often, and will encourage other pawns on the team to do the same.

Simple is like if Acquisitor was less bad than it was in DD1. They fight well in combat, but will sometimes decide to just run off and grab loot during combat. Simple pawns also like to go and kill random wildlife and grab random materials while you travel.

Kindhearted is like Medicant, it just makes your pawn VERY passive and VERY focused on support. The problem with Medicant in DD1 is that it also makes your pawn use their skills less often, and it seems to also apply in DD2. Kindhearted Thief/Fighter/Warrior/Archer pawns seem to use a skill once every 10 or so seconds, while the mages basically never attack, only applying defensive buffs and occasionally heals for hurt teammates.

I think what you said makes the most sense for pawns having some vocation specific memory, its more like they will learn better if they see how you play as their vocation. In unmoored world i switched to thief (already maxed) and filled party with thieves just to blow through beacons, and mine and all the pawns together would climb and target weak spots on point constatntly. Everyone was climbing, stabbing, gut and run if they had, and when not clinbing skull splittering if they had.

In my next play through ill deffinitly try teaching my pawn how to play their vocation. Its possible the ambiguous stuff they learn regardless like tackling enemies for opportunity strikes.

[Accel Lex]

Originally posted by The Technoviking:

Masterful Kill is not that useful, nevermind it being depowered since 1, it can't counter rolling Rattlers or any attack of the Dullahan
I replaced it with Plunder on my Warfarer just today because of how useless it is outside of situations like a skeleton trying to Blink Strike you

I had trouble with rattlers too. But it does counter.

I suggest using implicate on the rolling ones since (unless the aim AI fcks you over) you have a better grace period unless they're already on you.
I tried to teach my pawn but nope. Only sometimes when mid fight.

[Accel Lex]

Originally posted by White Rider:

Originally posted by Varagonax:

I mean, odds are the core system is still there. Its just better balanced between commands and inclinations, which are also better.

I bet you nickels to dollars that each enemy has a set of weaknesses/prebuilt tactics and as you or the people that have hired the pawn successfully take advantage of these, the pawns gain a tactics/weakness flag and are more likely to pursue that action if they can, provided its not inhibited by priority setting based on inclination. Its probably more complex than it used to be because of the ability of next gen hardware on consoles and pc.

Beyond that, I bet that the more often you do something and the more consistently you do it at specific times, the more the pawns behaviour is reinforced.

Its likely why fighter pawns aren't great right now if you give them the calm inclination and expect them to be active aggro tanks; The inclination wants them to abuse weaknesses at range OR fight defensively and since most fighters can't effectively target weaknesses, or use range, they get stuck in a priority loop where they default to either turtling or attempting to gouge out the monsters eyes.

What I find interesting is when I've taken my pawn out as a thief (Sticking to testing just the one vocation as going through each individual vocation available to pawns would take much longer, and sticking to just the one allows for more focused testing) as far as enemies killed, aside from bosses I've killed hundreds of every enemy if not thousands for some of the more common ones; so there should already be a decent knowledge base for each enemy.

I would have thought that as long as X enemies killed, individual skills training (on anything really) should be enough to let the pawn know These are the tools available to me and I know how to use them. These are enemies I have knowledge of, I am aware of what skills will work against them.

However from what I've seen going around with myself and my pawn both as thieves with the same skills; while they will use their skills somewhat effectively (even masterful kill SOMETIMES) they don't really show much as far as learning effective strategies.

I'll still occasionally see them using skull splitter against regular enemies on the ground, even though most of the time it misses as the enemies move. They do sometimes effectively combo it with implicate and skull splitter when the enemy is in the air, but that's niche enough of an occurrence where I think it's likely luck.

((Side note on masterful kill - I think it's just that it has such a short active window, pawns have trouble hitting it unless they are lucky. I've seen fighter and warrior pawns throw out their counter moves preemptively and whiff and they have much longer counter windows, so it's no surprise masterful kill is tricky for them to get right.))


I did accidentally find something interesting with the whole "bosses on low health trigger the pawns to be smarter" thing though...

Inconsistency is what gets me.
I play as Thief like my pawn most of the time with the same skills. She’ll use skills well on occasions. She fights bosses much different than I do tho. She climbs and targets weak points often, despite me using light or heavy or skull splitter or Implicate. I rarely climb, so her Calm inclination possibly overrides what the player does.

I would use the same combos on certain enemies, especially Ooze and Saurians variants.
Especially with the armored ones, I use implicate/counter or dodge, then attack the tails for finisher damage.
I would look over to my pawn and see she’s finishing off opponents well so maybe she does it too. But lately I tried seeing what she does with me just watching, and she struggled for a minute attacking the face like I never do. She has Formless Feint and she still goes without it, preferring to get hit in the face when she stumbles backwards.

With the Ooze, it's even worse.
She killed 3 or 4 magma oozes without problem so I was proud.
Later we get to a cave with regular Ooze. I either activate Formless Feint to be immortal of them, or just attack before they touch me to finish them.
I saw my pawn just walk into them, time, and time again.
I don't remember ever doing that. So I just kill them myself, prioritizing to save allies from them.
Still she just greets it willingly.

So id argue that either the learning is bleh, or killing something a certain way isn't what teaches them. Unless you need more than 100+ or 300+ kills. Since that's how many I have for oozes and rattlers.

[1CMF]

So there is no pawn badge for "trash" mobs like goblins, orcs, skeletons, oozes. That said, either there is nothing to learn, or it is contained in another badge, such as area knowledge badges for camping.

Areas do introduce regional mob variety, so this is possible, but I personally think the area badges just provide map knowledge for caves and other POIs.

Just some random conjecture.

I have done on and off testing myself since previous posts and I have not been able to influence pawn behavior to mimic me as of yet.

Largest change in behavior was after earning badges, and now my pawn just destroys them. Also calm, and I finally screen shot the loading screen tip about calm inclination in combat focuses on weak points. I thought I was crazy for a while, but it is written and documented. So it makes sense if a melee pawn tries to climb to reach weak points or even a caster pawn if they can't focus fire with the spells they have.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3222436172

[Tetsu]

Originally posted by 1CMF:

So there is no pawn badge for "trash" mobs like goblins, orcs, skeletons, oozes. That said, either there is nothing to learn, or it is contained in another badge, such as area knowledge badges for camping.

It's more that pawns seem to have an internal bestiary system built into them, there isn't literally a pawn badge for small enemies, but they do keep track of new "discoveries" and behavioral traits after witnessing them often enough, similar to DD1's 3 star system. Pawns early on basically refer to every small monster besides goblins/harpies/saurians as "that thing" for a decent chunk of the game, but eventually start to refer to them by their names (Like Rattlers, Leapworms, Serpents) and will sometimes even mention what element they're weak/resistant to the moment they're spotted in combat (which I'm guessing is a high "bestiary" thing). I've had pawns call out a Rattler, and then immediately mention "tis weak to lightning", pawns mention that Cyclops is resistant to fire. I've had pawns suggesting to drop meat for garms/wolves, information that I've never attempted in my playthrough up to that point. You'll notice pawns fighting shield goblins rarely say something like "You can't guard against my blows once I've grappled you".

[Dome515]

Originally posted by White Rider:

Originally posted by Sir Olf:

I think there are hidden "badge" systems for all enemies or something of this.
That they just trigger when killing a lot of goblin or so.
I noticed that my pawns got better and better at fighting an taking more initiative also the higher level they became.

Personally I think the Straightforward inclination triggers the sudden intelligence boost with thief pawns when a boss enemy is low.
Since in the guide section of the game it also even says that pawns with that inclination can suddenly turn the tide of a battle that was looking very bad.

That's when it get's triggered and will target enemy vital spots.

My pawn has calm inclination. So the straightforward theory doesn't fit.
As for the other regular enemies having a hidden "badge" system... maybe. do wish this stuff was as clearly defined as it was in DD1

For the record inclinations do matter. I was grinding out my vocations on my straightforward pawn and when I was doing mage and removed all her offensive spells she had a tendency to run up to the enemy and pick them up and throw them/cling onto weakpoints.

I think the inclinations are meant to be a simplified and more controllable version of the pawn learning system in DD1, since in the first game your pawn would just follow your lead which led to situations where your pawn would stop to do something else mid fight because you the player like to pick items up.

[Dome515]

Originally posted by Tetsu:

Originally posted by 1CMF:

So there is no pawn badge for "trash" mobs like goblins, orcs, skeletons, oozes. That said, either there is nothing to learn, or it is contained in another badge, such as area knowledge badges for camping.

It's more that pawns seem to have an internal bestiary system built into them, there isn't literally a pawn badge for small enemies, but they do keep track of new "discoveries" and behavioral traits after witnessing them often enough, similar to DD1's 3 star system. Pawns early on basically refer to every small monster besides goblins/harpies/saurians as "that thing" for a decent chunk of the game, but eventually start to refer to them by their names (Like Rattlers, Leapworms, Serpents) and will sometimes even mention what element they're weak/resistant to the moment they're spotted in combat (which I'm guessing is a high "bestiary" thing). I've had pawns call out a Rattler, and then immediately mention "tis weak to lightning", pawns mention that Cyclops is resistant to fire. I've had pawns suggesting to drop meat for garms/wolves, information that I've never attempted in my playthrough up to that point. You'll notice pawns fighting shield goblins rarely say something like "You can't guard against my blows once I've grappled you".

They definitely have an internal bestiary, I'm not sure if the badges actually reflect their knowledge or are just there for show, with the bestiary being the actual thing being focused on in the background.

If you have an experienced mage pawn that has multiple affinity spells they will give you the correct affinity (i.e., the mage pawn won't give lightning affinity when fighting a griffin). This shows that they definitely have some level of awareness based on what is happening in combat.

The main problems are the many skills; do the pawns know how to use them effectively? I would say that for many, the answer is definitively no. Ideally speaking, the skills you need on a pawn for them to be effective, in my experience, are the ones that require no additional input or secondary things. Full Moon Slash is perfect for pawns; Savage Lash is not because the pawn won't always hold the skill long enough (which is why, despite warriors being more tanky, imo fighters are better for melee pawns since the vocation has less complex skills that can be used effectively). All counterattack and super defence skills go out the window; the pawn will use them, but the enemy AI won't attack, so the pawn will get impatient and try to conserve stamina by leaving the counter state, which makes them vulnerable to the now attacking enemy (the player would be able to know to just wait).

Archer pawns can use the different arrow types fine, but i am unsure if the pawn is capable of knowing the best time for them.

The best vocation for a melee pawn is probably thief. It draws the least aggro, giving the pawn enough space to think; it has the most useful and damaging skills in the game that the pawn doesn't need to do any extra input for, like skull splitter and implicate (pilfer is the best skill in the game for all pawns because it essentially doubles the resources you get from any fight, including dragons); and it doesn't get in the way of the player like other pawn vocations can depending on what the player is trying to do (i.e., trickster arisen would prefer thief pawns so they don't draw aggro away from your ghost).