Optimising AI RAVs for fast stagger

[Optitron]

I want the AI to resort to spells rather than strikes without resorting to Auto-Faith, Faith and Faithra, so today I did several tests:

Snow:
- Using Soul Blazer*, I found that Snow defaults to spells rather than strikes, though occasionally, he will use strike at the end of his chain of spells. Is this normal behaviour?

Lightning:
- Lightning is frustrating to get right. Even with Edged Carbine Omega weapon*, she still sometimes resort to strikes. Against Humbaba, she defaults to spell-strike-spell-strike. This is 3000 mag vs 1700 str. Is there a way to make sure she uses spell only? How much more mag do I need for her to resort to spells only?

- I don't use lightning to deal damage. That responsibility falls to Fang. In normal fights, I would equip Enkindler* or Ultima Weapon* on Lightning. After I did several tests (with aurora scarf+sprint shoes), it is still inconclusive which one is better. Arguably, with atb refresh, Enkindler would lose its edge, but in normal fights and with max crys atb refresh is hardly needed. And using Omega weapons for normal fights is just not my style. My default is COM RAV RAV. and so speed of chaining is paramount. I'm using Fang/Light/Snow.

My aim is to make Enkindler* work well post-game, combined with aurora scarf and sprint shoes that gives +15% atb, which leaves 2 free slots for any acc, with minimal atb refresh. However, she doesn't always resort to spells, which is frustrating. But if it works, it's very relaxing to play. I don't even have to switch paradigm.

I am also trying to get this setup work well for adamantoise for fun, since I've maxed crystaerium and have T3 weapon for everyone and still 10 mil gil extra. But this threshold of magic over str for default spells is a mystery to me. I have tried with so many mag values and it's still not certain. The only thing that is certain is Snow using Soul Blazer.

The only thing I haven't tested is replacing Light with Hope (Urubutsin) or Sazh (Formalhauts) as RAV. Has anybody tried?

[MJB]

I was hoping someone more knowledgeable was going to answer, but since there hasn't been any reply, I'll give it a shot. From my understanding, the AI tries to maximize the chain gauge increase when the character is a Ravager. One way to do that is to alternate spell-strike-spell-strike as there is a chain bonus when alternating (I don't know how much, but I suspect not a lot). Unfortunately, the slow animation of the strike abilities totally kills any benefit you get from the bonus. That is why the magic stat must be so much higher than the strength stat for the AI to prioritize damage over the chain bonus. Obviously, that doesn't work too well.
This alternating sequence is only beneficial when the enemy has a very high chain resistance as the bonus is added after the resistance is calculated. On enemies with a chain resistance of 100%, bonuses are the only way to increase the chain gauge. However, not that many enemies have that high a chain resistance, and if they do, you probably can't stagger them no matter what you do anyway.
Unfortunately, I can’t give you any advice on how to eliminate this sequence without modding the game, other than skewing the stats as much as you can - which is what you are doing.

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Originally posted by MJB:

I was hoping someone more knowledgeable was going to answer, but since there hasn't been any reply, I'll give it a shot. From my understanding, the AI tries to maximize the chain gauge increase when the character is a Ravager. One way to do that is to alternate spell-strike-spell-strike as there is a chain bonus when alternating (I don't know how much, but I suspect not a lot). Unfortunately, the slow animation of the strike abilities totally kills any benefit you get from the bonus. That is why the magic stat must be so much higher than the strength stat for the AI to prioritize damage over the chain bonus. Obviously, that doesn't work too well.
This alternating sequence is only beneficial when the enemy has a very high chain resistance as the bonus is added after the resistance is calculated. On enemies with a chain resistance of 100%, bonuses are the only way to increase the chain gauge. However, not that many enemies have that high a chain resistance, and if they do, you probably can't stagger them no matter what you do anyway.
Unfortunately, I can’t give you any advice on how to eliminate this sequence without modding the game, other than skewing the stats as much as you can - which is what you are doing.

Isn't the alternating bonus only lost when they use the exact same attack (as in, Thunder all the time)? I don't remember it applying only to between spells and strikes.

OP, I could be wrong, but I imagine the AI used spells and strikes because the enemy was weak to only that element, so I guess you need to make sure to stick Imperil first.

[MJB]

You bring up a good point about the alternating bonus with just spells. I just read that physical attacks (like the strike abilities), slow the chain gauge decay. I always thought it was Commando skills in general that did that, not any physical attack. If this is true, then perhaps the decay of the chain gauge is also taken into account. I did some rummaging around in the game files and think I've identified the chain gauge base increase by attack type. I'm going to try some different values for the strike abilities (rather than +10 per attack, maybe try +5, 0, or even +9.9) and see how that affects the AI choice of abilities (or if it does).

[NijiBashira]

Originally posted by MJB:

You bring up a good point about the alternating bonus with just spells. I just read that physical attacks (like the strike abilities), slow the chain gauge decay. I always thought it was Commando skills in general that did that, not any physical attack. If this is true, then perhaps the decay of the chain gauge is also taken into account. I did some rummaging around in the game files and think I've identified the chain gauge base increase by attack type. I'm going to try some different values for the strike abilities (rather than +10 per attack, maybe try +5, 0, or even +9.9) and see how that affects the AI choice of abilities (or if it does).

I don't know where you read that, but it's incorrect. The maintenance of the Chain Gauge is made through the adding of Chain Duration. Chain Duration, like Chain Values, is a property of abilities, and is not directly related to the Role. COM Abilities (NOT Physical ones only) have high-duration low-value, whereas RAV abilities (again, NOT only magical ones) have high-values, low-duration abilities.

This means that -strikes and spells have the same base chain values, and the same chain duration (respectively 10.0 and 0.9s), and the same is true for Attack and Ruin (both have 0.5 base chain value, and 3.33s chain duration)

I have myself tried changing values to see if the AI adapts, but it doesn't seem to be the case, or I messed my testing up...

By the way, I too have been messing around the game's files for almost three years now (although sporadically in general). Would you like to get in touch on Discord to discuss some things ? I think we could both learn a lot

[tiornys]

As noted above, the AI tries to maximize chain per ATB segment, which is not the same as maximizing chain per second. If an enemy has exactly one element with weaker resistance than all elements your character can hit, and if your character has both the spell and -strike of that element, then you WILL see the AI alternate strikes and spells on that element. The only thing you might be able to do to change this is inflict Imperil so that your character has more than one element to hit the lowest available resistance. This should only matter against a few enemies, and it won't matter against the toughest enemies like 'toises and Guis.

With multiple available elements at the same lowest resistance, the AI will throw a mix of those elements at the enemy. Since there is no Windstrike in this game, you can't prevent Aero from occasionally creeping in on a physical spec, but you should be able to force a character to use mostly -strike skills outside of Aero. With a magical spec, you can force a character to stop using -strike skills entirely, but it takes quite a significant difference between effective (post-buffs) Magic and Strength because you have to overcome the default 20% higher damage that Strength-based skills enjoy over Magic-based skills. Snow is aided in this by the Hindrance "drawback" of the Feymark, but Lightning will almost certainly need help from Faith/Faithra if you want to eliminate her -strikes.

[MJB]

tiornys - yes, the maximizing chain per second makes sense with what I'm seeing. I modified the chain bonus conditions slightly, but when attacking an enemy that has a weakness against a specific element, it is very difficult to eliminate the -strike abilities as the AI wants to both alternate attacks and use attacks against the weakness. Against enemies that do not have a specific weakness (or perhaps multiple weaknesses), I was able to force the -strike abilities by changing the chain bonus for differing attacks by requiring the attack be a "physical" attack (for the most part). The game doesn't use a "magical" attack only requirement, although that doesn't mean it's not programmed into the game somehow. I still have a few things to try on some unused "bit flags" within the chain bonus file to see if they have any effect.

NijiBashira - I was skeptical of the chain duration information for physical attacks as well. It nice to have that confirmed false. I've located the chain bonus value in the wdb files, but I haven't come across the chain duration values yet. Any idea which file they are in? (abililty, damage or other?). As for Discord, that would mean I would have to learn how to use one of those new fancy social media apps. I'm just an old guy that like to play around with games although I'd be happy to share information.