Why do enemies focus on my tank?

[Songbird]

They all run in on Valerie 35 AC (no buffs) trying to hit her but they all need a roll of 20 to succeed, meanwhile Harrim and Octavia with 10 AC draw no attention. I have literally had enemies circle around my weak and unarmored guys to focus on my tank. I am now 45 hours into the game and I have no idea why this is happening. Is it because of her Tower Shield Fighter class?

[Mike]

It's a major difference from PnP (and even noted as a "strategy" in one of the loading screen tooltips - send your tank in first to automatically draw aggro) that the enemy AI in the vast majority of battles can be easily managed this way. It's nothing specific to do with the TSS/fighter class in my experience - most enemies will just focus on whomever you put up front.

[Songbird]

So, if at the beginning of a battle my tank is closest to the enemy they will focus her? And attack her until she is dead?

[Frostfeather]

It seems that in turn based now, enemies don't do this to the same degree. In fact, if I'm doing a turn based run, I don't take any "tank" at all because enemies will simply ignore them most of the time.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by night4:

It seems that in turn based now, enemies don't do this to the same degree. In fact, if I'm doing a turn based run, I don't take any "tank" at all because enemies will simply ignore them most of the time.

I use turn based and the enemies are still consistent about focusing whomever was in front, at least for the first few rounds, as long as they were really and truly more to the front.

Starting a battle by just walking towards enemies often means my MC and an animal companion draw as much fire as Valerie, because they are right behind Valerie in my marching order. If I start a battle by having Valerie use the Charge ability before the enemies have even seen my party, they focus much more directly on her until I start moving other characters forward during their turns.

I certainly haven't had any instances where party members in the back of the marching order get much attention at all from enemies in the first few rounds....except for those frog dudes that love to charge through whoever is in the front to get to the back. For them that seems to be an AI script for that charge attack.

[InEffect]

The way it works is AI decides how much it can ignore the tank and acts accordingly. Pretty sure the only thing it takes into account is AB vs their AC. So the mobs on unfair will be quite a bit more aggressive than on lower difficulties. Some mobs are also hardcoded to hunt your backline. There's also some aggro weight on who they've seen first and whatnot.

[Uzkin]

Most enemies try to initially attack the party member who initiated combat. Often this is the tank but if you, for example, open with a fireball from a caster then the enemy ranged (and melee too, if they have enough movement) will initially aggro the caster.

Other than that, the enemy also tries to maximize their number of attacks per round. If switching from the previous aggro target to a new target results in more attacks in that round, they prefer to switch (e.g. full-attack vs. new target is preferable to standard-attack vs. previous aggro target).

Furthermore, if they consistently miss against their current aggro target for a few rounds they prefer to switch to the next-closest target. They have no memory, so if they are facing tank1(closest), tank2 and squishymelee(furthest), they will first switch from tank1 to tank2 and then a few rounds later back from tank2 to tank1 (assuming squishymelee remains the furthest party member).

Finally, if the previous rules leave the enemy with multiple targets to choose from, they prefer to attack the PC (player character) (this happens e.g. at the start of the Siroket fight). If the PC is not among these targets, the enemy prefers the target that is easiest to hit or easiest to damage (usually, the character with lowest AC).

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by night4:

It seems that in turn based now, enemies don't do this to the same degree. In fact, if I'm doing a turn based run, I don't take any "tank" at all because enemies will simply ignore them most of the time.

I use turn based and the enemies are still consistent about focusing whomever was in front, at least for the first few rounds, as long as they were really and truly more to the front.

Starting a battle by just walking towards enemies often means my MC and an animal companion draw as much fire as Valerie, because they are right behind Valerie in my marching order. If I start a battle by having Valerie use the Charge ability before the enemies have even seen my party, they focus much more directly on her until I start moving other characters forward during their turns.

I certainly haven't had any instances where party members in the back of the marching order get much attention at all from enemies in the first few rounds....except for those frog dudes that love to charge through whoever is in the front to get to the back. For them that seems to be an AI script for that charge attack.

"Few rounds" = exactly one round, and only in certain circumstances. The vast majority of the time, still ignore the tankiest character unless (of course) it's the only one they can reach.

[Uzkin]

Originally posted by night4:

"Few rounds" = exactly one round, and only in certain circumstances. The vast majority of the time, still ignore the tankiest character unless (of course) it's the only one they can reach.

Most enemies do follow the rules I wrote in my previous post.

If the enemies don't fixate on your tank for the first couple of rounds it means that your tank didn't actually initiate combat. Simply walking towards the enemy until they see you does NOT count as you initiating combat: in such a situation, THEY initiate the combat. Since there are then no characters in your party who initiated combat the enemy will use the other rules I mentioned to decide who to attack.

The easiest way to initiate combat as a tank would be to use Charge. That is you initiating combat, not them.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Uzkin:

If the enemies don't fixate on your tank for the first couple of rounds it means that your tank didn't actually initiate combat.

Or that you moved other characters right up to some of the enemies, which aligns with what you said in your previous post about prioritizing full attacks.

[Songbird]

Originally posted by night4:

It seems that in turn based now, enemies don't do this to the same degree. In fact, if I'm doing a turn based run, I don't take any "tank" at all because enemies will simply ignore them most of the time.

Well I am always playing on turn based mode. I asked the question because unless I force the enemy into an attack of opportunity they will blindly run towards my tank.

I have had it happen once that Valerie took a beating from the troll king, moved her with the 5 feet move in the backline and moved my MC up to him to pin him down but he would move out of the zone, my MC would miss his attack and he would again hit Valerie.

I have no idea how the aggro mechanic works in this game and I can count the amount of melee/ranged non aoe attacks against other characters (other than my MC who is an Aldori Defender with a shield) on one hand.

Even the swarms stick to my frontline :D playing on normal if that has anything to do with it

[Jaggid Edje]

@Songbird, I have the same experience. With very few exceptions Valerie and my Main Character get the brunt of all the attacks. My MC is a Scaled Fist Monk(mostly) who I usually move into the fray, so she is basically a secondary tank for the party.

Beyond those two, the only characters I've had get even semi-regularly attacked in the first few rounds of a battle are an animal companion and Amari, who also often end up in positions where they are the only one's specific enemies can take a full attack action on.

My experience matches pretty much precisely with what @Uzkin spelled out, at least for the first few rounds, excepting specific enemies that clearly have some special AI scripts.

[Uzkin]

Originally posted by Songbird:

I have had it happen once that Valerie took a beating from the troll king, moved her with the 5 feet move in the backline and moved my MC up to him to pin him down but he would move out of the zone, my MC would miss his attack and he would again hit Valerie.

You would have to move Valerie so far away that the boss would no longer be able to perform a full-attack on her, if he chased her. Then he would switch to your MC (assuming your MC is within the full-attack range). The troll king has pretty long reach so the 5 foot step is not enough to get out of range.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by Uzkin:

Originally posted by night4:

"Few rounds" = exactly one round, and only in certain circumstances. The vast majority of the time, still ignore the tankiest character unless (of course) it's the only one they can reach.

Most enemies do follow the rules I wrote in my previous post.

If the enemies don't fixate on your tank for the first couple of rounds it means that your tank didn't actually initiate combat. Simply walking towards the enemy until they see you does NOT count as you initiating combat: in such a situation, THEY initiate the combat. Since there are then no characters in your party who initiated combat the enemy will use the other rules I mentioned to decide who to attack.

The easiest way to initiate combat as a tank would be to use Charge. That is you initiating combat, not them.

Well I don't use any melee, don't use charge, and don't walk up to enemies. What I said is true for me the vast majority of the time.

I'm not saying you're wrong for the most part, though (the only part I don't think is true is that if one of my casters opens with a spell, they're not reliably targeted even when they can be vs someone else of equal tankiness/squishiness and equal distance).

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by Songbird:

Originally posted by night4:

It seems that in turn based now, enemies don't do this to the same degree. In fact, if I'm doing a turn based run, I don't take any "tank" at all because enemies will simply ignore them most of the time.

Well I am always playing on turn based mode. I asked the question because unless I force the enemy into an attack of opportunity they will blindly run towards my tank.

I have had it happen once that Valerie took a beating from the troll king, moved her with the 5 feet move in the backline and moved my MC up to him to pin him down but he would move out of the zone, my MC would miss his attack and he would again hit Valerie.

I have no idea how the aggro mechanic works in this game and I can count the amount of melee/ranged non aoe attacks against other characters (other than my MC who is an Aldori Defender with a shield) on one hand.

Even the swarms stick to my frontline :D playing on normal if that has anything to do with it

I'm not sure if difficulty affects things like someone claimed here. Most of my turn based runs are also Unfair, for what it's worth.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by night4:

I'm not sure if difficulty affects things like someone claimed here. Most of my turn based runs are also Unfair, for what it's worth.

I'd say that you can be sure difficulty does effect it, considering it is InEffect who said that it does. Based on what I've seen in these forums he has a TON of experience with Unfair difficulty.