Aggro LOS fix (maybe..?)

[greggg230]

I've just started playing around with the emulator a few days ago, and the only glaring bug I've noticed is that NPCs don't assist one another properly. No NPC will assist a MOB unless they have LOS on you--this is easily exploitable, obviously, and makes pulling mobs almost trivial.

I looked around in the code, and the solution seemed pretty obvious.

In aggro.cpp in the function EntityList::AIYellForHelp , a block of code checks for LOS in the following way:

if(useprimfaction || sender->GetReverseFactionCon(mob) <= FACTION_AMIABLE )
				{
					//attacking someone on same faction, or a friend
					//Father Nitwit:  make sure we can see them.
					if(mob->CheckLosFN(attacker)) {
#if (EQDEBUG>=5) 
						LogFile->write(EQEMuLog::Debug, "AIYellForHelp(\"%s\",\"%s\") %s attacking %s Dist %f Z %f", 
						sender->GetName(), attacker->GetName(), mob->GetName(), attacker->GetName(), mob->DistNoRoot(*sender), fabs(sender->GetZ()+mob->GetZ()));
#endif
						mob->AddToHateList(attacker, 1, 0, false);
					}
				}

The change is really easy. Just change if(mob->CheckLosFN(attacker)) to if(mob->CheckLosFN(sender)). That way, MOBs will assist each other whether or not they have LOS, but still with the restriction that they have LOS with either the MOB you aggroed or a MOB assisting that MOB.

I've tested it out a decent amount and things seem to be working fine. The only reason I can imagine the code would be like this intentionally is that the LOS function is expensive, but changing it this way shouldn't normally create a ton more work for the processor; my server showed no signs of slowdown or stress as a result in admittedly limited testing.

[John Adams]

I'd like to see this on a relatively populated server where more than one player/group is aggroing stuff within the same range. That may be why it was tied to the aggroing party (hackhackhack).

Though I agree, I think this fix is nice and more in tune with how things should be. Nice work. TGC, anyone?

[cavedude]

Aye, I'll merge it on TGC next reboot

[eq4me]

I always thought that LOS had something to do with aggro range. For example you could pull the single mob near the ladder from the Ghoul Suppliers room in LGuk when you aggroed him as soon as you saw him while climbing up said ladder. Climb to high and the whole room would come. But maybe something has changed since then.

[Congdar]

I'm not sure if this is a good thing. If you want to link mobs, you should use the perl way to do it instead of a world wide change like this.

[greggg230]

Originally Posted by Congdar

I'm not sure if this is a good thing. If you want to link mobs, you should use the perl way to do it instead of a world wide change like this.

I'm not sure I understand. This should be a world-wide change, as this is how MOBs should always act.

This has nothing to do with MOBs being linked in the sense that was implemented in Velious and later.