Witch Doctor runs off...

Negative. Many of us use adaptive styles depending on the 3 most commonly designed bases (face it people only vary their bases at max level by about 2-3 main styles). Having attacked well over 5k bases at max levels, I use a varied mix of brutes, juggs, Bombers and gunners, with WD and HGs peppered in the mix. Rare to use bucs, skelly, or thieves, although they all are useful. Raiders are fantastic, but nullified all too often, and priestess is a joke. I've introduced thieves a little more to help with some base designs.
But for the most part it's a blitzkrieg type operation with pincer movements as needed. The previous WD worked well in these measured attacks, maybe once in 20 attacks would he go off on a silly errand of disaster. However now he moves to any 2-3 Juggs in any attack, and tries to be in the frontline, not something desirable for that type of unit. The AI change as confirmed by Lyndsey was simply to migrate to the group with the largest health points. When you consider the juggs prior to being decimated, they will have more health than practically anything else you deploy. A mass Attack at any weak point will gaurantee the WD in the frontline, while gunners and HGs hold back. Delaying the deployment of the WD until the juggs are depleted in health points enough to avoid a suicidal run by the WD negates much of the protection and focus of the juggs.
The WD by it's very design is supposed to protect your infantry (gunners), not your tanks (brutes/juggs).
Midoki can throw AI design at us as an excuse for high ranking players not being knowledgeable, I have only read 4 books myself on AI, so I'm barely a novice. But frankly we are not talking about advanced AI mechanics here, but more tweaks to a weighted decision matrix as Lyndsey initially mentioned that was simply to fix the WD going off to protect a lone troop while neglecting the main infantry it was supposed to protect, and that tweak was as mentioned to steer towards the main health first, and resurrect candidates as a secondary mission.
If people have honestly found the new WD to be a better unit now, then I would love to hear it (Raptelan need not apply as I have seen his attacks).

 

^^ Well said!!

Lets all hope Midoki "tweaks" it back in the next update.

 

@roguecylon nailed it.

 

His old formula worked fine. I'm not sure why it was decided to change it. He needs to be on the outside since he dies so quickly, so following a gunner or HG makes sense since they have a long range. Having him follow Juggs around kills him in a few seconds. Absolutely worthless now and extremely disappointing.

 

Ok, while I support one of my two WDs following my juggs (I do this intentionally, because even if he dies in 10 seconds, it keeps my hg alive longer than if he lasted 60 seconds on the hg, although many of you guys seem to hate this behavior)

But the supposed mechanism I have been defending is that he looks for the highest group of unprotected pirates to protect. I had one wd on 6 juggs grouped with 8 bombers, and one wd on 8 hg hanging far back, my normal attack style, and the wd on the hg left to chase after a gunner that went swimming to the side for an outhouse, leaving 3k hp for 200hp, which is not the intended behavior. There was no overlap of shields, which is what I had always assumed was where the buggy behavior came from. Apparently this isn't the case.

I still managed to get all the stores and 2* the attack, so its not like it really mattered too much, but the behavior it was supposed to correct, and I have been praising it for correcting (the following of a lone gun out into the middle of nowhere) is still happening. This is still a rare occurrence for me, they generally do behave how they are "supposed to", but the fact that they aren't even following the new behavior they're supposed to is upsetting.

In general I prefer the new behavior, but given how much its upsetting so many people, and the fact that its not even doing what its supposed to behind the scenes, I'm much more in favor of a revert. As long as it doesn't screw up me wanting to keep one of my wd on my juggs, please go and make everyone happy!

 

Since I've hated the WD AI screw over, I've stopped using juggs and Brutes completely. No matter how it's been all nice nice game play and AI tweaking. It doesn't work with the way the Pirates were set up. They would have been better off eliminating Brutes and Juggs and leaving the old WD AI the way it was. the WD is way to close to the action and gets killed off. I don't buy that splash damage won't hit the WD when it's protecting the Jugg. It does get hit! Otherwise it wouldn't jump when the mortar hits. Unless they fix it back I've stopped any upgrading of the WD it's just not worth it.

 

I have started using 2 and functionality has improved. But having to increase their number hardly seems like an improvement. But, plenty of venting here already.

 

This WD AI is complete nonsense, for the love of all that is holy please give us back the old WD! We've got 10 pages in this thread alone and countless other threads all saying the same thing. Come on midoki, get with the program and revert the AI already.

 

@Lynsey [Midoki] please tell us. Do we just have to suck this up or are you guys going to change it? If the latter, are you reverting back, or changing the current version? Please put us out of our misery.

 

Has anyone maxed their Wd yet. I have, but the supposed range increase does not seem to be working. Perhaps it's just my eyes...

 

From what I've seen, the range is increased from I believe 3 tiles away to 4-5 tiles (which should be 50% more than what it was), but its very buggy about not always resurrecting everyone in range, so it might take you a bunch of replays to really figure out the new max range. It doesn't seem as big as the full sized maxed out bubble range.

 

Thanks @Skye i have noticed the resurrect seems a bit hit and miss... was wondering if it was my imagination!

 

The main problem with that as the groups get hit the HP varies so the WD runs back and forth as the WD changes who he protect it invariably end up him getting hit while actual doing no protection. that's the main problem with the new set up. It's basically based on one element HP. that's why juggs get chased after.

 

Today I had a WD walk from two strong juggs, off to a couple of gunners and a brute who was weak, ignoring a whole group of gunners with a jugg in the opposite direction. When the WD arrived he basically decided to travel back towards the juggs and place himself in front of them to die from mortars. Complete waste of grog and gem to recruit.

To say that the AI sucks is an understatement. In fact let's be honest, there is no quality AI here, just a basic and error prone decision tree, not worthy of being labeled AI. I could likely write a much better routine myself in a couple of days.

 

I get that you're frustrated... but I would love to see Midoki accept your challenge - just to watch you realise how much you underestimate them!

If the bugs were that simple to fix - they would be fixed!

 

Agreed, its wonky for me as well.

 

I've stopped using jugs and brutes due to the change and I must say that I have been pretty successful with my new pirate setup.

I won't beat the dead horse that most people here have already whipped and left bloody, but I would like to add that my WD's tend to wander a lot even when they are in a pack of pirates. I know this is just a coincidence, but it always seems to happen when its resurrection is coming off of cool down. It will be with a pack of pirates attacking something and in my head Im always saying stay, stay, stay, cool down is at 3, stay, stay, stay, 2, stay, stay, ahhh where the hell are you going 1, now he is out of range only to have the pirates destroy their target and move on.

 

I do the same thing yet I'm yelling at my ipad, lol

 

It would be good if the WD's AI would not follow the juggs since they are typically used as tanks. I get the change but could they be adjusted to follow the pirates with the most fire power?

 

Final comment for me here: I get that decision trees can end up cumbersome over complicated beasts. I understand that as the game evolves, things can and will break. But here's a couple of observations on playing this for a year;
1. The Witch Doctor used to work pretty damn good before an update came out that made it wonder all over the place.
2. Gunners used to work pretty damn good before an update came out and they started to do very stupid things.
3. Crew actions have regressed with every release. And have caused frustration and consternation, because the actions of the crew are not something challenging. Much is luck or hopeful repeat of what worked previously. Sure I would love more time on the clock to be more tactical. But when you let the crew go, you only have a modicum of control based on actions leading up to the release. Skill is refinement of an action to a fine degree, luck is setting up an environment where in the right circumstances things fall well, poor programming is neither.