Odd AI behavior

[nomaddc]

I've done a full install a couple days ago, and I've ran into a couple oddities.

1. The weird Skyrim - Patches related bug that causes some of the blacksmith dialogue to appear as "..." and give an error message "LOOKUP FAILED!". I found a fix online which involved repacking that bsa without "strings" folder

2. AI is acting... odd. Maybe I misremember things, but enemy casters seem to sometimes get stuck standing and not casting anything despite them having line of sight on me and mana. I really don't know about this one, maybe it was always like this? But if anyone got any pointers what could be causing this if it's a bug I'd be thankful.

3. It appears sometimes NPCs forget to unlock their shops/houses at daytime. Ran into quite a few locked shops after waiting for a day or reloading, that functioned normally after unlocked.

Edited yesterday at 01:47 PM by nomaddc

[z929669]

2 hours ago, nomaddc said:

I've done a full install a couple days ago, and I've ran into a couple oddities.

1. The weird Skyrim - Patches related bug that causes some of the blacksmith dialogue to appear as "..." and give an error message "LOOKUP FAILED!". I found a fix online which involved repacking that bsa without "strings" folder

2. AI is acting... odd. Maybe I misremember things, but enemy casters seem to sometimes get stuck standing and not casting anything despite them having line of sight on me and mana. I really don't know about this one, maybe it was always like this? But if anyone got any pointers what could be causing this if it's a bug I'd be thankful.

Did you install the complete Step 2.3 Guide according to all instructions without any deviation?

[nomaddc]

I have installed the complete 2.3 guide with a few added mods. If it helps I could try disabling them and seeing how things change. The list is short though, about 10 or so. I could provide a list if that would help narrow down suspects. About half of those I've used in the past without issue, and I don't think any of them should be messing with the AI in question. The lookup issue I've ran into for the first time since LE.

Also a new one: in my last session I've found a patch of missing textures (my guess at least) in the Fellglow Keep. It was minor and didn't really block anything, but odd. Another odd thing I've caught is I got delivered a bunch of creations quest starter letters almost immediately (I think it even happened when I was testing the performance), and at least one of them iirc is supposed to only appear at level 32. Is this intended or I've messed something up?

Edit: after looking back - I've also noticed that Brelyna Maryon does not seem to want to cast any Conjuration spells when hired as a companion. She does use bow and fistfights enemies instead, sometimes casting spells.

Edited 14 hours ago by nomaddc

[nomaddc]

Basically here are the only deviations from full 2.3 guide:

Top 3 or so are prereqs for other mods, HDT hair and equipment, Improved camera, Better Vampires with patches and a mod to allow head covering to block sun damage, better head morphs and facial expressions mod, an idle animation (reran nemesis for that), skyui config to improve item sorting, dual wield parrying. Overwrites/conflicts are isolated to this section with the exception of Female Vampires Have fangs, where facegen morphs overrides 1 file.

I don't think any of those should be causing the aforementioned issues, since most of them are isolated to other areas of the game, but I suppose can't exclude anything. I did install these after fully completing 2.3 guide and doing some perf runs on that, but I didn't do in-depth testing back then that could highlight the mentioned oddities. If I had to pick the top suspect, it would probably be the Better Vampires, but I have played with that mod many times in the past and it never caused me any issues with STEP (I've nearly always used STEP in the past).

If it helps - I've noticed this odd behavior on companion casters too (namely I had the college of winterhold one with me). They just walk around with their spells out seemingly unable or unwilling to cast, somewhat slower than running. Melee enemies don't seem to have any issues so far. So this leads me to think it has something to do with a mod that touches on combat, ai, or casting.

I will try to do some scuffed testing by selectively disabling suspect mods and loading a save I have with a big mage fight, but it could end up being inconclusive because iirc script mods are sometimes difficult to remove without starting a new save.

Edited 18 hours ago by nomaddc

[Mousetick]

21 hours ago, nomaddc said:

2. AI is acting... odd. Maybe I misremember things, but enemy casters seem to sometimes get stuck standing and not casting anything despite them having line of sight on me and mana. I really don't know about this one, maybe it was always like this? But if anyone got any pointers what could be causing this if it's a bug I'd be thankful.

7 hours ago, nomaddc said:

If it helps - I've noticed this odd behavior on companion casters too (namely I had the college of winterhold one with me). They just walk around with their spells out seemingly unable or unwilling to cast, somewhat slower than running.

If you have installed the optional mod FIZZLE from the STEP Guide, it's the most likely cause and is its expected behavior (not a bug). Its effect on NPCs is strongest and very noticeable at the beginning of the game where most NPCs are low level (and low skilled) like the player. It gradually decreases with higher level NPCs.

[nomaddc]

2 hours ago, Mousetick said:

If you have installed the optional mod FIZZLE from the STEP Guide, it's the most likely cause and is its expected behavior (not a bug). Its effect on NPCs is strongest and very noticeable at the beginning of the game where most NPCs are low level (and low skilled) like the player. It gradually decreases with higher level NPCs.

Ah, I suspected as much. Still trying to find a group of hostile mages to test it out with and without to be certain. Will update when I do

Edit: can definitely confirm it's FIZZLE. I'm not sure why it acts so weird though - my understanding was that it just causes some casts to fail depending on skill, but it seems like AIs just give up trying to cast after a few fails or something along those lines. Also holy, it makes early game casters much easier to fight I just loaded a fight that I breezed through with FIZZLE, and got murdered extremely fast without it.

Tried the fix from FIZZLE mod page. Maybe placebo, but it seems to have fixed caster AI derping out.

> 'set FIZZLE_UnequipFailedSpell to 1' will unequip the spell from the NPC after they have failed to cast it. They will automatically reequip it after a short while. Enable this option if the AI gets confused and you experience NPC circling you without attacking you. Defaults to 0.

Personally, I will be uninstalling that mod because I like casting and I dislike wasting my entire mana pool on trying to cast Stoneflesh.

Edited 9 hours ago by nomaddc

[nomaddc]

Ok, so with AI mystery solved the remaining oddities I'm trying to look into/get some help with are:

1. The weird Skyrim - Patches related bug that causes some of the blacksmith dialogue to appear as "..." and give an error message "LOOKUP FAILED!". I found a fix online which involved repacking that bsa without "strings" folder. So it's fixed, but I'm just puzzled why it popped up, would love to know the why.

2. It appears sometimes NPCs forget to unlock their shops/houses at daytime. Ran into quite a few locked shops after waiting for a day or reloading, that functioned normally after unlocked.

3. Found a patch of transparent walls (collision is there, they are just see-through) in the Fellglow Keep. It was minor and didn't really block playing through, but odd.

4. I got delivered a bunch of creations quest starter letters almost immediately (I think it even happened when I was testing the performance), and at least one of them iirc is supposed to only appear at level 32. Is this intended or I've messed something up?

Edited 9 hours ago by nomaddc