The sorry state of First Order AI - is there any plans to bring them up to par of other AI?
It seems very obvious that the first order ai is inferior to other character ai, and it seems very fixable. While I wont list all the other AI's good aspects, below I will list all the First Order ai defects i know of. If anyone has more defects, comment them and I'll add to the main post.
Tie Silencer- uses his special attack when he doesn't have advantage
First Order Officer- Prioritizes Pinning Shot, rather than Marching Orders.
First Order Officer- Uses MO on the lowest H/P, even if that character has 100% health/protection. should rather use MO on the character with most debuffs (not including dots on kylo ren), and the lowest current Turn Meter
Kylo Ren (unmasked) - uses his special attack on targets without stun, causing minimal damage, uses Halt on stun-immune characters that don't even have a buff either.
I don't have First Order enemies on my shard, so that is why the list is starting out short, but from talking with others, it seems that First Order is one of the weakest teams on defense at the moment, the main reasoning being First Order Officer incorrectly using Marching Orders.
Tie Silencer- uses his special attack when he doesn't have advantage
First Order Officer- Prioritizes Pinning Shot, rather than Marching Orders.
First Order Officer- Uses MO on the lowest H/P, even if that character has 100% health/protection. should rather use MO on the character with most debuffs (not including dots on kylo ren), and the lowest current Turn Meter
Kylo Ren (unmasked) - uses his special attack on targets without stun, causing minimal damage, uses Halt on stun-immune characters that don't even have a buff either.
I don't have First Order enemies on my shard, so that is why the list is starting out short, but from talking with others, it seems that First Order is one of the weakest teams on defense at the moment, the main reasoning being First Order Officer incorrectly using Marching Orders.
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This is because its extremely difficult to take out FO without a meta team, but with a meta team they are crushed.
Also, @Kyno this isn't about "character and arena strategy", moreso feedback for CG i guess
Everyone is crushed when attacked by a meta team. We have 100k Sith teams lose in 1 battle. FO are in a pretty good place right now, IMHO.
Their ships suck on defense too
@VonZant
Also, if a Sith team is being crushed, it is because the other team is a hard counter like Rex, it's not because Palpatine used his heal first, or Sion starts with his single attack special instead of his AOE.
If that happened, rhere would be an uproar, much like there was with Thrawn last year, and the devs would do something about it. It's only because FO players are so rare that this has gone on so long.
A win is a win is a win.
Also the general strategy is to force the use of a counter team that may be needed elsewhere, or drive up the attack counter. FO does this nicely.
Sure, that's true of every meta team though. FO in particular has been consistently underestimated in TW. I help run the FO Discord server and between there, my guild and my shard chat, I have heard lots of people expressing this opinion.
I have also spent a considerable amount of time trying to correct the misinformation about FO on this forum, until it became apparent it was a pointless endeavor. Now I put my energy into the FO server so at least the players looking for the facts can find them.
First Order has been an overlooked team ever since they got their zetas, and that's how long we have been asking for this to be revisited. The fact that FO still functions on offense doesn't change the fact that CG themselves has demonstrated in the new tutorial that the opening move should be Marching Orders.
When you have one move that is used to start the team moving and one used to reduce the teams cooldowns after they've moved, it's pretty obvious which should come first. However, even some kind of value call like Boba Fett and Thrawn use to determine their opening move would be better than what we have now.
We know it can't be that difficult to change, as we've seen them change it for other characters, including Phasma back when she was actually used. This is just the must egregious example of how First Order AI is horrible, but we know other factions have similar problems.
Even fixing this one thing would be such a relief to the hundreds of dedicated FO players. We have been consistently left behind the other factions, I mean their were more scoundrela released for Solo than FO released for TLJ.
Help us out @Kyno. I know you get a lot of flak from the community, but I've known you to listen to intelligent and logical arguments and respond in kind. Can you see that the devs at least get a chance to see this? Or tell us the best way to get their attention at least?
PS: I know irregardless isn't a word, but it's so fun!
This is extremely well said, better thought out opinion compared to my original post. Thank you for the contributions made here @tharduskafka
I honestly can't think of another team, that has as terrible of an AI as FO that also can compete offensively in the meta. Even the tiny mistakes made by the AI in other teams, such as maybe thrawn choosing to cleanse an ally that isn't the best choice, still is made up for in how the team acts as a whole together. CG was able to program Bossk lead bounty hunters to always target the weakest enemy. if they can do that, they can easily fix Marching Orders.
Wait what? You're agreeing that Thrawn is bad, so you're not gonna farm FO? That doesn't make any sense. Nevermind the fact that FO is still the most fun faction to use, and that you don't have to worry about AI when you use them in raids or TB. All factions have some bad AI, but I don't know of any other case where a character opens with the same move regardless of the status of their allies. At least Thrawn has the potential to open with a different move, not to mention that many players count on Thrawn swapping with a lower health ally, and are able to make it part of their strategy.
FOO ALWAYS opens with Pinning Shot, even if there is someone on fire next to him. Surely the difference is obvious.
Those two things are completely different i would think. Under thrawn, they are cleansing debuffs, which is exactly what the button is for, you can't argue that is a fixable ai trait because what other use is the button for. It would be hard to differentiate, and also subjective, that a toon should not cleanse with daze, but should cleanse for offense down. I have never seen the button used for no reason at all, and since it grants TM back, it has very strong uses in that they gain/lose buffs more frequently, equalling more protection regen under thrawn lead. the fact that losing debuffs against the current EP meta is bad has no place here, because that is just a hard counter vs. Thrawn lead.
When a whole team will cycle through a full round of turns and not make a move, I consider that a bad AI move. It could at least prioritize differently the special and not always hit that one when available.
Sorry going off topic, but thrawn should have been the counter meta but the AI can't work that button right, so he can't be a leader on defense. That's my only point. I love his lead otherwise. And no I'm not suggesting it be buff specific, just not the first move when 1 buff is present