Problem with the AI of Lunar Abigail （Update: [Game Update] - 651259)

[Yifei_]

Update: The change of attack range has made the already poor experience of the CC boss fight even worse and more difficult to adjust the positioning of Lunar Abigail.

Summary: The 1s-stun mechanism and overly aggressive attack desire of Lunar Abigail may cause her to perform less effectively when facing bosses compared to Normal Abigail.
 

Supplement: I did not say that Lunar Abigail is always inferior to Normal Abigail in facing bosses at any time. Lunar Abigail has her own strengths, but there are also potential design issues that I need to point out.

I chose Celestial Champion (Phase I) as the subject for comparing Lunar Abigail and Normal Abigail. This is because Moon Storm will keep the world in a full moon state before summoning Celestial Champion, and Celestial Champion is a highly challenging boss. This makes using Lunar Abigail against it a "natural" and "good choice."

Testing Conditions:
 

• Ornery Beefalo + Glossamer Saddle
• Abigail + Vigor Mortis
• Neither with Spectral Cure-All
• Neither with Team Spirits (since I want to focus on the performance of Lunar Abigail, not the performance of this skill)
• Neither with Sisturn III

Normal Abigail:

Lunar Abigail:

 

I practiced using Lunar Abigail against CC more than ten times, and not once did Lunar Abigail survive the entire battle. It can be seen that the AI of Lunar Abigail even has a negative impact on her survival ability. My analysis of the reasons is as follows:

1. The 1-second stun after attacking: This 1-second stun prevents me from quickly creating distance between Lunar Abigail and CC (the most critical reason, as seen in the first video). I don't understand the purpose of this stun. The design is simply terrible and completely detached from the actual gameplay.
2. Lunar Abigail's strong desire to attack: Even without provocation, it is difficult to create distance between Lunar Abigail and CC. This often results in Lunar Abigail being attacked by CC while I try to reposition her (this is more evident in the second video).
3. Position changes after each attack: After each attack, Lunar Abigail's position shifts. When CC is between Wendy and Lunar Abigail, it becomes challenging to maneuver. Moving away from CC would cause Abigail to move closer to CC (a secondary reason, which can be mitigated by better positioning, but it makes an otherwise simple boss fight more complicated).

If you have a better strategy for defeating CC using Lunar Abigail, I'd love to see your video! I'm also very happy to learn from you!

Update: Test on CC Phase II:

Spoiler

I chose War Saddle instead of Glossamer Saddle.

Normal Abigail:

Lunar Abigail:  

 

The results and reasons are similar to those in CC Phase I.

 

[Steorra]

A very detailed and open minded testing, thanks for your efforts! I personally have no experience of Gestalt Abi, I would like to keep learning as well...

Though I hope we won't have some voices like "CC was intended to be hard which means Gestalt Abi should be useless when against CC" below.

14 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

The 1-second stun after attacking: This 1-second stun prevents me from quickly creating distance between Lunar Abigail and CC (the most critical reason, as seen in the first video). I don't understand the purpose of this stun. The design is simply terrible and completely detached from the actual gameplay.

And I could confirmed that many potential fans of Gestalt Abi were complained similar issues like this. The new special AI added for Gestalt Abi which caused 1 second stun were a bad design due to the feedback happened during last month. I hope Klei could roll back this change.

 

To diminish manage possibility of players is frustrating. Even Gestalt Abi was designed for casual and newcomers maybe, she should still encourage players to learn more about micro management.

[DVGMedia]

2 hours ago, Yifei_ said:

 

I spoke a bit on how lunar abbys agression works now compared to default abby aswell. in this post here 
if you test the lunar abby battle again try doing it while holding a panflute so you can see the range at which gabby will cut aggro from the target

It seems to be like how im seeing where abby has the focused target and so long she is 15 units close to wendy she will continue to focus that target.
when she gets out of that range Gabby will try to return back to the normal 1-5 or 3-10 range for riled up.

But the main problem is that 15 unit range thing causing her not not be as responsive as regular abigails 1-5 range

She also cares more about combat so if the player attacks within 15 units gabby will try to make the attack so long the player is within that range of her.

that and also gabbys attack range is still the same size as regular abby to initiate it. so she needs to get within 3 units to attack  which causes her more problems here too

[SilverSpoon]

Not about Gestaby's AI, her "Attack At" command only does 15/20/40 damage, but on the other hand, it still functions as AoE.

[congrongfuguo]

9 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Not about Gestaby's AI, her "Attack At" command only does 15/20/40 damage, but on the other hand, it still functions as AoE.

The Moon Potion can turn this AOE damage into 140. I want to use Luna Abigail to produce a lot of snail helmet, but the probability is too low........

     

[congrongfuguo]

The current characteristic of Shadow Abby is high damage.

But gestalt Abi doesn't seem to have any outstanding features.Survival ability is no longer an advantage, and seems more clumsy than ordinary Abigail.

On the other hand, if Abigail's survival ability is too strong, regardless of whether her ability to cause damage is strong or weak, it will become another form of fighting alone instead of two people working together.

Perhaps we can solve the problem in this way：

Enhance Abigail's survival ability and significantly reduce the attack power under normal circumstances, but when Abigail attacks from behind, it can cause twice or even more damage.

In this way, Wendy needs to use her own attacks and movements to attract enemies to cooperate with Abigail's backstab attack.

（提升阿比盖尔的生存能力 大幅度降低正常情况的攻击力 但是当阿比盖尔从背后攻击时可以造成两倍甚至更高伤害 这样一来 温蒂要做的就是用自身的攻击和移动吸引敌人 配合阿比盖尔的背刺攻击）

[Yifei_]

8 hours ago, Steorra said:

Though I hope we won't have some voices like "CC was intended to be hard which means Gestalt Abi should be useless when against CC" below.

I think it's ok for lunar abigail to be weaker against bosses like bee queen / crab king / ancient fuelweaver, since they require aoe damage. But for bosses like CC, Lunar Abigail should not be useless.

6 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

I spoke a bit on how lunar abbys agression works now compared to default abby aswell. in this post here 
if you test the lunar abby battle again try doing it while holding a panflute so you can see the range at which gabby will cut aggro from the target

It seems to be like how im seeing where abby has the focused target and so long she is 15 units close to wendy she will continue to focus that target.
when she gets out of that range Gabby will try to return back to the normal 1-5 or 3-10 range for riled up.

But the main problem is that 15 unit range thing causing her not not be as responsive as regular abigails 1-5 range

She also cares more about combat so if the player attacks within 15 units gabby will try to make the attack so long the player is within that range of her.

that and also gabbys attack range is still the same size as regular abby to initiate it. so she needs to get within 3 units to attack  which causes her more problems here too

Thanks for your detailed analysis about how the aggression works! A range of 15 units is rather too high in the absence of a rile up situation.

5 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

Not about Gestaby's AI, her "Attack At" command only does 15/20/40 damage, but on the other hand, it still functions as AoE.

It feels like a minor compensation for a weakness of Lunar Abigail, and I think it's acceptable. The aoe of the dash is much weaker than that of Normal Abigail's aoe, but having it is better than having nothing at all.

4 hours ago, congrongfuguo said:

The current characteristic of Shadow Abby is high damage.

But gestalt Abi doesn't seem to have any outstanding features.Survival ability is no longer an advantage, and seems more clumsy than ordinary Abigail.

On the other hand, if Abigail's survival ability is too strong, regardless of whether her ability to cause damage is strong or weak, it will become another form of fighting alone instead of two people working together.

Perhaps we can solve the problem in this way：

Enhance Abigail's survival ability and significantly reduce the attack power under normal circumstances, but when Abigail attacks from behind, it can cause twice or even more damage.

In this way, Wendy needs to use her own attacks and movements to attract enemies to cooperate with Abigail's backstab attack.

（提升阿比盖尔的生存能力 大幅度降低正常情况的攻击力 但是当阿比盖尔从背后攻击时可以造成两倍甚至更高伤害 这样一来 温蒂要做的就是用自身的攻击和移动吸引敌人 配合阿比盖尔的背刺攻击）

I feel that defining "behind" or "forward" is not very straightforward, and the positional changes during actual combat can be quite complex. In some boss fights (such as CC), Wendy and Abigail need to stand on the same side, while in other boss fights (such as AF), Wendy and Abigail need to stand on different sides of the boss. The mechanic of Lunar Abigail changing positions after attacking increases the operational complexity for both types of boss fights.
As for Lunar Abigail's damage values, I'm not particularly concerned. It's fine if the damage is a bit lower, as long as the vulnerability effect duration is sufficient, the AI is smart enough, and the transformation conditions are convenient. However, currently, only the first point has been achieved.

我感觉这个背刺并不是很好去定义，因为实战中的位置变化可能较为复杂。在有些boss战中（比如天体）需要温蒂和姐姐站在同一侧，而有些boss战（比如只因）则需要温蒂和姐姐站在boss的不同侧。月阿比攻击后改变位置的设定使得这两种类型的boss战的操作量都增加了。
对于月阿比的伤害数值，我感觉还行，伤害再低一点都没问题，只要保证易伤效果时长足够、AI足够聪明、转化条件方便就行。但现在只有第一点做到了。
 

[congrongfuguo]

 

1. 也许可以参考其他游戏的例子 比如dota2的刚背兽 侧面和背面受到伤害时有不同的系数（ ...这些东西好像没有方向） 不过当温蒂带着boss的仇恨走到阿比盖尔的对侧的时候 她就应该能做到背刺了

 

2. 关于阿比盖尔的位置 ：我的方案是建立在阿比盖尔能够很好的自保的基础上的 这样在战斗中你对阿比盖尔健康的关心会变成对配合本身的关注（这对于新手可能是更好的体验） 我不记得之前的月亮阿比生存能力如何了 但是没有1秒停顿 以及冲刺时免疫伤害 应该会起到不错的效果 如果不够的话可以考虑改变两种护盾药剂对月亮阿比盖尔生效的方式 让月亮阿比更针对性的强化对单个敌人的战斗

在你的视频中 我看到普通的（暗影的）阿比盖尔在配合温蒂移动和战斗

在月亮亲和中 由温蒂来配合阿比盖尔战斗似乎是种不错的对称（月亮阿比盖尔就像是个灵活的游骑兵）

 

（不感兴趣的话不回复我也行 ....其实我也不知道现在讨论的意义是什么了）

 

 

1.  Perhaps we can refer to examples from other games such as Dota 2's Hedgehog Pigdifferent coefficients when the side and back are injured（These things seem to have no direction...）Anyway, when Wendy walks to the opposite side of Abigail with the boss's hatred, she should be able to do a backstab.

2. Regarding the location of Abigail:My plan is based on Abigail's ability to protect herself well, so that in battle, your concern for Abigail's health will become a focus on cooperation itself.（This may be a better experience for new players）I don't remember how  lunaAbi's survival ability was before, but without a 1-second pause and immune damage during sprinting, it should have had a good effect.If it's not enough, we can consider changing the way of the two shield potions work on Moon Abigail to strengthen her combat against single enemies.

In your video, I saw a normal (shadow) Abigail coordinating with Wendy's movements and battles
In Moon Affinity, having Wendy cooperate with Abigail in battle seems like a good symmetry (Moon Abigail is like a flexible cavalryman)

[Beetrice]

All of this is silly. The issue isn't Gestalt Abigail being too weak. It's that Celestial Champion is designed for players to fight it. Why do you think it totally shreds other bosses and hordes of enemies? You have to do more than kite - what Gestalt Abigail does is kite, and she does it like a Merm. If you used her against Fuelweaver, I think you would find she does very well, since his main attack is avoided through kiting.

[SilverSpoon]

I think I should share this here too. It's about Scare command with all Abigail, but it's especially noticeable with Gestaby who it's hard to stun enemies because it's a single target attack with a long cooldown.

[Steorra]

On 1/21/2025 at 11:05 PM, Steorra said:

Though I hope we won't have some voices like "CC was intended to be hard which means Gestalt Abi should be useless when against CC" below.

 

8 hours ago, Beetrice said:

All of this is silly. The issue isn't Gestalt Abigail being too weak. It's that Celestial Champion is designed for players to fight it. Why do you think it totally shreds other bosses and hordes of enemies? You have to do more than kite - what Gestalt Abigail does is kite, and she does it like a Merm. If you used her against Fuelweaver, I think you would find she does very well, since his main attack is avoided through kiting.

"Silly". 

Do you know that Woodies treeguards is more easier for dealing with CC than Abi?

Oh great a side feature of Woodie is better than the only core feature of Wendy.

 

No need to say Lunar Abi is far worse than Normal Abi when facing CC. So your opinions is that a topper affinity skill like Lunar Abi should be weaker than the base kit Normal one in CC fighting?

[yuntunhemudu]

8 hours ago, Beetrice said:

All of this is silly. The issue isn't Gestalt Abigail being too weak. It's that Celestial Champion is designed for players to fight it. Why do you think it totally shreds other bosses and hordes of enemies? You have to do more than kite - what Gestalt Abigail does is kite, and she does it like a Merm. If you used her against Fuelweaver, I think you would find she does very well, since his main attack is avoided through kiting.

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. The current problem is that Gestalt Abigail's AI is quite unintelligent, significantly affecting the kiting process.

8 hours ago, Beetrice said:

If you used her against Fuelweaver,

After this beta version, Gestalt Abigail still demonstrated good ability to handle Fuelweaver, so most people believe that Gestalt Abigail is ok. But when we tried other bosses, we found that it wasn't the case, Gestalt Abigail's overall performance was worse than normal Abigail's. CC is just an example here.

[Yifei_]

11 hours ago, Beetrice said:

All of this is silly. The issue isn't Gestalt Abigail being too weak. It's that Celestial Champion is designed for players to fight it. Why do you think it totally shreds other bosses and hordes of enemies? You have to do more than kite - what Gestalt Abigail does is kite, and she does it like a Merm. If you used her against Fuelweaver, I think you would find she does very well, since his main attack is avoided through kiting.

Normal Abigail can handle CC Phase I with ease, whereas Lunar Abigail cannot, and that's exactly what I'm trying to prove: the AI of Lunar Abigail might actually be a detrimental improvement for Abigail.

I never mentioned any other bosses or enemies in my post.

I suggest you actually open up the DST game and experience the combat with AFW.

15 hours ago, congrongfuguo said:

1. 也许可以参考其他游戏的例子 比如dota2的刚背兽 侧面和背面受到伤害时有不同的系数（ ...这些东西好像没有方向） 不过当温蒂带着boss的仇恨走到阿比盖尔的对侧的时候 她就应该能做到背刺了

 

2. 关于阿比盖尔的位置 ：我的方案是建立在阿比盖尔能够很好的自保的基础上的 这样在战斗中你对阿比盖尔健康的关心会变成对配合本身的关注（这对于新手可能是更好的体验） 我不记得之前的月亮阿比生存能力如何了 但是没有1秒停顿 以及冲刺时免疫伤害 应该会起到不错的效果 如果不够的话可以考虑改变两种护盾药剂对月亮阿比盖尔生效的方式 让月亮阿比更针对性的强化对单个敌人的战斗

在你的视频中 我看到普通的（暗影的）阿比盖尔在配合温蒂移动和战斗

在月亮亲和中 由温蒂来配合阿比盖尔战斗似乎是种不错的对称（月亮阿比盖尔就像是个灵活的游骑兵）

 

（不感兴趣的话不回复我也行 ....其实我也不知道现在讨论的意义是什么了）

dota我没玩过，不是很了解那个游戏里是如何运转的。目前月比生存太差，之前的冲刺无敌于没有1秒发呆其实还行。还有一个问题就是非激怒模式下的攻击性太高，激怒于不急怒的差别没有体现出来。我视频里没用影阿比用的是普通阿比。

不过”对称“那个可能比较棘手。毕竟阿比不是真人操控的，几乎不可能让阿比的设计能够同时应对每一个boss。而且如果真是这样又会有一堆人跳出来说“月比太超模了”之类的，虽然我并不在乎这方面。

一个多月了没有任何测试服的消息，我也不晓得讨论有没得意义。希望最后的技能树能够优秀且杰出吧！

3 hours ago, yuntunhemudu said:

Gestalt Abigail still demonstrated good ability to handle Fuelweaver

Lunar Abigail might have better survivability, but there's a major drawback: the lack of AOE abilities. This makes clearing Woven Shadows more troublesome. I'll have to give Lunar Abigail a try myself when I have time to fight the AFW.

[Yifei_]

  

4 hours ago, Jason said:

Gestalt Abigail behaviour tweaks:

• Range to initiate an attack is longer than default.

 

 

It's really bad. This change has made the already poor experience of the CC boss fight even worse and more difficult to adjust the positioning of Lunar Abigail. That pointless 1-second stun remains unchanged.

[yuntunhemudu]

1 hour ago, Yifei_ said:

  

 

It's really bad. This change has made the already poor experience of the CC boss fight even worse and more difficult to adjust the positioning of Lunar Abigail. That pointless 1-second stun remains unchanged.

It's too lively today. Wait until people calm down before discussing Gestalt Abby's AI issues in detail. I have no inspiration now, and also I don't want to experience death in beta testing for the time being.

[yuntunhemudu]

Gestalt Abby/normal Abby + Sisturn 3 for Dragonfly

1. Ask Wendy to hold down F and stand still, actively taking the damage from Dragonfly. Gestalt Abby will not suffer any harm, just Wendy needs enough armor and food. But Abby's automatic attack will immediately awaken the sleeping Dragonfly (using Pan Fluent to interrupt Dragonfly's rage), causing chaos.

Ordinary Abby also hardly suffers any damage, except for the possibility of injury during Dragonfly's rage.

2.When riding a Beefalo kiting, Gestalt Abby or a normal Abby will not be harmed. If there is a mistake, it mainly hurt Beefalo.

3.When Gestalt Abby faces Bosses alone (using mods to make Wendy invisible). Gestalt Abby will only launch an attack if Wendy is close enough to Bosses. Once an attack is launched, it will be continuously tracked by Dragonfly, and almost every attack from Dragonfly will hit it, quickly rendering it hidden. Even with team spirit, it is impossible to command Gestalt Abby to kill Bosses alone like a Pok é mon trainer.

Summary: Gestalt Abby's AI has been optimized to some extent, but it is too ordinary. There is not much difference between Gestalt Abby and normal Abby in terms of survival ability and operational difficulty when facing Dragonfly. If Luminous Wrath is used, Gestalt Abby's killing speed is faster (0.15 days faster, roughly saving a set of armor and a small amount of blue mushrooms).
I am curious about where Gestalt Abby has an advantage after sacrificing Abby's AOE ability. At least for now, it has not highlighted its advantage in killing Bosses. On the contrary, it has a disadvantage in dealing with Bee Queen and CC.

[Yifei_]

1 minute ago, yuntunhemudu said:

Gestalt Abby/normal Abby + Sisturn 3 for Dragonfly

1. Ask Wendy to hold down F and stand still, actively taking the damage from Dragonfly. Gestalt Abby will not suffer any harm, just Wendy needs enough armor and food. But Abby's automatic attack will immediately awaken the sleeping Dragonfly (using Pan Fluent to interrupt Dragonfly's rage), causing chaos.

Ordinary Abby also hardly suffers any damage, except for the possibility of injury during Dragonfly's rage.

2.When riding a Beefalo kiting, Gestalt Abby or a normal Abby will not be harmed. If there is a mistake, it mainly hurt Beefalo.

3.When Gestalt Abby faces Bosses alone (using mods to make Wendy invisible). Gestalt Abby will only launch an attack if Wendy is close enough to Bosses. Once an attack is launched, it will be continuously tracked by Dragonfly, and almost every attack from Dragonfly will hit it, quickly rendering it hidden. Even with team spirit, it is impossible to command Gestalt Abby to kill Bosses alone like a Pok é mon trainer.

Summary: Gestalt Abby's AI has been optimized to some extent, but it is too ordinary. There is not much difference between Gestalt Abby and normal Abby in terms of survival ability and operational difficulty when facing Dragonfly. If Luminous Wrath is used, Gestalt Abby's killing speed is faster (0.15 days faster, roughly saving a set of armor and a small amount of blue mushrooms).
I am curious about where Gestalt Abby has an advantage after sacrificing Abby's AOE ability. At least for now, it has not highlighted its advantage in killing Bosses. On the contrary, it has a disadvantage in dealing with Bee Queen and CC.

Thank you very much for your testing. When I tested the dragonfly myself, I relied on the pan flute and ice staff. No matter which form Abigail is in, I can basically ignore her when fighting the dragonfly, since the dragonfly deals single-target damage and prioritizes the player as its target.

In this post, I conducted more detailed tests, comparing the performance of Abigail in both forms against almost every boss.