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"Skill Lock" exploit
The term "exploit" can also refer to poorly planned parts of the system (Mechanics that work as intended but can be used in a way that was not expected) that are not bugs(Problems in the code or hardware). Regarding that evidence:
- That's just how monster AIs work, Many of them often alternate between moving and trying to attack, even when the movement would be the same as what would happen automatically with the attack. (It's coded that way so that they can run diagonally if you run to the side, so they can aim where you're going to be instead of where you are, thereby (usually) getting to you sooner; and to facilitate bluffing(walking while Smash is loaded to make it look like Defense, standing still while Defense is loaded to make it look like WM or Counter, etc.))
- Ok, that one could support the bug theory. I have several possible explanations for that, but at least one of them could arguably be a bug/exploit.
- The "jitter" is just from the monster repeatedly walking when it's already at the destination. Basically, it's jogging in place, which looks pretty snazzy since the model is repeatedly displaying the beginning of the walk animation and returning to the standing pose(and the running/walking animations are designed for continuous movement, so they look weird starting, and/or stopping). This alleged "bug" is not the only time such "jitter" occurs, and players can produce a similar "jitter" by repeatedly clicking the ground directly below them, tho it's harder to do now than it used to be.(It seems players now have a minimum distance for movement. I don't know when it was added but it was not there when the game came out. I assume monsters/pets/npcs are not affected this restriction.)
- That one does not support the theory that it's a bug. In fact, it could even support the theory that it's intentional.
- That could be due to copy/pasting most of the AI instructions and details (which I assume they do to make the extra delays after loading skills consistent for everything the monster does)
- That's pretty subjective. This makes the monster occasionally behave like a confused or unskilled button-mashing player. One could argue that, in a game with Mabi's graphics, monsters don't get much more life-like than a monster that simulates a player experiencing nerd rage after misunderstanding the controls.
TL/DR: 1, 3 & 4: irrelevant; 6: moot point; 2 & 5: valid, but not conclusive.
"Whole other topic": WM finish is a good example of an exploit that's probably not a bug.
Note: I'm not saying this I think it's completely intentional, but I don't really think it should be treated as a bug unless a Nexon representative actually said it's a bug, since it's been around for ever, so Nexon and Devcat definitely know about it, and, some details of it have been changed at least once in the past, so I'm pretty sure they could have fixed it if they wanted too. IIRC, it only works on certain monsters, and works less or not at all on stronger monsters in the same category, and the frequency/usability of this phenomenon changes just about every time there's an update to the AIs(which also makes it seem possible that it's intentional).
Also, even though I'm not sure this is a bug, I'm not sure this should be kept in the page either. If there was a vote on weather or not to remove it, i'd probably be neutral.