Say NO! to stupid mechanics

ArchivedUser

We have all played these type of games.

You get attacked by 4 mobs, you decide to run like hell due to the fact you don't think you can defeat them. As your running you see 2 drop off. You think to yourself hey I can handle 2 of them. So you engage, you move around so not to get hit much but in doing so the mob area limit gets hit. The mobs go to full health and run back.But your at half health or less.  You scream what a stupid mechanic. All it needed was an addition in the code. If engaged and at area limit don't run back stay engaged, on players death then run back. Its so simple. 

Ensure we have wall collisions too many times npcs can hit you though a wall or a door. But the reverse is not possible.

Ensure spawns do not spawn on top of players, this can get very annoying.

This one is just plain annoying the GW2 wolf howl spawn. People who played GW2 will know what I mean.

Can people think of anymore stupid mechanics?

ArchivedUser

The "leash" mechanic you described - it is stupid (and kind of annoying), but there's also a reason why it's there.

I remember how in vanilla WoW people would kite overland raid bosses to major cities, bosses which would then proceed to kill every afk person & low lvl player in the supposedly "safe" area.

I'm not sure if that's something people still do, haven't played the game in ages (10+ years).

Now, I don't personally mind that (in fact, I find it kinda funny - I wonder what that says about me as a person), but I can understand why some developers opt to have a mechanic to prevent that.

That said, there's always ways to improve the mechanic, should Intrepid choose to include it. I.e. you can add some kind of visual/audio cue that would indicate a mob or boss is approaching the maximum range they can be pulled to.

ArchivedUser

NightshadeRaven said:.  You scream what a stupid mechanic. All it needed was an addition in the code. If engaged and at area limit don't run back stay engaged, on players death then run back. Its so simple. 

No, it's not that simple. Don't pretend that you are smart, if you don't know shit.
It works this way to prevent exploiting it.
Hint: run&hit tactic exploits the dumb AI. The whole leash range is here, so players aren't kite them forever, so in tl.dr if you don't know how to kite npcs don't kite them, it's not the game's fault if you suck and pull it out from leash range.

You say don't spawn on players, but I say I go there and afk to prevent important npc's from re spawning? well?

Most of those mechanism that you listed works like this for a reason or two. You can remove them, but it will cause other problems instead...

ArchivedUser

Decimus said:

That said, there's always ways to improve the mechanic, should Intrepid choose to include it. I.e. you can add some kind of visual/audio cue that would indicate a mob or boss is approaching the maximum range they can be pulled to.

All I am saying is even if the mob is at max range allow it to keep fighting you. The worst ones are the time delay ones, once the timer hits the mob go back to its original spawn point.

 

ArchivedUser

MADE said:

NightshadeRaven said:.  You scream what a stupid mechanic. All it needed was an addition in the code. If engaged and at area limit don't run back stay engaged, on players death then run back. Its so simple. 

No, it's not that simple. Don't pretend that you are smart, if you don't know shit.
It works this way to prevent exploiting it.
Hint: run&hit tactic exploits the dumb AI.

I never said Hit and Run. I said Run, the mobs chased you there was never any hitting by you. There lies the difference.

Well I dont know what to say about you, you just attacked my post. Assumed I was not smart and that you knew better. Well you missed the piece of Pseudocode I embed in my post and yes it is possible. So dont assume anything about me because it will be all wrong. 

ArchivedUser

MADE said:

NightshadeRaven said:. "  You scream what a stupid mechanic. All it needed was an addition in the code. If engaged and at area limit don't run back stay engaged, on players death then run back. Its so simple.  "

" No, it's not that simple. Don't pretend that you are smart, if you don't know shit.
It works this way to prevent exploiting it.
Hint: run&hit tactic exploits the dumb AI. The whole leash range is here, so players aren't kite them forever, so in tl.dr if you don't know how to kite npcs don't kite them, it's not the game's fault if you suck and pull it out from leash range.

You say don't spawn on players, but I say I go there and afk to prevent important npc's from re spawning? well?

Most of those mechanism that you listed works like this for a reason or two. You can remove them, but it will cause other problems instead... "

Why not Counter-Actively resolve it ? Make the A.I. smarter.
The Smartest NPC Opponents I've seen were the NPCs in DarkFall: Rise of Agon:

The Mob has the potential to attack you first from very far away without you being close to them - before you every realize who's attacking you. And i did like the A.I they've shown to possess. Despite how the Combat Style was an  ... " MMOFPS " 

( you had to aim your Spells & Melee Attacks )

Even the Low-level NPCs in the Starting Area can " hold-their-own " in a Battle

(i could link a Video if you want ...but not sure if its Necessary 

ArchivedUser

@NightshadeRaven I understand entirely where you are coming from in your original post.

A group of mobs attack you, you run away to gain ground and attack to take them out one by one and all of a sudden they run back to their original location with all hit points restored.

This mechanic is a more recent MMORPG solution to avoid the problems/exploits players could use in games of past.

In early L2, you could pull a raid boss across the landscape as far as you liked as long as keeping it aggro. Some players would bring one across the map just to wipe out all the AFK players with setup shops in town (for fun, I presume) and also into the Arena where they could fight with no fear of death penalty and a small group could do what a large group would usually do.

Essentially exploiting the system openness.

But the advantages of the system were the pulling capability for AOE levelling in dungeons where players could run to multiple rooms and pull large quantities of mobs back to their team to power level!

Alas, little by little designers introduced different mechanics to stop these to a certain degree. 

That being said, the mechanics used as you described are a little shallow and could be vastly improved with as @Eragale suggested better scripted AI.

And would definitely be something to include.

It does not really matter what mechanics do get introduced, there will be players out there that try to exploit to advantage one way or another against what is design intended, and they will be ironed out over time! 

Let's hope for some great AI!

ArchivedUser

Eragale said:

Why not Counter-Actively resolve it ? Make the A.I. smarter.

I prefer Smarter A.I. in games it makes the players think. I always enjoyed games you had to plan your way through then just running in bunch them up and pound away. There is no tactics in that.

ArchivedUser

AkaBear said:

That being said, the mechanics used as you described are a little shallow and could be vastly improved with as @Eragale suggested better scripted AI.

And would definitely be something to include.

It does not really matter what mechanics do get introduced, there will be players out there that try to exploit to advantage one way or another against what is design intended, and they will be ironed out over time! 

Let's hope for some great AI!

A great combat AI will make the game a lot better in the long run and yes lets hope they are able to create a great AI for the players. For the exploiters you are always going to get that. Thats why I want to get an Alpha or beta key so I can really test the combat AI.

ArchivedUser

What I hate most about the system you described is that even if you run back a bit the mobs are usually not attackable until they reach their starting point. 

Even the mobs decide to stop chasing they should immediately engage if you get close again. Their health should recover at a moderate rate when they're out of combat, it would give a lot more realistic feel. 

ArchivedUser

That's not a mechanic.  What you're experiencing is server updates.  What you see and what is happening are two different things. You see X but the server says reset the encounter.  So it's already reset.  They're already back at the start standing there. You see something different because your client hasn't updated yet.  Then boom update you see them run off.

This is due to server tick, or update rate.  A common complaint by FPS gamers the lower the tick typically the cheaper the servers purchased. The server isn't a 1:1 update in live time.  It's delayed to save processing and to check things. Then it updates, then it updates you.  You come last in this operation, then you add your latency on top of this. 

This is what you're experiencing its not a mechanic and until the internet has 5ms latency or less you'll keep experiencing it perhaps even after. 

Cause even if you have this latency the company might be using a low tick rate to save money. 

ArchivedUser

For me, while not the most stupid mechanic, but for me most annoying was leveling alchemy in Neverwinter.
You had to get lucky in an experimentation to get a successful outcome which then allowed you to craft a potion to count towards your next level.
And since there is a time to do these tasks you can't do them in bulk. I got unlucky and it felt like forever just to level it up once.
To sum up I don't mind if there is some RNG involved in the professions but don't make it so that by being a bit unlucky you can't make any progress for days as that's just frustrating and tilting.

ArchivedUser

I would like to think that no developer sets out to make a "stupid mechanic". But unfortunately what is put together in good faith of a good idea sometimes gets compromised or just fails.. compromised by time, technical skill, differences of opinion.. or just outright design fail.

But up side is that all the design elements are almost always designed as component parts of a larger game.. should anything not work, then in time it has the potential to be reworked and improved.

Lets hope most of these get sorted, time permitting, during the various betas

ArchivedUser

Eragale said:

MADE said:

NightshadeRaven said:. "  You scream what a stupid mechanic. All it needed was an addition in the code. If engaged and at area limit don't run back stay engaged, on players death then run back. Its so simple.  "

" No, it's not that simple. Don't pretend that you are smart, if you don't know shit.
It works this way to prevent exploiting it.
Hint: run&hit tactic exploits the dumb AI. The whole leash range is here, so players aren't kite them forever, so in tl.dr if you don't know how to kite npcs don't kite them, it's not the game's fault if you suck and pull it out from leash range.

You say don't spawn on players, but I say I go there and afk to prevent important npc's from re spawning? well?

Most of those mechanism that you listed works like this for a reason or two. You can remove them, but it will cause other problems instead... "

Why not Counter-Actively resolve it ? Make the A.I. smarter.

Yeah make them smarter... It's easy to say it, but it's hard when you actualy need to do it.

You see even creating a algorithm that can't be exploited by player is hard alone.

But that's not all. The more complex the AI script, the more resource it costs to run it. A single complex AI can be run, but if there are 10000+ NPC on a big world that constantly active, then you need enormous amount of processing power to make them work.

You see in wow NPC-s have dumb AI, but that's not only cause the developers was lazy to give them better AI, but when there are thousands of npc-s and players on a map, then it's already a smaller miracle that it doesn't crash with such a simple AI...

ArchivedUser

yes, bro I know your plan. We all have been there.when two leave, it means you should NOT attack them. just keep moving and the leash will send them back. while it's annoying, I don't think it actually needs fixing or anything like that.

ArchivedUser

Okay simple solution.  Keep the range of the npc the same as normal.  Allow there to be a buffer zone in addition to its max range IF it is still being engaged by the player.  Have an on screen indicator for the player that shows you are moving beyond the optimal fighting range.  If the player continues to move out of the buffer zone, then the npc will reset.  However, I think there should be exceptions to this.  Where certain npc types should be allowed to follow indefinitely until either killed, or they kill the player.