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Leash or not to Leash (optional Poll)
mrwaffles
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
There have been a few comments but I wanted to take the time to talk about something that is in the Pre-Alpha 4K GM Gameplay video.
In the video at 14:53 Steven is being chased in the under realm and he comments that the leash range might be a bit further then normal. The long leash on the mobs pretty much force him and his party to fight (after some fun kiting by Steven).
Modern MMOs are to lax in this regards. Leashes are so small most characters don't fear mobs because they can just port, run, heal, or simply walk past them. The punishment is so small that it doesn't even make most players pause. There are other lazy settings in MMOs where it feels like almost all mobs share the same leash range. The melee mobs have 'X' range and ranged mobs have 'Y' range, across the board. There's no pause when a player gets to a new area and stops and think, "never seen this mob is it LOS, can they root, should I fight this now before I have to many one me?" Sure a lot of dungeons have good leash mechanics but a single youtube tutorial comes out pointing out the blind spots and everyone is expected to memorize them or face grief from your party. The open world should be like this.
Longer leashes slows game progression and a player feels accomplished when they make it across a long path and live (despite thinking it was the end a few times). I miss being able to create long trains and bringing back to my party to kill them. yeah we might roll a few times but it was pretty fun to watch someone with an army behind them screaming for help.
I really am curios what the community thinks about short vs long mob leashes. This is by no means a deal breaker for me but when watching this video I was excited to see those mobs chase Steven to his death ( lol don't hate me Mr Sharif you got rezed so it was all good).
Poll below for people who would rather vote then comment:
EDITED: fixed the poll. Hopefully this one works.
Poll me please
RESULTS THUS FAR (7/25/20)
VERY SMALL : 0
LARGE : 62.5% (10 votes)
NO LEASH : 37.5% (6 votes)
In the video at 14:53 Steven is being chased in the under realm and he comments that the leash range might be a bit further then normal. The long leash on the mobs pretty much force him and his party to fight (after some fun kiting by Steven).
Modern MMOs are to lax in this regards. Leashes are so small most characters don't fear mobs because they can just port, run, heal, or simply walk past them. The punishment is so small that it doesn't even make most players pause. There are other lazy settings in MMOs where it feels like almost all mobs share the same leash range. The melee mobs have 'X' range and ranged mobs have 'Y' range, across the board. There's no pause when a player gets to a new area and stops and think, "never seen this mob is it LOS, can they root, should I fight this now before I have to many one me?" Sure a lot of dungeons have good leash mechanics but a single youtube tutorial comes out pointing out the blind spots and everyone is expected to memorize them or face grief from your party. The open world should be like this.
Longer leashes slows game progression and a player feels accomplished when they make it across a long path and live (despite thinking it was the end a few times). I miss being able to create long trains and bringing back to my party to kill them. yeah we might roll a few times but it was pretty fun to watch someone with an army behind them screaming for help.
I really am curios what the community thinks about short vs long mob leashes. This is by no means a deal breaker for me but when watching this video I was excited to see those mobs chase Steven to his death ( lol don't hate me Mr Sharif you got rezed so it was all good).
Poll below for people who would rather vote then comment:
EDITED: fixed the poll. Hopefully this one works.
Poll me please
RESULTS THUS FAR (7/25/20)
VERY SMALL : 0
LARGE : 62.5% (10 votes)
NO LEASH : 37.5% (6 votes)
0
Comments
I personally enjoy the long leashes.
It's also just thrilling to be chased. WoW is the extreme opposite where if you're losing a pve fight in the world you just distance yourself from the mob and it leaves you alone. Very disappointing!
In L2, I spent countless hours in AoE parties which required someone to pull aggro and long leashing.
Also training or being trained by other parties as a fore runner to pvp by teams that wanted to take over our XP area or to take out players that were found to be botting, again needed wide leashing
The bosses that went rampant after failed tanking and running everywhere cleaning up to the last man standing needed long leashing to really feel the failure.
Most memorable in the first week of Osheron`s call was a mob that not only seemed to have no leash but stalked me in the forest parallel to the path I was fleeing on.
Those surprise mobs that have wide aggro and then come after you while you are running by, great!
Also like in areas where you have surpassed the level, that the mob leashing seems to dissipate and/or limited aggro.
Ah and from a few games, the random mob that appears to have nil leashing. Can`t think of any MMORPG examples right now other than Hawken where a Yeti would pop out and and run across the map and players would forget they were fighting each other for a moment and run after that!
For example:
Imagine most predatory animals. They use a lot of energy chasing prey, and often won't waste this energy fruitlessly because they aren't idiots. In this example, eventually it will decide "Screw this, I'm going to go find someone with a limp or something, I'm too hungry for this s**t."
Meanwhile, something like a skeleton or zombie, might not be as quick but could remain a threat if their leash is infinite, because they're not even a living being... They could chase you to the ends of the world, and that's a bit scary and awesome!
And also some more static enemies like a giant angry walking tree, it may not want to leave its home too far because it would take it so long to get back or something.
Just brainstorming.
The first option (5-10') is less than the distance that I would expect mobs to aggro at. This would lead to situations where if you stand 9' away from a mob, it would aggro you, but leash before it even gets to you.
The option you have listed as being long (football field) I would consider to be a short leash range.
I mean, I personally want a long leash range in the game, but to me, the options given are excessively short for the first, and short for the second.
With the travel distances involved in Ashes (you can't just port to the dungeon you want to run), I would want to see mobs leash to a point where if you are paying some attention to not aggro too many, you are able to run through without needing to always stop and fight - but should you be careless and just run through the middle of a pack, you would need to stop and fight the mess you made. This situation is less a result of leash range as it is mobs ability to damage a moving target - though leash range does play a factor.
If you then attacked them again they would start chasing again.
Leashing should be long AND monsters shouldn't move at 50% of the base player movement speed. What's the point in leashing if monsters can't ever catch up to the player.
Yea, like, in some MMORPGs monstesr move with the sped of a 600 pound human trying to go up the stairs.
I've never seen a human outrun any 4 or even 2 legged animal, let alone make rounds around them.
Humans are long distance animals. Our stamina is supreme in the animal kingdom ... our speed is pathetic, though.
Well, we weren't talking about stamina.
If you want to be super realistic, if a human doesn't train his stamina any animal would running circles around them.
If a human doesn't train his stamina, most animals will still come no where near our maximum run distance, but you'll be caught long before that comes into play. It doesn't help us escape, but it does help us hunt things down. We also have the amazing ability to stave off heat exhaustion far longer. I'm derailing the thread because I can't help myself and it has to do with my line of work.
And you're totally right, none of this has anything to do with anything.
I think my original point was meant to be ... yes, I agree with you. Animals/monsters are so slooooow in most mmorpgs compared to the person. I'd like something I'm running away from to be faster than me, and therefor instead of avoiding any damage, I'm still taking hits from the back while I run and possibly even being slowed down or dazed by it. That would be a very scary chase and much more exciting/fun than .. "Oh. I'm losing. Time to zoom away to safety."
Edit: In terms of speed, I prefer faster mobs, not that faster mobs will do anything against the Teleport (Blink Skill). Could still Kite a mob with Teleport (Blink Skill).
Double Edit: No leash at all would be optimal for Kiting but you'd be chased forever if you can't triumph over a mob. Because of the death penalties, no leash would be insanely difficult.
@hazardnumberseven 's idea about different leashes is so dope. I laughed at the zombie or skeleton idea but in all honesty that's some work that i think would be worth it in the end.
A lot of people are mentioning kiting, trains, and mass mob grinding and this is an honest surprise. After L2, Aion, and a few other games most of my experiences with players is they like short leashes. I really was worried the mass majority of replies would be anti...well everything you all are saying.
This way you could outrun a big ogre to make it lose interest in you if the distance for him is too large to close. And it would make fast raptors and cats very difficult to outrun because they know they can catch up quite easily on you. For example player to (slow) Ogre leash range 20 yards and player to (fast)raptor leash range 50 yards.
My vote, keep the long leash because of the reasons I stated above.
Unlike in some MMOs where you can walk right up to extremely dangerous mobs but they don’t care about you until you hit them. That’s terrible.
For example:
Wolves.
Wolves live in the forest, they roam around it, chase rabbits etc. - not sit at a single spot waiting to be killed.
They will chase you all around the forest if you can't outrun them, however they won't leave the forest. If you run out of the forest - they will back off a bit so you can't reach them from safety with your ranged attacks, but they won't run back to their "spawn" like weird broken bots.
Cultists.
Cultists live in the cultist temple. If you intrude - they might chase you out and run after you for a while outside of it, but once they give up - they will go back to the temple, since that's where they live.
Human-eating Seagulls.
Will chase you to anywhere because they are vicious as hell, but once de-aggroed - will naturally gravitate towards nearest sea / water source, wherever that happens to be.
Ultimately, it should probably work by level: If you're level 50 and running through a level 10 zone, it feels like you're probably okay to run through it and lose aggro a small distance away - instead of having to slaughter several groups. In contrast, you probably should NOT be able to run through a max-level area with complete impunity to the enemies' aggro.
It's a tricky subject. Not the highest priority on my list, but it'd nonetheless to know what approach(es) Intrepid is planning, for this
Tunlars REVOLT!!!! NO TO LEASHES!! NO TO COLLARS!!! WE SHALL NOT BE TAMED!!!!!!
However "no leash" could probably also result in loads of other problems (server load?) or exploits (kiting elite or boss mobs into town etc.), or simply plain weird situations -- why the hack would an arctic wolf chase me all the way across a forest and into a desert, which is so farrrrrrrrr away from its natural habitat? It's got to give up somewhere.
Btw, it might be more interesting if different mobs have different leash ranges that reflect their (supposed) stamina, habit & characteristics.