Splinter Topic: Mob Leashing And Aggro

Songcaller

Trains rely on body pulls and not hits.

Mag7spy

Neurath wrote: »

Trains rely on body pulls and not hits.

Trains rely on distance and being attacked. There is no game where you don't get aggro by attacking. And plenty of games that using range aoe helps make it easier to pull mobs....This is common practice and why some classes are better than others at mobbing.

Songcaller

It's not about getting aggro. It's about stacking mobs. If you get aggro with attacks it becomes harder to get the train to hit the victim. Unless you have feign death or some other means of transferral.

Azherae

Sjelden wrote: »

This is more or less a repost of my contribution to the training thread.

I would love to see the AI being challenged somewhat, and give NPC's enough of a logical decision making process to choose if, when and why to chose someone (that someone could be another NPC or another player).

If you attack a guard who is on post, and flee, he should only follow you a short distance (but not wipe agro). His job is to guard his post, not to chase you down, but if you present an oppertunity, he will seize it.

A carnivore could ignore you completely because it has just eaten, and is content or resting, while the next time you encounter the same (or a similar) carnivore, it could chase you ferociously because it is hungry, you are trespassing on its territory, or it has cubs nearby.

A group of NPC's could feint no agro, and wait for an oppertun moment to gang up on you.

The current system you find in most MMO's with a leash that keeps the mob chasing you for a certain distance or time, before returning to an invincible or incorporeal state during their return walk, is archaic at best. I challenge AoC to do better.

Grati.

I am unsure this specifically would solve the problem, though, since this still happens in games that have individual Mob Chase AI, since there are other slightly more complex ways to do this, and it causes a different problem.

Namely, attack mob A, bring it to within an inch of its life, run through packs of Mob A's type after rooting/snaring/binding it just outside of that space, wait for them to link, run toward target, finish Mob A instantly and then drop aggro.

This obviously also has answers, I'm just noting that adding depth to Mob AI is not necessarily an approach to resolution of this, it depends too much on the game's underlying 'ecology' goals.

TyranthraxusEQ

Leash range should be based on mobs distance from you, not the distance from spawn point. It doesn't make sense for them to chase forever, as was stated above, but they shouldn't give up easily. This way they can run long distances and you actually have to escape via speed by outranging them, make them social, make them aggro other players pathing back after leashing or killing their target, and make them fast. In some cases faster than players/mounts. Make the world as dangerous as possible, and players will adapt and figure out how to survive in it. Make trains a reason pvp occurs.

Azherae

TyranthraxusEQ wrote: »

Leash range should be based on mobs distance from you, not the distance from spawn point. It doesn't make sense for them to chase forever, as was stated above, but they shouldn't give up easily. This way they can run long distances and you actually have to escape via speed by outranging them, make them social, make them aggro other players pathing back after leashing or killing their target, and make them fast. In some cases faster than players/mounts. Make the world as dangerous as possible, and players will adapt and figure out how to survive in it. Make trains a reason pvp occurs.

I'll also note that as I think one of my team pointed out in the feedback thread, the way players are affected by this is entirely different in dungeons than it is in open-world topside plains, so it requires a lot of sub-implementations, but for topside, I have no issue with any of this.

'Prey' creatures or 'lazy' ones should probably link but not aggro or pursue, predators should probably aggro and outrun players' regular speed and stop chasing after you manage to mount up and their dismounting attack FAILS for some reason, etc.

Most things should either be 'unwilling to chase anyway, but abundant', 'very willing to chase, but fast enough that you will get caught', or 'able to root/snare you'.

And yet, we will still be in the situation where none of this will save a mid level party from a high level character who resists the Root, shrugs off the damage, or doesn't care about how many they link.

Similarly, none of it will stop a high level from 'gathering up a bunch of mobs that are weak to them, defending against those, and letting their lower level friends just pick them off one by one', so unless people only care about how this works at near-max level, the 'trains' part of this will probably never go away.

I say that since I just prefer we don't really discuss that too much, the Official Thread can cover that part of it. This thread was made because of George's concern about the lack of danger that happens with short leashes and poor target selection mechanics.

novercalis

daveywavey wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

It's immersion breakign and stupid to see a giant dragon look at you and go "AWW SHUCKS, I only attack people who are 50 feet of me and you're at 1 feet more away (51ft).

But, it's not immersion breaking to have an antelope chase you for three hours so that it can solo attack your party of 16 armed and armoured warriors?

really? they got no problem jumping into a full on traffic, why the fuck wouldnt they also bum rush people too.
let's be real - MMO doesnt put Antelope. They put bears, wolves, wild boars... all of them will charge and most wild beasts aren't smart to know the better. Just from hunting - a Lion will still charge into a large herd of Buffalo, whom are more than capable of killing a Lion if they ever actually fight back and not be a chicken shit. Regardless, The lion goes in, creates chaos then finally pick off the weak.

Same thing applies - lion goes in on 16 armed and armour warriors, hoping to create chaos and pick off the weak. Unfortunately none of them were and were armed.

try another analogy cause this was a massive fail.

daveywavey

novercalis wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

It's immersion breakign and stupid to see a giant dragon look at you and go "AWW SHUCKS, I only attack people who are 50 feet of me and you're at 1 feet more away (51ft).

But, it's not immersion breaking to have an antelope chase you for three hours so that it can solo attack your party of 16 armed and armoured warriors?

really? they got no problem jumping into a full on traffic, why the fuck wouldnt they also bum rush people too.
let's be real - MMO doesnt put Antelope. They put bears, wolves, wild boars... all of them will charge and most wild beasts aren't smart to know the better. Just from hunting - a Lion will still charge into a large herd of Buffalo, whom are more than capable of killing a Lion if they ever actually fight back and not be a chicken shit. Regardless, The lion goes in, creates chaos then finally pick off the weak.

Same thing applies - lion goes in on 16 armed and armour warriors, hoping to create chaos and pick off the weak. Unfortunately none of them were and were armed.

try another analogy cause this was a massive fail.

You need to watch more animal shows.

Using your lion example: A solo lion will have a hunting success rate of around 15-20%, in a group it goes up to 25-30%. Most of the time, their hunts are a failure. They don't just keep chasing down that first animal for hours on end. Once the effort involved outweighs the benefits, they stop. No Leash is just not believable.

Mobs should have a Territory that they roam, and a short distance outside that territory would be their leash. That way, they're protecting what's theirs, and they don't end up being stupid and finishing up twelve nodes over just cos that's where you happened to stop running.
Something like this:

TyranthraxusEQ

I'm hoping enemies in ashes are a lot more cunning and dangerous than animals personally. Wildlife I could see having simpler short leash ranges sure. Goblins, Orcs, Dragons, all very different scenarios. Are they defending a fortification, or are they a marauding band? Do they decide to break off aggro pursuing you if you run them past an easier target, causing you to gain a rep as an ass-hat and get flagged on for carelessly training people. Undead should be mindless in their pursuit, until you outrange them. Kobolds, though not likely to exist in Vera but maybe something similar, could hunt and track you over great distances for flavor, ignoring all other possible targets in relentless pursuit of the kill, it could be quite funny actually.

Strevi

TyranthraxusEQ wrote: »

I'm hoping enemies in ashes are a lot more cunning and dangerous than animals personally.

IS stated before that they will be
Utilizing new AI technology that hasn't been seen in other MMORPG projects.[86]
But now that we see more (unexpected?) AI news about chat and image generation, it can happen that even more AI stuff comes before AoC is finished and advanced AI will be integrated into MMORPGs by other developers too.
So maybe NPCs will act more passionately toward some players and either chase them longer or give up or have some other (emotional) tricks against them... I would like to see an NPC tank which taunts and keep the player aggro on him