What aggro and fighting behaviors do you imagine for mobs ?

Heljy

The May 31 stream raised in me a question about the behavior of monsters when aggro. I like the idea that some do not engage directly in combat but defend their territory. So why not go even further?

Here are some ideas:

Already to complete this defensive/threatening behavior, it could be broken down into 3 variants:
- Defensive static: as in video, mob threatens but does not advance
- Running static: mob threatens by backing slowly
- Static offensive: mob threatens as they move forward.

This could also apply to other behaviours:
- Zone defense: the mob does not allow itself to be drawn away from a given zone which it protects at all costs. If he’s attacked from a distance, he takes cover.
- Variable aggro distance: the aggro distance could be variable depending on the type of mob, and the area. For example he could aggro or link much further into a camp belonging to his "faction"
- Alarm: mobs in a large area could converge if one of them sounds an alarm
- Escape: some mobs could choose the escape according to the power of the character, or the value of their loot
- Gregarious: some mobs may prefer to be in surplus before attacking

I think all of these behaviors (and many others) could add a lot to immersion, and make different approaches for players to achieve their goals. For example, an alarm camp would favour discreet players.

Also, I believe that AI would gain from having basic but logical behaviors, such as assessing the level of the player to choose a behavior, knowing how to put themselves offline against shooters, knowing how to assist their trainers and casters by CC, etc.


What do you think? Any other ideas?

Voidwalkers

I'd very much like to know whether mobs in Ashes would evade / leash / reset if attacked by a ranged player from an unreachable location (e.g. from atop a cliff).

From a balancing perspective I can understand if the mobs are made to reset in such cases (to prevent easy farming of high level / strong mobs);
while from an immersion perspective I hope ranged players would be able to use that range to their full advantage .... after all that's what ranged classes do

Azherae

I think that if the variety and strength of enemies was as varied as an MMO usually is, I'd be content with just managing to match MineCraft's variety.

'Lightly modded' MineCraft, in particular, is just fleshed out enough to be a good basis:

Base MineCraft
Zombies walk straight at you but may call or summon others once attacked.
Creepers do too, but their only goal is to explode on you and leave their spores or whatever.
Skeletons attempt to maintain range to shoot you with the bows they start with, but if they get a sword by any means they'll close in for melee.
Wither Skeletons 'ironically' sometimes do the opposite, starting with swords and maintaining distance and strafing if they get a bow.
Blazes can float so they attempt to stay out of reach and blast you with streams of fireballs, but take damage from rain, though they don't avoid it, due to not ever experiencing it in their natural habitat.
Endermen 'chat' with you and don't attack at all unless you look them in the eye without a specific mask on. They enrage when you do but don't attack if you maintain eye contact, take damage from rain and water, and teleport away from liquids.
Spiders attack at night when they're in their hunting state, but are passive in the daytime unless you are holding a weapon in your hand that they consider a threat in which case they normally still attack.
Livestock generally don't attack and instead run from anyone or anything that hurts them for a while.
Pillagers on patrol enter the 'guard' state with their crossbows trained on you once they see you, and engage when you get close enough, then act somewhat like Skeletons.
Witches behave similarly but are more aggressive if you go near their huts.
Polar Bears aggro you only if you approach them when there is a cub nearby and are otherwise passive unless you hurt them.
Villagers don't fight, instead running from you if you hurt them, but if a nearby Iron Golem of their village sees you do it, you'll be attacked. If you hurt enough of them, they'll discuss it and your reputation will go down to the point where the Golems just attack you on sight.
Drowned attack you if you are in or touching water, or at night, but will just lurk near the shore if they have detected you in the sunny daytime, emerging at evening or if it starts to rain.
Cats run from you unless you crouch and approach them slowly with fish, but if you get too close they run anyway, you have to stop and wait for them to come take the fish from your hand.
Guardians attack with long range eye lasers if you get within range of their temple.
Piglins attack if you are in their territory and not wearing any Gold armor, or if you break or try to steal any gold blocks around them, otherwise they are friendly and will trade items with you if you give them gold. They also independently hunt Hoglins occasionally.
Zombified Piglins have a sort of hivemind and if you attack one in an area or hurt it, then all the others in a radius converge on you, which can lead to an expanding problem if you don't have the stamina to hold your ground where you are standing and have to run.
Hoglins attack if you are in their territory, except juveniles which attack ones and then retreat if they take damage, but this works out if they are with their 'parent'.
Zombified Hoglins attack anything and everything indiscriminately since they've lost even their basic ability to reason.
Dolphins come play with you, unless you hurt them, and then they try to push you underwater to drown you. If you throw them a block they'll play with it, if you give them certain fish they'll swim around you as thanks and then lead you to any treasure they know the location of.

The list goes on, you can do a lot worse for your start than emulating MineCraft. Modded MineCraft explodes this basis into hundreds of other behaviours and interactions, even with only a few mods. It'd take me another three 'pages' to get through just what one Zombie focused mod, one ocean focused mod, and one Spider focused mod, will add.

I wouldn't want Intrepid to put a lot of effort into implementing the higher tiers of this, their world isn't going to be made of blocks, so pathing and line of sight calculations are more technical and tedious, but they're already seeming like they will implement the basic ones from the old MMOs from the turn of the century, so I'm looking forward to that.

I don't really mind if mobs don't fight each other, since this will probably lead to the same levels of manipulation that you see in other games. MineCraft at least limits this mostly to 'Mob A with a Ranged Attack accidentally hit Mob B with it and now Mob B is aggressive to Mob A' (though I think you could get this to happen for a Sweeping Edge Sword if you gave it to a Zombie, I'll try tossing a weak one into a horde of them next time and see what happens, since I'm sure that will be funny due to the fact that when that one gets mobbed and killed by the group it damages, one of them will pick up the sword and it will happen all over again).

Caww

Random aggro behavior would keep everyone one theirs toes, some days the mob does one aggro behavior and another time it does a different behavior, changing several times an hour (or whatever makes sense).

akabear

One of the most memorable experiences was a mob that stalked me in the open beta of Asheron's Call.

I was not strong enough to fight it and yet when running away, it just followed and followed.. 56k modem could not run fast enough!