World Boss AI and PvP

What are your thoughts on how a raid boss, such as the dragon in the last monthly update, should react to PvP ensuing during the fight? How the adaptive AI responds to these situations could greatly add to the dynamics and difficulty of a raid fight. I could see 3 potential avenues, or a mixture of them, though there are probably other options.
1. Business as usual, the boss doesn't change its behavior.
2. The boss sees the more powerful group as a bigger threat and focuses on them. This could be seen as the same as #1, but I see it as being more dynamic than "He has most threat, kill him" and instead actively tries to eliminate the stronger group (strength of a group could be based on number of players, average/median level, or a number derived from the gear the players have)
3. The boss becomes more passive/defensive (not idle). Maybe the boss makes a big fire circle around the players, encouraging them to fight to the death so he can pick off the survivors.

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Kilion

Speaking about the dragon in particular: That one will exploit PvP by spitting fire at the biggest group of players and that is something I would say is the right approach.

Other easy triggers for a behavior tree would be: (1) reacting to a player marked for PvP making damage to a player currently part of a group fighting the boss or (2) killing a player in the area of the boss fight. Depending on the type of boss they should take advantage of that.

For example: Imagine a goblin shaman as being the boss. A group engages, another group comes in to contest the boss. As soon as the other PvP starts, the goblin shaman retreats onto a totem pole and then BUFFS THE PLAYERS to increase their damage done and taken. If a player dies, he will use the soul/juju/mojo/ghost to summon a spectral beast add. Basically the boss tries to exploit the infight amongst his enemies to his own advantage.

SmileGurney

Bosses should totally "randomly" switch aggro

"Oh look son, a new buffet just arrived".

The same should apply to normal mobs. A new player enters the encounter, mobs should "randomly" switch aggro.

Nugs

Kilion wrote: »

For example: Imagine a goblin shaman as being the boss. A group engages, another group comes in to contest the boss. As soon as the other PvP starts, the goblin shaman retreats onto a totem pole and then BUFFS THE PLAYERS to increase their damage done and taken. If a player dies, he will use the soul/juju/mojo/ghost to summon a spectral beast add. Basically the boss tries to exploit the infight amongst his enemies to his own advantage.

I absolutely love this idea.

I could see fights that thrive on the concept of PvP, maybe by increasing the rewards at the end based on how many players died from PvP during the fight (would need some sort of anti abuse mechanic).

Ludullu

It should react to all of these

flag states
aggro list placement
location in the vicinity
player interaction with environmental hazzards
general player movements

Reactions should range from "it turns towards them" to "its abilities get stronger, more frequent and better targeted", with everything and anything in-between.

Apok

definitely gonna try to use these bosses as a tool if I ever get the chance, small group to keep the AoE down and kite it into whoever your opposition is to use the boss to help burn an enemy down.

Nugs

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

It should react to all of these
flag states

aggro list placement

location in the vicinity

player interaction with environmental hazzards

general player movements

Reactions should range from "it turns towards them" to "its abilities get stronger, more frequent and better targeted", with everything and anything in-between.

Right, but I think adding in an aspect of the AI that identifies PvP and changes based on that could add flavor to the encounters.

Ludullu

Nugs wrote: »

Right, but I think adding in an aspect of the AI that identifies PvP and changes based on that could add flavor to the encounters.

That is literally the first point in my list. Flag state is your pvp state.

Arya_Yeshe

Good topic here!

Main aggro targets: What has to be done is simply the most logical based on how AoC works:

kill greens first, since supposedly they won't be attacked as much as purples
kill purples
kill reds, we will assume that reds will get no love an will get nuked by the carebear resenteful lynch mobs, so the dragon shouldnt waste it's time on reds if there are greens and purples around (plus reds are weakened)

That should be the order because greens will face less attackers, and reds will get nuked, so leave the reds for last

Groups: careful wi this

groupping could be bait
there could be a group of random people running around just to pull the mobs or the boss and trick the AI
AI should attack the main threat and that's all
there could be a second or third group there that could be at war with group 1 and they are there just to kill group 1 and get out... so the boss shouldnt waste its time with other groups

Threat score: it is from this that good decisions will come from

maybe one shot who can be one shotted
attack the weakest support roles and diminish the party's supprt
CC the biggest damage dealers
cast AoE and dots on people who are slowed down or CCed

etc, many cool things will come from creating ways of scoring.... that can feed a real AI or even a fake AI that runs on decision trees etc

Nugs wrote: »

What are your thoughts on how a raid boss, such as the dragon in the last monthly
3. The boss becomes more passive/defensive (not idle). Maybe the boss makes a big fire circle around the players, encouraging them to fight to the death so he can pick off the survivors.

The mathematics behind this could be very difficult, what if there are 80 people around and there's just one guy chasing one guy running in circles and they are doing ranged combat?

Ideas like this are super fun tough, somewhere, some boss, should have some skill that he summons the fighers into a cage and they fight to the death and the winner comes back to the raid... the cage could be lifted up in the air or above a lava pit or something and if they refuse to fight they will sink in the lava in 60s and die

Dripyula

I think if a guild/group of people have unlocked a worldboss in some kind of player activated encounter, they should have an advantage on the stage, even if it is in an openworld location.

For example your guild/group of people answered the call of nearby node-settlers and/or militant people.
So you fight a path free for them basically and they also assist the players to clear an area from whatever occupation force is there.
And then you complete a ritual in this location, to which a worldboss will spawn as a result.

Either you summon the monster that the "generic evil villain cult" wanted to summon themself, or your small army of players + NPC's attracted the attention of a worldboss level being, which felt provoked by the small accumulation of people in it's territory.
Like that Dragon.

So if another guild/group of people would try to show up and steal that worldboss afterwards, the NPC faction would assist the innitial guild/group of people who helped to summon that encounter.

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