Leash Length of NPC's

In my experience of leash length variations in the MMORPG World of Warcraft, I discovered that I enjoyed a long and very long leash range to NPC's over a medium, and even more so over a short one. For immersion, it felt more realistic when an NPC was engaged and you couldn't remove the threat just by running a medium or even short distance. This increased, for me, the difficulty, the threat, and the respect I had over NPC's. This also opened up the challenges and/or opportunities to kite mobs in, what were for me at times, a rewarding and skill challenging kite game (memories of being a hunter in the first installment of World of Warcraft flash in my mind as I write that). Also, with long, or no leash distances at all, getting somewhere was more of an achievement as you'd have to work to get there, and not just cheese the experience by running past NPC's, the NPC's holding minute obstacle to your goal (how to make an NPC almost irrelevant?) and seemed to be, for me, another factor of the gaming experience that supported fast food like gaming experiences. What are your thoughts on the matter?

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Comments

bigepeen

Azryil wrote: »

I think mobs should continue to chase you as long as they can still see you, however if you're fast enough to leave render distance mobs should reset

I think this is exploitable for the same reasons that people have previously mentioned: leading infinite mobs through a choke point somewhere on the map. You could have one team pulling mobs, and another team AOEing a choke point.

BobzUrUncle

When did AoC become an S&M game? Why would we put leashes on NPC's? That is kind of kinky...

Ostaff

I think mobs should do the following:

1) Get tired/bored of chasing after so long (depending on its type)
2) Stop at its territorial boundaries (depending on its type)
3) Get distracted by other "interesting" mobs/npcs/players
4) Lose track of its prey for a certain amount of time (depending on its type could be sense of smell, site, hearing. A person downwind would be very hard to follow by smell, a person hiding would be hard to follow by site, a person being totally still would be hard to follow by sound)

With different types of ways to lose a mob would create many different fun scenarios for the player and make evading a knowledge based skill. The distraction and tired/boredom will hinder kiting into bottlenecks, and they can add a "fear" factor to keep the mob from willingly rushing into a crowded area.

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