Splinter Topic: Mob Leashing And Aggro

From a conversation in another thread, as usual.

Right now as of the shown flow in the Tank update, Mob Leashing seems to be short ENOUGH that you can outrange mobs within their own area. Whether this is a default or not is unclear from the content, but there has been a concern raised that this will lower difficulty and challenge if it remains as it is.

A relatively populated area would require players to run away in the right direction to avoid getting more mobs on them, but if one could realistically just 'keep running' until a safe area is reached, this may not matter.

Since I generally only play games with no leash of this type (my main game switched from 'no leash at all, the entire zone will chase you', to 'if you do manage to get away, the mob just fades after a bit and cannot easily aggro others', and BDO is BDO), I can't claim to understand why this is implemented in this way at all other than to make the game easier, as pointed out.

Do you perceive this as a problem, or is the effect on difficulty something you either don't experience, or believe should be in the game?

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Veeshan

novercalis wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

No Leash is just stupid. I can't think of many (any?) creatures that would carry on chasing you forever, leaving their home and familiar environment to use all its energy just to hunt you down cos it happened to see you nearby. That's just not how it works. There's always a point at which the effort involved in the chase outweighs the benefits of a successful capture.

personally find it fun and left many memorable moments. Granted we had "Zones" so it wasnt infinite but some maps, from point A to point B can take you 20-30 mins to run.

So in EQ, first day playing on release, I rolled a wood elf and my friend rolled a dwarf. Our other friend was a human and we wanted to go meet up with him. I needed to run to Butcherblock, got there safely. Now entering to Butcher Block, I needed to run to the Dwarf city, which is approx 10 minute of running. I am level 1, I end up pulling a orc centurion. I am now lost, we don't have a MAP, I had this MFer chase me for 5 minutes while I am trying to find safety and a place where I can die and hopefully find my body. I was on the phone with my friend, screaming and freaking out. Then I learned how brutal this game was, with no map, and now I have skeletons around my corpse - took me 1-2 hours to recover and finally got to my friend. Then we learned about the boat ride and religion choice matter in Freeport.. RIP

we got fond memories being chased around throughout our entire EQ sessions.

So at the very least, Some mobs should chase you until you leave it's node, others up to exiting a dungeon or their controlled area, like the KEEP in the video. You should not have a sense of safety anywhere.

man those were the days, first time getting lost in blackburrow was an experience

and now i know basicly every zone layout and map in my head for everquest which i havant played 2004, i actualy went back to p1999 in 2018 and could navigate the entire game from mental maps still sitting in my brain there was only a couple zones i dont know and they were the more complex dungeons i didnt go to like chardok, sebilis, howling stone and the hole (Mainly the weird dungeon in kunark and velious that no one realy went into)

Veeshan

Azherae wrote: »

For clarity I have no issues with the concept of AoE farming, it's a 'skill', designers usually can decide how difficult or easy they want that to be based on mob density, mob power, and the power of AoE abilities.

I have an issue with the idea that in a game where things should supposedly be difficult, difficult enough that you even care what your team composition is when you enter an area, AoE farming wouldn't require either extreme skill, or wouldn't reward little exp (and I have experienced games where the latter is still not enough because they have good drops or whatever).

I really don't think Ashes is going to mess this up by accident, these people have been playing MMOs for years. The fact that a few of them have played one where this was a thing for a bit, isn't a negative, it was very popular, so many people would have.

EDIT: Fixed a double-negative, gotta get back to speaking English after being in the lang-code mines today.

you can fix mobs being aoe farmed by making them stronger or new mechanics when there more than x amount to eachother. In everquest they fix this to a degree in high level zones by mobs just having the ability to summon you back to them if your kiting them but we have much better ways of dealing with that now from what EQ had. just give mobs a chain pull or speed buff when there 6+ next to eachother kinda thing

novercalis

Neurath wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

Not sure why there is an issue with aoe farming. There won't be enough quests to hit max level which means the groups need somewhere to grind too.

it cheapens the experience. fuck aoe farm. Also will end up being a meta in which it screws over soo many players too

Classic WoW - lots of people got screwed over in their 30s when people started doing Scarlett Monastery. If you weren't a mage, healer, Tank - you weren't allowed into a group.

now imagine that, there won't be enough quest to hit max level? correct! but there won't be any tanks and healers for other players to grind together with either.

It's also braindead gameplay.

I am not trying to eliminate the ability to aoe farm, but simply creating mechanics that can fuck up aoe farms. So if your able to pull it off, cool. Risk/Reward - cause it should not be easy to do and there should be plenty of death happen for you to consider, "am I breaking even or still doing a bit better in terms of XP per Hour".

So, you want a solo grind fest like BDO? Because what you propose will force others not to group which I feel is the anti purpose of the whole point of an mmo. I do not want to be solo, accidentally pull multiple mobs and then be annihilated because of mechanics designed to stop 'aoe farming'. Sometimes I wonder what people are actually aiming for.

huh?? no. how the fuck did you infer that.

novercalis

Veeshan wrote: »

i think it was for EQ where that spell had a 5-10 sec cast and it portal ur group to the entrance or closest safe spot and wipe mob agro.

IDK how I feel about this in AoC. As long as that portal can be interrupted or uncastable in pvp, wether you opt in or not.
not a fan of people escaping cheaply and safely (See WoW bubble/gate)

Songcaller

novercalis wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

Not sure why there is an issue with aoe farming. There won't be enough quests to hit max level which means the groups need somewhere to grind too.

it cheapens the experience. fuck aoe farm. Also will end up being a meta in which it screws over soo many players too

Classic WoW - lots of people got screwed over in their 30s when people started doing Scarlett Monastery. If you weren't a mage, healer, Tank - you weren't allowed into a group.

now imagine that, there won't be enough quest to hit max level? correct! but there won't be any tanks and healers for other players to grind together with either.

It's also braindead gameplay.

I am not trying to eliminate the ability to aoe farm, but simply creating mechanics that can fuck up aoe farms. So if your able to pull it off, cool. Risk/Reward - cause it should not be easy to do and there should be plenty of death happen for you to consider, "am I breaking even or still doing a bit better in terms of XP per Hour".

So, you want a solo grind fest like BDO? Because what you propose will force others not to group which I feel is the anti purpose of the whole point of an mmo. I do not want to be solo, accidentally pull multiple mobs and then be annihilated because of mechanics designed to stop 'aoe farming'. Sometimes I wonder what people are actually aiming for.

huh?? no. how the fuck did you infer that.

Mainly because you are biased against AoE Farming all due to one instance in WoW? I have seen your comments about solo levelling elsewhere and now you also have problems with AoE/Group levelling here. Thus, I am rather confused about what you do want.

novercalis

I've been very vocal against solo game play. I've been very PRO EQ, group content and high difficulty.

I think AOE farming is stupid and brain dead.

Also many mmo does AOE spells design horrible too.

Single target DPS should be very high, AOE target spells should be very low and I mean very low.

Example:

Level 50 mage with BiS everything - casting fireball deals 10,000 damage to a single target.

Same Mage, casting an AOE should be dealing MAX 1,000 dmg per mob. Now if you got 10, you just did 10k dmg. The mana consumption should be large and not viable to go OOM and successfully kill mobs.

AOE spells should have it's own threat modifer different from other spells.

Examples:

Warrior basic attack = 1 dmg = 10 threat point
Rogue DPS = 1 dmg point = 4 threat point
Cleric healing = 1 heal point = 8 threat
Wizard Spell = 1 dmg point = 7.5 threat
Wizard AOE spell = 1 dmg point = 15 threat

If you can pull it off - by all means, AOE FARM but there should be major risk to it.
It's weird seeing 10 goblins getting aoe'd down and still chasing a tank.
It's also weird the goblins wouldnt communicate which each other and be like - "OW, we are getting fucked up by that wizard, let's get him!" instead of seeing 1-2 goblins deciding to change target because the tank missed his taunt and landed 8/10.

AOE farming shouldnt be prevalent. Some mobs can range dmg to interrupt, summon you to them, cast magic def for themselves and sporadic places do nothing and allow aoe farm. There shouldn't be a route from lvl 1-50 to always have a way to aoe farm tho. It should be a rarity or in places that doesn't benefit AOE casters to be there in the first place.

A dungeon that most of it's loot table benefits 5 of the 8 archetypes. Wizards not being one of them, this dungeon does allow for AOE farming. Most wizards wont bother going there cause there is no loot for them, just XP. This place will be very favorable and wanted for the other 5-8. Even if you wanted to AOE farm for XP only - you will be contested by others who actually needs to be in there for upgrades. IM COOL WITH THAT DESIGN. not just being able to aoe farm everywhere, all the time and be the meta strat for most of your leveling experience.

Songcaller

All you have to do is add cc to all mobs. The rest will take care of itself in my mind. I'd even accept shorter leashes if the mobs do cc to catch you.

WHIT3ROS3

novercalis wrote: »

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

I think the mobs should have a leash/aggro range on the shorter side. It's just annoying to be going through the world and you tag everything and anything you pass. Constantly having to whack away mobs. Mobs should be intelligent additions to PvP encounters, get opponents in a general area and watch them get swamped by mobs. It also stops trawling entire areas and picking up an insane amount of mobs to just farm down. I also think it would be beneficial to greatly reduce the agro range of mobs in development showcases.

Aggro should be large. 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).

Yet, you want mobs to be intelligent addition to PvP encounters, get opponents in a genera area and watch them get swamp????????? with a short aggro????????????
HUH?????????????

Re-reading my post it was meant to say. "NOT getting opponents in a general area and watching them get swamped by mobs." So you can put your wig back on.

Spif

novercalis wrote: »

Single target DPS should be very high, AOE target spells should be very low and I mean very low.

Example:

Level 50 mage with BiS everything - casting fireball deals 10,000 damage to a single target.

Same Mage, casting an AOE should be dealing MAX 1,000 dmg per mob. Now if you got 10, you just did 10k dmg. The mana consumption should be large and not viable to go OOM and successfully kill mobs.

You've gone way past the target, and made all AE spells useless though. Why even have AE at that point. I believe WoW on release had standard dungeon encounter size set at a pack of 3 elite mobs. And, unsurprisingly, AE was DPS and mana efficient if you hit 3 or more targets with it.

But we can already see from ability design that Intrepid is not going for that low of an AE design. You have AE stuns via synergies from the Cleric video, and also zombie packs that come out of the ground in numbers of 5+. When stacking snares you generate a knockdown (aka another stun), and there are probably AE snares so that means 2 different AE "stuns" on separate DR.

I mean, it's not hard to design some abilities that are useful for single target and AE. Ex: Chain lightning style stuff that diminishes x% with each additional target.

Another Ex: an AE that does 50% more damage per each additional target hit, but damage is divided between the targets. Hit one target, it deals 100 damage. Hit 5 targets it deals (100+4*50)/ 5 = 60 damage to each.

AE could just have longer cooldowns, although basic melee weapon attacks are all AE if I understand the system.

Veeshan

novercalis wrote: »

Veeshan wrote: »

i think it was for EQ where that spell had a 5-10 sec cast and it portal ur group to the entrance or closest safe spot and wipe mob agro.

IDK how I feel about this in AoC. As long as that portal can be interrupted or uncastable in pvp, wether you opt in or not.
not a fan of people escaping cheaply and safely (See WoW bubble/gate)

5-10 seconds channel spells are very easily interupted you could even make it interupt of any dmg. Safe spot are only safe from mob too so it also possible for your own group to do the same thing and drop ontop of them so it can be a double edge sword in pvp side of things too.

But yeah u can make any pvp dmg received within 10 seconds block that person from getting the portal out aswell so anyone engaged would be left behind if they do manage to get the spell casted

Veeshan

Neurath wrote: »

All you have to do is add cc to all mobs. The rest will take care of itself in my mind. I'd even accept shorter leashes if the mobs do cc to catch you.

just give the ma chain pull if there more than x mobs close to each other or engaged on same a target and they cant hit them with melee for x seconds

Songcaller

Well, I wanted the same style of cc the toons have, namely, one mob will stagger but two or more will stun. Chain pulls can be used for melee mobs and snares can be used by ranged mobs.

Noaani

Neurath wrote: »

All you have to do is add cc to all mobs. The rest will take care of itself in my mind. I'd even accept shorter leashes if the mobs do cc to catch you.

This is my thoughts as well.

The only stated advantage to a long leash is it makes it harder to get through an area without fighting. The problem is - it doesn't. A long leash just means you use a strong kiting class, kite through the area you want to get through, have the rest of your group just walk behind them and your kiting class either feigns death to release all the mobs (as an aside, this can be used in some games to crash the server), or actually dies and gets revived.

A long leash makes this dead easy to get through a very large area. A smaller leash but where mobs have CC makes the above basically impossible.

Additionally, mobs that are significantly weaker than a given player can simply be made to be easily resisted, allowing players to run through areas populated by mobs that don't pose a challenge (as should be the case).

Depraved

Azherae wrote: »

From a conversation in another thread, as usual.

Right now as of the shown flow in the Tank update, Mob Leashing seems to be short ENOUGH that you can outrange mobs within their own area. Whether this is a default or not is unclear from the content, but there has been a concern raised that this will lower difficulty and challenge if it remains as it is.

A relatively populated area would require players to run away in the right direction to avoid getting more mobs on them, but if one could realistically just 'keep running' until a safe area is reached, this may not matter.

Since I generally only play games with no leash of this type (my main game switched from 'no leash at all, the entire zone will chase you', to 'if you do manage to get away, the mob just fades after a bit and cannot easily aggro others', and BDO is BDO), I can't claim to understand why this is implemented in this way at all other than to make the game easier, as pointed out.

Do you perceive this as a problem, or is the effect on difficulty something you either don't experience, or believe should be in the game?

this is implemented to:

1- prevent people from leashing mobs/bosses into a town.
2- prevent people from taking out annoying or hard to kill mobs from an area so they can farm the more convenient mobs only.
3- aoeing an entire map xd

if your concern is that people can simply run away from a bad pull or a mistake basically risk free, then just say that. you can fix that problem without removing the mechanic. simply make mobs do range attacks, run faster than players, use slows, roots, stuns, etc. many different ways to fix the "problem" without removing the mechanic that is there for a reason.

daveywavey

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?

Sjelden

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.

Mag7spy

novercalis wrote: »

Also would like to point out - When the are returning - they don't ignore other players along the way back. MOBS should be aggroing on anything nearby again. It's weird seeing 2 NPC run past steven because they unleashed.

This sounds like griefing.

Strevi

Mag7spy wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Also would like to point out - When the are returning - they don't ignore other players along the way back. MOBS should be aggroing on anything nearby again. It's weird seeing 2 NPC run past steven because they unleashed.

This sounds like griefing.

Is fun

Mag7spy

Just because thinking something is weird because mobs run by you and it doesn't live up to the standard of real life does not mean a game should be balanced around that. In real life you aren't fighting dragons, seeing magic or one shotting mobs because of level and magic gear.

Things need to be balanced off design objective.

Or i simply need to stay explaining every way you can grief simply because you want things to be super realistic. Hard encounters need to be in the design of the current fight, difficulty isn't mobs are running back since someone pulled them, so they attack other players as they head back.

If you are worried about alertness of monsters, then design something where if you are spotted without killing the mob under a certain amount of time more come and reinforce the area making it harder to get in and escape.

Desire mobs to leash then attack other players when they head back in a train is a perfect way to grief people and pick up easy gear without ever pvping them. And wanting that in the game or to be made easier is pretty silly, it will 100% be used on you when you don't flag up.

You need to consider the game and all elements of the game with pvp. The consequences of being corrupted will have player use any and all means to avoid it for their own advantage and to get plenty of free gear. Mob difficulty plus training will be an issue for a lot of players when higher levels out level the mobs and can free farm players or stop them from farming an area safely without needing to dec the guild or flag.

It's one thing to want something but you need to consider all the balance of the game and how it works...

Effectively if griefing is fun and that is what you want not much i can say since effectively that is perfect for griefers using trains.

Mag7spy

I do like @NiKr idea of the more mobs you have together the more often they will use cc and other types of effects, and perhaps some stacking ones making it more difficult to have a larger train. Another thing that can work is the more mobs you have stacked on you the harder it is to pull aggro off you if you are the one that did the initial hit on them.

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