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What is the PURPOSE of a 'trash mob', to you?
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
For the sake of discussion, a 'trash mob' is anything that will usually die without posing any credible threat to a player (let's say solo or duo).
If that's not clear enough, think 'anything that can be killed by a bot' (for people who think bots are simplistic, and for anyone else who knows that they aren't, I figure the first definition is enough).
Why do games have these? If you prefer that a game has these, please clarify what they are adding to the game experience, for you personally.
Every mob can 'become this' if you get high enough level over it, but in at least some games, you also don't get any exp for them. So assume that the game 'intends' for you to kill them.
Thanks.
If that's not clear enough, think 'anything that can be killed by a bot' (for people who think bots are simplistic, and for anyone else who knows that they aren't, I figure the first definition is enough).
Why do games have these? If you prefer that a game has these, please clarify what they are adding to the game experience, for you personally.
Every mob can 'become this' if you get high enough level over it, but in at least some games, you also don't get any exp for them. So assume that the game 'intends' for you to kill them.
Thanks.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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Comments
As you said, once you've overlvled a "normal" mob, it becomes trash to you. Hence, you've gained enough power to call that mob trash. Equal-lvl trash mobs are there to make you feel powerful w/o you fighting useless mobs (I'm used to a system where lower lvl mobs give you pretty much nothing).
You already saw my opinions on this in the other thread, so if there's anything I could add - feel free to ask.
Makes them look more bosslike and like the big deal they are supposed to be.
This wouldn't require them to be non-threats to solo/duo players, though, so it would still fall into a specific design choice space.
I would expect that, for an MMO, a boss would 'take a group', and therefore their underlings would still be 'easy' to that group.
As a person who doesn't find 'trash' mobs immersive (not knocking on anyone who does) except as a power fantasy for my superheroic character, I'm asking if that's the main purpose, therefore.
In Neverwinter Online, Clerics had to replenish their Healing Mana by dealing damage, so…
trash mobs basically distracted the Clerics from Healing momentarily, until they had enough Mana to return to healing.
To expand on this;
Trash mobs are usually one of three types.
There are somewhat randomly placed mobs in large areas, there are mobs loitering around specific points of interest and there are mobs that are blocking a narrow path.
Those from the first group - mobs spread randomly in a large area - are generally there for quest completion, and little else. The developers could omit those mobs and the quests associated with them and leave thst part of the world empty if they wanted to do so. Since these mobs are only generally used for the associated quest, the time taken to kill these mobs is all that is required for the quest.
The second type of base population - those loitering in an area - are generally around areas where players wish to complete an activity that is non-combat in nature. An dxample here would be harvesting locations. Players often need to stop harvesting in order to clear the area of trash mobs, adding an element of time to the activity of harvesting.
The third group, those blocking a narrow path, are the trash mobs you would come across in a dungeon or instance. If a boss is two hours in to a given dungeon, it is probably because you need to fight against trash mobs for 2 hours to get to it. These mobs act as a time cost for actual content.
I kind of disagree with the notion of these mobs being there tonmake players feel powerful - the mobs just feel weak.
Typically, you leave the areas you’ve out-leveled and never encounter those mobs anymore. So, you really don’t refer to them as anything.
The trash mobs are trash because you still have to deal with them while you’re fighting the Boss, even though they aren’t going to provide any meaningful loot. Their loot will also be trash, while what you truly desire are the Boss Drops.
During Endgame, trash mobs won’t be providing xp in any case.
You know what ? THIS - was actually one of the most brilliant Comments i have read in a long time. Simple yet brilliant. Take my like.
The problem with it is most players kill the trash first, and then take on the boss. Bosses tend to be able to be killed within the respawn time of nearby mobs.
Now, if Dygz was talking about adds within a given encounter, perhaps. But they are not trash mobs, they are an inherent part of a boss fight.
It shows, once again, how conditioned ppl have become to shallow mmos, in which the typical experience is:
MQS to get to lv cap.
Instanced treadmill to get geared.
BG pvp
Tick off meaningless achievement logs
Collect pet/mount skins
What you call "trash mobs that big bad bots can exploit" are sources of conflict in owpvp mmos like L2.
You have to kill them in massive numbers with AoE formations and you are rewarded with XP or materials or both.
They are as essential as tough mobs. Both are killed by skilled groups, not randoms and certainly not one by one with 1shots.
Other times trash mobs are killed by specific classes like healers with holy 1shots, but other classes dont bring them down as easily.
Other times "trash mobs" have high dmg and they are intended to be avoided, but are amongst good mobs, and usually classes such are rogues, with lure and hide mechanics bypass them and farm the good mobs only.
Trash mobs cant be confused with Quest mobs. Not much else to say here.
If an mmo has any feature that can be considered trash, then there is no justification for them, not even immersion.
So, no justification for L2 then?
And mobs not playing a role is not was designates them trash. The comparative lack of challenge to other mobs is what does it.
"Trash" as a term for mobs is a shortened from "trash difficulty" - the easiest level of difficulty of mobs that offer rewards relevant to the player character in question.
It has nothing to do with purpose, just difficulty.
The roles you've described are simply a variance of what mobs should be. Harder to kill mobs would still have pvp around them. They'd simply not be about training 20 weaklings to aoe them down.
This may be a lost experience given the pandering toward solo play completely watered down raiding to AoE trash pulls to make everyone feel great about their dps numbers.
My hope is that Ashes will make a generation of mmo players VERY uncomfortable to retrain group play.
Read the OP.
There aren't really trash mobs that refer to your definition of "posing no credible threat to solo or duo players." Every mob around your level may not be able to kill you 1v1, but if you pull 2 or 3 mobs, then you will be having a hard time (depending on your class ofc, mages can kill 10+ mobs while warriors can only kill 1 at a time).
The only real presence of "trash" mobs are in dungeons and raids where, as a party, you can easily kill groups of non-elite mobs. However, groups of non-boss elite mobs can be scary to face too.
So, I would say that "trash" mobs for solo play is the wrong way to think of things. You should have to pre-plan your pulls carefully and go in a steadily slow manner if you want to survive in a world as a solo player.
The "healrs 1shot them" doesn't really make the mob not pose a threat, cause those mobs are usually still quite strong. It's just that a class has a direct counter to them.
The "useless but strong" is the exact opposite of what OP was talking about.
/thread
I mean, you can say this if you like - but the bulk of the mobs that players farm in L2 would be what players in other games call trash mobs.
Sure, you have a chance to drop good items, but so did every mob in EQ2, yet many of them were considered trash.
Thus, if you want to consider the existence of trash mobs to be the signature of a bad MMORPG, L2 would need to be among the worst.
I'm not sure why you think I am bitter.
The description of farming mobs from you, NiKr and many others I've spoken to about L2 over the years paints a fairly clear picture that those mobs would be considered trash mobs in any other game.
I mean, mobs that respawn often, have a low percentage chance to drop anything of value and are easy to kill. That is a trash mob.
Ye, if you were given the description of an ocean you'd be confused with a desert. Not my problem.
Anyway let's get constructive...
Examples of bad mobs from other mmos:
ESO and 100% of their overland mobs that did not drop leather or were currently not part of a quest.
Not only they were of no threat it terms of power, they were also completely skippable. In addition, the overland dungeon mobs were annoying with stuns and snares but they were still not a danger even if 1000 of them piled on you.
FF14: most mobs took too long to kill and most of the time they did not need to be engaged at all. They were no fun or useful at all.
Otherwise you would have 10 random world bosses roaming the world needing to die. Why not add some trash mobs to change things up so the world does not feel so empty.
What I do not care for is creating trash mobs that can just be one shot.... make it to where they always pose some sort of threat... otherwise why have them there?
We're not talking about bad mobs, we are talking about trash mobs.
The list above are indeed all trash mobs, but in ESO (can't speak to FFXIV), mobs that do drop leather and/or are part of a current quest can also be trash mobs.
So that leads me to the second point. Trash mobs are pure obstacles that have little to no reward incentive in killing them other than them posing a threat to you either by wasting your time or actual death if you do not deal with them. There are exceptions where professions gain materials from trash mobs, but they do not innately drop valuable items or a large amount of exp individually.
My final point would be that Trash mobs are normally seen as what you farm for exp. Because they are plentiful in number they are used as filler in the gaps between quests to attain exp. They are not the only way, but one of the most common ways to do it.
So TLDR: World building, obstacles, and Filler exp grinding.
There is no point talking about trash mobs' purpose in bad mmos and what role futility should play in AoC. Talk about what to avoid in AoC.
Why?
That isn't the purpose of this thread at all.