Yep. This ties in with the agro and leashing discussion. A mob should weigh up whether it chases you, and how far based upon it's chances of catching you, and it's chances of beating you if it does catch you. Factor in some variation for guess work and attitude.
Intelligent mobs should be a PITA to fight. They should know when to stand-off, use cover, summon help, harrass and fade, even disengage and withdraw to deny you the kill if things are going badly for them etc. A truely sneaky bastard AI mob could even use other unrelated mobs in the area to train your ass :)
In one game I played (think it was GW2?), caster/archer mobs would actively try to stay at range from you. When fighting multiple of these, it could be VERY annoying because you never could use your AE abilities, and had to chase each single one around. But I still think that's the way to go, mobs should fight as their class suggests, and have a sense of self preservation :)
RandomCarnage said:Yep. This ties in with the agro and leashing discussion. A mob should weigh up whether it chases you, and how far based upon it's chances of catching you, and it's chances of beating you if it does catch you. Factor in some variation for guess work and attitude.
Intelligent mobs should be a PITA to fight. They should know when to stand-off, use cover, summon help, harrass and fade, even disengage and withdraw to deny you the kill if things are going badly for them etc. A truely sneaky bastard AI mob could even use other unrelated mobs in the area to train your ass :)
/Totally Agree :)
NPCs need to be designed as if they were a player of a similar level. They should have similar gear, spells for that level and any class specific abilities. As a long time Shaman player I tend to use that class as an example. A shaman NPC should have a spell loadout just like a player would: Slow, Poison DoT, Disease Dot, Malo (multi-resist debuff), self heals and maybe a DD. It should be fitted with Shaman armor (chainmail) and use Shaman weapons. It shoulda always be self-buffed with the normal player buffs, forcing us to against them or remove them with debuffs. All casters should have Gate (if this in Pantheon).
Granted NPCs can never think as creatively as a player so they should be have far more HP, higher stats, etc to somewhat compensate for their lack of thinking ability.
Taunt, aggro mechanics, the entire tanking role and a bunch of other standard mechanics do not work at all if the mobs play like players. If your group and my group squared off in an arena 6v6, the healers die almost immediately, and all your taunts, shouts, kicks and bashes won't stop that. We go for each other's healers, period. Right after that, we deal with the glass cannons and the crowd controllers. Hell, the tank would be dead last on the aggro list because it would make no sense to hack away at a tank when you can get rid of all his cohorts much faster.
Caster mobs casting? OK. Healer mobs healing? OK. Buffing mobs buffing? Cool. And they do all that in EQ1. For more on that, see "Ragepaw werewolves camp in Undershore, EQ1" where the shaman wolves buff themselves to the max, and then all their buddies, and then lead with DoTs and debuffs.
But play like players? Yeah, that would be epic fail.
Venjenz said:But play like players? Yeah, that would be epic fail.
/Agreed. This is another aspect of a game where I'd rather suspend disbelief to increase gameplay. Not to mention it would cause all sorts of unintended issues. Depending on how the intelligent AI was coded, players would fine a way to manipulate it. Assume for example the intelligent AI were coded to focused on players with least AC, least Hps, etc. which would ultimately cause casters/healers, etc. to focus more on AC/hps and tanks on less ac/hps so they would retain agro over the casters.
Raidan said:Venjenz said:But play like players? Yeah, that would be epic fail.
/Agreed. This is another aspect of a game where I'd rather suspend disbelief to increase gameplay. Not to mention it would cause all sorts of unintended issues. Depending on how the intelligent AI was coded, players would fine a way to manipulate it. Assume for example the intelligent AI were coded to focused on players with least AC, least Hps, etc. which would ultimately cause casters/healers, etc. to focus more on AC/hps and tanks on less ac/hps so they would retain agro over the casters.
Erm...no.
A tank with less hp and less ac than a caster but holding agro is not a tank. It is a corpse.
I agree that players will always find a way to game a system, but that happens already. This shouldn't be a reason to have a play by numbers, optimum skill rotation, macro based combat system. Giving a bit of AI to mobs would just help to keep things interesting - less predictable.
A tank with less hp and less ac than a caster but holding agro is not a tank. It is a corpse.
Since we're discussing NPC caster AI here, it's actually more likely the tank has instead shifted focus to heavy resists and moderate HP (let's be honest, no tank will EVER completely neglect HP), thereby making them more durable. It's just another opportunity to pack our bags full of situational armor -- look out, wizzies, coming for your robes with resists!~
Venjenz said:Taunt, aggro mechanics, the entire tanking role and a bunch of other standard mechanics do not work at all if the mobs play like players. If your group and my group squared off in an arena 6v6, the healers die almost immediately, and all your taunts, shouts, kicks and bashes won't stop that. We go for each other's healers, period. Right after that, we deal with the glass cannons and the crowd controllers. Hell, the tank would be dead last on the aggro list because it would make no sense to hack away at a tank when you can get rid of all his cohorts much faster.
Caster mobs casting? OK. Healer mobs healing? OK. Buffing mobs buffing? Cool. And they do all that in EQ1. For more on that, see "Ragepaw werewolves camp in Undershore, EQ1" where the shaman wolves buff themselves to the max, and then all their buddies, and then lead with DoTs and debuffs.
But play like players? Yeah, that would be epic fail.
Nailed it. Having highly intelligent mobs that play like players sounds great on paper, but as Venjenz states this creates major problems for trinity-based games like Pantheon.
Dekaden said:Venjenz said:Taunt, aggro mechanics, the entire tanking role and a bunch of other standard mechanics do not work at all if the mobs play like players. If your group and my group squared off in an arena 6v6, the healers die almost immediately, and all your taunts, shouts, kicks and bashes won't stop that. We go for each other's healers, period. Right after that, we deal with the glass cannons and the crowd controllers. Hell, the tank would be dead last on the aggro list because it would make no sense to hack away at a tank when you can get rid of all his cohorts much faster.
Caster mobs casting? OK. Healer mobs healing? OK. Buffing mobs buffing? Cool. And they do all that in EQ1. For more on that, see "Ragepaw werewolves camp in Undershore, EQ1" where the shaman wolves buff themselves to the max, and then all their buddies, and then lead with DoTs and debuffs.
But play like players? Yeah, that would be epic fail.
Nailed it. Having highly intelligent mobs that play like players sounds great on paper, but as Venjenz states this creates major problems for trinity-based games like Pantheon.
@Randomcarnage
That's my point because the "intelligent AI" could cause unintended consequences, but if a class had taunt and those were the mechanics that were in place - I guarantee you that people would equip that way accordingly, or buff people differently, etc. My scenario was just a hypothetical example of how intelligent AI could be implemented, to demonstrate people will "learn the intelligent AI" and adjust accordingly because you can't truly code intelligent AI for the reason's Venjenz appropriately stated.
@Noobiedoo
You can't have truly realistic AI mobs acting as players or they would never be taunted. If I was controlling an NPC mob, as Venjenz stated, no taunt would ever stop me from attacking a healer first than the squishy DPS classes next.
As Dekaden said - Venjenz nailed it.
I think the main AI in EQ1 centered only on aggro: Does this thing have the highest aggro? If yes, attack, if no, move to attack that which has highest aggro. It was very very easy to deal with from a player perspective. "Threat level" was never a consideration. Still though, all mobs acted as if they were warriors, attacking primarily with melee regardless of class. Yeah the wizard froglok would attempt to nuke the puller once or twice but after that...nothing but melee.
The inclusion of more decision trees would help with mob responses to player actions. Aggro should not be the sole deciding factor.
Vandraad,
What you said about EQ1 is true, as it was a basic agro level, but it encompassed a threat level as well. Healing spells, high backstabs, and high damage spells such as ice comet, etc. would draw more agro than a warrior using just /taunt. That's why I usually told wizards, etc. to allow me to obtain agro prior to casting a huge nuke as they would always draw it, and, if they kept chain casting - I never would be able to obtain/maintain agro. So, while it was definitey an agro-based taunting system, it encompassed what you are asking that it was based on threat as well (i.e. Wizards constantly blasting the mob drawing agro).
And, as far as mobs go, you're partially correct - wizards definitely meleed, but, they attempted to cast throughout the fight, and if the fight lasted long enough, they would run OOM. And, I know this because some of the classes I later soloed with couldn't kill the healers until they did run OOM. They also chain casted as well - which was why /slam /bash /stuns were so important - they didn't just cast two spells before they ran up to the warrior and never casted again. Also, it wasn't like the wizards melee DPS wasn't high either - the only thing that made the caster mobs "easier" than the warrior mobs were if they could be chain stunned since they typically had less hps. But miss a few stuns on healers, and the fights could have lasted "much" longer.
So, the argument could be made that the wizard mobs should have tried to /root and cast from afar and make the tank run to them (which some did use root but still ran ahead to the tank anyway), but, most of what you want from your argument already did occur in EQ.
Raiden,
You are indeed correct. I did truncate an encounter with a caster NPC not to better my argument but to provide some level of example of where caster NPCs needed improvement. I am working off 8+ year old memories though. :) Oh, and that reminds me...Gate. They did have Gate memorized and did try to cast it, sometimes to disasterous effect on the group.