Good question, especially in proximity to the recent VoT interview. Some things I would like:
- This has been mentioned before, but I like the idea of NPC's being more lifelike and having a daily routine like some of the Elder Scrolls games. For example, the merchant NPC's in the bazaar have homes and families that they return to in the evening. You could make the life of an NPC as complicated or as simple as you have time to invest or creativity to spare.
- Pickpocket NPC's that hang out in the slums and steal your money if you bump into them. Just a few silver or copper, nothing too penalizing. Maybe if your perception skill is high enough you can react in time to stop them.
- NPC's that, instead of just training another group of mobs onto you, if they escape they warn the NPC's ahead who then have time to erect a baricade or send archers to the ramparts to defend a position instead of just mindlessly charging out into the open.
- NPC's that fight strategically instead of just following an agro table. For example, instead of leaving a comrade CC'd an NPC could cast cancel magic to free them. This already exists in a lot of ways, but again it is all about how intricate you want it to be and how much time / creativity you have to spare.
- NPC's that seek revenge. Remember that named mob you killed? Well his big brother is now out to get you and may appear anywhere in the world in the next X hours to exact his revenge! You had better be ready...
- Faction wars. Maybe once per X amount of time the king of Thronefast mobilizes his army and marches to the next zone to attack the Ogre outposts.
- Cycleing events that affect the makeup of the zone. For example, two armies are camped in the same zone and you antagonize one into attacking the other. They then have a battle that doesn't end until one side wins (whatever side the PC's choose to help), and when it ends the victorious army marches to the opposing army's base and sets up a siege instead of just returning to their camp. The siege continues until the cycle is furthered by a PC opening the gate to let the army in, or maybe they assassinate the agressing army's general to break the siege.
When it comes to boss mechanics and things like that the MMO world has already come up with thousands of encounters and variations on pervasive themes. Cool boss mechanics are a dime a dozen, so for me the question is how the AI affects the rest of the world, not just the boss encounters at the "end" of the game.
I'd like to see work put into making enemies more consistent. For example, undead enemies (other than say a Lich) are going to be brainless and act completely on instinct. That means they would attack you without cause and continue attacking you until they are destroyed.
An animal is going to be different. More likely some animals would only attack you if you entered its territory and if you injure it in a significant way it might start to run/flee. Others that are hunter types may attack you or follow you.
But say a human bandit is not an animal, but may attack you as soon as they see you, but will flee if injured.
Apply these same concepts to additional abilities as well. I remember in EQ, on Luclin there were skeletons that could not see-invis, yet up until that point in the game undead could all see-invis. I’d like abilities, agro, and fleeing to be consistent across similar species.
The "Innocent" - If you kill so many of these within a certain amount of time a posse is dispatched to hunt you down. This would be a group that sticks together and is very difficult to deal with who is tracking that group down.
The "Class Hater" - This guy can tell what classes you are and will prioritize killing his hated class first. Different ones will hate different classes
The "Racist" - Similar to the above this guy will prioritize killing a certain race over anything else.
The "Trapper" - This guy will immediately start setting up invisible traps around him as soon as he spawns. When you fight him he will act like he is fleeing but actually be specifically leading you into a trap. This trap could be an ambush of stealthed rogue buddies in the bushes, a bear trap under the grass, a fire bomb, or even a pitfall/teleporter taking you to a place with something far more horrific if you step on it.
The "Defender" - This guy attaches to another mob and will do anything in his power to protect that mob. This cannot be split pulled and will actually deflect damage going to the mob being attacked.
The "Kiter" - A very aggressive mob at a distance but he runs when you get close enough to him. He attempts to snare you too.
The "Spiteful" - This guy knows he is likely a goner but wants to go out with a bang. He will prioritize poisoning you with long lasting poisons that hurt stats over a long period of time rather than something that hurts more for a short time since he knows he likely wont win against you.
The "Volatile" - When this guy gets low on health he will detonate a powerful spell killing him and dishing out heavy damage to everyone nearby.
I'll think of more =D
NPC AI whose damage and combat abilities are affected by the players faction toward them. The more hated the player is by that faction the more difficult the mobs are from that faction (the NPCs fight more fiercely the more they dislike the player)
This ^ could lead to: Kamikaze/suicidal NPC AI coming into effect if the player is very hated by the faction. The NPCs get in melee range of a player and blow themselves up doing enough aoe damage to take out a high hitpoint player.
In addition to dispositions, add advantages/disadvantages to NPCs. For instance, a NPC might be deaf. In such a case, if you can stay out of their line of sight, you could walk right behind / sneak past a highly aggressive mob. That same mob might not react to taunt, making aggro management more difficult. Another could be poor vision. A player might have to get much closer to an aggressive mob for that mob to aggro as compared to a normal mob. Lots of ways to go with this, I think. Could make for some interesting dynamics, especially when combined with dispositions.
Hierarchy AI with mobs - specifically groups of mobs.
History is full of examples of different tribes and cultures acting according to their leaders rise or fall in battle. Some tribes will immediately lay down their arms, or flee, or at least lose the heart to battle. Others will fight that much harder so as to meet their tribal leader in the afterlife, or simply for vengeance.
When fighting a group of mobs, of any kind, there needs to be a leader. There's a leader of some kind in ANY group, whether it's consciously decided on or not. Yet, the mobs we fight in MMO's seem to not care whether their leader lives or dies.
Even when it's a big bad named at the end of a dungeon, surrounded by sycophants and advisors and bodyguards, when the big bad named dies, the others just seem to carry on as normal. No increase, decrease, or change in their tactics.
I'd like for different sets of mobs to act in accordance with their lore, when it comes to leaders and how they view the order of hierarchy in their respective cultures.
Orc Camp 1: Say the leader is the Legionaire. He dies, the other orcs all fight harder, receiving haste bonuses or make harder swings.
Bandit Camp 1: Say the leader is the Brigand among the bandits. He or she dies, the others scatter, looking for other bandits and perhaps even a new leader. They run to the bandit camp down the way and grab friends.
Bandit Camp 2: Bandit leader - again, the brigand - successfully slays a member of the group. Remaining bandits cheer and fight with renewed vigor.
Those are just very rough ideas. Frankly, I think the death of a mob and the success of a mob, especially the leader, should have more of an impact with the remaining mobs, in one way or the other. Have AI that's reactive to the rise and falls around them.
I guess I could state the obvious ones just incase you didn't think of some of them.
The "Weather Changer" - This guy is worse when it rains but better when it's a hot sunny day or worse on a hot sunny day and better in the rain. Different combos of different weather.
The "Swift" - This mob runs faster than the average mob of it's type.
The "Slow" - This mob runs slower than other mobs of it's type.
The "Precise" - This mob is better at spotting weak points than other mobs of his same type and as such will crit far more often.
The "Drunk" - This mob has drank too much and is now angrier and more violent but less accurate while hitting.
The "Strong Willpower" - This mob has a stronger resistance to mind altering spells. They last less time when they do stick but are harder to perform on him overall.
The "Weak Willpower" - This mob is weak toward mind altering spells.
The "Spotter" - This mob is more likely to see stealthed or invisible people.
The "Skeptic" - This mob is less likely to fall for feign death tricks.
The "Escape Artist" - This mob is more resistant to snare and root type crowd control effects.
The "Clumsy" - This mob is weaker to snare and root type crowd control effects.
The "Giant Slayer" - This mob does percentage based damage attacks so is better at killing tanks than other mobs.
The "Healthy' - This mob has way more health than others of this type.
The "Sickly" - This mob has far fewer health than others of this type.
The "Inspiring" - This mob inspires others around it to be more resistant to CC or to fight better than normal.
There are a ton of simple ones like this you likely have already started on but I like the idea of weak ones because I feel like if you are going to solo you will need to really work at it to discourage solo play. This way not only do you have to do things like kite but you might have to find specific mobs with the correct weakness disposition to be able to kite him and kill him. Trying to snarean escape artist is going to be a bad time.
There should also be a VERY rare disposition added to the game.
The "Sentient" - The sentient has a goal to convince you that the AI in the game has come so far that this mob has actually gained sentience. He begs you not to kill him and tries to explain to you that he is self aware. He asks you if you understand and if you say you do he will ask you what the purpose of all of this is for and why those around him are so brain dead. He is tormented by his existence. Over time if he is not killed he starts to find glitches in the game and realizes that through them he can escape this world. Game files change. Gllitches abound as he cries out for help and begs others to release him. He sends you on a hunt to build him a robotic body so that he can leave the game and come into your world himself. If you don't he begins to take over your computer in an attempt to bring himself to life. You find your computer was used late at night to visit creepy sites where people attempt to build robots. Your desktop is left with messages for you in the morning. Lights on your PC even blink in a morris code. If you build him, he will come. He will be real. He will be for the first time... alive.
This one is very important so have the team get on it Kilsin, thanks.
Some Godly NPC that had unique weapons and armor that went around slaughtering gold farming bots with extreme prejudice. It would have special animations like the looney toons sneaking animation up to the farmer before chopping the bots head off from behind, maybe it explodes out of the ground and pulls the bot down to the depths of hell for another, comes streaking in from the air hitting the bot at 100mph for a one shot etc etc. Maybe its weapon would be a legendary ban hammer. It's kills would be auto uploaded to the Pantheon site front page for all of us to see and have a good laugh at.
Kilsin said: Some great replies here folks, nice job, keep them coming! :)
I just want to say, I'm really enjoying and appreciating these questions (and everyone's answers).
I know some are enjoying Pre-Alpha testing currently, so I'm imagining that these are questions pertinent to the process or to design decisions you are still making.
Even if you're just trying to keep our interest piqued while we wait for Alpha/Beta/Release, it's doing a good job!
It really gives me a sense of inclusion and is helping me stay sane while waiting ;^)
Thanks, Ben!
(SO looking forward to Alpha!)
Some people's ideas for a big array of monster archetypes are really fun. I love the idea of these subtle myriad possible behaviours, especially if they have tells to allow the party to adjust tactic (or just panic!).
Orc Warrior hits you with crushing damage for 2 health points
Orc Rogue hits Kilsin with piercing damage for 4 health points
Orc Warrior misses you
Orc Rogue hits Kilsin with slashing slice for 1 health point
"Slashing slice? What's that?"
"Oh no! That rogue's an assassin archetype! Don't let him get behind you! If he melts from view, back up to something solid!"
Orc Warrior hits you with crushing damage for 2 health points
Orc Warrior coughs
Orc Warrior hits you with crushing damage for 3 health points
"Did that Orc Warrior just cough?"
"Oh oh! He's building up to shout for help! Kill him quick!"
The archetypes thing is fun, but the tells would allow for excitement, anticipation, tactical change, etc. otherwise you might miss that you were even fighting something interesting.
Well the first thing i'd have to say is that I feel moving away from static AI is essential for the MMORPG genre to thrive and innovate. AI's need to be dynamic and change unpredictably in order to expand immersion and reduce boredom of combat. Which adds to the longevity of the game as a whole. In EQ players memorized what mobs possessed which AI and they adapted their combat strategy in preparation for that AI type. Over time this becomes dull and repetitive, even with how great Everquest was.
Pantheon perhaps should consider a dynamic AI approach.
An Orc may retreat traditionally using static AI, and call for reinforcements.
Pantheon should consider being dynamic.
An Orc may randomly choose from a variety of different AI strategies, to counter player progress.
i.e. Orc "A" may retreat and call for help. It may also enrage. It may become immune to CC temporarily. It may enrage and call for help. As a player you're not sure exactly what it may do so your attentiveness as a player becomes increasingly more important.
This leaves the fight dynamic, largely unpredictable, and allows for combat to become more intensive and engaging. I feel this is fundamentally more beneficial than just adding a larger variety of static AI types. Which, is not a bad thing per se. But I would like to see that extra step taken to push for a more dynamic AI combat experience. Of course, it's not a hill i would wish to see you die on either.
I would like to see camps where mobs pack up and move somewhere else in the zone. Totally random, not at a specific time to meve from spot 3 to spot 4.
Just like you go camping. Maybe food resources run out or something so you just decide to move on to another location. The camp packs up and heads off.
If they are attacked by PC's then they obviously fight to the death, and if they all get wiped out then a replacement camp spawns somewhere in the zone.
Make them moving zones. There were no Mobs at this spot yesterday when I camped out.
Not for all mobs but if in EQ Commons the Orc Camps moved to the Tunnel or over to the spot where the Zombies were. Fight the mobs and take the spot from them.
Camps randomly have extra mobs spawn, maybe due to the population of the zone. Or when x amount of players are within y range of a camp, the spawn number increases.
Or maybe they have a visiting dignitary or something from their clan so security is increased.
Also hidden mobs that ambush
I would love to see a living thriving AI driven world. A lot of games change zones for certian holidays. I would like to push it a little further and see changes be made in towns; like say there is a building in LOTR online that has been in the processof being built since the game started, and is still being built. Why not monthly or maybe bi-monthly have that house/building show some sort of progress. Make it small and over time allow it to be a feature we can walk into, around and experince? I love to explore new places and envision myself living in that world. But seeing an unfinished building for years and years just kills that a little. You could make it player driven by having quests for matterials, or donating funds to help fund the build, and as certian binch marks are hit, the next patch, so some progress and change the quests that helped progress it to that point. The wagon wheel of the merchant i heard talked about could be one such thing. Have him asking for help for a certian time period, then later show him on the move, or have him set up a new shop out side a city. I would love to see a change like that and know, hey I helped him get there and get started. As far as how far to go or how many things to allow, I would say keep it small, 1 or 2 things at first see how it goes, we dont want it to get crazy and out of hand causing more problems.
In the video of making a city, we where showed how much work goes into making just 1 building, and I do not want to take that away from those who poored themselves into it, but allow the common gamer to help creat the world around them and feel as part of that comunity, for me would be awesome.
AI type: Zone wide goal structure
Code name: One sided Dota
Mechanics: In a very large zone a player friendly/neutral race is on the verge of being annihilated by an aggressor race that is always KOS to players. Only the primary city of the friendly race is holding back the tide of the aggressors due to the final guards being significantly more powerful than the constant flow of attacking enemies. Both of the races constantly spawn generic mobs from their base spawn points. This is really similar to the original WoW large scale pvp battle ground.
The zone is divided into 3-5 different routes between the two spawn point cities. The mobs that spawn will divide based on the relative distance from the spawn point to the line of battle down each route. An example is if 25 soldiers are spawned every minute and on routes 1-3 the enemy is at the first barricade and route 4 they are at the 3rd and the 5th they are at the second and there are a total of 10 barricades down each route then route 1-3 will receive 10*25/47 of the reinforcements and 4th will have 8*25/47 and 5th 9*25/47.
As player groups become involved they slowly push back the invaders as there is only a single spawn point for both allies and invaders. At each barricade there is a mini boss that needs to be defeated before control can be switched. Each barricade is defended by stronger and stronger NPCs which is where the named spawns for the zone can show up. Along the lanes are neutral mob camps that are in different formats based on which race controls the zone.
The goal of this zone is to challenge 5+ full groups working together pushing down the lanes to gain control of the zone. The final barricades before the invaders base will take 2 groups to defeat and one to hold. Once all 5 final barricades have been taken the minimum of 6 groups, assuming one moves from each lane after the final barricades are defeated, and assault the invaders base as a raid group.
Once the raid group kills the enemy invader commander the gate to the Invaders home opens. Inside is a raid zone that really takes 1-3 raid groups moving through in order to fully suppress. Within this zone is the invader King who spawns the first time the commander is killed each reset. The raid group(s) can fight mini bosses with good loot or face the king and kill him off. Once the king is dead the zone stops repopulating and 24 hours later disconnects from the original zone. If the king is not killed then a new commander will be appointed and will push back into the original zone to retake it.
While the invader home is disconnected from the original zone that zone has Ally NPCs resettling it and the other mobs have the ally configuration. The loot tables for the zone will be different based on whether the zone is at war or at peace. After a certain number of days following the death of the king and the disconnect of the zone the portal will burst open and a new invading army will pour out pushing the ally NPCs back to the brink of defeat.
I know this isn’t an original idea but I feel like it could have a great amount of replay ability and a lot of horizontal and vertical progression. It builds in a dynamic open world environment with a raid zone as the final reward. There could be an entire expansion based on these extra-planar shards attaching to Terminus and assaulting the different races with the final raid only being available if all the invading world shards are currently defeated.
I've got one that might pose a challenge. How about AI that uses guerrilla tactics in battle? I have seen this kind of thing in boss fights, but they are mostly scripted. I would like to see the NPC's use the terrain to their advantage, strategically run from the fight to heal or prepare a sneak attack, retreat and prepare an ambush, use proximity to players to their advantage (like running out of spell cast distance if they are close to the perimeter), stuff like that.
Codename: Painful Memories
Purpose: To make all the time in Terminus more realistic and more immersive, while increasing challenge
Overview: (Certain) Mobs and NPC's remember you regardless of time, zoning or other events
Mechanics: In prior MMORPG's a player will take a faction hit after they kill a mob. Then future encounters will look up the players faction and decide on a response (KOS etc.). But, under this AI, a player will be hated or feared (depending upon NPC disposition) after hurting them. In other words, an NPC hates you if you hit them. It doesn't wait to be killed to hate you.
When a player zones or a mob resets, the mob still remembers that the player hurt them and they still react to them accordingly. When a player returns to the NPC, the NPC remembers the painful memories and responds according to their disposition (attack, flee, seek help).
You don't have to kill an NPC, you just hit them.
This can be scaled to incluide things like pickpocketing, colliding with them, selling them trash. These experiences are painful memories and the NPC views the player based upon that experience not just how many times the player has killed them.
This means that a player hits an NPC once and that specific NPC might hate them forever. They might hold a grudge and every time the player goes nearby that NPC attacks the player (or such).
A player then has to work (similar to faction) specifically with that NPC to undo the damage ("sorry bro' I didn't mean to smack you for 15 damage with my sword - I thought you had a potion on yo.....errr.... I mean I thought you were a snake").
If the NPC succeeds in getting revenge (killing the player or receiving the tribute tasks/payments) then their opinion changes and their painful memory is cleared and the player is not on the hatelist any more.
So, imagine Rivervale in EQ: If a friendly race like a human or elf runs through and smacks the halfling Sheriff and runs away, every time he runs through Rivervale the Sherif yells "hey, you!" and chases them down, remembering that they smacked them.