[DEVELOPERS] Is there an attempt to reduce, or get rid of the RANGING CATTLE type mob

[Visions]

You know the good thing about dynamic encounters is that you can have multiple encounters spawning at different times of the day/night. Let's get away from the basics, and have a gaming company take us into the future. I would pay an extra $3 a month, or even an extra $10 a month if it meant I would get a better gaming experience.

[Grymauch]

Maybe I am misunderstanding the concept of this game (I just found out about it about 30 minutes ago), but wouldn't a fair amount of the issue be resolved in that some of the npcs of this game appear through the rift portals? The way I imagine it is that you could be walking around and a rift would appear spilling out a couple of mobs. It would fix the spawning issue and there would be less cattle mobs. There could be regular enemies for people to grind as well though, such as bandits, wolves, etc.

[Fozzik]

The point wasn't really what sort of enemies, but how they are placed in the world. As an example, wolves are fine...but don't just have them standing around in mathmatical patters accross the landscape... put them in dens, in packs, have them roam and find prey, etc.

I think you're right though, Grymauch. The Rifts are a great opportunity to mix up the spawning and mob placement in the world, and offer some surprises to players.

[Outlander]

Making grouped Mobs with a direction/goal/task/desire really shouldn't affect CPU cycles. When the Mobs AI doesn't detect a player in X distance, it can shut itself off. There can be a check every 30 seconds to see if a player is in range, and it can wake up and perform its action. Once a player leaves this area the NPC can run for a certain amount of time and then shut off again. Saves on CPU cycles by 'sleeping' and NPC that would effectively be wasting resources.

I think mobs such as the local fauna of any given location who do not inherently hate the PC would be a welcome addition; hows about that raven doesn't go for my jugular upon seeing me run down that country road? I'd like that.

[Fozzik]

But... it's an EVIL raven.

The sleep mode thing is a cool idea. I'm guessing they probably already do something like that to save resources when nobody's around.

[Shepherd]

According to Gamespot:

The game's monsters will even have their own set behaviors, rather than always appearing in the exact same place at the exact same time. In fact, some monsters may actually hate other monsters, and be in the process of beating the daylights out of each other by the time you encounter them, such as the field of trolls we passed through (in which the bulky brutes were almost too busy beating each other over the head to pay attention to us) on our way to the next town, which housed a dimensional "tear."

Sounds like a little more intelligent mob behavior than just "mooo".

[souper]

While nice to read, it didn't really say not to expect loitering mobs, only that some would be more interesting. It's a nice touch none-the-less.

[Kendricke]

According to Gamespot:

Sounds like a little more intelligent mob behavior than just "mooo".

Sounds similar to the faction systems used in Everquest II for years now. Individual NPC factions can be set to oppose one another. Even in old Everquest, the guards would attack monsters that got too close to them - and that was in 1999. This sounds like a simple progression of that mechanic.

[Ravenwolf]

I'd like to see cow's that go aggro. Because in real life they are not the nicest of creatures. I want to have a herd of cows trying to squish me!

[shyntyrr]

+1 on cows! lol

The system described in the article sounds fairly interesting. The interactivity of some of the creatures in EQ2 already take a similar mechanic, as mentioned.. it will be interesting to see how they evolve it.

[Sifer]

I think maybe you expect too much if you think the cattle type mob can be completely eliminated. I mean yes we can have dynamic camps of enemies pop up at random. That was how the majority of enemies were in Star Wars Galaxies. But they didn't feel any more alive than ranging cattle to me. They will never feel alive I think. Not without complex scripting of their behavior but doing that along with making them random an dynamic spawning is impossible. Aside from having them appear an attack certain cities or other static locations occasionally. You can also have mobs spawn specifically to attack the player like assassins an maybe have them say the players name. But its still a gimmick.

[Vesavius]

The ONE thing that has grown quite boring, and monotonous are the numerous mobs that just stand around, all over the place, basically like grazing cattle. They really provide little substance, and litter the terrain. The only purpose they generally serve is to provide the player with a boring option to grind, grind, grind to gain their levels.

God yes, very much agree. I have come to hate the safari park thing of static mobs standing around in fields waiting to be killed.

I would love to see something like each character having their own dymnamic encounter table (using PnP terminology) that randomly generates mobs/ encounters as you travel based on level and party numbers... maybe 'rolling' every 1000 meters or something to spawn a normal mob, rare named, passive encounter (rare merchant, quest giver, or whatever), or idd nothing.

Though static monster settlements would obviously still exist, you could empty the static fields of wandering mobs standing around scratch their nuts.

[Fozzik]

I think maybe you expect too much if you think the cattle type mob can be completely eliminated. I mean yes we can have dynamic camps of enemies pop up at random. That was how the majority of enemies were in Star Wars Galaxies. But they didn't feel any more alive than ranging cattle to me. They will never feel alive I think. Not without complex scripting of their behavior but doing that along with making them random an dynamic spawning is impossible. Aside from having them appear an attack certain cities or other static locations occasionally. You can also have mobs spawn specifically to attack the player like assassins an maybe have them say the players name. But its still a gimmick.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread... it's not expecting too much because it's already been done. It was done six or so years ago in Ryzom. They completely eliminated the static mobs. It was not a gimmick, but actual simple AI that worked well, and it's actually a bit of a cop-out that more games have not incorporated it and just left their mobs standing around. It does sound like Rift is planning on some better NPC and mob behavior...we'll have to wait and see.

[Yaladan]

To add to many of the comments that have been fantastic, it would be nice if the AI will have a a different aggro range and chase distance depending on the mob. I just love the old EQ trains that ran me over lol.

[ch3wtoy]

Hmmmm..
"The game's monsters will even have their own set behaviors, .... such as the field of trolls we passed through (in which the bulky brutes were almost too busy beating each other over the head to pay attention to us) .."

... So the trolls are standing around in a field while intelligently beating each other up? Anyone else think something still sounds not quite right here?

I beta'd a game called Wish a few years back (unfortunately never made it to release) which had roaming mobs and random-ish spawn timers . These are pretty basic things but they made even simple stuff like travelling from town to town much more interesting. (Would you take the shortcut through that forest, knowing you might be ambushed by something with large pointy teeth, or sign up with a npc caravan or player group and brave the brigand-ridden highway?)

i.e, if you needed 10 rats you had to go and look for them. Actually if the rats/cows/ trolls are not always at the same spot then you can avoid some of the potential camping issues inherent in a non-instanced game.

I am a pretty casual player myself - I actually prefer the terrm "interstitial" as its less about inclination or playstyle and more about rl dictating that I just don't play for periods or have a lot of time to play - so I understand that people want to be able to find the rats/cows/trolls in half an hour and not feel frustrated that the game is "not letting" them achieve what they want to. I also agree with other posters that a successful game will have a design elements to meet the needs of a fairly broad range on the continuum of "casual" vs "hardcore" players. There seem to be some pretty-do-able ideas suggested in this thread, here's hoping we see some of them implemented so "playability" is not overemphasised at the expense of a more interesting/immersive experience.