2019...Why do static mobs just stand their

delete5230

You would think with all new technology and advancement, artificial intelligence would be more real and spontaneous.   You would think by now when playing against static mobs, situations would be more diverse with a chance of getting out of control, more spontaneous.  A monster or bandit could react one way, yet the same one could act completely different two hours later.  How about they try and flank the group ?

No, but instead WE STILL HAVE Bandit #1 walks 10 steps, stops for 10 seconds and turns back.

People say static quest suck.... well yes.... Nothing had changed.....NOTHING !


Even with my long waiting go to game Pantheon.... I'm watching stream after stream of the next mob standing their 10 feet away doing nothing.  Not very real !

How come when I play an off line game like FarCry 5..... As I'm scoping out an enemy base with binoculars, I could get spotted by a snipper and the entire base is on alert and chasing me ?  AND they know where to look too..... You can't totally expect this in an mmorpg, but Gee-Wiss, nothing new ?  



I just mentioned in another post, ideas are used up, their is nothing more that can be done on a flat screen..... Well how about better AI ?? 

Scorchien

Mobs in UO have  a wide spawn range,  then they will travel , many a long way. Some mobs in UO swill call for help, and some mobs in UO loot your corpse. And some others will camp it.                                 21 years later it's system is superior to most, and still fun imo

Vermillion_Raventhal

Because they always have and people accept it?  

You would think a grouping game like Pantheon would have more realistic reactions with intelligent NPC.  You attack NPC fort or group they should all respond.  For example they ring the alarm and the whole fort is on alert.  

Gdemami

Scorchien said:

21 years later it's system is superior to most, and still fun imo

....it isn't superior, it is just obsolete.

AlBQuirky

I think it's because they're as bored as you (players) are?

Elsabolts

" TRAIN " Get out of the Way, Or help yourself. shout EQ1 never failed unless your internet failed. or AFK

Kyleran

Scorchien said:

Mobs in UO have  a wide spawn range,  then they will travel , many a long way. Some mobs in UO swill call for help, and some mobs in UO loot your corpse. And some others will camp it.                                 21 years later it's system is superior to most, and still fun imo

DAOC simulated this back in the day in several ways.

NPCs would often react based on party size.  Attack a camp solo, maybe 1 or 2 npc would BAF. (Bring a friend)  Two to four players, 3 to 8 npcs, full group or raid, perhaps the entire camp came at them.

Some NPCs would try to run for help if the fight turned against them, players had to CC or kill them before they could do so.

Other NPCs would pursue you until the end of the zone, others would break off after players got a certain distance away.

Of course there were wandering NPCs, which players either had to locate for kill tasks and quests, or avoid if camp pulling from a precarious spot in a dungeon..

Unintended NPC AI came in the form of certain bugged dungeons having NPCs which would aggro through and even walk through walls to randomly kill players.

Heal too much, aggro shifted from the tank, making the crowd control and off tank taunting roles very important, and  NPCs generally remembered who recently mezzed them and if broken went after said person with a vengeance. 

One of the greatest features of the FFA PVP server Mordred which was never on the blue servers was the resetting of npc aggro if a player ir group was attacked by enemy players.

The aggro would reset, with the NPCs choosing whatever targets they liked, but even better the players who were attacked would see their health bars restored to 100% to make it a much more even fight.

One caveat,  it was possible for high realm rank archers to one shot most cloth / leather wearers with a fortuitous crit which circumvented the above.

So yes, older MMORPGs had many different AI responses but apparently as "someone" mentioned more interesting AI is an "obsolete" design.

Makes sense as many gamers these days lack the fortitude to deal with NPC AI which might actually beat them on a regular basis.

Gdemami

Kyleran said:

Makes sense as many gamers these days lack the fortitude to deal with NPC AI which might actually beat them on a regular basis.

...nothing to do with that.

The design simply shifted away from grinding mobs over and over in order to level up, thus there is no point in having complex AI.

Amathe

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Because they always have and people accept it?  

You would think a grouping game like Pantheon would have more realistic reactions with intelligent NPC.  You attack NPC fort or group they should all respond.  For example they ring the alarm and the whole fort is on alert.  

I don't think you are giving them enough credit. There are mobs that break off and go get help. And the NPCs will have dispositions that affect how they interact. It's not Westworld, but it should be better than you describe.

Quizzical

So that you don't have to look very far to find the rats when you have a quest that asks you to kill ten rats.

foxgirl

Well let's see the obvious answer would be because static mobs are static. They are stationary, designed not to do anything other than what their coding allows. But I don't think that's what you're asking...

Sometimes it's design choice, sometimes it's budgeting, sometimes it's just laziness on the devs part when they have the funding and the capability to allow for more life-like AI.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Nilden

Gdemami said:

Scorchien said:

21 years later it's system is superior to most, and still fun imo

....it isn't superior, it is just obsolete.

If it was obsolete we wouldn't see it anymore. You sure it's not the genre standard?

Amathe

DMKano said:

The mobs have gained self awareness of their situation 

Imagine being trapped in a world where your sole purpose is to be repeatedly killed over and over again.

I'd just stand there too.

This reminds me of The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus:

"If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn."

Scorchien

Kyleran said:

Scorchien said:

Mobs in UO have  a wide spawn range,  then they will travel , many a long way. Some mobs in UO swill call for help, and some mobs in UO loot your corpse. And some others will camp it.                                 21 years later it's system is superior to most, and still fun imo

DAOC simulated this back in the day in several ways.

NPCs would often react based on party size.  Attack a camp solo, maybe 1 or 2 npc would BAF. (Bring a friend)  Two to four players, 3 to 8 npcs, full group or raid, perhaps the entire camp came at them.

Some NPCs would try to run for help if the fight turned against them, players had to CC or kill them before they could do so.

Other NPCs would pursue you until the end of the zone, others would break off after players got a certain distance away.

Of course there were wandering NPCs, which players either had to locate for kill tasks and quests, or avoid if camp pulling from a precarious spot in a dungeon..

Unintended NPC AI came in the form of certain bugged dungeons having NPCs which would aggro through and even walk through walls to randomly kill players.

Heal too much, aggro shifted from the tank, making the crowd control and off tank taunting roles very important, and  NPCs generally remembered who recently mezzed them and if broken went after said person with a vengeance. 

One of the greatest features of the FFA PVP server Mordred which was never on the blue servers was the resetting of npc aggro if a player ir group was attacked by enemy players.

The aggro would reset, with the NPCs choosing whatever targets they liked, but even better the players who were attacked would see their health bars restored to 100% to make it a much more even fight.

One caveat,  it was possible for high realm rank archers to one shot most cloth / leather wearers with a fortuitous crit which circumvented the above.

So yes, older MMORPGs had many different AI responses but apparently as "someone" mentioned more interesting AI is an "obsolete" design.

Makes sense as many gamers these days lack the fortitude to deal with NPC AI which might actually beat them on a regular basis.

Is it obsolete if it's still superior to today's more modern offering .

iixviiiix

Better AI to beat you up ? Come on , your people want to beat them up and not lost to them .

If you let a human control those mobs , then most people will have to cry and rage quit .

What mobs in MMORPG need is ability to counter player , for example high physical defense or totally magic resistance , totally evasion or suicide bomber or one shot kill player . Ignore defense attack or having endless healing ability

Those ability are like puzzle that push player to find solution instead or bull rush pass everything with overpowered

blamo2000

I, for one, see no reason to give life to mobs I can basically one shot and are only there for me and other people to kill super fast to get a checkmark on a quest log.  

Players demanded easy, mindless combat and combat over the last 20 years has devolved into monkey level nonsense that requires no thought nor effort just as long as the animations are top notch and not "janky."  

What possible use would super high level AI and scripts have without worthwhile combat systems and mechanics?

Mendel

blueturtle13 said:

Mostly because A.I. is a very time consuming and costly process.
Most games just use flow charting which is labor intensive which equals larger budgetary requirements. More advanced A.I. can use things like Finite State Machines with flow charting or others may use blackboard A.I. (using sub A.I.) 
Forza uses an adaptive A.I. system that creates a simulation that is pretty convincing. 

What I have proposed to a couple of people in the industry (including one currently building an mmorpg) is to go with an A.I. director for an mmo. The way L4D or Far Cry handles A.I. is 'good enough' for most players in a genre like the mmorpg. It would expand the mob behavior beyond what the players in the genre have seen in the past and handle the flow and intensity of moment to moment gameplay associated with combat encounters. Another option is to combine FSM with a director and program boss encounters to be more like the Alien in the Isolation game. One that hunts and stalks you through a dungeon or catacomb. 
There are a number of ways that A.I. can be used to create the illusion of a nonstatic world but it takes time,creativity and,well, non artificial intelligence. 

One of the issues with the genre is that no one has invested in actually improving the AI.  Every new game that comes along just builds the basic responses without adding anything new.  I'd be beyond happy if the AI-controlled mobs recognized certain player tactics, like kiting, and started taunting the PCs.  That probably wouldn't require anything as elaborate as a finite state machine to implement.  People losing whine and complain, why can't gnoll_0307818?

Vermillion_Raventhal

Mendel said:

blueturtle13 said:

Mostly because A.I. is a very time consuming and costly process.
Most games just use flow charting which is labor intensive which equals larger budgetary requirements. More advanced A.I. can use things like Finite State Machines with flow charting or others may use blackboard A.I. (using sub A.I.) 
Forza uses an adaptive A.I. system that creates a simulation that is pretty convincing. 

What I have proposed to a couple of people in the industry (including one currently building an mmorpg) is to go with an A.I. director for an mmo. The way L4D or Far Cry handles A.I. is 'good enough' for most players in a genre like the mmorpg. It would expand the mob behavior beyond what the players in the genre have seen in the past and handle the flow and intensity of moment to moment gameplay associated with combat encounters. Another option is to combine FSM with a director and program boss encounters to be more like the Alien in the Isolation game. One that hunts and stalks you through a dungeon or catacomb. 
There are a number of ways that A.I. can be used to create the illusion of a nonstatic world but it takes time,creativity and,well, non artificial intelligence. 

One of the issues with the genre is that no one has invested in actually improving the AI.  Every new game that comes along just builds the basic responses without adding anything new.  I'd be beyond happy if the AI-controlled mobs recognized certain player tactics, like kiting, and started taunting the PCs.  That probably wouldn't require anything as elaborate as a finite state machine to implement.  People losing whine and complain, why can't gnoll_0307818?

It's not really the AI.  It's the fact that players when faced with smart, unpredictable opponents rage.  Players want a puzzle to solve.  I can't remember which MMORPG had the issue.

AAAMEOW

why does it matter.  20 hours later the zone become obsolete and all you do is dungeon and raid.

Vermillion_Raventhal

AAAMEOW said:

why does it matter.  20 hours later the zone become obsolete and all you do is dungeon and raid.

That too.  

JeffSpicoli

ITS A  @delete5230 Post

Scot

More intelligent mobs was a direction design some MMORPG's seemed to be going in, CoH had some great moves on the mobs part, shooting at range, coming into melee, moving back when it got too hot. A testament to how challenge in gameplay makes for better games.

But this does not sit well with the drive to ever easier gameplay that the majority of MMOs were headed in. Mobs have to be easy to kill, not clever, some players might call intelligent mobs frustrating and there can't be anything that could frustrate a player.

All challenging gameplay must be sacrificed on the altar of "fun". Get your meerkat outfit on and show your elite skills shooting mob ducks in a barrel.

Amathe

ThorntonMelon said:

ITS A  @delete5230 Post

Yes, but grammar errors aside, it's not a stupid post. I try to support the guy when he is in the neighborhood of having a point, or at least is posting an identifiable topic. Sadly I don't get those opportunities to be supportive often. 

FlyByKnight

Monster Hunter World has the best bestiary mechanics I've seen in a game. If somebody applied that to an MMORPG it would be pretty awesome.

Enemy NPC leashes are wide and change. They have states of awareness ranging from "minding my own business" to "wtf was that" to "i know you're there" to "I see you you're dead" to "damn i got my ass kicked I'm outta here"

One of the cool things is the interactivity between the other enemy NPCs. Some creatures simply do not like each other and have turf wars. The lesser creatures are liable to be food/power-ups for the others. Anybody who plays know what is to be hunting one monster only to have Bazelguese show up out of nowhere and throw another level of random to the encounter.

delete5230

Amathe said:

ThorntonMelon said:

ITS A  @delete5230 Post

Yes, but grammar errors aside, it's not a stupid post. I try to support the guy when he is in the neighborhood of having a point, or at least is posting an identifiable topic. Sadly I don't get those opportunities to be supportive often. 

Fair enough,
I would like to be less hated.  And your right I'm not in the neighborhood too often.