My Ideal Enemy System

Rungar

In this installment well discuss enemies in the mmo environment. 

Ny ideal system has an logical evolutionary pathway for monsters such that they can become stronger (or weaker)if certain conditions are met. This makes the world more dynamic and interesting to players since you don't know where or when an enemy will evolve. This is done through a transitioning process that has rules for each enemy type. You will also be able to see the relative strength of the enemy with these transitions. Some transitions may be lateral and other vertical. 

Example of the wolf: 

wolves can transition (level up) if they feed on meat or get kills (players or other enemies) or are just around long enough. So we have a number of transitions possible for wolf. 

wolf pup-->Wolf-->Timber wolf-->Giant wolf-->Nightfang (mini-boss). Each transition adds something and is visible  to players. For non humanoid enemies this is seen in a size increase, new textures and/or forms and eventually they reach the miniboss stage. 

For a humanoid its a little different as the size component isnt relied on as much as non humanoids. Instead how they are equipped will determine there overall power. For instance

Kobold ( no weapons)-->Kobold Savage ( bigger and has a 1 handed weapon weapon)--> kobold berserker ( bigger again and two handed weapons) and kobold Shaman ( has magic)--->kobold Chieftain ( armor and weapons) ( miniboss and monster generator, has magic,  can spawn other kobolds). 

Kobolds can only transition when they canibalize their fallen brethren's bodies. ( As you kill them they will try to feed on the corpses and will get stronger that way.) So any kobold could become a kobold chieftain. Basic kobolds will die after a certain amount of time if they don't transition leaving that body behind.  This process only stops when no more kobolds spawn as they are all transitioned or players start killing them.   

so each kind of enemy would be designed with an evolutionally pathway which means spawns are static but the result of the spawns can change. This means that the same monster might not be in the same place as you dont know where or when one of these enemies will "level up". 

to go with this we would need an advanced monster manual type system or bestiary which would track each monster and record the transitions and other relevant data such as strengths and weaknesses. This would also be useful for capturing the skills they might have that you might want. We also want the learning to be fully documented in-game so players can learn from first hand experience or find manuals with the necessary information. I.e "How to kill skeletons manual" and "the different types of skeletons". So you can learn the hard way or find a book or maybe an npc will tell you some secrets. We want to not be reliant on external websites for the acquisition of information so a detailed in-game monster manual is necessary. 

This also opens up on dynamic development as developers can insert new transitions whenever they want as its generally easier/more efficient to reskin some enemies with new stats rather than make totally new ones. Players generally don't like that but it will work in this case as its part of the design to keep older content fresh. 

so were most games don't put much thought into the enemies this would would put a lot of thought and organization into the enemy system such that it can be set free dynamically in the world. Each kind of enemy would have multiple forms which could be added to anytime and these new forms lead to a miniboss which is the final transition for any enemy. Each enemy type would have its own ways to transition and they might be specific to that enemy type or be more general.  So we can use collectors ( needs a certain item), killers ( needs to kill something), timer (just has to be around long enough without being killed) , nighttime, daytime or weather conditions and so on. This means that you not only need to know about enemies strengths and weakness but also how they get stronger which you may or may not want. There may also be ways to weaken them and make them transition downward. 

This mean that world-bosses need no longer be static kill fests. You would have to find them This also means there is no "con" system. You would have to figure out on your own whether or not an enemy was dangerous based on what you see and what you've learned. You might need to get your ass handed to you in some cases to learn a lesson. 

Combine this with the situational mitigation system and it can get very interesting since you may have no idea of an enemies strengths and weaknesses until you find out for yourself which could easily go bad if they are out of alignment with your strengths and weaknesses. 

This system would use spawning/despawning tricks to simulate the "growth" of enemies when certain conditions are met. No different than Mario finding the mushroom but applied to enemies. 

MMO worlds have become boring mostly because the enemies are boring. A dynamic element could shake this up a bit. There has to be something to figure out. 

  

Vrika

That system is too hard for the devs to control: You'd just have ecocatastrophes with too many monsters being either too low evolution or too high evolution.

It'd be better to just make the game target certain % of higher monster evolutions. Then set rules for each family that make them more likely to evolve. For example when the game needs to find a kobolt to evolve it could be more likely to pick one that's "in a cave", when it needs to find bandit to evolve it could be more likely to pick one that's "near players", and when it needs to find a hyena to evolve it could be more likely pick up one that's "near corpses".

That would keep the overall populations stable so that there's everything for players to find, while still giving each monster family their own traits.



EDIT: The system would result in a situation where areas where players kill monsters regularly would be mostly low threat monsters, whereas areas that are left in peace would be high threat monsters for high level parties.

But I guess that kind of situation was your intention since you created the evolution system?

But your suggestion would also suffer from overall game difficulty rising during off-hours as monsters live longer and reach higher evolutions, then difficulty decreasing at peak times when players kill them off. My suggestion about game targeting % of higher evolutions would prevent that kind of seesaw.

Rungar

Ya there would be controls as you say for gameplay purposes. I was speaking generally. The reason why I thought each family of enemies would have its own way leveling up is so a particular style of gameplay/strategy could be employed against them once you figured it out. Not every enemy would powerup the same way and this introduces another layer of strategy. 

you destroy the weapons rack not because a quest told you to do it, but because enemy can actually use it against you.

 





 

Amaranthar

This level grind power gaps stuff is so hard to make these things work. 

And Scaling just makes it meaningless, mostly. 

When are people going to realize that Sandbox, lower power gaps, is superior? 

UO had MOBs that grew in power similar to players, through use. But they died so fast that it didn't usually matter. There were some exceptions though, which was cool. 
A funny story in UO was a super chicken that somehow managed to survive and grow into something most players couldn't handle. GMs had to organize a hunt to take it down. 
Then they added limits to growth for MOBs/NPCs. 

They also had added Hirelings for players to use (at a cost). And you could train them up just like pets. I had a couple of hired Paladins that I trained up some, but a bad day in Dungeon Shame ended that. lol

Vrika

Rungar said:

Ya there would be controls as you say for gameplay purposes. I was speaking generally. The reason why I thought each family of enemies would have its own way leveling up is so a particular style of gameplay/strategy could be employed against them once you figured it out. Not every enemy would powerup the same way and this introduces another layer of strategy. 

you destroy the weapons rack not because a quest told you to do it, but because enemy can actually use it against you.

Why would players destroy that weapon rack?

I could see players doing the opposite and building weapon racks so that they'd gain strong mobs to farm.

Rungar

Vrika said:

Rungar said:

Ya there would be controls as you say for gameplay purposes. I was speaking generally. The reason why I thought each family of enemies would have its own way leveling up is so a particular style of gameplay/strategy could be employed against them once you figured it out. Not every enemy would powerup the same way and this introduces another layer of strategy. 

you destroy the weapons rack not because a quest told you to do it, but because enemy can actually use it against you.

Why would players destroy that weapon rack?

I could see players doing the opposite and building weapon racks so that they'd gain strong mobs to farm.

if you wanted to. Of course the value of "farming" might not be like in other games since this would be an achievement based (no levels) advancement system ( as per my other ideal series) it might not be as profitable as be before.  

all my systems you get rewarded for completing something, whether its a dungeon or trivial achievement. You would still be able to farm and grind but it wouldn't get you as quite much as before. you could still do it though. 

i dont like completely discounting legacy systems because players are familiar with them so i use the 1/3rd rule and just make them count for less compared to the new system. 

Rungar

Amaranthar said:

This level grind power gaps stuff is so hard to make these things work. 

And Scaling just makes it meaningless, mostly. 

When are people going to realize that Sandbox, lower power gaps, is superior? 

UO had MOBs that grew in power similar to players, through use. But they died so fast that it didn't usually matter. There were some exceptions though, which was cool. 
A funny story in UO was a super chicken that somehow managed to survive and grow into something most players couldn't handle. GMs had to organize a hunt to take it down. 
Then they added limits to growth for MOBs/NPCs. 

They also had added Hirelings for players to use (at a cost). And you could train them up just like pets. I had a couple of hired Paladins that I trained up some, but a bad day in Dungeon Shame ended that. lol

like most things in that game they often had the principle right. Sounds like it just wasn't fleshed out. You cant have a level grinder with systems like this it has to be a different system. I like a hybrid system with skill capture combined with achievement based alternate advancement and some legacy exp grinding but no levels.  

Vrika

Rungar said:

Vrika said:

Rungar said:

Ya there would be controls as you say for gameplay purposes. I was speaking generally. The reason why I thought each family of enemies would have its own way leveling up is so a particular style of gameplay/strategy could be employed against them once you figured it out. Not every enemy would powerup the same way and this introduces another layer of strategy. 

you destroy the weapons rack not because a quest told you to do it, but because enemy can actually use it against you.

Why would players destroy that weapon rack?

I could see players doing the opposite and building weapon racks so that they'd gain strong mobs to farm.

if you wanted to. Of course the value of "farming" might not be like in other games since this would be an achievement based (no levels) advancement system ( as per my other ideal series) it might not be as profitable as be before.  

all my systems you get rewarded for completing something, whether its a dungeon or trivial achievement. You would still be able to farm and grind but it wouldn't get you as quite much as before. you could still do it though. 

i dont like completely discounting legacy systems because players are familiar with them so i use the 1/3rd rule and just make them count for less compared to the new system. 

I think you missed my point: What would the player gain from making the mobs weaker?

Even if you don't have levels, presumably strong players would want to kill strong mobs for things like rare materials. Whereas weak mobs should be something a strong player never really wants.

Why do the strong players who can destroy weapon rack want to have weak mobs?

Rungar

from the perspective of the average player, not the top 1% you get most of the reward for finishing something for the most part. There wont be much value in making it harder on yourself or dying in the process so most players will see the value in keeping enemies hindered while they finish whatever content. 

Certainly there would be times when a certain enemy has something you want ( such as a skill) and that's fine, generally though most of the time there wont be much of a benefit to that. 

for the most part enemies will be in the way of the goal, not the goal itself like in past level grinders. You might have to think a little differently but you can still play the way you want. Maybe you like an extra challenge, doesn't mean everyone does. 

   

 

Amaranthar

Rungar said:

from the perspective of the average player, not the top 1% you get most of the reward for finishing something for the most part. There wont be much value in making it harder on yourself or dying in the process so most players will see the value in keeping enemies hindered while they finish whatever content. 

Certainly there would be times when a certain enemy has something you want ( such as a skill) and that's fine, generally though most of the time there wont be much of a benefit to that. 

for the most part enemies will be in the way of the goal, not the goal itself like in past level grinders. You might have to think a little differently but you can still play the way you want. Maybe you like an extra challenge, doesn't mean everyone does. 

   

 

I like the idea of the MOBs themselves not being the goal, just in the way of it. 
That adds a whole new level of interest. 

I spent a lot of time in UO going to places, not just in dungeons, to check out things that were a little strange. Trying different things. 
There were bugs where if a player cast a teleport spell on just the right spot, they could get into a "room" or area that you couldn't normally go to. Lots of players looked for these, and everyone was interested in marked runestones (for teleporting via a "Recall" spell) so they could go there too. 

Discovering things is huge fun. 
So this idea can incorporate "discovery" too. Kill the MOBs and Bosses so you have time to check things out. There might be a secret room there. Or any number of things to discover. Including your "capture" stuff. Like studying a mural that shows how to do something. 

Rungar

one big advantage is that you wont necessarily know where and when an enemy will evolve/transition so things like overworld minibosses/worldbosses might be more liquid than in more static games. This will piss some people off for sure but its better gameplay overall. You might have to put a little legwork in rather than just show up to the killbox every 5 minutes. 

in dungeons it will be a little different because my dungeon design is all about completing the dungeon and its objectives (the more objectives you can complete, the better loot you can get) so you might not want additional challenge you don't get much of anything for as it will delay you in completing those objectives. 

Amaranthar

Rungar said:

one big advantage is that you wont necessarily know where and when an enemy will evolve/transition so things like overworld minibosses/worldbosses might be more liquid than in more static games. This will piss some people off for sure but its better gameplay overall. You might have to put a little legwork in rather than just show up to the killbox every 5 minutes. 

in dungeons it will be a little different because my dungeon design is all about completing the dungeon and its objectives (the more objectives you can complete, the better loot you can get) so you might not want additional challenge you don't get much of anything for as it will delay you in completing those objectives. 

Yeah, but people still scratch off losing lottery tickets. 
The winning is fun, but so is the hope of winning. 

Rungar

umm i dont follow..anyhoo

part 2 elite enemies: destructible armor

all elite enemies will have something called destructible armor. This means that an enemy can be wearing another enemy in the form of armor that you might have to destroy to get to the enemy. 

so some enemies might have an overlay of destructible armor with its own hitpoints that you would be able to attack and destroy. This armor might look like actual armor or might come in the form of something else that gives a certain protection. This is not usually practical in a mmo so instead most enemies will use the transition system to emulate this and the overlays would be saved for really big enemies such as bosses.

goblin finds armor--transition to armored goblin--beat the armor off him and he returns to goblin. All transitions. 

less frequently the armor overlay can be used for bosses and larger monsters where you can physically destroy the armor without using the transition system.  

some destructible armors will give the protected enemy full damage protection ( transitions) while others will just give partial protection (overlay), split damage in half or provide some sort of resistance. 

a key factor will be that the armor employed by the enemy will have a weakness that can be exploited, but that weakness will be different than the enemies weakness. 

Some enemies might also be able to merge so two enemies might despawn and respawn a more powerful enemy. The reverse process can also be true. This can use the transitions system in most cases but also use the overlay system occasionally. 

so the idea here is rather than just add statistical improvements to enemies well real visible "armor" type enemies that can combine with other enemies.  The transition system is really just a well organized spawning/de-spawning system that allows you to replace one enemy with the next, retaining similarities so it makes sense. 

the goblin for instance would be its own mob. The armor just an object. When they combine it despawns the goblin and spawns the armored goblin. When the armor is destroyed it despawns the armored goblin and respawns the goblin. Players wont notice any transition other than the armor gone but its really just spawning tricks so no ne technology required.  

Vrika

Rungar said:

 Players wont notice any transition other than the armor gone but its really just spawning tricks so no ne technology required.  

It would require stupid amount of new technology to move all the status effects, relevant stats and cooldowns, targets of players and NPC currently targeting that mob, spells being currently cast, etc. from one despawned mob to another mob spawned in its place.

From technical point of view it would be idiotic. If the mobs need to change, then the game needs to be programmed so that mobs can change.

Amaranthar

Vrika said:

Rungar said:

 Players wont notice any transition other than the armor gone but its really just spawning tricks so no ne technology required.  

It would require stupid amount of new technology to move all the status effects, relevant stats and cooldowns, targets of players and NPC currently targeting that mob, spells being currently cast, etc. from one despawned mob to another mob spawned in its place.

From technical point of view it would be idiotic. If the mobs need to change, then the game needs to be programmed so that mobs can change.

I don't see how "stupid amount of new technology" is required. 
It actually sounds pretty basic to me. 
In fact, isn't it very much like a character zoning into a dungeon with current effects and timers on? 

Rungar

 

any system has to be programmed to work. This is just a more advanced spawning system since the spawner can be on an enemy and not just in the environment. 

a monster generator works the same way and they are common in games. This would just be a mobile monster generator system. Since the spawning would be seamless players wouldnt even notice what's going on behind the scenes. They would get see an enemy getting more powerful if some condition is met. 

it would require a little more work, but what you could do with it would be worth it imo. 


so many scenarios you can play out with such a system.  

Rungar

Vrika said:

Rungar said:

 Players wont notice any transition other than the armor gone but its really just spawning tricks so no ne technology required.  

It would require stupid amount of new technology to move all the status effects, relevant stats and cooldowns, targets of players and NPC currently targeting that mob, spells being currently cast, etc. from one despawned mob to another mob spawned in its place.

From technical point of view it would be idiotic. If the mobs need to change, then the game needs to be programmed so that mobs can change.

easy fix for that. If mob transitions all that is purged.  Another incentive to not let them do that. 

imagine a scenario where your fighting a goblin he gets low on health and runs to the armor. If he gets there he get empowered and you have to fight him all over again but harder this time. 

so more so than just killing him you have to also prevent him from reaching any powerups which he will seek out when health reaches a certain level. 

Scorchien

yea , Basically UO already accomplishes this , and yes its certainlly a better system and there is room for more of it and improvement..  in the MMO market ..

  But mobs in UO can first spawn at different strengths and skills  , One Dragon will not be like the next .. Providing some real WTF moments ..

  Mobs wander in UO and have random spawn area.. not a static spawn ..

  Some mobs can grow in strength ..And any Mob can become a Paragon version , anywhere .. Look out

  Mobs will loot your corpse ..!!

  AI is pretty good and a LIch LOrd for ex . will figure you out and drain a Warrioir STr and Mages Int for ex..

Rungar

Scorchien said:

yea , Basically UO already accomplishes this , and yes its certainlly a better system and there is room for more of it and improvement..  in the MMO market ..

  But mobs in UO can first spawn at different strengths and skills  , One Dragon will not be like the next .. Providing some real WTF moments ..

  Mobs wander in UO and have random spawn area.. not a static spawn ..

  Some mobs can grow in strength ..

  Mobs will loot your corpse ..!!

  AI is pretty good and a LIch LOrd for ex . will figure you out and drain a Warrioir STr and Mages Int for ex..

yea UO has alot of interesting things and its sad that almost nobody builds on these things. Its like they gave up a long time ago. 

Vrika

Amaranthar said:

Vrika said:

Rungar said:

 Players wont notice any transition other than the armor gone but its really just spawning tricks so no ne technology required.  

It would require stupid amount of new technology to move all the status effects, relevant stats and cooldowns, targets of players and NPC currently targeting that mob, spells being currently cast, etc. from one despawned mob to another mob spawned in its place.

From technical point of view it would be idiotic. If the mobs need to change, then the game needs to be programmed so that mobs can change.

I don't see how "stupid amount of new technology" is required. 
It actually sounds pretty basic to me. 
In fact, isn't it very much like a character zoning into a dungeon with current effects and timers on? 

This goes a bit technical, but:

In all MMOs done during the last couple of decades characters are likely programmed as objects. They have their own data like status effects, skills, etc.

When you zone into dungeon, you remove the object from world and then add the object inside dungeon, but the object (character) stays the same and it keeps its own data with it.

Whereas if you want to despawn a mob and spawn a new one, you'd have to create new part of program that fetches all the relevant data from the old object (mobs are also objects) and gives that to the new object.

And that's just for keeping the mob's status, stats, cooldowns and other stuff that are part of their object's data.

If player A is just casting a spell on mob X, you despawn it, and spawn elite Y instead, you'll have a moment where either:
  a) Player A just failed in his spell and lost his target because X does not exists any more
  b) The game needs to be programmed with tech to change both player A's target and the target of spell he's currently casting to mob Y so that there's no interruption

It would be much easier to have the game change object Mob X to have the relevant data for Mob type Y, than it's to have a seamless switch where everything relevant to Object X is switched to Object Y without interrupting anything.

Rungar

it could be done either way. The first method would be easiest. So you miss a spell and lose a target on a rare occasion. So what? 

The second way would be ideal but I don't think its a big enough problem to warrant any special coding given the generally low frequency of enemy transitions. 

Vrika

Rungar said:

other pairs might start off merged and you might have to separate them somehow, or not separate them if thats the better strategy. 

Rungar said:

easy fix for that. If mob transitions all that is purged.  Another incentive to not let them do that. 

I think the game would need to not purge stuff for your strategy to separate a merged pair to be viable.

But I'm not saying that you couldn't do mobs merging and keep everything. Just that from tech perspective you're doing it wrong if you're thinking "despawn both and spawn a new one". It should be a process of "despawn one and change the other".

Rungar

there's ways to do that too. For instance the merged mob despawn's at 50% (or 0%) health and the new new ones respawn at 50% health. 

im certainly not against a more technically advanced solution but i think the gameplay benefits would far outweigh the minor negatives that might be encountered even with the simplified/less ideal solution. 

you can also use transition animations to both hide the seams from one transition to another and to make sense of the lost target and missed spell. 

the transition animation could be anything from a flash of light to a dust cloud or whatever to distract you while the transition takes place so you cant see the seams. 

 

ChildoftheShadows

Vrika said:

Rungar said:

 Players wont notice any transition other than the armor gone but its really just spawning tricks so no ne technology required.  

It would require stupid amount of new technology to move all the status effects, relevant stats and cooldowns, targets of players and NPC currently targeting that mob, spells being currently cast, etc. from one despawned mob to another mob spawned in its place.

From technical point of view it would be idiotic. If the mobs need to change, then the game needs to be programmed so that mobs can change.

It's not challenging at all.

Rungar

I would of preferred that things like armor be a unique overlay( with its own hitpoints) on an enemy but i thought that might be too much for an mmo (but not a single player game) so the next best thing is to use spawning /despawning tricks to emulate that process since it will appear the same but not be exactly the same. 

i would of liked the gameplay where you could target the enemy or the armor but its too much for a mmo to handle given most mmo targeting systems are not that precise (or too precise aka tab) so it wouldnt be worthwhile in most cases. 

still i think the core principle where enemies can upgrade ( and degrade) themselves under unique conditions, have an evolutionary pathway to miniboss status and some enemies can combine and decombine is rock solid in terms of overall gameplay value since it adds a a few layers of strategy to how you deal with enemies.  

ChildoftheShadows

Rungar said:

I would of preferred that things like armor be a unique overlay( with its own hitpoints) on an enemy but i thought that might be too much for an mmo (but not a single player game) so the next best thing is to use spawning /despawning tricks to emulate that process since it will appear the same but not be exactly the same. 

i would of liked the gameplay where you could target the enemy or the armor but its too much for a mmo to handle given most mmo targeting systems are not that precise (or too precise aka tab) so it wouldnt be worthwhile in most cases. 

still i think the core principle where enemies can upgrade ( and degrade) themselves under unique conditions, have an evolutionary pathway to miniboss status and some enemies can combine and decombine is rock solid in terms of overall gameplay value since it adds a a few layers of strategy to how you deal with enemies.  

Armor is just another piece of mesh on the model. You can swap it out without any effort at all other than it is extra art. Hp on the armor is just another number and a boolean (true or false) Does he still have armor or not?

There are always tricks that can be employed to accomplish a goal in programming and it's seldom as difficult as it seems on the surface