How smart can Mobs be?

[cordy_CinVin]

After reading an articale on mmorpg.com it got me wondering on what hj has planned for how smart its mobs will be.

Now typically the extent of mob's intelligence is that they are either social or they run away, well at least in my experience with mmo's anyway.

So I know they are trying to get people more involved with the game by using quests and mutliple gm's to make an unpredicatable environment but what plans if any do they have to make the mobs smarter?

One of the reasons I enjoy pvp so much is due to the fact you really never know what the other person is going to do and therefore the possibilitys are almost endless and outcomes can change easily depending on yours or the other persons tactics.

So why can't mobs do the same thing to some extent? Will the mobs be able to "kite" me or run away or react different if they are out numbered. Will social mobs actually perform flanking menuevers to try best my party? Will they try to protect their healers and use any "specials" at the appropriate time. Also can they have dialoge and taunt players or maybe scream for help. All things that I would like to see in hj but haven't really heard much about except for how the mobs will look.

So all that being said what would you like to see? These are just a few ideas that have always been fun when doing pvp and why I tend to like pvp a bit more then pve since with pve the only real change is the amount of hp a mob has or how much dmg you can do to it.

Oblivion imo scratched the service with giving npc's routines and such but I think there can still be a lot more done.

This is the editorial that sparked my interest

 

[tasoli]

I loved Oblivion and completely agree with you, I want to see NPC's that look and act as smart as PC's. I want to have to ask myself "Did I just kill a person or a NPC?"

 

[Thea Nightwind]

Originally posted by tasoli@Jul 1 2006, 04:24 AM
...I want to see NPC's that look and act as smart as PC's. I want to have to ask myself "Did I just kill a person or a NPC?"

Thats prolly a tall order Tas. Can you imagine the Dev macro lengths for having an NPC do "random" things for say 2hrs. Then a different such macro for each NPC.. or the same for every 10 spread out over the realm so as no two would ever be in the same area doing the same things. Plus maping the paths they would travel etc.

Then fill the macros with 'If'/'Then' commands for player interactive purposes. WOW!

Might not leave much room for the character creation process hehe. But I do see your point and that would be awesome!

That may explain the tiered pricing thing. The more you pay the more GM's can help provide a sort of randomness to the game.

Anyways. I think your last sentence would be the Holy Grail of gaming from a developer's POV. TOTALLY interactive AI NPC's that even go AFK on Epic Quest LMAO!

 

[frostydf2]

I don't think we, the consumers, should ever say 'Oh it's too hard!'. We should say, 'do it!'. In fact, we should always push for a better product if at all possible. It is possible, and by god, Simutronics should do this.

It would not only attract a lot of people who play Oblivion, but truely come out to be the real MMORPG.

 

[cordy_CinVin]

Originally posted by Thea Nightwind+Jul 1 2006, 03:59 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Thea Nightwind @ Jul 1 2006, 03:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-tasoli@Jul 1 2006, 04:24 AM
...I want to see NPC's that look and act as smart as PC's. I want to have to ask myself "Did I just kill a person or a NPC?"

Thats prolly a tall order Tas. Can you imagine the Dev macro lengths for having an NPC do "random" things for say 2hrs. Then a different such macro for each NPC.. or the same for every 10 spread out over the realm so as no two would ever be in the same area doing the same things. Plus maping the paths they would travel etc.

Then fill the macros with 'If'/'Then' commands for player interactive purposes. WOW!

Might not leave much room for the character creation process hehe. But I do see your point and that would be awesome!

That may explain the tiered pricing thing. The more you pay the more GM's can help provide a sort of randomness to the game.

Anyways. I think your last sentence would be the Holy Grail of gaming from a developer's POV. TOTALLY interactive AI NPC's that even go AFK on Epic Quest LMAO![/b][/quote]
I agree with you Thea that it would be quite hard to implement it from a programming stand point i would think. But we as the players should push for this I think.

I hear next gen mmorpg all the time when I'm looking into upcoming games. What does next gen mean?? Its used so loosely that I think it only means better graphics and "new improved combat system" aka an EQ clone. Now hj has started to break from the EQ clone but to truely break the monontony of current mmo's and be the next wow (not in terms of gameplay but rather player base) it has to do something that intices the player and makes them want more.

Why is it I want to attack a mob? I should hate that mob I mean why else would my char want to kill it right, besides the bad ass drop it might drop. Have mobs taunt the players and create conflict I want to look at a mob and want to kill it not be like "oh here we go again I gotta kill mob x for the 10000 time".

This of course just scratches the surface on what I'd like to see but hey the sky's the limit and if we as players tell the devs we want something different then cookie cutter games, they will make them because it all boils down to they want our money and some really do want to make a great game. My 2 cents anyway

 

[Javewa]

Hmm, I think we are just not there yet. Neither as players, developers or in terms of gameplay possibilities. When I think "Haha, I'm a hero and that dude just asked me to take care of his nasty ogre problem around the corner.", I want to kill that ogres and acturally survive. That usually means one by one. An intelligent ogre would of course laugh at me when I try to pull him with an arrow, run off to his friends and come back with them to smash me. Intelligent behaviour? Yes. Fun? No.
And i honestly don't know if I want certain quests and creatures only to be available in certain seasons or day times. As a player I'm not ready yet, I guess.
From a developers POV, scripted 'intelligent' behaviour is way to time consuming to have lots of it in.

Next big thing in line is Physics and Physics Acceleration Cards. If developers and users get used to it, THEN we can think about implementing serious AI. The AI can then use the environment intelligently to spank the players butt.
For example: In the beta phase a single ogre learned that he is strong enough to rip out trees with his bare hand. Why did he do that? Because he can! As could every other player with a high enough strength attribute. Sufficient programming of the physics engine in the game opens that possibility. The fragile mage that attacked the ogre just didn't see this coming and was smashed by the tree.
The ogre laughs and runs back to his friends and shows them the little humie on the bark of the tree. They laugh and for some time all ogres of the tribes rip out trees to throw them at humies. But one night all ogres are asleep and a shameless party of rogues manages to kill them all. The world is safe again, not only from the ogres but also from the idea of throwing big objects because none of the ogres bothered to tell other tribes what they could do.

Well. I see that about 7-10 years in the future. For now it would be sufficient if devs just add an additional layer of AI. In an invasion or defence scenario the MOB AI shouldn't just use individual AIs but an RTS approach for the whole group. Which is a totally different matter as your usual MMO AI.

Games develop in an evolutionary fashion. Today neither player nor developer has the right attitude to deal with 'true AI'. MMO Gameplay has to evolve first. Usually a slow process.

 

[Thea Nightwind]

Well we can push/demand/plead/ask all we want but it takes time for such technology to be developed and I do think that the level of AI NPC as expressed in Tas's sentence will perhaps one day be possible. As stated it has to be the developer's Holy Grail and the players dream.

Is that day here with the concept of NexGen gaming? (shrugs+?) I have no idea.

One wonders if the NexGen notion has to do with either graphics technology, the ability to upgrade and maintain servers on the fly with no downtime, content, fiber backbones and or NPC AI? Or all of that?

Right now it still takes a GM (person) to provide that level of random spontaniety. I'm not poo-poo-ing the idea at all. We've gone from board games, to text based MUD's, to 2D, to 3D, to Ragdoll Physics, to PhysiX technology(sp?). So i never poo-poo such ideas.

Such degree of AI NPC's would be the game of games eh?

I whole heartedly agree that I should have some game or vengence based reason to slay some beast as opposed to the fact that its just there. I have 'grind-ittus' like everyone else :lol:

 

[Nnem]

This is one of those things you would like to see, in time. Demanding it now, isn't a bad thing, the team can throw it up with a list of things they know we want.

The only bad thing is, with something so (seemingly) huge, and difficult, I dont think we really need them to concentrate on it yet. The idea, is awesome, I think everyone would love it.

In too many games, I find questing boring and uneventful (unless they do a great job with the story). Have these kind of NPCs would give you enertainment, something new everytime, you would want to quest just to seem them all!

Great idea though.

 

[sylveria]

You'll see more critter A.I. as games get more sophisticated, yes. Truthfully? You could code a personality into a mob today. It would take yards and yards of equations but it could be done now.

The question becomes how long it would take before the critter went through those equations and delivered the goods -- 10 ms? 10,000 ms? And immersion being what we think it is, a critter who has to "think" about what to do next will, in all likelihood, stand there thinking while we get our next crit on it.

Let's face it, we want it dead so we're not stopping 'til it's pulped.

Individual quest NPCs, however, are a different story. There should be more A.I. than "<your name>, I am grateful for your contribution to our cause."

I think the intelligence quotient of the critter isn't as important as the intelligence quotient of a quest or story arc, because in most cases I'm going to kill the critter. I want to have =fun= doing this, but it doesn't mean I want the NPC to know enough to kill me over and over again. I would like to have a shot at success.

 

[Kylie_CinVin]

Make a mob that waves at you and says Hi. But if you get too close he starts beating you up

 

[sylveria]

That's done now in WoW. It's called PvP

Well, yeah, no NPCs, but...

 

[Luciro]

I'm really, really, really disappointed at the HJ staff responce to people wanting excellent mob AI.
The last time the guy said people wouldn't be able to play well enough against an aggressive mob who silenced the casters and rooted the melee. Now, there's reasoning that mobs would take too long to decide what to do?

In other words, despite the video we saw a good year or so ago about the stratigic battles has gone to mush? Those big guys will just attack who is in front taunting and run from fire if they're hit? Just like every other game out there. No need to break any ground eh?

At least make boss AI something worth struggling against. Raids and 'tuff fights' now are already basic number games. Mob has out the wazoo health, can debuff every 20 seconds, needs to be dotted for so long, only so many debuffs work, let's throw mindless basement virgin after mindless basement virgin at the thing until it falls.

Will the Nemesis be the same way? Oh my you hit a plot trigger, he appears, we get a sweeping camera shot, pre scripted script rolls, we fight until he reaches 50 hp, he runs and we get another scene. "Till we meet again, Luciro Odium. MUHAHAHaahahdfrarragh!11!"

Animals will run from you right? At least? No boar and it's family aggroing just because I'm in range?