I remember when playing EQ and the first time I went to Kael I thought WOW these giants are huge, but I was disappointed that they had the same fighting animations as most mobs with hitting/punching. I want to see a change in how mobs fight back and how we react to it, as an example:
Giants – They should be able to pick us up and throw us a good distance away, or when they kick at us and connect we should fly backward and take significant damage. Or if we have them cornered they decided to kick their way out and run away a bit to regroup themselves.
Snakes – If they attack us they should hit us with poison, but also depending on the type of snake (Anaconda for instance…) they should wrap us up and constrict us until we either find a way to escape or die.
Ghosts – Perhaps they can’t be physically hit, but instead require casters to tank or do spell damage against. Or there could be weapons like EQ that were magic based that could hit them.
Spiders – Get caught in their web and you are slowed significantly, and perhaps a Spider can web you up and inject you with a paralyzing toxin...
Croc’s – If you attack them on Land they can drag you into the water and attempt to drown you, or they do the death roll and sever a body limb.
Humanoids – Should have vastly different techniques in terms of damaging players: Knights may use Lances and keep you at a distance, Bowmen fight from a distance…etc.…
These are just some examples of what I hope Pantheon Dev’s think about when designing gameplay with different mob types.
Rint
Rint,
There will be no spiders in Pantheon. Just repeat after me, "there will be no spiders in Pantheon." (Looks to make sure the devs hear this mantra). Snakes OK, spiders - no!
Other than that, interesting idea especially with ghosts. I wonder if the humanoid mobs will have healers that will attempt to heal their mob groups.
I would also love to see certain mobs with a tweaked AI so that they don't simply go after the tank spamming taunt. For example, some bandits on a road launch an assault, with several slipping by the melee characters to engage the spell slingers in the back to stop the AoE attacks. A necromancer rooting the tank and summoning undead to attack them while they drop DoTs on the squishier party members. Mobs with specific racial hatreds that target those races above and beyond others. All manner of other ideas!
Don't get me wrong with some of the above examples, I still think a tank should be able to win aggro, but it just should be harder in some cases in that the mobs already have their aggro directed at specific classes/races etc.
Sparks said:Rint,
There will be no spiders in Pantheon. Just repeat after me, "there will be no spiders in Pantheon." (Looks to make sure the devs hear this mantra). Snakes OK, spiders - no!
"Welcome to my web said the spider to the fly"
With that said, I hate spiders as much as the next person, but their creepy element adds to the immersive atmosphere I'm hoping for. Imagine running through the woods and a Trap-Door Spider lunges out at you and successfully grabs you, and within seconds you are in his tunnel being prepared as a meal. You can escape if you have your situational gear on that perhaps repels webbing so you can get out of his tunnel and either fight him above ground or run…
Say yes to spiders :)
Rint
Regarding humanoid mobs, i would love to see more groups of mobs setup as a trinity group and with AI instructions to fight like a well oiled machine! I would say without a doubt the human mobs will be based off the classes available to us, its just whether they actually spawn them as different classes in close vacinity so they fight as a group. I noticed in the twitch run it was a bunch of clerics together or a bunch of warriors together and not as much of a mix, but i also know that we are watching VERY early days! The one thing ESO did really well was throwing healers and archers and casters in the mix with there encounters so your group was always having to be on their toes to knock out those most dangerous mobs asap.
To the OP, All the things your mentioning are great ideas and would be nice to see, i am fairly confident this would be the way they are going anyways with a good chunk of what your saying, I can imagine a the croc dragging players into water and constricting python attack would be difficult to have an animation for that didnt look silly so these would be the tricky ones from the list to pull off. Alternatively (as per in our real earth world) having only highly venemous snakes in game means that none would constrict anyways :p
If you could get the animation good for a croc dragging people into water for a death roll I would love to see it, you could then use a root type spell as a way for the person to be saved by their group before they reach the water. Death roll is best served up with multiple crocs at once for maximum loss of limbs, they are not very skilled at severing limbs on their own!
I agree that humanoid based NPC’s should have good AI when dealing with players in combat; I always think about how good the AI’s use to be in games like Unreal, Doom…etc… Granted they are FPS games, but the AI they had was great in terms of tactics they used against players, and if the Pantheon Dev’s could mix up the mobs with support classes of their own that would be a nice addition to gameplay.
I also agree that an Anaconda animation would be difficult to do, but I don’t think it’s impossible to pull off. Imagine your buddy the Cleric throwing a heal on someone and the Anaconda jumps him and wraps him up to prevent him from throwing out additional heals on his group, but then additional mobs jump the other players who are quickly losing HP’s due to no heals from their Cleric.. It changes gameplay tactics a bit because the group will be forced to defend the cleric at the potential cost of their own life and hopefully freeing the Cleric in time to heal everyone… Other ideas for snakes would be a spiting Cobra that spits venom into player’s eyes which will blind the player and slowly cause poison damage, if a player doesn’t have a shield to block the spitting Cobra’s attempts they could be in for a world of hurt…
I love Croc’s in a game and would enjoy seeing them use some of their natural attack skills on players such as ambushing players who run to close to the water’s edge or decided to take a short-cut by swimming across a river or lake and then being attacked by a Croc. It would make players think about what spell (Enduring Breath…etc..) to have on them depending on the zone and perhaps type of armor. Heavy armor should not allow players to swim well if at all which would only help the Croc in drowning a player. I think if the dev’s could figure out how to create animations such as a Croc pulling a player into water in an attempt to drown them would be awesome… I could just imagine running through a zone and seeing a newbie screaming his head off for help as a Croc drags him to his death…
One last thing on Giants or Cyclops, it would be cool if they had a fatality move similar to a Death Touch but instead of hitting someone for 32k of damage they instead bit the head off of a player and spitted it out which instantly kills the player… This would make for some chilling stories players would share with one another….
Rint
Rint said:
Snakes – If they attack us they should hit us with poison, but also depending on the type of snake (Anaconda for instance…) they should wrap us up and constrict us until we either find a way to escape or die.
I agree with everyone, except snakes. In true EQ fashion, snakes should kick. Just kick.
LOL Spiders...Well I think we need as many nastys as we can get in the game. I am really curious on the AI piece. THat has been in otherthreadsbut mobs that think and are able do more than current MMO's would be awesome but that takes serious code and resources.
Did we have the equivalant of Raid in EQ?
Ox
Tralyan said:Rint said:
Snakes – If they attack us they should hit us with poison, but also depending on the type of snake (Anaconda for instance…) they should wrap us up and constrict us until we either find a way to escape or die.
I agree with everyone, except snakes. In true EQ fashion, snakes should kick. Just kick.
HAHHA "a snake, kicks you!"
Sparks said:Rint,
There will be no spiders in Pantheon. Just repeat after me, "there will be no spiders in Pantheon." (Looks to make sure the devs hear this mantra). Snakes OK, spiders - no!
Oh dear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTj5w6JN3zk
Some bad news wanders into the action at around the 4:00 mark
Hey Rint: I think there should be some Remorhaz. Their fighting style: Wait in the deep snow until you step near them, and then they jump out, melt your weapons and swallow you whole while you are trying to figure out if it's a snow dragon, a centipede, or a nasty 100 legged crab. And then your wife throws down the headset and says, "That's it! That was wayyyy to disgusting and creepy!"
Xaruk said:Sparks said:Rint,
There will be no spiders in Pantheon. Just repeat after me, "there will be no spiders in Pantheon." (Looks to make sure the devs hear this mantra). Snakes OK, spiders - no!
Oh dear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTj5w6JN3zk
Some bad news wanders into the action at around the 4:00 mark
Ugh!, large venemous spiders. OK, no matter which class I decide to play, my inventory is going to be filled with bug spray!
Going back to Rint's OP, it would be cool to have giants hurl objects. I would be interested in seeing intelligent mobs try to move out of AoEs. Would make it more interesting for the party to root or stun mobs before the wizards drop their AoEs.
JDNight said:Hey Rint: I think there should be some Remorhaz. Their fighting style: Wait in the deep snow until you step near them, and then they jump out, melt your weapons and swallow you whole while you are trying to figure out if it's a snow dragon, a centipede, or a nasty 100 legged crab. And then your wife throws down the headset and says, "That's it! That was wayyyy to disgusting and creepy!"
I posted these ugly buggers on another post... Freaky...
Another thought on fighting styles or more appropriately how mobs react when fighting players. A idea I’ve been thinking about, say a group of players are hunting giants and on a pull they get two of them running back to camp, the Enchanter mez’s one of them while the group finishes off the first one, but then a roamer giant happens by and decides to join the fight but before engaging with the players he decides to wake up his giant buddy who happens to be drooling away due to a mez. Now the group has 3 irate giants to deal with and the Enchanter decides to Mez the two additions and the Druid in the group adds a root to each mezzed giant to ensure they stay put. However, another roamer happens by and instead of joining the fight he works on waking up his giant pals and then begins beating on the roots keeping them in place.
What I’m getting at here is that monsters such as Giants or what not should be smart enough to assist their giant friends as needed. As an example in EQ if a group is fighting humanoid mobs and one of them is a healer the healer mob will always (or mostly) cast a heal on his buddy during their fight with the players. I just think it should go further than a heal and monsters should assist their race in other ways like waking them up if they are mezzed, or break a root, or calling in reinforcements…etc…
Rint