Junts
10-13-2009, 06:07 PM
Our discussion of all this kind of sidetracked the general epic feedback thread, so I thought I'd just make a place to list ideas that are, or might, be possible within our DDO experiences to make the mobs entertainingly nasty.
1: Casters with better spell selections and more nasty sequencing. Our AI already supports the mob recognizing that spells that are immune/blocked by resistance. Instead of simply switching to another, less effective, attack, lets have some mobs who respond to their best attack (sequences!) being blocked by using dispel magic .. greater dispel, energy drain, finger of death/hold/etc. Lets have casters who pick their spell sequences the way that we players do. Our constantly buffed nature doesn't help that much already in quests like Offering of Blood where the mobs spam greater dispels .. what if they were following those greater dispels with actually harmful spells instead of acid arrows and soundbursts and hold persons? This is all it takes to make enemy casters seriously dangerous.
2: Better use of buffing mobs. The dynamic in enter the kobold where the shamen cast mass deathward, or some of the ranger mobs in Wrath of the Flame that freedom themselves, are excellent. We need mobs that respond to webs by throwing freedoms on each other, that respond to a mob being fingered with a mass deathward. Many of our attacks are powerful because regular mobs don't make good use of their own buffs. Static immunities are a poor method .. the mobs already have access to basic immunity buffs, and they don't even use them. Make 'em smarter! Remember, players almost never carry greater dispel magic; mobs that are simply smart enough to cast the right buffs will make themselves immune to whatever we've chosen to attack them. You don't need to make every gnoll immune to instakills if the gnoll shamen's smart enough to cast mass death ward when the first gnoll gets fingered or energy drained.
3: Give mobs more special attacks. The trog stalkers in shavarath with wounding weaposn are cool, but lets make abilities like Glorious stand's immunity to specials more important. We already have Kai-Teng Fairuza and his assorted weaponry, but very few other mobs have typed weapons of any kind. Give mobs (improved!) destruction weapons and cursespewing weapons. Give them vorpals (if mobs are smart enough to dispel, we might not rebuff .. or be forced to waste an equipment slot on deathblock, even being immune to the ability has a cost), give them stat damage weapons, give them paralyzing weapons. We might be immune to some or all of this some of the time, but its extra stuff to worry about, more buffs to cast, and more things that will work when we get dispelled. mob special attacks in ddo mostly consist of 1d6 elementals added to melee attacks and all the cursed wound abilities. Lets see some more.
4: While I think it would be a mistake to adjust aggro too much (if mobs are smart, we really do need them to be somewhat controllable, after all), there are some mobs out there with really screwball aggro behaviors that could stand to be changed. Some mummies home in on clerics like its going out of style (a good idea), and some mummies stand and/or walk in place for extended periods and don't attack anyone. Bearded devils are some of the biggest offenders, bouncing aggro so mcuh taht they often spend more time teleporting back and forth and running to different party members than they do attacking .. not only is it annoying, but it means they don't actually do that much damage. Bearded devils are 5 times more dangerous solo when they are only able to attack you, because they attack faster and with better to-hits than orthons do .. but in groups, the barbazu are hardly an issue, because they are so busy rotating aggro through 4 people that they don't stay on a target long enough to kill it in many cases. The number of times I've seen a character at 40 hp live because the bearded devil that would have killed them teleported to attack someone else for no reason is just kind of sad, and it makes the mobs far less dangerous than they otherwise would be.
I know not all these suggestions will be easy to do, but I think some of them are (just changing spell selection patterns within the existing spell caster ais) and they'd go a long way to making things more challenging.
Lets see some more, people.
1: Casters with better spell selections and more nasty sequencing. Our AI already supports the mob recognizing that spells that are immune/blocked by resistance. Instead of simply switching to another, less effective, attack, lets have some mobs who respond to their best attack (sequences!) being blocked by using dispel magic .. greater dispel, energy drain, finger of death/hold/etc. Lets have casters who pick their spell sequences the way that we players do. Our constantly buffed nature doesn't help that much already in quests like Offering of Blood where the mobs spam greater dispels .. what if they were following those greater dispels with actually harmful spells instead of acid arrows and soundbursts and hold persons? This is all it takes to make enemy casters seriously dangerous.
2: Better use of buffing mobs. The dynamic in enter the kobold where the shamen cast mass deathward, or some of the ranger mobs in Wrath of the Flame that freedom themselves, are excellent. We need mobs that respond to webs by throwing freedoms on each other, that respond to a mob being fingered with a mass deathward. Many of our attacks are powerful because regular mobs don't make good use of their own buffs. Static immunities are a poor method .. the mobs already have access to basic immunity buffs, and they don't even use them. Make 'em smarter! Remember, players almost never carry greater dispel magic; mobs that are simply smart enough to cast the right buffs will make themselves immune to whatever we've chosen to attack them. You don't need to make every gnoll immune to instakills if the gnoll shamen's smart enough to cast mass death ward when the first gnoll gets fingered or energy drained.
3: Give mobs more special attacks. The trog stalkers in shavarath with wounding weaposn are cool, but lets make abilities like Glorious stand's immunity to specials more important. We already have Kai-Teng Fairuza and his assorted weaponry, but very few other mobs have typed weapons of any kind. Give mobs (improved!) destruction weapons and cursespewing weapons. Give them vorpals (if mobs are smart enough to dispel, we might not rebuff .. or be forced to waste an equipment slot on deathblock, even being immune to the ability has a cost), give them stat damage weapons, give them paralyzing weapons. We might be immune to some or all of this some of the time, but its extra stuff to worry about, more buffs to cast, and more things that will work when we get dispelled. mob special attacks in ddo mostly consist of 1d6 elementals added to melee attacks and all the cursed wound abilities. Lets see some more.
4: While I think it would be a mistake to adjust aggro too much (if mobs are smart, we really do need them to be somewhat controllable, after all), there are some mobs out there with really screwball aggro behaviors that could stand to be changed. Some mummies home in on clerics like its going out of style (a good idea), and some mummies stand and/or walk in place for extended periods and don't attack anyone. Bearded devils are some of the biggest offenders, bouncing aggro so mcuh taht they often spend more time teleporting back and forth and running to different party members than they do attacking .. not only is it annoying, but it means they don't actually do that much damage. Bearded devils are 5 times more dangerous solo when they are only able to attack you, because they attack faster and with better to-hits than orthons do .. but in groups, the barbazu are hardly an issue, because they are so busy rotating aggro through 4 people that they don't stay on a target long enough to kill it in many cases. The number of times I've seen a character at 40 hp live because the bearded devil that would have killed them teleported to attack someone else for no reason is just kind of sad, and it makes the mobs far less dangerous than they otherwise would be.
I know not all these suggestions will be easy to do, but I think some of them are (just changing spell selection patterns within the existing spell caster ais) and they'd go a long way to making things more challenging.
Lets see some more, people.