Let the mobs roam FREE!!!! (within reason of course)

Gidorick

While I understand that mobs have to spawn somewhere, I don't get why they have stand around and wait to be attacked and be stuck to a limited radius. It would create a much more interesting world if the mobs just ran around randomly. Perhaps they end up fighting each other, or they group together to form a little... uhm... mob of mobs. This would make the world much more dynamic.

While I get that certain mobs should be constrained to certain areas (zombies in the graveyard), this doesn't mean each mob within that area needs to be in it's own little pocket. Open it up and let them free!

I know this has been spoken about in other threads but I've never seen a thread dedicated to this concept. Is there a technical reason this cant be done? Would the dynamic locations of mobs just be too much information for the servers to be constantly feeding to clients?

Kuro1n

Technical limitations is my educated guess.

spoqster

100% with you. And have them spawn in camps instead of just appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the world. It's terrible for immersion if a mob just appears in front of you and it takes away any sense of achievement if you can't ever clear an area.

Froggmann5

For lore reasons, it would be odd to see some mobs outside of where they're supposed to be. Why would I ever see a Betty Netch up near Riften?

Additionally, Technical Limitations I would presume.

Gidorick

Froggmann5 wrote: »

For lore reasons, it would be odd to see some mobs outside of where they're supposed to be. Why would I ever see a Betty Netch up near Riften?

Additionally, Technical Limitations I would presume.

Gidorick wrote: »

While I get that certain mobs should be constrained to certain areas (zombies in the graveyard), this doesn't mean each mob within that area needs to be in it's own little pocket. Open it up and let them free!

To use the zombies in the graveyard idea... make it so that the zombies roam the graveyard freely. As it is right now, they just kind of stand there and wait for you to attack them. Sometimes I see a little more mobility, but its the exception, not the rule.

And dungeons! It would make for a lot more tense experience if you had NO idea where the mobs have congregated... and if they are all together or what! Each dungeon run would be different.

Kuro1n

The mobs at this point walks around a bit but what you are suggesting bring a lot of issues most likely.

First, imagine how much QQ there would be when people died to mobs who had grouped up.

Second, imagine how annoying it would be to find questmobs which had walked away from the zone (if there are no boundaries).

Third, I am not sure how mob spawns are treated now and loading but if mobs of a whole map can be found anywhere in the map I assume they would need to be streamed in, the game is most likely managed in the way that it unloads things that are not supposed to be where you currently are to save memory etc. Also there would be a bit more work for the servers to handle mobs moving around freely I suppose.

WIth that said, yeah I agree it would be interesting but I do not think ESO is the game for this. ESO is a rather casual MMO and not a fantasy life simulator even though it does a great deal of a better job than the majority of games out there.

UrQuan

Well, we have larger areas where certain types of mobs are found. The graveyard example is a good one: there are several graveyards scattered around, and within those graveyards you find undead mobs. Each small group of mobs seems to have a small area within the graveyard where they spawn and they never go far beyond that small area (except when chasing players).

I think OP is suggesting that rather than tether each mob (or small group of 2-4 mobs) to a small area within the bigger area in which those groups of mobs are found, just tether them all to the bigger area, and let them wander randomly within it. They can still spawn in the same spots (or something different could be done to make them spawn in more logical places in some cases), but let them wander the larger area.

I'd agree that this would be significantly more interesting.

Gidorick

@UrQuan‌ get's what I'm saying. I'm not saying let all mobs in a zone run wild wherever they please, but allow them to roam freely in their respective areas.

The "annoyances" of a difficult mass of mobs that have gathered together and having to actually search for a specific mob for a quest that has roamed about seem more like gameplay enhancements to me.

duckrustlerb16_ESO

I am envisaging a scenario where you are sent to said graveyard to kill 10 undead. Unfortunately the undead are running around the edges of the boundary on the opposite side to you and so from the players perspective they will be convinced the game has bugged and they are nowhere to be found as even running in a big circle they cannot find anything to kill.

From a game perspective players need to be given a good idea where it is reasonably practicable to find their targets with little issue (especially if the boundary includes the sea and they(the beasties) all wander into deep water so are well and truly hidden from sight)

Gidorick

duckrustlerb16_ESO wrote: »

I am envisaging a scenario where you are sent to said graveyard to kill 10 undead. Unfortunately the undead are running around the edges of the boundary on the opposite side to you and so from the players perspective they will be convinced the game has bugged and they are nowhere to be found as even running in a big circle they cannot find anything to kill.

From a game perspective players need to be given a good idea where it is reasonably practicable to find their targets with little issue (especially if the boundary includes the sea and they(the beasties) all wander into deep water so are well and truly hidden from sight)

These issues could all be ironed out with some pretty rudimentary AI, but you are right... there would have to be something in place to make the movement "natural".

Shunravi

duckrustlerb16_ESO wrote: »

I am envisaging a scenario where you are sent to said graveyard to kill 10 undead. Unfortunately the undead are running around the edges of the boundary on the opposite side to you and so from the players perspective they will be convinced the game has bugged and they are nowhere to be found as even running in a big circle they cannot find anything to kill.

From a game perspective players need to be given a good idea where it is reasonably practicable to find their targets with little issue (especially if the boundary includes the sea and they(the beasties) all wander into deep water so are well and truly hidden from sight)

You know what would be interesting with this? What if they are all on the other side and out of sight, but when you enter their zone, the detect you and start coming for you like a 'real' undead swarm.

Gidorick

Shunravi wrote: »

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duckrustlerb16_ESO wrote: »

I am envisaging a scenario where you are sent to said graveyard to kill 10 undead. Unfortunately the undead are running around the edges of the boundary on the opposite side to you and so from the players perspective they will be convinced the game has bugged and they are nowhere to be found as even running in a big circle they cannot find anything to kill.

From a game perspective players need to be given a good idea where it is reasonably practicable to find their targets with little issue (especially if the boundary includes the sea and they(the beasties) all wander into deep water so are well and truly hidden from sight)

You know what would be interesting with this? What if they are all on the other side and out of sight, but when you enter their zone, the detect you and start coming for you like a 'real' undead swarm.

lol. that would be terrifying... and awesome.

duckrustlerb16_ESO

Shunravi wrote: »

You know what would be interesting with this? What if they are all on the other side and out of sight, but when you enter their zone, the detect you and start coming for you like a 'real' undead swarm.

Apart from having to run an AI script simultaneously on 10000+ mobs around the maps this would still not solve anything. If they mobbed towards a player then a high level player who was charging through the zone on a horse to save a few coins while running to a shard would draw away all the mobs and likely slaughter them all, so again we are left with a player having no mobs to kill.

Really having the mobs more or less stay put is likely the best option as no real amount of AI can be given to an individual entity when there are so many to manage at any one time.

Beasties already have an aggression factor which draws them in to attack you if you get within a certain range so that is probably the best we can hope for.

Edit to add: Possibly if a players client could ask the server to generate a mob as they entered an area and manage the mob AI then server load would be reduced considerably and far more options could be entertained.

UrQuan

Shunravi wrote: »

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duckrustlerb16_ESO wrote: »

I am envisaging a scenario where you are sent to said graveyard to kill 10 undead. Unfortunately the undead are running around the edges of the boundary on the opposite side to you and so from the players perspective they will be convinced the game has bugged and they are nowhere to be found as even running in a big circle they cannot find anything to kill.

From a game perspective players need to be given a good idea where it is reasonably practicable to find their targets with little issue (especially if the boundary includes the sea and they(the beasties) all wander into deep water so are well and truly hidden from sight)

You know what would be interesting with this? What if they are all on the other side and out of sight, but when you enter their zone, the detect you and start coming for you like a 'real' undead swarm.

That would be kind of cool. Actually, that raises another issue I have with mobs in ESO: they all seem to have very poor eyesight. They don't notice you until you're really close. IMO if you're not sneaking, and they aren't facing away from you, if you can get close enough to hit them with a standard bow attack, they should see you and start coming after you.

AshySamurai

Well, generally I agree with OP. But sometimes it's logical that mobs don't go away like wasps should be only near their hive. Or some guardians can't leave their post and go collect bunch of herbs. So, most wild creatures should travel through large area, but not all npc's.

jdroebuckb16_ESO

Ultima Online had mobs like this. They didn't have pre-determined spawn positions decided by the devs. I don't think it is a technical limitation, it is instead a game design to put the difficulty of the game on rails for the player.

The devs are the game masters and they put 1-3 mob groups in static positions. They then add "wandering adds" that always walk the same route. This is a pretty boring and standard mechanic in all recent MMORPG.

If you let the mobs do what they want you do get interesting stuff. In Ultima Online you would get massive swarms of mobs that have wandered accross into one area of the dungeon. So you could go in and see nothing then be mobbed by hundreds of them. You then had to try thin them out before you could progress further into the dungeon (assuming you didn't have a recall rune).

You would typically know that certain mobs lived in certain areas and they would use walls/gates to try keep zombies etc from wandering too far. However, you would sometimes get ettins and ogres who managed to path find their way to city boundaries and get wacked by guards.

I can;t believe that no one can take the UO fomula and improve upon it. ESO has pretty much taken the skill system from UO (i.e. use to improve) so I would have loved to have seen more freedom on the mobs in the same way. In fact, the skill system of use to improve just gets bypassed as people load up a "training" hotbar and then swap out to that just before they hand in quests... which I absolutely hate but I do it to train my skills. I prefer it if you just get experience for skills you use... and that is it.

Shunravi

duckrustlerb16_ESO wrote: »

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Shunravi wrote: »

You know what would be interesting with this? What if they are all on the other side and out of sight, but when you enter their zone, the detect you and start coming for you like a 'real' undead swarm.

Apart from having to run an AI script simultaneously on 10000+ mobs around the maps this would still not solve anything. If they mobbed towards a player then a high level player who was charging through the zone on a horse to save a few coins while running to a shard would draw away all the mobs and likely slaughter them all, so again we are left with a player having no mobs to kill.

Really having the mobs more or less stay put is likely the best option as no real amount of AI can be given to an individual entity when there are so many to manage at any one time.

Beasties already have an aggression factor which draws them in to attack you if you get within a certain range so that is probably the best we can hope for.

Edit to add: Possibly if a players client could ask the server to generate a mob as they entered an area and manage the mob AI then server load would be reduced considerably and far more options could be entertained.

Well, of course. I'm just exploring the idea.

It doesn't have to be all swarms all the time. They could code in a few basic ai perimeters (with other appropriate code) such as 'must remain within x of spawn' 'must maintain distance between minimum distance x and maximum distance y from mobs of *type*'. Any time a minimum distance is achieved, the mobs could go into 'idle' for a few seconds to prevent clustering and walking in place.

Do you think that would make for more dynamic mob activity?

jdroebuckb16_ESO

It's 100% possible - just against the norm.

technohic

Froggmann5 wrote: »

For lore reasons, it would be odd to see some mobs outside of where they're supposed to be. Why would I ever see a Betty Netch up near Riften?

Additionally, Technical Limitations I would presume.

It doesn't have to be across zones, but even parts of the same zone. Would be kind of cool if some things would just pursue you for a long ways and not just get one hit then turn around.

Kaizxen

Some NPCs are already scripted to have natural-looking idle actions (like a bandit looking through a corpse's pockets or a Senche eating a deer). I'd think mobs could be given a list of idle animations that they rotate through, rather than staying in a static location. That would at least give an illusion of realism to the mobs, as a compromise between truly randomized paths and the static locations and idles they have now.

Another example of behavior that could be made more realistic:

When invading a bandit camp, the other bandits nearby should react somehow to the fact that there's a fight going on. Right now, the aggro radius is very narrow. Attack one mob, and only mobs standing right beside it will be aggro'ed.

I think it would be really fun if nearby groups were given an "alert" level that gradually increased as the player fights the current mobs. The longer a fight takes, the more agitated the neighboring mobs get until they finally jump in to help their allies. This could be done to mimic line of sight and/or "hearing" based on distance.

It makes no sense for bandits to ignore a fight in their camp when they should clearly be aware of it.

Anyway...probably pipe dreams, but it's fun to imagine.

Rook_Master

If mobs weren't tethered I could get absolutely ridiculous pulls for AoE XP Grinding.

Nestor

I like the way it is now. If I want to fight just a 2 or 3 mob, I can do that. If I want to kite together a large group to fight at once I can do that too.

If the mobs were tethered and could not be gathered into a large group, that would be a problem for me.

Gidorick

Kaizxen wrote: »

Some NPCs are already scripted to have natural-looking idle actions (like a bandit looking through a corpse's pockets or a Senche eating a deer). I'd think mobs could be given a list of idle animations that they rotate through, rather than staying in a static location. That would at least give an illusion of realism to the mobs, as a compromise between truly randomized paths and the static locations and idles they have now.

Another example of behavior that could be made more realistic:

When invading a bandit camp, the other bandits nearby should react somehow to the fact that there's a fight going on. Right now, the aggro radius is very narrow. Attack one mob, and only mobs standing right beside it will be aggro'ed.

I think it would be really fun if nearby groups were given an "alert" level that gradually increased as the player fights the current mobs. The longer a fight takes, the more agitated the neighboring mobs get until they finally jump in to help their allies. This could be done to mimic line of sight and/or "hearing" based on distance.

It makes no sense for bandits to ignore a fight in their camp when they should clearly be aware of it.

Anyway...probably pipe dreams, but it's fun to imagine.

I love your ideas. The addition of idle animations would be great, as would the "alert" status of nearby mobs.

Kaizxen

@‌Nestor With the OP's suggestion of area-based tethering, you'd probably be able to gather larger groups than you can now.

Actually, the major drawback for some players would be having to pull carefully all the time, since you could potentially pull an entire camp of enemies if you're not paying attention.

SanderBuraas

I agree. This should be implemented. Similar to how the npcs in towns move around and do chores, the mobs in the wilderness should also be able to move around in their respective areas. They should spawn as they do now, but they should have ai when they are not in combat. That would be great, especially in dungeons.

Gidorick

Smepic wrote: »

I agree. This should be implemented. Similar to how the npcs in towns move around and do chores, the mobs in the wilderness should also be able to move around in their respective areas. They should spawn as they do now, but they should have ai when they are not in combat. That would be great, especially in dungeons.

I can see it now. You enter a dungeon that you've been in before... go down the main hall, where you've been a couple mobs before, and it's empty. You go into the first room and it's empty. At that point you think to yourself, "aw crap... where are there?"

This would be so great!

Yemeth

I agree ! We need more possibilities and life in this game.

jdroebuckb16_ESO

@Gidorick‌ That is exactly the feeling I was on about from UO even though the game was well outdated by today comparison.

FPS MMRPG such as defiance, whereas not brilliant have some cool mob AI. If one of the scouts see you then it will run off and try sound an alarm, after which the rest of the mobs are alerted to your presence and will hunt you down within the area you are. If you leave their "area" (i.e. their base) then they will tend to give up chasing you but some mobs are persistent by character and will either pursue you until you are dead or they are.

The reason its not typically done in your standard MMORPG is because it is relatively hard to get right and they are scared that people will think the game is too hard. You wouldn't be able to pick off enemies a mob group at a time and you could end up getting swarmed and killed if you recklessly plough in. It also requires a bit more thought about mob AI which is often relatively low on these types of games radar.

There has been an absolutely insane improvement in machine AI over the last 5+ years but for some reasons gaming seems to be really behind the curve and I am not just talking about ESO. I just think that Devs who are pressurised to make a game that makes money just don't see good mob AI as value for money compared to other items they could be working on.

Sad but true...

JKorr

Last night in the Rift I saw someone running, followed by three sabercats, two zombies, and a handful of assorted cultists. They finally hit the end of their "tether" and turned back. Until they managed to get back, there were no enemies in their "designated zones". While it might be convenient at times to have clear areas, I'd rather not have enemies migrating all over the map.

Gidorick wrote: »

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Smepic wrote: »

I agree. This should be implemented. Similar to how the npcs in towns move around and do chores, the mobs in the wilderness should also be able to move around in their respective areas. They should spawn as they do now, but they should have ai when they are not in combat. That would be great, especially in dungeons.

I can see it now. You enter a dungeon that you've been in before... go down the main hall, where you've been a couple mobs before, and it's empty. You go into the first room and it's empty. At that point you think to yourself, "aw crap... where are there?"

This would be so great!

No big secret; all the mobs are following the last player through the area. Figure they will be in the end rooms; either standing over the last player's body or milling around where the last player escaped through the door since they aren't tethered to a specific area anymore. :shrug:

ashlee17

jdroebuckb16_ESO wrote: »

@Gidorick‌ That is exactly the feeling I was on about from UO even though the game was well outdated by today comparison.

FPS MMRPG such as defiance, whereas not brilliant have some cool mob AI. If one of the scouts see you then it will run off and try sound an alarm, after which the rest of the mobs are alerted to your presence and will hunt you down within the area you are. If you leave their "area" (i.e. their base) then they will tend to give up chasing you but some mobs are persistent by character and will either pursue you until you are dead or they are.

The reason its not typically done in your standard MMORPG is because it is relatively hard to get right and they are scared that people will think the game is too hard. You wouldn't be able to pick off enemies a mob group at a time and you could end up getting swarmed and killed if you recklessly plough in. It also requires a bit more thought about mob AI which is often relatively low on these types of games radar.

Interesting thread OP. Sounds like fun I would love to see ESO try something like this. But now all I can think about is that I should try out UO and defiance to see what it's like

Static mobs are boring..

NotSo

Ragnarok Online had mobs that would spawn on random coordinates inside a given area, their AI would plot a random point within x distance and they would walk there and wait for a couple seconds, then repeat. In some rare cases their pathing would not allow them to leave a certain area but most of the time they just wandered to the edge of the map. The random marching around led to some areas of maps being completely deserted and other areas being completely packed full.
Though some people might not think this is ideal, I found it to be [snip] great because mobs weren't distributed evenly and they often gave you a scare when you accidentally walk into a group of 10+ (up to 50) and you have to high tail it out of there.
The random spawning also caused some jump scares when they spawn right behind you. ESO has a buffer between when they spawn and when they react, but they always spawn in the same defined location which feels kind of sucky. The wrong with it is after you figure out that all mobs spawn in the exact same place every time, ESO feels more like a game and less like a world.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]