Whats with Mob AI....Chase, Pop-Shot, Disengage

marshill88

I was wondering about the AI in nearly every mob of the game...

1. Mob aggroed, give chase to player.
2. If Mob reaches point X, disengagement is guaranteed, however, continue to chase player.
3. If Mob reaches point Y, then immediately disengage, become invincible, and return.

However, there is a soft zone between point X and Y where the following AI seems universal:

1. Mob reached point X, now attempt to take a pop-shot at the player
2. If pop-shot is successful, immediately disengage and retreat, and ignore any retaliation while being invincible.... Mob got his pop-shot.
3. If there has been no pop-shot AND point Y has not yet been reached, continue chasing until pop-shot can be obtained.

I'm trying to understand this AI. and why it is so universal. I think an item on my wish list for a better game experience it would be super nice to have mob AI be more varied so that it doesn't always behave in the exact same way. Do others here think that in addition to the AI described above, if we had, say, a dozen other AI routines and spread different AI routines across mobs that combat would be much more interesting?

The Pop-Shot AI routine is more annoying that anything else and I can't really see the tactical reasons behind it, unless I'm missing something? It would be interesting to hear from players who have been around a long time on their take.

marshill88

I should further add...

Once a mob has reached the soft-zone between X and Y, it is now an invincible mob. This mob cannot be killed under any circumstance. The only purpose for this mob at this point is to disrupt you.

I don't understand why this AI routine for mobs even exist at all...? Or since it exists, why it applies to all mobs and maybe not just a few mobs? If I now have an invincible mob whose sole purpose at this moment in time is to disrupt me/annoy me, is that not a component of the game that has no real utility?

I guess I don't mind this AI if it was only one possible routine, but the fact that nearly ALL mobs in the game use this routine, it feels questionable and I'm not understanding the point of it.

Ackwalan

There has to be a limit on how far they will chase, otherwise you would have trains 100 mobs deep running after some chucklehead. There are two things that can happen when a mob reaches their limit. If they do not have an attack in queue, they turn around and go home. If they have an attack in queue, they will attempt to clear that queue before turning back. When trying to clear that queue, they are basically "out of play" so that can't be killed, just clear that queue and return. There is no real game play reason for this, it is just the way the code was done.