What PVE and NPC do you want?

[Phen]

Just reaching out wondering what everyone would like to see in MO2 for better PVE/NPC upgrades. I'm sure most of us followers of Mortal have seen they WILL be making updates and having more in depth AI. So my question is what would you like to see?

I personally would like to see AI agro system of some sort. In such a way where a simple attack at a pig would make other pigs within the area "worried/feared" about you. Then to the other side of that, you tame pigs by feeding them and nearby pigs will see you feeding giving pigs and "trust" would be gained to increase ease for the tamer in the area, for an example. More aggressive AI would be able to organize in numbers, retreat when hurt, focus heals, and possibly run their own tasks instead of standing awaiting death. Lastly my favorite part of adding agro like pve would be that NPCs could have a role (Marcus if I remembered his heads name) and be positive or negative about something you did or you're a part of. Could also be applied to player made NPCs to help defend areas when players arent online or are... Plus adding NPC interactions with other NPCs, ( like dinner time, idk) giving them real roles as well as a more in depth reaction to players based on how they treat and work with the NPC. ( Kinda how mass effect did the loyity thing, just better.)

Welp! Those are some of my ideas of what I think could be awesome to have implemented. I do understand some of the ideas are alittle much, although I feel the more we can give them for ideas the higher chances we will see these actually happen!

Sooo whatcha guys and gals think, want and feel we need?

 

[Neftan]

Check out my NPC and AI suggestion thread. I'd like to include some of your ideas in it if that is alright.

 

[Rhias]

In my opinion NPC's should not take over the roles of players and provide only a minimal scope of functionality.

But I think AI for wildlife/monsters is really important.
- directional attacks from monsters.
- dodgeable attacks (by moving) e.g. some monster charges you and you take a few steps to the site -> the monster should miss you.
- "freely" roaming monsters (not fixed paths but large areas). How cool would it be if you walk through the jungle and a panther sneaks on you and suddenly attacks you. Or crocodiles roaming rivers.
Just to add some "danger" to the world.
- rare "alpha" monsters that provide a special increased loot table to make roaming more attractive, instead of farming for hours on the same spawn.
- more of those hiding monsters that are currently only available on Sarducaa (lesser charul). They are damn cool!

 

[Phen]

Check out my NPC and AI suggestion thread. I'd like to include some of your ideas in it if that is alright.

You are very welcome to use any ideas of mine! I played for the players and will continue to do so. I'll post more in depth on your posts when I complete the ideas. When talking AI, NPC, Mobs, ect... tons go into it and this post isnt for that.

Though I do wanna say for this post. I prefer to see ideas in a more broad spectrum. We could get into particular topics as you have already posted on. Although I'm looking to see what others inspire to see in Mortal. I've read though some of your posts. You have good ideas and potential to help the game. My goal with this post is to hear ideas from others without being overly detailed on how its achieved.

It's been mentioned, they will start with no magic and less mounts then before, making veterans have an idea of what may come next based on previously playing MO1 through it's time. Overall I'm trying to stay on page with them and not jump too far ahead. They want to take the long road again, one step at a time, and I'm happy to work with them at that rate.
Sense I'm not able to play alpha at this time, I can't speak toward some other mechanics you folks are playing with already.. ;( although open ideas can make a great difference in the future of any player driven game. Got any ideas you wanna float this way?

 

[Phen]

In my opinion NPC's should not take over the roles of players and provide only a minimal scope of functionality.

But I think AI for wildlife/monsters is really important.
- directional attacks from monsters.
- dodgeable attacks (by moving) e.g. some monster charges you and you take a few steps to the site -> the monster should miss you.
- "freely" roaming monsters (not fixed paths but large areas). How cool would it be if you walk through the jungle and a panther sneaks on you and suddenly attacks you. Or crocodiles roaming rivers.
Just to add some "danger" to the world.
- rare "alpha" monsters that provide a special increased loot table to make roaming more attractive, instead of farming for hours on the same spawn.
- more of those hiding monsters that are currently only available on Sarducaa (lesser charul). They are damn cool!

Oh yeah, I see lots of upgrades to PVE AI. The upgrade to UE4 should give them the boost they wanted for years to allow those kind of AI upgrades.

What I was aim at for NPCs playing a role is that it's a role of their own. As a banker is a banker, 9-5 and closes at dusk then goes home kind of thing. Using time to simulate a life for the NPC. Then as villages are made they become a community who works together, eat, sleeps, although they are still just a NPC with a whatever particular thing they do, they gain a daily interactive life.

 

[Speznat]

Oh yeah, I see lots of upgrades to PVE AI. The upgrade to UE4 should give them the boost they wanted for years to allow those kind of AI upgrades.

What I was aim at for NPCs playing a role is that it's a role of their own. As a banker is a banker, 9-5 and closes at dusk then goes home kind of thing. Using time to simulate a life for the NPC. Then as villages are made they become a community who works together, eat, sleeps, although they are still just a NPC with a whatever particular thing they do, they gain a daily interactive life.

but make bankers and npc's you need 24/7 take shifts, so they ar ealways around and available but oyu cna have a flying change and the world feel more alive.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

Oh yeah, I see lots of upgrades to PVE AI. The upgrade to UE4 should give them the boost they wanted for years to allow those kind of AI upgrades.

What I was aim at for NPCs playing a role is that it's a role of their own. As a banker is a banker, 9-5 and closes at dusk then goes home kind of thing. Using time to simulate a life for the NPC. Then as villages are made they become a community who works together, eat, sleeps, although they are still just a NPC with a whatever particular thing they do, they gain a daily interactive life.

I would so love to see this in MO2. SV please make it happen.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

but make bankers and npc's you need 24/7 take shifts, so they ar ealways around and available but oyu cna have a flying change and the world feel more alive.

Maybe they could have family members or colleagues who take night shifts to do the same job while the daytime npc goes to sleep. That way, every shop is open 24/7.

 

[Alrashid]

I want some more underwater content with real mobs there ... that are swimming there ... Not like mo1 landmobs that run on the ground and Hit from Miles away

 

[Rhias]

I want some more underwater content with real mobs there ... that are swimming there ... Not like mo1 landmobs that run on the ground and Hit from Miles away

Or those buggy fishes. They were awful to fight!

 

[Phen]

but make bankers and npc's you need 24/7 take shifts, so they ar ealways around and available but oyu cna have a flying change and the world feel more alive.

Well let's open to the realm of depositing. You could still drop things into your bank or remove by being at the location of as like MO1 and have wondering NPCs that are around the area that give you another point of depositing.
Although, I believe in a semi realistic hardcore game. Night time should be dangerous and harsher time. Based on some real aspects like no commoners being out at night, less guards, maybe different mobs appear at night and less day mobs are around.
Overall using the day and night cycles to track and correspond with a new start of Mortal history. Giving us real dates ( based on live game time), scheduled events, maybe then politics can play a deeper role in NPC cities as well as player made cities.
I do see where you are coming from, eventhough many ways around your objection, and my first thought is to have major cities running a 24/7 life, but that definitely takes from the real feeling when you can do everything day or night.
Love the objection by the way!! Gave me a better idea on how explain this in a future post!❤

 

[Phen]

Or those buggy fishes. They were awful to fight!

I want some more underwater content with real mobs there ... that are swimming there ... Not like mo1 landmobs that run on the ground and Hit from Miles away

Let's put some ideas together guys!! They know what we didnt like, rarely are we reaching out with proper suggestions to overcome the feedback of "this suck".

Now to guess here some ( I stopped playing MO1 when, at most you find treasure in the water.. at most.... ) cuase I havent been on for awhile. Seeing boats and swimming with fish would be amazing! They said boats are going to be a huge part of the game because the lands arent going to be all connected. One is mentioned to be underwater!! With all the ideas they have, vs. what I would like to see. Boats w/ docking system, fish mobs that you can interact with like a regular mob, and a better fishing system.

What are you're improving suggesting?

 

[ThaBadMan]

Yeah I want MO NPCs to live in the world, but also considering vendors to in that case have shifts where one goes home or something while the other takes his job.
Real mobs and wildlife living their life as if not being there waiting for players to slaughter them.

Camps and dungeons to have guard duty where they walk around and if spotting someone calling the alarm for a real defense.

They shouldnt be braindead empty shells until players make them alive by interacting with them.

 

[barcode]

springboks used to be skittish back in the day, but it made it so nobody could kill them since they just ran off. having this happen sounds like an interesting game mechanic but it just didnt work in practice.

sv used to talk about pve with a kind of 'bravery' stat, where if a single creature is confronted with a heavily geared team of players, it might run off rather than fight. how many players and how good their gear/stats/etc would have to be varied from creature to creature. I think it proved too difficult so it was just scrapped. now springboks are fearless

-barcode

 

[Phen]

springboks used to be skittish back in the day, but it made it so nobody could kill them since they just ran off. having this happen sounds like an interesting game mechanic but it just didnt work in practice.

sv used to talk about pve with a kind of 'bravery' stat, where if a single creature is confronted with a heavily geared team of players, it might run off rather than fight. how many players and how good their gear/stats/etc would have to be varied from creature to creature. I think it proved too difficult so it was just scrapped. now springboks are fearless

-barcode

Well now lets not doubt the original idea they had. When simple mobs are being looked at. Personally I think they had the right idea, just not the system to support such complexity. I used UE3 for a while and UE4 has so much more to offer. Just coding alone is a lot more plug and play than the older system. So to say your wrong wouldnt be right, cuase yea.... they didn't have a system capable of achieving those original ideas.

I'm excited to see the new mobs. I feel the new system will be used for them to have personalities, better movements, and hopefully somewhat life like with a more realistic experience. We all know there will be trail and errors as they go, even staying that, we all know it wont be the same. My question is what would you like to see? I would say "bravery / trust " system would be awesome!

 

[KermyWormy]

I just want them to at the beginning at least just keep it as simple as possible, but functional and engaging. Humanoid NPCs should move and attack as similarly to the players as possible meaning left and right swings, overhead and stab if it suits their weapon. They should attempt to block telegraphed swings directionally, and move in and out of melee range if it makes sense. SV should tune these basics and get them as tight and fluid and engaging as possible and then when that's all good think about adding more varying complexities to the encounters.

Last Oasis has done a pretty good job at this where you're fighting the Rupu's which are like monkey people, but they do all the same moves, attacking and blocking, that a players does, and their AI is actually pretty simple when you see if play out, but it feels good to fight them, you can actually learn functional skills you can transfer to PvP by fighting them because they attack and block like players do, and you have to react to their attacks like you would in PvP, it's not perfect of course, but it's engaging while actually being pretty simple, miles ahead of anything we got in MO which was an absolute train wreck beginning to end.

SV also needs to add some diversity to the humanoid mobs, make different looking bandits who wear different looking clothes and use a variety of weapons, they shouldn't all look the same, maybe add some different races and genders, heights and weights etc. I'd also like it if they talked shit to me when I was fighting them idk, anything to make things more engaging and immersive.

 

[Phen]

I just want them to at the beginning at least just keep it as simple as possible, but functional and engaging. Humanoid NPCs should move and attack as similarly to the players as possible meaning left and right swings, overhead and stab if it suits their weapon. They should attempt to block telegraphed swings directionally, and move in and out of melee range if it makes sense. SV should tune these basics and get them as tight and fluid and engaging as possible and then when that's all good think about adding more varying complexities to the encounters.

Last Oasis has done a pretty good job at this where you're fighting the Rupu's which are like monkey people, but they do all the same moves, attacking and blocking, that a players does, and their AI is actually pretty simple when you see if play out, but it feels good to fight them, you can actually learn functional skills you can transfer to PvP by fighting them because they attack and block like players do, and you have to react to their attacks like you would in PvP, it's not perfect of course, but it's engaging while actually being pretty simple, miles ahead of anything we got in MO which was an absolute train wreck beginning to end.

SV also needs to add some diversity to the humanoid mobs, make different looking bandits who wear different looking clothes and use a variety of weapons, they shouldn't all look the same, maybe add some different races and genders, heights and weights etc. I'd also like it if they talked shit to me when I was fighting them idk, anything to make things more engaging and immersive.

That seems great!! ❤I dont see why they wont have a better AI. It is a huge part of the game and I'm guessing a big reason why the AI was junk before, was coding.. they couldn't build mobs as they can now. Also adding in mobs will be like drag and drop compared to recording in large scale. Liking the suggestion a lot!!

Also your wishes will come true as long as the owner stays to his word. He mentioned the game wont have magic or certain mounts. If you played when magic was only ecumenical spells, or when thieving was getting tweeked to give a better idea. It was phenomenal, in the way battles seemed fair ( based on latency of course.. ) , no one group owner any area. An even playing ground between blues reds and traders. But ofc this is when thieves ran wild and had it's own way to ruin the game for a few.. so I'm sure they will be the same ups and downs but hopefully with quicker fixes.

 

[KermyWormy]

That seems great!! ❤I dont see why they wont have a better AI. It is a huge part of the game and I'm guessing a big reason why the AI was junk before, was coding.. they couldn't build mobs as they can now. Also adding in mobs will be like drag and drop compared to recording in large scale. Liking the suggestion a lot!!

Also your wishes will come true as long as the owner stays to his word. He mentioned the game wont have magic or certain mounts. If you played when magic was only ecumenical spells, or when thieving was getting tweeked to give a better idea. It was phenomenal, in the way battles seemed fair ( based on latency of course.. ) , no one group owner any area. An even playing ground between blues reds and traders. But ofc this is when thieves ran wild and had it's own way to ruin the game for a few.. so I'm sure they will be the same ups and downs but hopefully with quicker fixes.

I don't know what to think about SV justification about why their MO AI was so bad. There were so many patches along the way where they'd talk about an update they made to AI, adding like "bravery" stats and like fight or flight type stuff...and that's all well and good if your basic AI is good and functional, but they never even got the most simple and basic characteristics of an MMO AI implemented in a good way where it would make sense for them to move on to advanced behaviors like personality junk.

Now, I'm no programmer, and I honestly believe them when they talk about UE3.5 being a huge stumbling block for them making MO what they had wanted, but certainly they could have implemented a very basic functional AI at some point in the 10 years MO has been live, at least something better than what we got, we can't blame it all on the engine imo.

I do also believe it will be better this time around if for no other reason than there's probably some kind of proper generic scripts they can use for simple functionality this time around, but they've got to build a strong simple foundational and working base for their Mobs first, and then they can move on when they've mastered that to more complex and interesting stuff imo.

 

[Meridian]

I'm hoping to see various conditional AI and events.

For example:
Seasonal and day/night wildlife.
Roaming/Migratory wildlife
Roaming "rebel" camps, roaming merchants, roaming friendly patrols
Dynamic, unpredictable events that don't repeat in the same area.
Dynamic weather
Events/behaviors dependent on weather.

As much as we didn't want NPC's to play a major part in MO1 and have players "police", the fact of the matter is players are unreliable, need to log off for sleep and other various reasons while other time zones log on. I hope to see more dynamic NPCs that make the game more interesting. I honestly want to play MO2 for PvE and PvP, and I want to be immersed like I was in MO1 Beta, before the elitist arena took over.

Really hoping for a solid PvE and NPC base. I'm not a "quester" but at this point, I sure wouldn't mind it.

 

[Phen]

I don't know what to think about SV justification about why their MO AI was so bad. There were so many patches along the way where they'd talk about an update they made to AI, adding like "bravery" stats and like fight or flight type stuff...and that's all well and good if your basic AI is good and functional, but they never even got the most simple and basic characteristics of an MMO AI implemented in a good way where it would make sense for them to move on to advanced behaviors like personality junk.

Now, I'm no programmer, and I honestly believe them when they talk about UE3.5 being a huge stumbling block for them making MO what they had wanted, but certainly they could have implemented a very basic functional AI at some point in the 10 years MO has been live, at least something better than what we got, we can't blame it all on the engine imo.

I do also believe it will be better this time around if for no other reason than there's probably some kind of proper generic scripts they can use for simple functionality this time around, but they've got to build a strong simple foundational and working base for their Mobs first, and then they can move on when they've mastered that to more complex and interesting stuff imo.

That's all fair to say. I do agree it could have been better. By alot lol... Even though, I have been through my fair share of personal experiences building some games. If your starting code isnt solid as can be then you will have massive issues adding things because of dumb kinks in the loose coding. Creating long rewriting nearly everytime you want to implement something. Thus being my only appeal to the AI, otherwise... yeahh... could have done a leap years of differences. Now we await MO2.