Linked Mobs

[wmtyrance]

I never said anything about sitting in front of a mob and it not attacking me. I summon one reverse engines while firing on the mob i summon and if i'm lucky kill the mob before the other gets in range. I didn't have to do that as much as i do now. Now it seems i have to do that in every fight. Trust me here i knew the range of my beams and the sig range of my engine. Summon seems to alert the nearest mob to the one i summon. Summon was a skill that was more like a surprise on a mob being pulled. They didn't have time to call out. And yes i could push the other mob away with fold space but i didn't really have to use that so much. That was used in groups.

[Stanig[IS]]

Eh its an old claim someone made related to this issue, i remember another thread about it. Basically people were saying that if you had a zero sig mobs didnt even aggro you unless you shot them. Gonna be honest thats what it sounds like people are calling for, and I think its a bit off.

The thing that gets me, is that i played progen all through live, and i dont remember there NOT being a time I didnt get swarmed, even with zekes installed. It was just a way of life. You ended up being a kite progen with a deadly breeze or something, and backing up while the whole bloody spawn chased you across the sector, killing them one at a time, until finally they would close the gap. By then though, you usually had enough killed to sit and tank out the rest.

My main concern, and this is straight up, because i KNOW this is all about jenquai here, is that terrans and progen are going to end up exploiting the same mechanic, multibox buffing themselves into zero point nothing sig range and sitting just off a spawn point, shooting mobs one at a time, farming.

Thats just the reality of what will happen. I wonder how anyone can deny that is exactly what people will do, figure out the perfect range to sit on a te or pw and just pow pow because the mobs cant see them and dont get help.

[Falstar [MOD]]

One thing not previously mentioned is that mob behavior CAN be adjusted. There is no need just to turn it on or off. There are settings for how curious they are, how likely they are to help, how far they can send their shout for help and all that. I think it is more of a matter of fine tuning than just a blanket solution.

From a previous post someone said they'd like to be able to pop up and kill a mob without their friend 4k away knowing. I say perhaps. One thing that we may want to consider is how much noise a [i]battle[/i] makes? Maybe a mob doesn't say anything and is slaughtered, but you used shield spike which was very noisy, causing others to investigate. That could add another aspect of game play. Be loud, kill quickly and possibly be caught by mobs, or kill quietly and possibly slowly and perhaps make it out without alerting too many.

Finally, it has been said before, but the goal of the emulator is not to make it exactly like live. Live is a baseline and in some cases we improve from there. Have the ability to make more dynamic mobs and group mobs is, I believe, part of that. I'm not saying that you guys are wrong, but the investigation should be slow and careful. To reference Castagere, maybe we should have a poll, as it does sometimes seem big changes can come about due to a few players. That would give us a more balanced view from the players I believe.

[Cosmo3]

[quote name='Stanig' timestamp='1353597670' post='66865']
Eh its an old claim someone made related to this issue, i remember another thread about it. Basically people were saying that if you had a zero sig mobs didnt even aggro you unless you shot them. Gonna be honest thats what it sounds like people are calling for, and I think its a bit off.

The thing that gets me, is that i played progen all through live, and i dont remember there NOT being a time I didnt get swarmed, even with zekes installed. It was just a way of life. You ended up being a kite progen with a deadly breeze or something, and backing up while the whole bloody spawn chased you across the sector, killing them one at a time, until finally they would close the gap. By then though, you usually had enough killed to sit and tank out the rest.

My main concern, and this is straight up, because i KNOW this is all about jenquai here, is that terrans and progen are going to end up exploiting the same mechanic, multibox buffing themselves into zero point nothing sig range and sitting just off a spawn point, shooting mobs one at a time, farming.

Thats just the reality of what will happen. I wonder how anyone can deny that is exactly what people will do, figure out the perfect range to sit on a te or pw and just pow pow because the mobs cant see them and dont get help.
[/quote]

You are wrong about the 0 sig and not being seen, you are forgetting the mechanics of signature. All, have base scan ranges, lets say 3.5K. Anything with a 0 sig can be seen within the base scan range, If you lower your sig to - which could be done by jens you could take away from the mobs base scan and instead of him seeing you at 3,5 K at 0 sig maybe it would be 2.6 K he could see you with -.9 sig. This is the way the Jens fought, you have low sig where you didnt get overwhelmed by other mobs in the area.

Also it is my understanding that sound cannot travel in Outer Space, just how are Organic mobs communicating, their built in Radios? Guns make no noise in space so it has to be sight. I understand not making the game too easy, I dont think anyone is calling for that. Myself I just want game mechanics to work properly. There is a reason in EnB live sig meant something, you take away low sigs and cloak from Jens you kill the class. You take away kite form Terrans you kill the class. You overwhelm Progens with never ending mobs you may as well kill that class also.

Make the mobs harder to kill and do more damage but dont just swamp the players with never ending mobs. As long as we are evolving give the races credit for developing tactics to kill these mobs. Lowering Sig and kiting away from the group is one of these tactics. All players play different, for those that just warp in and have a high sig let them pay the price. For those that want to take advantage of game tactics while flying solo, they should be rewarded.

[skitszo]

definately need some parts of the game group formation friendly not just raids. one of the features of this game being enjoyable was the part of getting groups together and benefitting. If things are to easy poeple will get bored and not have to learn formation tactis.
I have noticed this high amount of agro in VG...i wanted to kill Balrog....it was frustrating cause the entire 10+ mob would get agro and i couldn't single out the formation of three without getting the single mobs all around, But it was a challenge and a golal to overcome. Its fun to learn new tactics. As long as this game has enough player base to help and group up then this shouldn't be to big an issue. ST$ was pretty much a single player multi box farm fest...This game shouldn't be single mode farming friendly...should reward groups.

[Hunter2x]

I am a mostly solo player. When I run into a group of mobs that group aggro, and nearly kill me, I try to find a different spawn spot with less numbers of the same mob, or I move on to something else.
I'm comfortable with finding groups of mobs that I am unable to kill solo.. and asking for an assist from someone else.
But there are times I just want to kill, and be left alone doing it. It would great to have some of the spawns swarm you.. and some not. ( of the same mob type)
I don't want to have to shoot rabbits all day long because I like to run solo !

[Harros]

It would be interesting to see different social behaviors based on the mob type.

Humanoid (Pirates, factions, etc): Call for help from their friends from long distance. If players can chat across the galaxy, why can't NPCs chat across 15 KM? Now maybe you shouldn't pull an entire Chavez base for shooting a single missile (unless it gets classified group content) but maybe the guy you shot gets a wingman or two.

Bio mobs: They should only call for help within their scan range (summon should work here to split packs). Animals can only react to what they see and hear. You could even split bio mobs into "hunter" and "gatherer" classes that react different to being attacked. While hunters will gang up to protect right away, gatherers will flee the scene unless they have a large enough group to feel safe.

Dumb mobs: Drones and other "dumb" mobs shouldn't call for help at all. They will work on the standard sig+scan proximity aggro.

[wmtyrance]

[quote name='Harros' timestamp='1353605666' post='66891']
It would be interesting to see different social behaviors based on the mob type.

Humanoid (Pirates, factions, etc): Call for help from their friends from long distance. If players can chat across the galaxy, why can't NPCs chat across 15 KM? Now maybe you shouldn't pull an entire Chavez base for shooting a single missile (unless it gets classified group content) but maybe the guy you shot gets a wingman or two.

Bio mobs: They should only call for help within their scan range (summon should work here to split packs). Animals can only react to what they see and hear. You could even split bio mobs into "hunter" and "gatherer" classes that react different to being attacked. While hunters will gang up to protect right away, gatherers will flee the scene unless they have a large enough group to feel safe.

Dumb mobs: Drones and other "dumb" mobs shouldn't call for help at all. They will work on the standard sig+scan proximity aggro.
[/quote] Its funny that you say this because i still have the old strategy guide for the game and it has a section just on what you are looking for.
Monsters & Npships Stats explanations. It list everything about npc and mobs in the game.
Aggressiveness list goes like this
fanatic
antagonistic
nomal
cautious
non
even bravery is listed from
suicidal
bold
nomal
timid.

[totteswede]

There was definately different behaviour among mobs in Live. Stuff like Tengu and some RDs were a lot more social, "normal" mobs not at all. It was a common tactic among Terrans to use a low sig and pick off mobs one by one with increased missile range.

I don't mind if the Devs want to make the game a lot harder (because currently it is a LOT harder), but I think it will kill a lot of the fun in the game, regarding tactics, gearsetup and class distinction.

If you want to keep the gameplay at the same level of difficulty as before, but with current social behaviour among mobs, you have to rebalance a ton of other things. With the inclusion of mob resistances players are already finding it a lot more difficult than what they remember (and cherish). You don't want everyone to Job their way to max level, do you ?

On my main currently, a PP, I stopped caring about extended projectile range since I will be facetanking 4-5 mobs once I have aggroed the first anyway (with a SS4 equipped). Doesn't matter if the others are 7-8k away, they will come running like flies to a pile of crap

[Terrell [BT]]

I have to agree with Castegere & Harros. In addition mobs should have an alturism stat that determines how willing they are to respond to calls for help. Even among humans, there are cases where one person is attacked, and other people refuse to do anything. Anyone who has ever seen a fight in middle or high school knows what I'm talking about. Other kids gathering around, but none doing anything to stop it. You also see in the news from time to time where there's a "person attacked, bystanders do nothing" stories/articles to see this behavior in people

You could have an alturism stat that varies among mobs. This stat would determine how likely a mob is to answer a distress call from another. Mobs with low alturism would have lower chances of doing so than mobs with higher alturism. Bravery and aggressiveness would govern how they help. If there's a stat for intelligence, not sure there, it could factor in as well.

How it could work when a player attacks a mob: This assumes that there's no stat for intelligence.

Mob is in a spawn with high alturism, high aggressiveness, high bravery. Any mob who hears the distress call, has a near 100% chance of directly attacking anyone who is attacking the mob, as well as supporting the mob under attack. Will use skills, debuffs, and weapons in their attack. All raid mobs should be like this, so should most underbosses and the mobs that spawn with them. Raman the Polisher would be an example of an underboss. This should also be the case with mobs like RD, Chavez, V'rix and some others.

Mob is in a spawn with high alturism, moderate aggresiveness/bravery. Any mob who hears the distress call will come nearly all the time. The mob probably will fire on you, probably will use skills/debuffers against you. Mob will definitely use skills, buffs on mob being attacked.

Mob is in a spawn with high alturism, low aggressiveness/bravery. Any mob who hears the distress call will come to help the mob being attacked, but will help him indirectly by applying skills, buffs to benefit mob being attacked. Sometimes they will engage you directly but are much more likely to buff their friend than attacking you, since they're somewhat cowardly.

As the alturism of the mob spawn lowers, the likelyhood of the mobs answering distress calls decreases. Mobs would still behave according to aggressiveness & bravery stats. You can still be on the end of a gang attack if mobs have low alturism, high aggressiveness, with decent to good scan range. They would just be attacking as individuals rather than working together.

Regardless of aggressiveness/bravery mob should have to be able to see you to debuff/shoot you. Mobs that are more aggressive will be more active in searching for you, if they can't see you, when they answer a distress call.

[Mattsacre]

Sig and mob antics then live, if I remember right most mech type and npc types had a "call for help" range of 2.5k of each other (some went as high as 4k), if you had a low enough sig and long enough range (like jenny could get with low sig/coma) the mob never even shot back as long as they maintained that extended range and the debuff was on the mob.

The "called for help responders" had differing responses depending on the mob, the caller not seeing you did not impart a ability to the responder to know were you were and swarm...one of the responses then from them would be the "kicked anthill" response, they would go in differing directions looking for the attacker (you) and sometimes luck into the right direction and join the first attacked mob on you. Another response, especially for ostrea, was to go to the general vacinity of the attacked mobs location and try and heal/buff the attacked mob. Still, if they didn't stumble on you, they didn't attack you, they just aided their ally. The truely linked/paired mobs (like the RD in inverness) would totally have the lowdown on you and come to the allies complete aid, and if the first one saw you, the second got all the intel the first had.

A note here: a terran with their great range, quite often weren't seen either, just like the jenny -0 sig. there were a few select mobs that progen with a solar sail could actually also attack and not be seen if they stayed at extreme range. Most often a progen would just reverse kite though and pick them off until they could solo the last survivor (voltoi died by the 100's of thousands this way )

I personally would like to see differing antics from differing mobs, low vision mob, high, anthill antics, linked intel etc It makes for differing tactics and no cookie cutter skills from players. I used a JD back then also, and if I bothered to go low sig. I could usually sit at max summon range and one to one most mobs and never have another bother me (of course i would have to watch for respawns not spawning right on me, or wanderers.) but I killed lots of scuttles and claimjumpers that way, sitting on edge of spawn and pulling to my hearts content.

But like the previous poster said, if it's not tweeked to allow for low sigs and mobs that don't tell exactly were the attacker is, then you might as well kill off the jennys, and if you can't have some mobs that don't swarm when a player rigs right, then might as well kill off the other classes as well

[Taallonn]

Pineapples in Ardus were worst for range aggro, and the dudes that swarmed between navs there (cant remember their names) were bad. Many times I grouped with a PW or TT as a JD just to help them kill faster, wasnt that they needed the extra dps, but it let them get reset for next wave of stuff that came in. Solo there was Hull damage on PW and TT spent too much time repairing to kill efficiently.

Tengu, Chavez, Voltai, ect... were easily dismissed after players got raid gear. Were they tough in leveling gear? yeah they were, but thats part of the evolution of the players gear. Mind you these were players that knew what they were doing and didn't just swoop in and try and kill everything around them, they used tactics to get their objectives done.

[crowey]

can a dev please remove Leara posts in this section as children play this game and it is inappropriate content Edited December 5, 2012 by Crowey

[Searing]

we are on...but i'm a gm and don't have permission to do anything but flag them

we will pass it up the line

Searing

[crowey]

Thx searing im sure all the parents out there that let there kids play this will appreciate it

[Tashazar[IS]]

I just dont understand why the Claimjumpers are hunting Me 40 K from their Nav, and sending 4 or 5 to do it , isnt that overkill , Yes it is Overkill.. and when a Dev asks for help Killing a Mob he designed becouse he cant do it on his own , well something is wrong.

[Zackman [LDEV]]

What DEV was asking for help plz?

[jrichards]

I think Tasha may be referring to herself. = ]

I have been using multiple toons to level and while I do not mind a group of mobs 1-3 mobs I have to agree that atm its overkill. Zweinhander planet is crazy hard because there are a group of 4-6 level 4 birds sitting right at the station. You exit station...blam hit by all those birds. This can be insta-kill if yer doing the PL quest by yourself as a TE. I mean should you really need help with level 3 mobs while doing a training mission at level 10?

Again with zweinhander there are level 10 plants that mobbed my group (6 of em) and killed on of my level 30 toons before I could get a heal off. These plants were stuck to the ground in live and while I don't mind them flying around its a swarm of death for lower levels.

I also had this occur in Freya with Mist Lords and having to drag 8 of them away and slowly kill them off......which although epic felt a little cheap since the final one died almost 100k+ away from their original starting spot.

It might be interesting to set a limit on group aggroing like it was in Live so that 1 mob could make a call for backup but it was like a skill. It could fail or it could succeed but it only worked on 1 mob at a time and there was something of a timer. In such a way aggroing a single mob won't insta pull five others....but have a 50% chance, every 5 seconds of calling a second mob. As you can imagine the more mobs that become aggro'd the more danger a player will be in but its not an instant aggro/death sort of thing the way it is now. You could even adjust the mobs, per level and per mob type, to adjust how much help they could call and how often. Edited December 6, 2012 by Crichton

[Cosmo3]

I have to say, I have loved this game since Westwood Beta and quit WOW to come back. This is the most fun game by a long way I have ever played. I acknowledge the wonderful job the Devs have done bringing it back and their hard work. This being said I have never been as flustered with the game as I am now. What has been done with the mobs is crazy, JS healers want last long because of their Lv8 shields. Warriors can't hold aggro on some mobs, never ending shield inversion for some mobs that doesn't affect their shields like it does ours, overwhelmed by mobs 4 Lvs below you even with a healer. Sig means nothing, kiting is gone because mobs are faster and tethered, PWs get swamped.

It makes me wonder how much the Dev over these decisions played the game in original live at a high Lv and if he played all the classes and understands why something like sig and all mobs calling for help wasn't like that in original live. I am addicted to this game and love it but am very discussed at this point. All I ask is the Devs try some of these mobs themselves and listen to your player base. I am not asking for easy mode, but I am asking for common sense mode.

Keep in mind some players for real life reason either can't alway group or just plain don't like to, everyone does not like to group.

[Grips]

yea the linking is way OP atm. By all means raid type content should be tough an not a solo thing or even muliti-boxing but to have all these mobs linked is killing the joy of the game. After being swarmed by mobs if your lucky enough to make it out corpse's are poping before ya can go back an loot them. Healing aggro is way off the charts to begin with an now with swarms of mobs i dont care how many time i spam enrage they pay no attention cause the healer is the new tank an has to spam heal him/herself so much they cant heal anyone else or they are incapacitated , please stop sucking the fun out of the game ..

[cpwings]

[i]I have to agree with the other players that are saying mob swarming is out of control. I've been playing non-stop since the beginning of ST1 and have seen the great strides as well as a few trip-ups along the way. I also give thanks and a big thumbs up to the dev team for all their hard work in bringing back our beloved E&B. [/i]

[i]I am mainly a solo player and take great pride in having leveled 5 toons to 150 without any power-leveling by other players. If the current mob AI is intended to drive away solo players, just say so and we will leave the EMU to the guilds.[/i]

[i]As a solo player, I've already accepted the fact that many parts of the game are not accessible. This swarming and overpowering by low-level mobs takes away even more of the available content and forces players to look for the few lower level mobs that don't. This just adds to the grind IMO. Please rethink these changes before it's too late.[/i]

[i]I'm not asking for "God Mode" but please lighten up a bit.[/i]

[Zackman [LDEV]]

[quote name='cpwings' timestamp='1354805220' post='68183']
[i]Please rethink these changes before it's too late.[/i]
[/quote]

What changes ?
There was nothing changed here for years.

[Grips]

Things have changed im not sure what you are talking about Zakman ,, Cause this mob behavior is not like live an is not like its been here in the past so its pretty obvious things have changed . 1 maybe two mobs may have linked before but not whole groups of them . I asked a dev cant recall there name friday morning before the wipe if you guys were killing the solo play of the game an who ever it was bold face lied to me cause this mob behavior is KILLING the solo side of the game . Live group play was made possible by thousands of people playing groups were fairly easy to assemble not the case here if i have a couple of hours of play time an i have to spend an hour or more of that putting a group together that leaves me with no time to play basically Killing the game for me . Like the many others that have posted here im VERY thankful you an the many other devs hhave put hard work an effort into bringing the game back to life but I an im sure many others play this for what it was live we want live not this. I'm not as many others are not looking for easy mode but we want FUN mode an being swarmed an ganged up on by 5 an 6 mobs is not fun ,,

[Rezwalker]

[quote name='Zackman' timestamp='1354806316' post='68186']
What changes ?
There was nothing changed here for years.
[/quote]

Three pages of posts on this thread alone should be enough for the DEVs to look in to it Zack, theres a problem here that needs to be addressed, I dough all these people have nothing better to do then wine about a not existing problem. All we can do is report on the anomalies we encounter and bring them to the DEV teams attention and thats what were doing.

It might be a good idea for the posters to give more specific details about what mobs/sectors/mob lvl and whatnot so we can look at this problem close up so as to isolate and fine tune mob behavior but in general, players are having a hard time in combat, in addition some HU and new skill missions for most races have to deal with an overpowered mob like Holms and Nomos blubber part, to name a few, to the point that players gave up on normal leveling and have opted to doing trade jobs or explore tours, and are even skipping HU and skills until they are higher lvl, It's starting to be a trend to see a lvl 150 Novice and thats not the way the game was intended to be played.

In addition to tethering, aggro, signature and the other aspect of the game we need to look on, some low lvl mobs are way overpowered, one example that comes to mind are the lvl 12-13 Zens in Yokun, was exploring with my 4, yes I'm at it again lol, lvl 37, cl 12 JDs last night and came up to a few of them, well to make a long story short, one lvl 12 and one lvl 13 killed 2 JDs and the other 2 just made it out with 1/3 hull left, needless to say my jaw dropped and after a tow on the dead and run for your life on the other I had to go back and check it out, heres what I observed.

Test conditions, JE with lvl 5 proto shields, 3149 cap and no damage buffs
first mob, Zen lvl 12, 340 hull, 750 shields, did an average 59 DPS
second mob, Zen lvl 13, 300 hull, 590 shields, did an average 78 DPS
wow on both and how come the lvl 12 has a bigger hull and shields then the lvl 13?

For comparison my lvl 37 JDs with cl 12 and 260 hull, 504 shield cap, with 3 200% lvl 3 ocelots only do 52 DPS according to net-7 ship test tab
Conclusion, some low lvl mobs have bigger hulls, shields, more DPS, tether, swarm, can see you from anywhere in sector if you piss one off, in short, there overpowered imho and need adjusting. Edited December 6, 2012 by Rezwalker

[Zackman [LDEV]]

This thread has nothing to do with mob linkage (like said, code has not changed) but with [b]mob scan.[/b]

We are all not used anymore to have high sigs again because we all had our sig reducers from our uber gear before live (my PW was 1.2K, now i am 3.6K) - plus before live we didnt care since we simply killed all and everything bothering us.

We check mob scan ranges soon™.