Special Monsters

[11clock]

Right now we have monsters that move around and attack when you get near...get's kind of boring to fight them.

My idea is to have some special kinds of monsters that have special abilities, like a monster that heals other monsters or a monster that explodes when killed. These special monsters normally pose a threat and should be eliminated with caution. Special monsters should help spice up PvM combat and make things more interesting. What do you think?

[Lingus]

I totally agree. Maybe not specifically what you posted, but I'm all for the idea of having different npc behavior. The bunny is a perfect example. It's non-combat, but it's just something a little bit different and it adds to the variety of the game a bit.

What would be interesting is if every monster in the game had randomized behavior. So one minute they might be backing off from you and attacking every so often, and the next minute they are full force following you and attacking, and different variables in between. There's no need to get complex with this, just set some random variables for the behavior and have it change every so often. As it is the monster behavior is so predictable it's not really fun.

[EpicPhailure]

NPC Behavior sounds interesting. I would definitely want the specialized monsters in v3.

The randomized variable could be annoying though, as the Rock Demon trick using the ridges in the mountains may not work if the NPC is completely retreating.

[Lingus]

The randomized variable could be annoying though, as the Rock Demon trick using the ridges in the mountains may not work if the NPC is completely retreating.

See that's exactly my point. Using "tricks" to defeat monsters gets boring after a while. That's especially true on the mountain. You stand one step below and attack. The NPC has no way of countering that. They predictably follow you no matter what. If they feint every so often and run the other direction for a second and cause you to chase after them, they could then turn and attack. It keeps you on your toes and makes pvm combat more interesting.

[EpicPhailure]

The randomized variable could be annoying though, as the Rock Demon trick using the ridges in the mountains may not work if the NPC is completely retreating.

See that's exactly my point. Using "tricks" to defeat monsters gets boring after a while. That's especially true on the mountain. You stand one step below and attack. The NPC has no way of countering that. They predictably follow you no matter what. If they feint every so often and run the other direction for a second and cause you to chase after them, they could then turn and attack. It keeps you on your toes and makes pvm combat more interesting.

True enough. You're going to need a lot of AI behaviors though.

[krele]

The randomized variable could be annoying though, as the Rock Demon trick using the ridges in the mountains may not work if the NPC is completely retreating.

See that's exactly my point. Using "tricks" to defeat monsters gets boring after a while. That's especially true on the mountain. You stand one step below and attack. The NPC has no way of countering that. They predictably follow you no matter what. If they feint every so often and run the other direction for a second and cause you to chase after them, they could then turn and attack. It keeps you on your toes and makes pvm combat more interesting.

True enough. You're going to need a lot of AI behaviors though.

How do you mean?... all meiun has to do is make a trigger to monsters... first specifying npc's nature... like coward, brave, etc... then, if the monster had brave nature, he would only attack, and have increased str... if he was a coward, he would start only to run after having low hp, with increased speed and jump tick. just an idea...

[EpicPhailure]

The randomized variable could be annoying though, as the Rock Demon trick using the ridges in the mountains may not work if the NPC is completely retreating.

See that's exactly my point. Using "tricks" to defeat monsters gets boring after a while. That's especially true on the mountain. You stand one step below and attack. The NPC has no way of countering that. They predictably follow you no matter what. If they feint every so often and run the other direction for a second and cause you to chase after them, they could then turn and attack. It keeps you on your toes and makes pvm combat more interesting.

True enough. You're going to need a lot of AI behaviors though.

How do you mean?... all meiun has to do is make a trigger to monsters... first specifying npc's nature... like coward, brave, etc... then, if the monster had brave nature, he would only attack, and have increased str... if he was a coward, he would start only to run after having low hp, with increased speed and jump tick. just an idea...

How many unique NPC behaviors can you think of?

[Lingus]

It doesn't have to be that many. Like Krele said, it can just be "coward" and "brave". But my point is to have monsters switch between those two behaviors at varying consistencies. So you can potentially be caught off gaurd by the monsters. To program this should be pretty simple, you just have a timer set at random lengths of time, and when it runs out the behavior of the monster switches to a random behavior.

[NotoriousM4^]

Lol, imagine if your fighting an SG then it retreats and drowns itself. There has to be more limits to it.

[Cactuscat222]

I think multiple/different attacks would work to the same effect as well. I think the Snowman monster currently was a step in the right direction, but what if a monster had more than one attack? For example, an enemy that has an attack that attacks right in front, and one that hits more of in the air - that way players would have to react differently.

[Lingus]

Lol, imagine if your fighting an SG then it retreats and drowns itself. There has to be more limits to it.

Obviously it shouldn't drown itself. In fact, maybe every monster should have a piece of code so it doesn't drown itself. To be honest, it's a bit cheesy that it became an accepted way to spawn a boss. It would make the game more challenging if you had to actually kill monsters.

[TheLegendTamer]

I agree too. A monster could retreat to a set distance when their hp is at half and start using ranged attacks, then when their hp is even lower they can make a full scale retreat. If their hp heals back to half they'll starting using their ranged attack and once they reach close to full they'll advance on to close range combat.

This would be like fighting another player because it would feel like the monster is actually a very wary fighter. Yah there would be a code to prevent them from drowning though...

Monsters that could heal other monsters I don't think it would fit in much here but still a good idea ^^. It would certainaly make the SG a much larger (than it already is) threat if it had a pleathora of monsters healing it...

Either way, more advanced AI and/or different NPC behaviors would definitely be a good implement no matter how you look at it.

[Chaos]

I think multiple/different attacks would work to the same effect as well. I think the Snowman monster currently was a step in the right direction, but what if a monster had more than one attack? For example, an enemy that has an attack that attacks right in front, and one that hits more of in the air - that way players would have to react differently.

The snowman was supposed to have a second attack, I just ran out of time. :P  Was going to make it:

Jump and slam down into the ground, damaging all the people trying to hide next to it's feet.    

-OR-

Swing it's arm to strike all the people trying to hide next it's feet (and knockback them to in front of the snowman, where it could then LAZOR).

-OR-

Make it roll around on it's giant bottom snowball like a wheel and run over sticks.


Alas, I ran out of time to implement any of those options, so I instead just made him rotate with the laser and attack all enemies around.  Originally it was just going to shoot the LAZOR in front of it.  You can see the 'rolling on the bottom ball' idea kind of implemented as the way it moves around, though.

As for the general idea of enemies with smarter AI, being part of the SO team,  I was suggesting this to Meiun from practically day 1.  He never seemed very eager to do so.

[Meiun]

You can all expect better and more variety of AI in V3.

[Lucifer]

You can all expect better and more variety of AI in V3.

/pants jizz.