Now that you've made mobs smarter and they can cast and re-armor themselves and use specs and everything, is there any chance that we can finally lag THEM now. I remember the excuse before being that they weren't "intelligent" enough to make battle decisions and it would take away from them, but I don't think that's the case now, when they know to boneshatter and cranial now. Just a suggestion.

Go fight Xoltrindar a few times.

All mobs need to be at least as smart as Xoltrindar before I'd even think about it.

N/T

N/T

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Xoltrindar, being a lich, negates a number of common lag-based attacks by a mixture of class abilities and deceased-ness. So on top of him being smarter than the average bear, you have to work harder to lag him in the first place. That's a pretty good bar, though.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

1) Mobs have been able to use skills like Boneshatter and Cranial for a very long time. At least in 1997, and probably earlier than that.

2) Even the 'smarter' automated functions aren't that smart. Let's say you and your friend are going to walk up to an NPC and start interleaving trips. (As in, one person trips while the other pauses until the first trip has almost worn off, then trips again.) A two-person group is going to make it so the NPC rarely gets a skill off. A three-person group, especially one employing more reliable techniques than Trip, means the NPC is basically never going to use its class abilities. This effectively makes all NPCs into "vanilla" NPCs, which isn't very interesting, and certainly not worthy of the extra XP you presently get for fighting these more challenging foes.

3) NPCs aren't remotely as intelligent as even the most inept PCs. Notably, they don't try to avoid combat even if they're clearly losing. (They may flee, but then they will typically stand there until you re-engage seconds later.) Casters and communers don't use Word of Recall or Teleport to escape you once you're beating on them. They don't use "where" and come attack you when your group is beaten up and resting. They keep aiming at the arial pole spec while the dark-elf necromancer lobs in spells. Etc.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

No wonder I get PKed so much. I fight like an NPC. lol No but it's cool, I was just wondering

but if all three groupmates are tripping, etc, then they aren't necessarily doing ~their~ nastiest melee* skills either. So that'd make it a wash, wouldn't it?

* yes, in certain situations a simple trip, bash, etc IS the best skill, I know.

Ok, but now I read point 3. Please don't make the mobs any smarter in that regard. Let's keep things how they are. good point Valg :-).

(and here I always thought that certain tactics like feinting against mobs were actually helping me succeed.. am I that big of a moron?)

>(and here I always thought that certain tactics like feinting
>against mobs were actually helping me succeed.. am I that big
>of a moron?)

Assuming you aren't being sarcastic...

Feint does work on mobs if that's what you mean. In fact, it's fairly rare that you'd want to use feint in PK, though it's not totally unheard of. Less rare than it used to be, I supopse, now that there's the feinting legacy. Though I think that's one of the more unpopular legacies. Okay, I'm just rambling now.

>3) Notably, they don't try to avoid combat even if they're
>clearly losing. (They may flee, but then they will typically
>stand there until you re-engage seconds later.)

Does having fleeing ability give an exp boost? Fleeing mobs definitely does slow down ranking, particularly in certain kinds of circumstances (a popular gathering of dwarves being the first example that leaps to mind). I've always been bothered by the inability to prevent them from fleeing, though I supopse that's pretty much exactly the what you're talking about here.

I guess my thought here is that since fleeing can be a significant hinderance and even sometimes a danger (because sometimes they'll be reengage in perilous circumstances once they're healed). So for that reason it would be reasonable to add a smallish bonus for fleeing mobs compared to non-fleeing mobs. Then again, for many mobs fleeing makes almost no difference at all whereas a spec-using mob almost always is significantly more difficult.

I think fleeing is a wash. Sometimes the NPC will flee somewhere advantageous, but it can also let you take out a tough NPC more easily by breaking one combat into a couple mini-combats.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Then again, for many mobs fleeing makes almost no
>difference at all whereas a spec-using mob almost always is
>significantly more difficult.

Additionally, while sometimes problematic, a fleeing mob also often means you don't have to tank it for the last X% of its hit points. That is, you knife it (or whatever) and it flees before you have to take any attacks, repeat.