02/06/2015 - Creatures Discussion

This thread is for general discussion of creature improvements planned and in progress.

To read about what is planned, what is in progress and to post technical issues and bugs please use the technical issues thread here

The general feedback rules still apply to this discussion.

1) Stay on topic. While there are many possibilities and questions with a open ended game like Xsyon, it's more constructive to focus on what is currently in the works.

2) Keep the discussion civil, polite and genuine.

3) Be clear and concise. It takes time to read and digest feedback.

4) State your point and refrain from back and forth arguments with other players. Your concerns will be read, noted and considered.

Insults and arguments will be removed.

[Copied from other thread for reference and clarity of follow on posts by Guide Forcas]

I'm resuming work on creatures and combat this week. We'll keep this thread open for feedback on what's in progress.

Here is a list of what's on the agenda:

1) Creatures currently run full speed up slopes. Terrain needs to affect creatures as it does players.

2) Creatures sometimes go through walls. This is due to the path finding blocking system which needs to be improved.

3) Creature stats need to be balanced again.

4) Creatures are not growing in power fast enough. Too few creatures are reaching max legendary power.

5) Creatures that reach old age but not enough power will die of old age to enable more creatures to breed.

6) Creature names need to display more information so that players know what they are up against (for example an old age legendary chicken is going to be tougher than a normal run of the mill chicken. It's size is not enough of an indicator of its power).

7) Creatures need proper collision on ramps.

8) Creatures need to either attack players on boulders or run away, avoid them and reset.

9) Creatures should not be able to attack players on walls above them.

10) Ranged combat needs to be implemented.

11) Any desynch with creatures needs to be dealt with as best as possible. Desynch is well explained in a link provided by one of our players here

12) Ranges need to be adjusted. Most likely we need to go with less realistic melee ranges in favor of more playable ranges (like in many other games).

Our overall strategy for creatures is as follows:

- Small wild creatures will be easy to kill but will avoid players and should be hunted with ranged weapons.

- Small city creatures (rats) will be easy to kill and will be attracted to towns. They will mob players in groups.

- Mid size domestic creatures (cats and dogs) will be attracted to towns. They will pose a medium threat in a fight and will be easy to tame.

- Mid size wild creatures will often attack and pose a medium combat threat. They will be a primary target for melee hunters.

- Raccoons will be attracted to towns and scrap piles. They will pose a medium to strong combat threat but will often avoid combat.

- Deer will primarily need to be chased and hunted and will attack only when they feel very threatened.

- Bear and coyotes will be aggressive and tough in combat. The largest legendary specimens should require a group of players to kill.

- Mutants will range in behavior but in general they will be difficult in combat. The larger mutants should require a group of players to kill.

For now, this is mostly to keep you all informed. If you know of any other major issues with creatures, feel free to post them.

This is not a thread to start discussions or debates. When changes are ready to test, I will request specific feedback.

Thanks!

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

""8) Creatures need to either attack players on boulders or run away, avoid them and reset.""
This is my opinion, creatures should run away, and players combat should be disabled so players won't be able to attack creatures with ranged weapons from safety positions, this way players will have time to rest or run away from danger.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

2. i agree, also critters, i can see it most of the time on deers, run trought trees when they flee or chased you.

3. the old system when mutants gave a secondary stat was way better imo. cosinder a normal bear with about 400+ HP gives 1.00 power on bones which give 0.75 str. a mutant bear with 1200+ HP gives 1.00 power for 1.00 Str.! seriously? thats ridiculous! they are not to weak. unlees their body does not cover the center, they are even fightable ( still needs to be fixed ). but the rewarding ist really messed up now, just imho.

4. i dont agree, they grow slow and if its as your guides said a legendary or unique mob, its fine like that. people who wants to get them on a higher power can still train them. problem is that tey turn too far into the mist and barely come out! there are plenty, just unavailable. https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...bddb8c38e55ac3

5. wouldnt it make more sense to change it that all will reach max age/power and let them die after a certain time? unique?

6. 1-5 star bosses? :D i agree so far

7/10. great idea, i used boulders a lot, still doing to make it easier if i hunt alone. but boulders will be a big problem once archery comes ingame. reset when cliffing sounds well!

13. the point you forgot prolly. animals with low hp/atk should be/stay in the zones they are supposed to be and where low hp/atk player are supposed to be to fight them.

once we have rats in our tribes which maybe make trouble, we should ( once we have taimed animals ) be able to use taimed animals which fight them, maybe? would make sure that taiming is not something you do one time and then you have pets over years. it would help to kill pets and keep taiming active, imo ( yes i know i can open a thread in suggestions..) :P

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Reset is a bad idea, leads to frustration, and boulder could be used by two or more players as a way to easy kill, one player will run around boulder wile other player shoots from safety if combat is not disabled on boulders, then take turns when runner don't have enough stamina.

I have another question: How will grouping work? will there be invites? How will group loot distributed, will it be like WOW = free for all or it will be distributed evenly for every one to avoid player frustration, personally I dislike WOW's loot.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

The system of using a rock to regen your HP but the animal can't get to you and doesnt regen is not a good system. With this tactic no animal in the game would be hard at all to kill (like now) and if that is the case why not just have them die in 1 hit?
I can understand using a rock/tree/wall/fence etc to get safe, but the animal should be able to heal up and run away also. If someone chooses this tactic it should be in defense not as a way to rest up to kill it while it can't heal up.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Could you expand on your plan for ranged combat? It sounds like you intend it to only be useful for small creatures that will run away, and you would need the damage that a melee weapon provides to take on anything large?

The boulder problem is going to be very difficult to solve, and it will depend heavily on how ranged combat turns out. Your best bet is probably to either let creatures attack people on boulders, or to make ranged combat very ineffective against the type of creatures you would want to use this exploit against.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

so melee is also only for small creatures? if you fight a bear with any melee weapon, maybe even unarmed, you do hit and run. you dont stay in front of him and fight! at least thats how to fight them, unless you have 2k hp maybe xD

where is the problem to do hit and run with an archer?
and still we have to wait how ranged combat works anyway. its not a corean game where you target a mob and spam skills. i prefer the old RPG way like gothic had.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

[Quote edited out as quoted post deleted from thread by Guide Forcas]

Sitting on a rock safe from the creature while you heal up is the exploit.

I dont believe this was ever intended.

I believe its actually a bug, standing on the rock removes the player from being on the ground and from being at the same elavation as the creature, this causes the creature to lose the player as a target and can no longer hit the player. It explains why standing on a player made ramp has the same affect. (although standing on some roofs and floating floors actually allows creatures to hit you)

IMO if the creature can reach you then it should be able to hit you. Just because you are sitting on a tiny rock the creature loses the ability to hit something that is 1 inch away from it. That is the exploit.

Small rocks should not offer any protection from creatures. period.

IF the player stands on a very large rock then the creature should regain its all its health the instant the player goes out of combat. Players managing to get out of combat and be unreachable always cause the creature to regain all its health instantly on other mmo's ive played.

Standing on a rock and healing up while the creature you just attacked cant get to you should only be allowed if the creature heals up to full very quickly.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Note that the biggest problem with critters and cliffs isn't so much that they run full speed up cliffs, but that they can go up cliffs that players can't climb. Unless critter speed going up vertical slopes is slowed to a crawl, this will not affect game play much, i.e. when a player can get one more bow shot to finish a wounded critter as it slows to climb a cliff.

Critters that can't get to a player on a rock or a wall should not run off and reset. If they cannot get to a melee player they should wander off after 15-30 seconds. If they are being hit by ranged and cannot hit back, they should run off immediately but not reset.

Allowing critters to regain hp fast would make cooking and fires (i.e. most of Jordi's work for 2014) much less useful.


Having critters vacate the area if they can't get to a player could be exploited to make an area temporarily safe. Say you want to scavenge a junk pile, but there are three big shadow bears there. If you could agro them, climb up on a rock and then they would all run away, you would make that area temporarily safe at little risk to yourself.

In rebalancing critter stats, look at lowering the speed of attack on rats, the damage moderation on marmots, and possibly the hp's on small mutants.

Note that the primary target for players training melee will probably remain revs.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

i agree with cho, its an exploid and even if boulders are supposed to be safe spots, combat shouldnt work on it. melee or range doesnt matter. a full hp reset if a mob loose the target would be a good solution, or just a perm miss if you are close to rocks/ on rocks. this way it would still work for recovery, but open field combat is neccesairy.

if we listen to znaiika, we will be able to skin knifeblades soon, so nvm! pretty sure jordi will not mess up the whole combat couz one player is crying, and there is always someone left behind and crying anyway.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Multi story, issue is not the same as this.
First Xsyon wanted multi story in but hasn't done the coding. He even said players found a way to do it, and he isnt going to work on the code right now because of this work around players have done.

Allowing players to kill the hardest monsters in the game with no risk? Clearly an exploit. Xsyon has not come out and said "Yep working as intended" in fact according to this post he is removing the exploit.

Don't confuse lack of fixing something for support of it. If that is the case, the trees at the bottom of the lake would be "intended" right?

It makes no sense to make tiered levels of difficulty of animals only to have it subverted by an exploit that requires no skill, or gear, or resources to do.

This exploit does distract from features in the game. Things like armor, healing systems etc. If you can't be touched by an animal and you can kill it. There is a problem, as it requires ZERO skill to do. Every game I've ever played has called this an exploit. It was the same problem with animals not attacking back in water.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

So for us new players there is going to be no way to do bone crafting. You took human bones out of the game, now you want to make it imposable to hunt ANYTHING we need in early bone crafting. How about some low level dog and cat outfits. Some thing to make hunting for bone crafting worthwhile. Bone pegs? thousands and thousands to get recipes for human bones. Just makes no sense and now you want to take more away from newer players?.
If we have no way to regenerate during a fight we, lower level players, will not be able to kill anything until we MAX out all other things. This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard
Why keep making it harder, if not imposable, for the newer players? If the noobs cant hunt meaningful items the they will just move on to a game that has more fighting.
It takes me and my partner over 2 hours to kill a bear in the 200s that seems about right for now. why change it?

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Dabent, you can heal in a fight. I've done it many times. You simply just move away out of its range and stop moving. Players are faster than animals, and much faster if they use sprint.

About the bone issue, I agree.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xsyon

1) Creatures currently run full speed up slopes. Terrain needs to affect creatures as it does players.

2) Creatures sometimes go through walls. This is due to the path finding blocking system which needs to be improved.

7) Creatures need proper collision on ramps.

8) Creatures need to either attack players on boulders or run away, avoid them and reset.

9) Creatures should not be able to attack players on walls above them.

11) Any desynch with creatures needs to be dealt with as best as possible. Desynch is well explained in a link provided by one of our players [B]here

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All the issues above either breaks immersion or are highly illogical and I'm happy you look into them. I have abused the #8 but always felt bad about it. Rocks should not work as a paladin bubble in wow, that is just plain silly. Personally I can't see how people can defend that bug/exploit/crap.

Of all the issues above, though, I hope you manage to fix the de-sync because that one really made me loose interest in combat at all when I was playing. I don't have to draw you a picture, it was just utterly bad. The article you linked to was a very good reading and suggests a few things you could do to make combat more fluid and pleasant (duh!).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xsyon

12) Ranges need to be adjusted. Most likely we need to go with less realistic melee ranges in favor of more playable ranges (like in many other games).

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Sound good. Allowing for longer ranges and wider arcs (makes facing less of an issue) should reduce the number of misses a bit, which compensates for issues due to de-sync. It breaks logic and immersion a bit, but for the good in this case.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

some new issues:

rev's and big critters seems to be able to sprint now. they can run faster than a player with low weight and on perfect surface.

another bug, which supports the sprint bug is that critters who are permanent close enough to a player ignore attackspeed and hit a few times per second. to reproduce this bug please get chased by a critter and run up a mountain with granite surface. best would be if its a very steep slope but still possible to go upwards.

speed critters do "sometimes" the same, they are perm close to the center of a player where hits count, and they hit without delays.


the center of a player where he can get hit is about 1x1 meter ( compared with the meters of a square in this game ). problem is that this center is was to large to the high and also to the underground. a critter can hit you up and downwards a hill without being close to you if the slope is steep enough. that should be balanced as well.

small mutant critter have a very high hitrange which is about 3x of the range a player needs to hit them.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Pean points out some issues, however, some are not fully true either.

Note that the range on the small animals is not 3x longer than a player can hit them, it just looks disportial. So if you see a shadowbear hits about 4m to 7 meters away. Normal player range is about 1m to 3 meters away. Small animals (rats, rabbits etc) have about a range of 1m to 3m. But being they are so small its looks like they are hitting from far away.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Please don't take away safe places such as rocks and boulders. There are some who do not like to hunt. I like to go scavenging a long ways from my tribe. Its frustrating enough to have to travel a longs ways in the game. If you take away the boulders as safe area from the animals then what will players like myself do to avoid dying from a coyote attack? I understand it can be exploited when hunting but please find another solution. I like the idea that MrDDt suggested. Have the animals reset and their HP go up, maybe even instantly.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

no need to remove them, just full hp reset if a player reach a boulder.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

I have to agree wit Atavia on this one.

LIFE HAPPENS! Baby's head hit floor, diapers need changing, phone rings, wife agro, on and on. If there is no place to "pause" the game then we have to log off every time life happens. If this is a true sandbox game then anyway a player finds to play it than GOOD! We are not top of the food chain because we did find ways to kill things bigger than us. If no rock why not build a short narrow fence trap the bear and kill him like a cow. That's what I did. I needed bear bones so I got some. I have now moved on to fighting bears in the open. WAY to much fun to just use fires. Those who use the rocks will move on just like I did. We all have to start some where.

No way to "pause" means logging off every time some little thing happens. If that's the case it will become just to much of a pain in the ass to log back on. Leave the rocks the way they are we ALL use them from time to time. If you don't like hunting from a rock, don't hunt from a rock. If you don't like others hunting from rock, don't watch them. Are they going to kill the bears? At 100hp I can kill bears under and up to 400 (no rocks) but I do not care what you say there is no way we (yes we) could kill a 450 with all the damn rocks in the game.

Life happens.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dabent

I have to agree wit Atavia on this one.

LIFE HAPPENS! Baby's head hit floor, diapers need changing, phone rings, wife agro, on and on. If there is no place to "pause" the game then we have to log off every time life happens. If this is a true sandbox game then anyway a player finds to play it than GOOD! We are not top of the food chain because we did find ways to kill things bigger than us. If no rock why not build a short narrow fence trap the bear and kill him like a cow. That's what I did. I needed bear bones so I got some. I have now moved on to fighting bears in the open. WAY to much fun to just use fires. Those who use the rocks will move on just like I did. We all have to start some where.

No way to "pause" means logging off every time some little thing happens. If that's the case it will become just to much of a pain in the ass to log back on. Leave the rocks the way they are we ALL use them from time to time. If you don't like hunting from a rock, don't hunt from a rock. If you don't like others hunting from rock, don't watch them. Are they going to kill the bears? At 100hp I can kill bears under and up to 400 (no rocks) but I do not care what you say there is no way we (yes we) could kill a 450 with all the damn rocks in the game.

Life happens.

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In bold I think you mean "without" all the damn rocks in the game.
I would disagree, my son is 10 years old and does it.

Anyways, about the life happens thing, you can say this about any game. Say you are in a raid and on the boss, where is the pause button for a raid wipe? Guess we can't have raids right?
Tell me an MMO where it allows you to go AFK any moment in time and not have any punishment on you? Then also tell me an MMO which is survival based and also allows you to go AFK at any time.
I mean what if you are in mid combat and your "baby's head hit the floor"? Where is the pause for that? Do you have a rock in your pocket to stand on in Xsyon?
It is really silly to think game design would be based on random acts of AFK requirements of every person in the world to make a game.
Rocks need to and are being changed. It is clearly an exploit and ruins a major aspect of the game. Danger, equipment, and combat skill.
I'm very glad that Xsyon is finally doing something about this issue. There are still many more issues that need to be done like this.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

I do not understand people who object to others using rocks as a safe spot from animals. If you do not think rocks should be used that way, then don't use them. Does it somehow affect your game play if I choose to fight an animal from a rock? It seems now to simply be a choice not something that needs to be fixed. Let rocks remain safe spots for people who choose to use them. Anyone who objects can simply not jump on a rock. Not sure this is really something that needs to be changed. I'm slowly getting the hang of hunting and believe things with the animals are fine as is.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Does it effect me? Yes it does. It effects the economy and dynamics of the game.
That would be like saying "I don't understand people who object to others hacking the client, if you don't want to hack the client don't use the hack. Does it somehow effect your game play if they choose to hack the client? It seems now to simply be a choice not something that needs to be fixed"

It's really absurd how people can believe that an exploit where there is no risk of anything should be legal. If this is meant to be ok, why even have animals do damage at all? It boggles my mind someone could even have the belief that an exploit and bug like this can be seen as "OK" by anyone.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pwnuts

no need to remove them, just full hp reset if a player reach a boulder.

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This gets my vote if you are simply using a rock to hide from a creature because you dont want to fight it (anymore)
then you will have no issue with it resetting its hp.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Nuts you do make a half way decent point. Only half. Your comparison of using a rock to attempt to kill a creature -vs- asking a guide to give you the resources is dismissed because it's too funny.

At best there are too many variables on both sides but the chief one being that you may not be successful even while using the rock (from my experience).

Don't get me wrong, I understand your opinion that this type of thing is considered an exploit in other games but in THIS GAME, with the POPULATION as it is and is likely to be, given it's history since it was released as a long standing feature, taking all kinds of players and options into account I do not see how, here, it can be viewed this way. No one has made any unbalancing gains from this issue. (except perhaps the ones lobbying to have it removed?)

Rocks to avoid armor decay is a partially valid point. When I deem it necessary to use a rock I do not avoid every attack and still get hit. So while the hits I take might be lessened I do not escape armor decay it is only moderated. (Here could lie a creative and delicate alternative fix/improvement..)

Any given player should have the choice to play any and every aspect of the game the way they choose to play it (within TOS). That is one of the primary definitions of a sandbox. The best have many different ways to achieve any objective to accommodate all types of players. I see rocks as very good EQUILIZER. It gives some players a chance to be moderately successful hunting creatures above there ability. The claims that anyone can kill anything using rocks are vastly exaggerated from my experience and lead me to be suspicious of those who make this argument.

In two years of playing this game I have used rocks quite often. I have had in my possession roughly one dozen 1.00% 1.00 bones of any kind, ever. I invite Xsyon to verify this statement if he chooses.

Please explain to me how this in any way unbalances or disrupts the game? On second though, never mind, you cannot. It only adds to it as an possible option when more members are not available.

And, yes I just wasted my time typing this.

[Moved from other thread by Guide Forcas]

Sorta back on topic. Pwn you made me remember.

Why the heck are rabbits able to kill players? Rabbits should not even remotely have a chance of killing a player. A battle with a rabbit should end in 2 ways.
1)Rabbit dies.
2)Rabbit runs away.

Seeing a rabbit kill a player (sometimes in as little as 3 hits) is absurd.


Next is players need to know about where to find animals that fit their skill levels.
Finding animals that kill them in 2 hits where they find animals that they can fight is very hard on players learning a game's combat system that is not normally done in MMOs.

IMO, animals should be afraid of fire, if a campfire is made, it should keep animals away. I dont know if this has already been posted.. but just my 2 copper :)

My thoughts on rocks and creature combat AI in general. With rocks as-is or without rocks at all this should *mostly* resolve both the need for relative safety in the field and removal of the exploit.

Normal creatures should flee from fire if not aggroed or fleeing and should be weighted to flee if they are aggroed with the weight inversely proportional to % of remaining HP. This makes finding a safe spot possible, but not granted by the terrain. Nor would it guarantee safety for an active hunter. Mutants should not be deterred by fire; exploring high and extreme danger areas should be risky, even for a team of skilled hunters. The range at which creatures flee from fire might vary depending on their attraction to towns.
[Can't this be used to herd game? Sure, why not? Using fire to drive game towards traps or hunters is older than agriculture.]

Creatures should flee from a ranged attack or from any attack coming from an opponent they can not see -- even if it means crossing a fire.

A fleeing creature should ignore fire until it resets.

Creatures that are not aggroed or fleeing should heal as fast as a sleeping player.

Aggroed creatures that can not see their target should reset (and start healing at a faster pace).