The idea of climbing mechanics has me excited for something different in Pantheon. Age of Conan had some places you could climb, not a lot, enjoyed having that different form of travel. Stopping part way through the climb and getting a great view of the area etc. I think in AoC the mobs would break away and return to the starting location if you went too far with the climb.
As long as there were some common sense systems in place for it
As long as the AI of the mobs is enhanced so that the creatures have extensive strategies to use, based on said creatures intelligence, it could make for some interesting situations.
More than one game indeed have systems where if you get to a position where you can attack the mob and it cannot attack you an anti-exploit feature kicks in and the mob either resets or becomes invulnerable. Even animal-level intelligence is more than sufficient to get the animal to simply leave if it cannot attack but is getting hurt. Mindless constructs or undead may be a different matter.
I agree that climbing as a means of getting to safety makes perfect sense. As long as there is a substantial chance of climbing failing if you are in combat. And also as long as the mob may be able to climb after you depending on the situation. Climbing a tree to get away from a bear is a well known situation. Note I do not say that it is well known for being *effective*.
The solution I would like to see to this is that if players can climb, mobs can climb when it's physically appropriate to do so. Of course, they can't attack you while they're climbing, and you can see them climbing up toward, you, and hey maybe you can dislodge them with an stun or a knockback or something (and then they fall and take some falling damage)... but if they manage to climb up to where you are, then fair's fair.
Also, if they happen to have ranged attacks, they should be able to use those from the ground.
I'm totally ok with some mobs not being able to climb, by the way. To use Dorotea's example of the bear - if I climb up a cliff face, it really shouldn't be able to get to me, and it's not smart enough to try and find another way around. But if it's an orc, oh yeah, it can climb up too. Or it might just pull out a bow instead.
Nephele said:The solution I would like to see to this is that if players can climb, mobs can climb when it's physically appropriate to do so. Of course, they can't attack you while they're climbing, and you can see them climbing up toward, you, and hey maybe you can dislodge them with an stun or a knockback or something (and then they fall and take some falling damage)... but if they manage to climb up to where you are, then fair's fair.
Also, if they happen to have ranged attacks, they should be able to use those from the ground.
I'm totally ok with some mobs not being able to climb, by the way. To use Dorotea's example of the bear - if I climb up a cliff face, it really shouldn't be able to get to me, and it's not smart enough to try and find another way around. But if it's an orc, oh yeah, it can climb up too. Or it might just pull out a bow instead.
Yeah, I never liked the mechanic where I could climb somewhere and be immune to npc attacks. If npcs can climb and reach me or if they have a ranged option to use, they should.
From an immersion standpoint i would like to see the npc either climb or reset. I dislike when mobs warp ontop of you. And there should definitly be an anti-exploit mechanics inplace. Climbing up out of the way could be an exploit in getting away from mobs or for bad pull situtations. So the types of mobs in the area would need to be considered as well. Higher amount of casters in zones with a lot of climbing? Archery abilities? There are definitly conversations to be had in regards to this issue.
I wouldn't want the solution to be abusable. My first thought is having a dire lord with their aggro over time mark up just jumping up/down a ledge while a mob runs back and forth getting massacred by dps.
I am torn on whether or not ledges should be able to be used as get out of jail free cards. On one hand it may allow people to draw away dangerous guards before a boss fight so their allies could get in for the fight. On the other it would be kind of fun to know all the convenient ledges of a zone that you can run to instead of a zone line to clear trains. I would love it if shouts of "TRAIN TO ZONE, AFK-ERS WILL DIE" are replaced by an internal monologue "Oh, I'll just run to the ledge behind the cabin and get these goblins off my trail".
This is certainly a tough question though. I would guess this is one of the topics the devs have referred to when they talk about thinking through all the edge cases.
Vaultarn said:The idea of climbing mechanics has me excited for something different in Pantheon. Age of Conan had some places you could climb, not a lot, enjoyed having that different form of travel. Stopping part way through the climb and getting a great view of the area etc. I think in AoC the mobs would break away and return to the starting location if you went too far with the climb.
As long as there were some common sense systems in place for it
- like you referred to, creatures that can climb. If they follow and try to attack and cause damage, you could fall.
- As for using it as a get out of jail free card, I don't see a problem with that. It's using the terrain to your advantage, a valid strategy in my opinion.
- If the creatures are unable to follow I would think the reasonable thing to do is have those mobs return to their starting location or have the AI a bit smarter where they move out of range and wait rather than resetting.
- Those with ranged attacks could keep fighting and have a chance of making you fall.
As long as the AI of the mobs is enhanced so that the creatures have extensive strategies to use, based on said creatures intelligence, it could make for some interesting situations.
Hey Vaultarn! You summed up the benefits nicely mate, I can now see the positive spin to some of my concerns now, cheers!
Certainly looking forward to uncovering emergent gameplay inside of the various new/ish systems coming in to Pantheon
Thanks for the replies folks, put a bit of worry to bed for me :)
I see climbing much the same way I see swimming when it comes to mobs. Sharks lose interest in you and swim away when you leave the water. Some mobs follow you into the water and keep attacking, some mobs lose interest. Much the same with climbing a cliff.
Some will follow--and I agree, the instant warp of decade-old games should be removed if coding allows. Otherwise, they should lose interest--giving you a way to climb the tree and out of harm's way.
How cool would it be, though, if the shark didn't ever forget about you but instead tracked you along the coast, ready to pounce when you went back in. Or the rabid dog that followed you to the tree stalked your tree trunk waiting for you to climb down...
And smarter mobs would shoot you down in the tree or go find a friend to burn it down...
But I definitely don't think climbing should allow for bugged leveling.
Vanguard had something similar to this. You could have levitate on and scale up a wall and then drop levitate and after falling far enough (not very far) down the verticle axis the mobs would leash back to their spawn and drop aggro. However that became the easy way to pull a single mob that was grouped with many. So it did cause problems and make the game easier. If you had 5-10 mobs on you all you had to do was run to a hill and jump off it and lose aggro most of the time.
Vaultarn said:As long as there were some common sense systems in place for it
- As for using it as a get out of jail free card, I don't see a problem with that. It's using the terrain to your advantage, a valid strategy in my opinion.
- If the creatures are unable to follow I would think the reasonable thing to do is have those mobs return to their starting location or have the AI a bit smarter where they move out of range and wait rather than resetting.
- Those with ranged attacks could keep fighting and have a chance of making you fall.
As long as the AI of the mobs is enhanced so that the creatures have extensive strategies to use, based on said creatures intelligence, it could make for some interesting situations.
NPCs are incredibly stupid and allowing players, with our ability to think creatively, to exploit their limitations is detrimental to the long term health of the game. If you manage to get to a location that an NPC cannot reach, it should not just give up, it should not reset, it should just warp to your location and continue attacking you. Certain NPCs that are considered powerful enough should summon players if the player is in a position the NPC cannot reach.
There are far too many examples of players exploiting NPC pathing (or world geometry) limitations to justify anything thing other than NPCs warping to your location or warping you to theirs.