/u/4g41n0nmy0wn on Reddit brought up a good point:
Yep, of course. If leashes exist, they'll be exploited. It's one of the few distinguishing mechanics of EQ1, that they had leashes that were, while not actually infinite, long enough to create the illusion of being infinite.
It was the first thing I tested in New World; leash length. Ok, aggro range is this, leash length is this. Now I can never die, because I just take one step back and the mob returns home. No risk, no danger, just /yawn.
A compromise/solution could be: Impliment a random leash distance... every time a mob get's leashed.
In other words: You wouldn't ever know where they would give up chasing you.
Joppa clarified in the chat during that stream that this allows for way more thought to be put into mob behavior. Will mobs chase indefinitely, will they retreat, will they retreat if they can no longer see you, will they retreat if they get feared, ... or any number of other variables. I highly doubt (willing to be my pledge on it) that all mobs will simply leash when they reach X meters from their spawn point.
I am excited about the possibilities here.
Ranarius said:... I highly doubt (willing to be my pledge on it) that all mobs will simply leash when they reach X meters from their spawn point. ...
IMO:
While I agree there are many better ways to do it, what game do you know of has ever done it differently?
Or put another way, what game do you know of, in any category or genre, MMO included, that has implemented non-fixed leash lengths?
Of the hundreds of games I've played over the years, some have infinite/no leash lengths, like EQ1. All the rest, WoW included, have fixed leash lengths ( X meters from the spawn point, they return/repop home ).
I can't personally think of any that had variable leash lengths, or even unpredictable leash lengths of any kind, but if you know of them, that would be good information.
For dungeons, presumably, if VR wants to, nothing changes because of zone lines. The leash length could be the width/length/height of the zone, so you can never outrun a pursuer. Socially toxic trains to zone, activate!
But the potential implications for overland zones is huge, with the recent change to this public design goal. Overland zone leashes, of any kind, of any length, means as long as you can run faster than your pursuers, and those pursuers can't, won't or don't catch/summon/stun/root you, you ~never die while traveling. Or at the very least, travel is MUCH less of a problem.
Consider the difference between running across Dreadlands, at-level, without a SoW, invis, lev, bard, or similar? One drolvarg catches sight of you, and it's game over, dirt nap. They ran faster than a normal unbuffed player.
If you know that drolvarg will give up, eventually, then all you have to do is outrun them for exactly that leash length, or stay ahead of your friends. :)
Now we have a whole bunch of unknown variables that can make travel a tremendously annoying endeavor, or not. If SoW/pots are reasonably easy to get/make, and a well prepared player can travel with relative ease, no big deal. You've just got a resource sink.
However, if, even WITH SoW/pots, random mobs can now catch you, or worse yet, can catch bards escorting groups.. not so much with the fun. Challenging, maybe. Annoying, certainly, after the thousandth time, but fun? ehn. Maybe not.
To be clear, I'm not saying this new found land of vague and possible is a positive thing. It has a far greater potential to be implemented punitively, given the history of this team.
Personally, it frustrates me that this core mechanic is being adjusted 4 months prior to the 8th anniversary of the original Pantheon Kickstarter.
To the first point, I think that IS the point, that no other game has really done it before, VR is making the claim that they just might be able to do something new. I'm excited and hopeful.
To the second point, I'm not really following your argument. If you can run faster than a mob than you'll escape with or without leashing. If you can't ran faster than a mob then you'll die without leashing unless you run to a zone line and you'll die with leashing unless you run to the leash point. But, argument number 1 is making the claim that we won't know where the leash point is, or what the leash trigger is. I'm sure we'll ge tto know them, but right now we don't know what they will be.
A lot of people mention the time it's taken to make this game, and that they are annoyed that things have changed since the beginning. Is it really reasonable to expect the game to stay exactly the same for 8 years? While technology advances I'd really expect a team to take advantage of the new possibilities. I can only imagine the opposite argument people would make lol. "They've been designing this for 8 years and they REFUSE to use new ideas or new technology, what a joke!"
Ranarius said:Joppa clarified in the chat during that stream that this allows for way more thought to be put into mob behavior. Will mobs chase indefinitely, will they retreat, will they retreat if they can no longer see you, will they retreat if they get feared, ... or any number of other variables. I highly doubt (willing to be my pledge on it) that all mobs will simply leash when they reach X meters from their spawn point.
I am excited about the possibilities here.
As this idea has traversed some topic lines, and having digested Vjeks post I flashed on this mechanic idea.
Faction
Faction is player-centric. What if Aggro to a certain type of MoB was secretly Dev coded to players- that is, players are not immediately aware of this mechanic, this is a "muahahaha" dev thing-like faction. For instance: you desecrate a graveyard by killing some skeletons. There are no zones, so once you leave the graveyard the skeletons are leashed to the edge of the graveyard and go back to wandering.
However, what if you were coded like a faction hit to undead, that increased your aggro range to undead or even skeletons in particular. The more you killed, the bigger your range; by diameter and maybe even added directional to where you are facing. So after a while, unbeknownst to you, your skeleton aggro range is 100yards diamater and from a cone out how you are facing 200 yards, lets say that is max. If you are in a group and running toward a mausoleum far from the graveyard you newbied up from, the spectres, normally leashed to their area- sense you. And if you are running in your group, they leave their mausoleum and come for you, just you.
Overland, zoneless train pull by hidden faction. or not train, depending on how they are grouped.
Of course there could be any sort of colorful ways to do the right thing that are class specific, like necro's or dire lords might be less inclined to get as much of a hit consideing how they use the dead to their will by the keeping of bone chips as example and re-use of them lowers said hit. Other classes or races, being sensitive to their surroundings may hear of priests talk of how skulls need to be returned to their graves and instead of selling the players will give skulls to gravestones or to priests in temples that will negate this faction- unbeknowst to them, they are just being mindful and immersed. And it could be Cross racial with different effects, if the player forgot to take care of the bones in one place and moved to the next and realized they have bones in their bags, the skar city may have entirely different cultural mores with how they deal with bones (yuk) , halflings may think you are out of place and make you wait for a dia del muerte celebration, Ogres may have horrendous implications entirely.
This that could (should?) affect the leash logic of a given NPC:
1. NPC level vs PC level. As NPC goes above PC, leash range drastically increases. As it goes lower, leash range lowers.
2. Faction. Ally chases the lowest but as you drop down the spectrum to KOS leash range increases.
3. Race. Much like faction, some NPC races just hate certain PC races and should chase accordingly
4. Religion. Same as #3.
5. Quantity. As the number of NPCs to PCs increases, leash ranges increase. As the number of NPCs to PCs decreases, leash range shortens.
6. Undead/Mindless. These should just chase forever.
What really makes NPCs easy to run away from is that they are only ever reactive and only ever within a set radius. Even an NPC that can literally see you standing there yet are outside their aggro radius are effectively blind to your existance. So long as you can either 1) avoid entering that aggro radius; 2) enter and exit the radius before the perform a radius check; and 3) can utilize terrain and other world geometry/items to slow the NPC, you can run around with complete impunity.
All this said, so long as I know a mob will leash and I learn what that radius is, I can fully exploit that knowledge to near guarantee my safety.
So, some questions then:
Should NPCs, by default, run faster than a PC that does not have a run speed buff? Most should. Any animal (wolf, bear, lion) should absolutely run faster than a player. A snake? Not so much (sorry snakes).
Should NPCs have means by which they can affect a player's ability to run away? Yes, most should. Any NPC that is of a class similar to that of a player and has root/snare/stuns/dispell should be employing them without fail when that NPC determines the player is running away. Any NPC who has abilities (spiders shooting webs, for example) that could affect run speed should use them.
In the end, rather than leashing being the focus I would prefer that NPCs have tools they can (and will) utilize that can inhibit our ability to flee. Why should NPCs only decision to be "When should I stop chasing? That's just being stupid. They should be preventing us from running away freely.
I think the more variables you throw at the idea the more likely it is to have bugs and thus break down. I like the idea of variable leash but I also don't think we should have each mob tracking its own leash counter based on how many times it has been leashed. Obviously zone/mob type should play a factor but those can be static factors. All mobs in castle, all mobs in court yard, etc. I would then add 2 variables. On spawn all mobs have a +/- range for leash. It doesn't change for that mob but any new mob will vary. Less overhead on the code/database by not having it constantly increment. Second could be part of the core AI. If the mob can not catch the player, or say "unable to do damage to the player for X seconds" give up/leash.
If a mob can not catch you it should leash, that is "realistic" AI. A mob's environment should dictate it's range, as a Palace Guard is less likely to chase you once you've left the palace then say a wolf in the wild, but with the +/- variable.
I personally don't find leashing game breaking or at all an issue honestly though. If it was kept just like current MMO's I wouldn't have a problem.
My only concern is the leaning of comment and speculation towards having hard set rules. Isn't the disposition of NPCs to be randomly set? With some constraints obviously, but there is some "role of the dice" element? Having a hard setting of the "npc goes this far and no further" regardless of terrain and position vs PC, sounds like a static behavior. Any static behavior is easier to exploit than a more random or dynamic behavior setting. Having a more random behavior applied helps thwart any familiar boredom that may arrive once someone reads the wiki on how the goblins behave. If there is a random element then it opens the door to the feeling that anything can happen.
How do we know as an adventurer that the goblin we choose to attack hasn't just had a terrible morning? Maybe the goblin got up and stubbed their toe, then dropped their breakfast, then saw their crush kissing another, found a new wart, and this wart is not in a good place, it's on his butt and not on his nose where it would be better appreciated by his crush? This is one pissed off goblin. Now you come along and shoot an arrow into his elbow. He is going to chase you for miles seeking revenge, in a hot rage, maybe crying, because that's a bad morning for anyone.
But if it's just a hard and fast rule that x=y/z then we don't care about the love life of the goblins and I for one don't want to play in that type of cruel world.
Bonechip said:
A compromise/solution could be: Impliment a random leash distance... every time a mob get's leashed.
In other words: You wouldn't ever know where they would give up chasing you.
Ranarius said:I thought that at first too, but then realized it wouldn't if their behavior changes based on how many of them there are.
Ok, but how many mobs there are or if the leash changes distances doesn't matter as long as you have room to outrun the longest leash. And again, it's much easier to split if they don't all stay in a pile because their leashes are the same. Making the leashes variable distance makes it so they split themselves. That's trivial as far as splitting them. I mean, it's usually easy to split leashed mobs anyway but.
If 3 mobs are chasing you, they could all have the SAME leash length. Not each one have it's own individual leash length. That's what I wasn't explaining very well.
All 3 mobs turn back at the same distance, but that distance is unkown to the player.
Ranarius said:If 3 mobs are chasing you, they could all have the SAME leash length. Not each one have it's own individual leash length. That's what I wasn't explaining very well.
All 3 mobs turn back at the same distance, but that distance is unkown to the player.
It doesn't matter what the distance is as long as there is room to cheese it.
I can't think of a situation where leashing isn't easily manipulated as long as there is room to cheese it? Can you? I guess maybe if mobs have range attacks that far out ranges players so players aren't able to get into range to attack other than when the mobs reset at their camp? hmmm it would have to be crazy long range. Players would have to be so far away that they cant get back in time to attack the mobs while they are returning to their spawn....even then you'd just have to be able to eat a few range attacks so you are close enough to attack the mobs after they drop aggro. I guess that isn't realistic....just thinking out loud.
Now, if we really get down to it, you can also split camps and "cheese" in other games. What did we do in EQ when we pulled too many mobs? Simply...zone out. Cheese? Yeah. What did I do when I wanted to split a camp in EQ? Root one mob, run to the zone line, wait till the other mob was near me at the zone line, then I'd zone out, zone back real quick and re-tag the close mob. Cheese? Totally.
I had an old stream on in the background...I just heard this:
https://youtu.be/y0F228Rkhxk?t=3924