Topic: New NPC behavior

We made some behavioral changes to NPCs that is now out on the test server:

  • Generally NPCs won't follow you anymore to the end of the world. This means that at a certain distance from their "home point", they will stop chasing you and head back to that point.

  • While moving back to their home point, NPCs will still attack you, if you are within range.

  • For roaming NPCs there are 2 main cases:
    1. They are waiting at a location for one or more of their members to arrive. In this case the ones waiting will behave like normal (static) NPCs as explained above, their home point being the one they are waiting at.
    2. If they are moving towards a point as a group, they will not chase you, but they will attack you if you are within range. This is practically the same behavior like when normal NPCs are heading back to their home point. And this is also true for roaming NPCs that are catching up to their waiting group.

Re: New NPC behavior

omg, ville will be happy and will *censored* fuuu

so Kiting is back on PTS?

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Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: New NPC behavior

It's not really kiting in the traditional sense, because once they start heading back, they will not chase you again until they reach their home, only shoot back while running there.

Re: New NPC behavior

so, the only change compared to the old times, is that they wont ignore you on their way back.

are there any plans to make the NPCs work together, especially the higher ranked ones?
i mean more then just having all attack the same player blindly.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: New NPC behavior

They only attack the same player "blindly" if noone else can top that player on their aggro list.

Re: New NPC behavior

yeah, but that "aggro list" is per NPC, and the defenition of "aggro" has nothing to do with what type that NPC is (i have yet to see low-hitpoint ewar NPCs behave different from a fully plated DPS heavy)

as far as i can tell, the only raise in difficulty is done by increasing the number of NPCs , and increasing their equivalent to our "extensions"

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Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: New NPC behavior

\o/ <3 you guys.

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Re: New NPC behavior

How about full HP regen after it's evade?

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Why the crybabies wins?
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Re: New NPC behavior

Will each spawn still have 2 groups of NPC's or now will there be only one?

Re: New NPC behavior

Aye Pod wrote:

Will each spawn still have 2 groups of NPC's or now will there be only one?

1. roaming spawns are always "one group"
2. static spawns are going to be removed soon
3. current mission spawns are always "one group". Future missions templates may change that

Hunter is rising a good point. NPCs should care about their hitpoints outside of combat. Most of them have a repair module installed, but won't use it unless beeing in combat.
Those not equipped with one, should have RR support.
Again, this is something that would scale with the NPC level.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: New NPC behavior

i know, this is on live now,
but the new "leash" still has that one major flaw

the NPCs automatically unlock you at their turning point.
so you wait at the leash range, and the run towards you, lock, reach the tuning point, unlock you, and start a new lock cycle while running away.

whats the point of "still attacking" if they only try to lock you during their return cycle?

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: New NPC behavior

That should be fixed now.