NPC skills and moderation

[Alaudrien]

Hey everyone I was mainly writing this in an observation since I know mobiles have all gmed spells skills and so forth. While I am 90% sure they do not use stamina as they use there skills. This allows them to spam there skills almost never missing against people. The higher level area' are not much to worry about since those foes are meant to be very tough. Just that lower area's they just keep doing it and doing it. I've noticed in other area's some npc's if you give them abilities not of there class they tend to just spam it back to back to back. Wouldn't it make it a bit more balanced to put a way that moderates the npc's just as there are thigns to moderate pc's in there abilities and spells since they never tired?

I write this as mainly to get everyone's thoughts and opinions to be heard and then from there on it's up to the higher ups ^.^

[Raona]

I'd suggest moving this to "Chat" for the discussion part, so that it will get a fresh look as a suggestion once people have had their say about it and some concrete suggestion emerges from such discussions (ideally, with some concise rationale for said changes, as well).

How do you know NPC's GM all skills?!? I don't know that!

[Aveline]

I was at the Peaks today with a younger character of mine and the goblins repeatedly disarmed me. I'm pretty quick to get the weapon picked back up, but then they just disarmed me again. They didn't always succeed but I would say they did at 90% or so of the attempts. Unless I got lucky and one-hit killed a mob, I had to pick up the weapon -atleast- twice against every mob. I realize part of this is that my character seems to be a spaz, and that all of my characters seem to have really back luck... But I think that would be one example of something being discussed here. And while it isn't an emergency type of situation for me...I did think the disarming was a tad excessive, and I think it would be a nice touch to have the mobs have some of our same weaknesses. I don't know if they are GM'd at the skill, but they certainly seem very good at it to me!

[Alaudrien]

How do you know NPC's GM all skills?!? I don't know that!

It's one of those things I picked up a long time ago. Mob skills are default set to grandmaster. Same with spells and the like. That's why there skills hit easily. To fix that default someone would have to go through every npc file and manually set ever skill which would take a year at least!

I was at the Peaks today with a younger character of mine and the goblins repeatedly disarmed me. I'm pretty quick to get the weapon picked back up, but then they just disarmed me again. They didn't always succeed but I would say they did at 90% or so of the attempts. Unless I got lucky and one-hit killed a mob, I had to pick up the weapon -atleast- twice against every mob. I realize part of this is that my character seems to be a spaz, and that all of my characters seem to have really back luck... But I think that would be one example of something being discussed here. And while it isn't an emergency type of situation for me...I did think the disarming was a tad excessive, and I think it would be a nice touch to have the mobs have some of our same weaknesses. I don't know if they are GM'd at the skill, but they certainly seem very good at it to me!

This is one of the instances I mean. The higher the mob the more the mob is gonna be skillful and tough to fight dealing with disarms and such, but like when faced with low level npc's such as goblins and the like. They aren't known for skillfulness such as disarming that much or tactics. Mostly overwhelming numbers. The main point I was making was to look at all the lower level places and find a way to moderate or just manually set there skill lvl to something someone of that level range would have there own. It would be alot less work than doing every npc just hose meant to be fought and for certain level ranges work up a chart for what skill levels they should be. The main trick to this is to manually do it would take forever. The alternative would be if a bit of code was written so when you designate an npc to a class and then the class level. It doesn't automatically cap there skills at GM but rather at a set chart that was worked up. Sorta like when its made a fighter and his level he gets those skills up to that level. What if it only set the skill points up to a certain degree depending on there level?

[Keltorn]

They seem to be awfully blessed as far as spellcasting goes, too. On more than one occasion, I've been pretty much decimated by a single NPC priest continuously casting Storm of Vengeance more times than should even be possible. I assume they have unlimited spell slots, not to mention access to the best spells in the game. It's not exactly what you are addressing, but very similar.

[Elke]

Spells I've definitely noticed. However often you try to dispel an enemy mob, they always have another whatever to restore with seconds later.

[Zorinar]

Hmm, One instance I can remember with zorinar. I was doing a quest for a Temple in Waterdeep, where you have to kill a bad priest. I always though that was a low level quest since it was mainly about learning the faiths. I was maybe level 13? When I attempted the end part of that quest,the npc spammed some kind of slay spell, killing me and Hoildric, who was actually kind of tough at that time. I find that most npc's and priests in general will spam death spells at players, more than likely because they are spawned from a similar template and are not all customized, which would take forever probably. Although, I have learned to manage with it and get along fine in the mud. I guess this would probably be a low priority but something that I always wondered about myself.

[Dalmil]

It is the same with the mummies in Feebov's Mansion, they just repeatedly cast "cause serious" on themselves and heal at the same time casting it on you as well. I've been in an encounter that lasted eight minutes before, with them spamming it the whole time.

[Ocius]

This might be the wrong place for this but a couple of us were talking about the healer guy in the Font who casts spells and whether it was changed recently? He used to cast more healing spells, more spells in general I think and they were effective. This came up cause lately he doesn't heal as often or effectively so people rest up to 100% health but they still are all mangled and end up dying alot to losing heads and stuff. (I know you can go upstairs pay for 'heal full' but its expensive!)

So if it was tweaked maybe it went too far? It might be nice to have the damage spells dialed down, but keep the beneficial stuff like healing back up? I guess maybe you can't dial one down without the other going too. lol.

[Mask]

How do you know NPC's GM all skills?!? I don't know that!

It's one of those things I picked up a long time ago. Mob skills are default set to grandmaster. Same with spells and the like. That's why there skills
hit easily. To fix that default someone would have to go through every npc file and manually set ever skill which would take a year at least!

Just a quick note - this isn't true! Very few mobs have GM skills or spells - their skill levels are governed by their class and level, and their 'fight strategy' is also based on their class and level, or alternatively, it is pre-programmed by the builder.

[Alaudrien]

ahh I was just told in the past the default was GM for there skillsets -_-

[Isolrem]

a timer might be nice which regulates how often a mob can use skills/spells based on their level. e.g. once every ((int) 50/(Mlvl + 10)) + 1 rounds

edit: but this is really just a fight strategy issue which could involve the total revamp of current fight strategies.

[Skeas]

It's also kind of irritating that npc spells are never interrupted, ever. So while I'm trying to cast my level 4 cure spell, and I get hit for superficial damage in the leg and lose it, Queen Necropants Jr can begin casting a level 7 insta-death spell, eat 4 morning star blows to the chest and head, whack me and get burnt by my fireshield, finish her spell without pause, and 1-shot me like she wasn't just getting her unarmored chest(lungs*) and head (mouth/brain*) beat in.


*Things needed to speak /cast spells

[Dovan]

Ty Skeas! Even if skills (punch, kick, eye gouge, etc) would effect spell casting.

[Elke]

It'd be nice to be able to dispel a mob without them insta-recasting too and counterspell as well

[Zorinar]

I dont really know much about the melee classes but do the special moves like disarm, kick and etc.. take up stamina? If yes, do the mobs use up their stamina when they do these special moves? If they did, and they had a limited amount of stamina based on their constitution, would that mostly solve the issues with mobs auto-spamming forever the special moves they do?

Would it also cause more trouble than its worth if spell casting mobs were given a limited number of spells based on their int or wis, and they would have to meditate to get them back?

[Raona]

I dont really know much about the melee classes but do the special moves like disarm, kick and etc.. take up stamina? If yes, do the mobs use up their stamina when they do these special moves? If they did, and they had a limited amount of stamina based on their constitution, would that mostly solve the issues with mobs auto-spamming forever the special moves they do?

Would it also cause more trouble than its worth if spell casting mobs were given a limited number of spells based on their int or wis, and they would have to meditate to get them back?

I haven't checked on spells, but mobs do use up stamina when they kick/punch/etc. However, they usually die before they run out of it (while you go on to fight another mob, and another...so you eventually do run out unless you rest).

I'll check on spells when I've more time, unless someone enlightens before that.