Learning mobs?

Posted by Point on 10/31/96

It occurred to me while I was sitting here that one way to make higher level mobs a bit harder for high levels to kill might be if they learned a bit during the fighting.

For instance, it would seem to me that if the mob has just been kicked 6 times in a row, he might anticipate that he's going to be kicked again and thus have a better chance at avoiding it the next time it happens.

The same thing goes for warcry, if you've screamed at a mob 8 times already, it makes since he wouldn't be as likely to flee in panic or be paralyzed as the first time you warcry him.

So, I was wondering what people might think of the idea of skills becoming progressively less effective by a small bit at a time the more often you use it on a mob during a fight?

Obviously, me having kicked a mob 10 times would have no effect on someone else kicking it for the first time, as the mob would have no reason to anticipate a kick from that person, and it would forgot who all had done what to it after it

Anyway, I just thought that this might decrease the effectiveness of max wimpy kick/warcries on high level mobs, and make it a little harder to take on mobs such as HOL that were never intended to be soloed anyway.

I have no clue how realistic this is in terms of coding and processor/memory usage, so just thought I'd throw this out and see what kind of response I got.

Point, who had too much time to think while smoking a cigarrette.

From: Gho Thursday, October 31, 09:10PM

mmm, despite only having 1! fighting skill (yes i'm a con fighter) i think it's a good idea, rather than rely on your main fighting stat for skills i could actually land a successful kick through the element of surprise, perhaps getting rid of the nil chance of connecting if ones dex is 30 less than your opponent etc, but give % bonus chance for at least the 1st attempt.. however i can imagine this kinda thing would be very low priority on the things to do list :)

From: Psytrac Thursday, October 31, 09:50PM

Interesting, but rather than having those mobs learning reflected by %chance, why not program it so that they'll trip/bash/close door when the opponent has fled a couple times or more? Personally, the mobs i hate most are the ones that bash/headbutt or do anything else that might hinder my backstab/flee strategy. Max wimpying i think is a very nice tactic, goes well with thieves, and i'd still like to continue doing it. But, i would not mind having mobs that responded more intelligently--if your opponent runs, why kick instead of bashing them?