Suggestion: Mob collision AI

[Sub-Zero]

It's simple, since MA hasn't tried to fix the mob collission all these years. Why make an engine upgrade before upgrading your game to make it feel less like an Alpha game? Eye candy doesn't matter squat if the game feels buggy and alpha with some eye candy. A potentially easy fix would be to make mobs be able to walk through other mobs, objects like trees, bushes (just like they can walk through our vehicles).

I don't remember what VU it happened maybe it was before Cryengine but I have memories of entropia back in the day when you could shoot a mob behind another mob and it would have the brain cells to walk around the other mob to get to you without you having to move 50-100 meters to the left or right to make it "see you" when its stuck on the other mob.
Eomon, a prime example of this. A single Foul young can stop it in its tracks and the eomon will become stuck.

There's also the issue of mobs being spawned in trees or otherwise get stuck in unreachable state for longer periods of time. This is super annoying for the players and less potential revenue you could be making. I damaged almost half of one of these eomon inside this tree before giving up since it kept getting unreachable and I couldn't target it.

Also worthy to mention... Make an effort to improve your events, why have the Eomons spawn every year in a no vehicle zone near proteron around this time? This makes it annoying to hunt there. You lose potential revenue from this also because of mobs getting stuck and people getting annoyed in general since they can't use vehicle to get back.

 

[Katie Chalmers]

No vehicle zones just shouldn't exist at all. On the hunting grounds anyways.
Mobs not being able to pass through each other works to my advantage sometimes too when I get multiple mobs on me, so I am indifferent to this point

 

[Chloee]

I think the issue is the pathfinding AI. This is would be responsible for finding a route to the player. Currently the system seems to only plot a direct route and does not seem to account for any obstructions. This however might be done deliberately as AI can be CPU intensive, with the sheer amount of mobs that spawned in high density, simulating complex paths might be too expensive in the current engine.

I'd suggest the removal of the unreachable state. if the mob can't reach you, then return it to an idle state( id suggest fleeing like in most other games but i suspect that would frustrate many in an RCE)... and in regards to the spawning issue, that could easily be resolved by doing a check on spawn that the area is not occupied by an environmental prop such as a tree.

I think removing collisions is not the answer to the problem. The real problem is the pathfinding/state machine.

- just my opinion anyways

 

[Orion]

Why does MA need to reinvent the wheel for pathfinding AI?
(Uhm.. they don't. They just do nothing about it. But that is another story)

There are THOUSANDS of other games available with a working pathfinding AI.
Why can't MA just look at them and their solutions?

Aside from that, pathfinding AI is standard subject for every coder at University.

 

[KGBRomeo]

But it is so enjoyable to line up 4 or 5 Huons in a row, watching them standing in line patiently...waiting for their turn to die.

 

[Joat]

This needs to be fixed, and as you mentioned, it worked several years ago. If we look at other things they have
"dumbed down" we might get a clue why. All these changes should, in theory at least, make it harder for AFK hunters.
Sadly it effects active players a bit too much, since all kind of problems occurs.

 

[Deleted member 58836]

Just remove the "unreachable" feature altogether.

If hunting loot algo is truly based on cost, then there is no harm in participants using tactics like blocking mob path or getting it "stuck" to kill it.

It would also increase the ability for new players to team hunt larger creatures using tactics like this, which in turn increases ped turnover, which increases % paid to MindArk and which will likely help increase player retention with more cooperative type systems in game. Figuring out tactics like this should be part of the fun.

While you're at it, make flying vehicles able to be hit by mobs if they are within their range bubble. Only if the vehicle flies out of range should they de-agro. This will allow another tactic for hunting at the cost of taking some damage to your flying vehicle until you fly out of range. This should be an accepted tactic.

 

[Deemer]

I think just a lot of objects in the game are not part of the environment and that's the main reason for these bugs.
Objects appear to collide with physics, but are not in static mode.
This explains why mobites are spammed in trees and other objects for which it makes more sense to be static, ie. part of the environment.

 

[Aloisius]

I remember suggesting MA do AI and got weird panic feedback from the peanut gallery. I'm like come on, AI isn't like programming a moonlander!! I think it's object oriented programming they are still trying to understand. Taking the leap to programming AI is like OMG we have to learn LISP or something. Maybe MA has their proprietary code library that's not really accessible to their programmers is the problem. If we are lucky MA will get some really good programmers for the Unreal upgrade that's coming!