Splinter Topic: Mob Leashing And Aggro

From a conversation in another thread, as usual.

Right now as of the shown flow in the Tank update, Mob Leashing seems to be short ENOUGH that you can outrange mobs within their own area. Whether this is a default or not is unclear from the content, but there has been a concern raised that this will lower difficulty and challenge if it remains as it is.

A relatively populated area would require players to run away in the right direction to avoid getting more mobs on them, but if one could realistically just 'keep running' until a safe area is reached, this may not matter.

Since I generally only play games with no leash of this type (my main game switched from 'no leash at all, the entire zone will chase you', to 'if you do manage to get away, the mob just fades after a bit and cannot easily aggro others', and BDO is BDO), I can't claim to understand why this is implemented in this way at all other than to make the game easier, as pointed out.

Do you perceive this as a problem, or is the effect on difficulty something you either don't experience, or believe should be in the game?

Ah, I can't find my other comment on this topic. Too many threads lately.

I want either a non-leash system or at least a location-wide one.

I'll note that I don't have an easy time understanding why 'long leash' vs 'infinite leash' matters for a specific reason.

Let's say that you have multiple medium to long-leash mobs in an area. You get the attention of one, and you start running (either in or out, doesn't usually matter).

Mob A eventually gives up, but in most games I play, the difficulty (and it would be quite high, especially in dungeons) would be to somehow get to the end of Mob A's leash without either aggroing Mobs B-E on your path, OR by them 'linking' with Mob A, selecting you as 'target of their target' and then activating their own pursuit.

And so on.

Since this is entirely up to Devs in terms of paths (how many paths they give you with no Mob B-E, so you can escape from Mob A), and I generally don't seem to play games where players have meaningfully higher movespeed than Mobs, or easy retreat paths, the idea is a bit foreign to me.

tl;dr as soon as leashes aren't short in an even slightly enclosed space, my experience is that trying to run from Mob A will eventually end SOMEWHERE with Mobs W-Z killing you, and I can see why a fully open world game generally wants to have SOME leash.

Azherae wrote: »

Since this is entirely up to Devs in terms of paths (how many paths they give you with no Mob B-E, so you can escape from Mob A), and I generally don't seem to play games where players have meaningfully higher movespeed than Mobs, or easy retreat paths, the idea is a bit foreign to me.

tl;dr as soon as leashes aren't short in an even slightly enclosed space, my experience is that trying to run from Mob A will eventually end SOMEWHERE with Mobs W-Z killing you, and I can see why a fully open world game generally wants to have SOME leash.

This is why I think that some triggers for a more frequent use of slowing/rooting abilities by the mobs would help quite a bit. And it would feel a bit more active than just a "mob runs after you until it gets in range of an attack" situation.

Also, if there is a leash, should it be a location one or a player one, or a combination of both? I'd personally prefer a location leash (not just a spawn point, but a whole location) with no player leash, so that fleeing players gotta leave a location completely because all those A-Z mobs will run after them until they do.

Though this would definitely lead to aoe farming, so there'd probably have to be some AI coding against that or some other ways of making it not a super optimal way to play.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Since this is entirely up to Devs in terms of paths (how many paths they give you with no Mob B-E, so you can escape from Mob A), and I generally don't seem to play games where players have meaningfully higher movespeed than Mobs, or easy retreat paths, the idea is a bit foreign to me.

tl;dr as soon as leashes aren't short in an even slightly enclosed space, my experience is that trying to run from Mob A will eventually end SOMEWHERE with Mobs W-Z killing you, and I can see why a fully open world game generally wants to have SOME leash.

This is why I think that some triggers for a more frequent use of slowing/rooting abilities by the mobs would help quite a bit. And it would feel a bit more active than just a "mob runs after you until it gets in range of an attack" situation.

Also, if there is a leash, should it be a location one or a player one, or a combination of both? I'd personally prefer a location leash (not just a spawn point, but a whole location) with no player leash, so that fleeing players gotta leave a location completely because all those A-Z mobs will run after them until they do.

Though this would definitely lead to aoe farming, so there'd probably have to be some AI coding against that or some other ways of making it not a super optimal way to play.

I am not going to try to convince people of the 'strong single enemies, no easy AoE farm in this game!', but that's my only experience with it.

AoE farm requires 'an entire group of mobs that you can AoE down before they kill either you or whoever is protecting you', and this exp still has to be decent, right?

I definitely have played games like that, but they were usually very action-y, and instanced-dungeon so leashes mattered minimally. Other games I play, even BDO at the more 'fun' camps, if you plan to 'AoE farm' you had better be EXTREMELY prepared for that or you will die.

Azherae wrote: »

AoE farm requires 'an entire group of mobs that you can AoE down before they kill either you or whoever is protecting you', and this exp still has to be decent, right?

I mean, unless the mobs will be several times (or maybe even several dozen times) harder than the ones from tank showcase - I'd imagine a ranger/tank could build up enough threat on a group of mobs while successfully kiting them to let some mages aoe those mobs down.

We'll obviously have to see how viable that'll be once we get to the mob balancing stage, but I do think there's a chance that it's gonna be possible.

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My main concern with aoe farming is one party overtaking several spawn spots. And if mobs are supposed to be thick and with longer respawns, then that party might get even more mobs under them.

But as I said before and as Azherae pointed out, most mobs should be difficult enough to just not be aoe-farmable. And those groups should just have proper mobs to occupy them.

For clarity I have no issues with the concept of AoE farming, it's a 'skill', designers usually can decide how difficult or easy they want that to be based on mob density, mob power, and the power of AoE abilities.

I have an issue with the idea that in a game where things should supposedly be difficult, difficult enough that you even care what your team composition is when you enter an area, AoE farming wouldn't require either extreme skill, or wouldn't reward little exp (and I have experienced games where the latter is still not enough because they have good drops or whatever).

I really don't think Ashes is going to mess this up by accident , these people have been playing MMOs for years. The fact that a few of them have played one where this was a thing for a bit, isn't a negative, it was very popular, so many people would have.

EDIT: Fixed a double-negative, gotta get back to speaking English after being in the lang-code mines today.

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Party mobs should be difficult enough for solos to die almost immediately against them, or at least struggle immensely, so I don't think that'd be a problem.