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malidath

Mob Spawning (too manny predators, boring AI)

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           I noticed recently the unnatural quantities in which hostile mobs spawn in remote areas. I was traveling through the desert and was killed by a combined force of a crocodile, mountain lion, several giant scorpions and spiders, and some wolves. I figured, "well, it's the dessert, its supposed to be dangerous, even if that was pretty ridiculous." but then later when I was trekking north to recover my belongings, I passed through an unpopulated, un-deeded area, and found it to be completely inundated by malevolent entities. The ground was completely covered in a thin layer of hell hounds, wolves, goblins, crocodiles, and about every other free-to-play killing filth that I know about, some of which I learned of right then and there, spaced a tile or so from each other.  This absurdity seemed mainly to happen in clear areas without trees and with ancient paving from long gone settlements, or it at least seemed to center there. It stretched a ways beyond in all directions, I ran out of stamina and was killed before I made it through. This is how I learned what the real Wurm wilderness actually looks like. Is it like this in real life? no, of course it isn't, i understand that wurm online isn't supposed to be an exact imitation of our world, with its gods and goddesses, and with all its fantastical creatures, and of course magic, but an ocean of weird beasts whose only drive is to inconvenience avatars as much as possible makes for a very poor world indeed, especially considering that the only other place to go is a literal ocean in which you will die after 50 seconds.


             When being viciously and tirelessly assaulted by those dozens of mobs, I angrily wonder: why aren't at least some of these animals eating each other instead of just me, one small free-to-play human passing through, trying to recover everything he owns. mobs should attack other mobs, so long as it makes sense, such as wolves attacking a troll, or so forth. Whatever the case, whatever you deem ecologically realistic.


              Now back to my other point, too many mobs spawn too frequently, too close to each other. How are people supposed to live off the land when they are constantly being raided by hoards of random this and that? I suggest that mob spawning should be rarer and that mobs should be fewer and further between. Though it should be a case by case basis, for example, it would make sense for wolves to spawn closer together, and to band together like all mobs currently do, whereas bears should be very far between, and for that mater they should run away from humans rather than charge toward them, unless attacked, this goes for many of the passive mobs as well.


              I also suggest that mobs should have certain criteria that they require to spawn. wolves, bears, mountain lions, crocs, and most of those creatures that can be found on planet earth, should spawn in certain environments: wolves in the deep forest, bears in the very deep forest or in caves, mountain lions on the rocky peaks, crocodiles in marshy lakes, and so on, according to what makes most sense. (by the way, is it already like this to some degree and i am just unaware of it?). Whereas  the monsters, like giant spiders or scorpions, and other oversized weirdness, should be rarer and spawn from, say, nests, or the like, lairs maybe, and perhaps scorpions could spawn in the deep desert where they look ecologically adapted. Some humanoid mobs should spawn at rare lairs as well. Trolls, for instance, are humanoid and are intelligent enough to have clothes, tools, and to open doors and gates, perhaps they should have villages with little item-based huts, or, if your version of trolls are solitary creatures, perhaps they should spawn from rotten tree stumps, thus encouraging players to destroy the stumps they leave near their deed, or maybe not trolls, but i think there should be a mob that spawns only when tree stumps decay away, wood imps perhaps. at any rate, i grow weary of seeing more trolls than i see other avatars. Now, as for elementals such as hell hounds or magma spiders, and other spirits unique to planet wurm, they should spawn when their component elements are brought together, as this, maybe, attracts them from whatever plane of existence they were on prior. for example, hell hounds could spawn on the site of a former camp fire when a pack of wolves passes near, or a water nixi or whathaveyou could spawn in a pool in the deep forest where at least 1 person has prayed in the last starfall.


                SO MANY POSSIBILITIES, I'm just planting a seed and hoping that it will grow, and that it will free the lands of Wurm from its menagerie-like infestation.  Do consider these suggestions, though after all its your game from your imaginations, not mine.  Thanks for reading.


Edited by malidath

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Enjoy the pve survival part of wurm, it doesn't last very long :(


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Enjoy the pve survival part of wurm, it doesn't last very long :(

I would enjoy it, if only i could reach a high enough combat level without being interrupted by MOBS, not to mention rapid decay and damage and the ordinary wurm tedium.

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Hellhounds imo ruined Wurm survival for anyone under 50fs, Or just anyone without good gear. Its like, Oh, You thought trolls were tough and hard to beat? Heres a super aggressive, eagle eye, huge agro range, tough to kill, mini fiery creature that only gives meat! Good luck, have fun. 


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Please tell me where you found all these obviously lonely  aggros. Living in a part ofW urm that is totally empty of anything to hunt I often travel to find fun spots like you describe


Edited by Chiqa

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/me rubs his eyes...


 


Someone complaining about TOO MANY mobs? Unbelievable. If you want an easier road to travel come to southern Xanadu. You can even swim there. While swimming, if your stamina runs out, log off for about six hours. It will be fully recharged and you can continue swimming. Keep doing that till you get to Xanadu land. Once you cross over to Xan /suicide and pick the noob town you want to go to.  ;)


 


BTW, unless you are on Xan, noobs need to stick by water. Try to keep you stamina high by resting often. Know where the shore is at all times. 


 


Use the rope noobs now get to find a cow. Ride that cow because you can keep going when riding even if your stam runs out. If you have a jug you can milk said cow for milk which works just like water. Cows are a noob survival tool.


Edited by Clatius

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/me rubs his eyes...

 

Someone complaining about TOO MANY mobs? Unbelievable. If you want an easier road to travel come to southern Xanadu. You can even swim there. While swimming, if your stamina runs out, log off for about six hours. It will be fully recharged and you can continue swimming. Keep doing that till you get to Xanadu land. Once you cross over to Xan /suicide and pick the noob town you want to go to.  ;)

 

BTW, unless you are on Xan, noobs need to stick by water. Try to keep you stamina high by resting often. Know where the shore is at all times. 

 

Use the rope noobs now get to find a cow. Ride that cow because you can keep going when riding even if your stam runs out. If you have a jug you can milk said cow for milk which works just like water. Cows are a noob survival tool.

Interesting. I've been meaning to get to Xan for some time now, I'll try the swimming trick. Are there a lot deeds in southern Xan, or is the spawn rate just somehow lesser?

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you need to notice the mobs b4 they notice you.


 


you have longer range of sight than them, and also can hear some of them


from quite a distance. hover your mouse from side to side to look for


the red outline of aggressive mobs thru tree infested areas. and dont


just run into ruins if you dont know whats behind the walls. circle the ruins first.


 


when and if you level fight skill you will maybe regret your post.


unless you are one if the ppl that dont kill pixels.


 


etc, etc. good luck.


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Malidath,


The aggressive mob spawning system within Wurm has always been endorsed by those that prefer hunting them and seems to be Rolf's idea of how the game should function. There is no concern exhibited in accordance with players who would prefer not to deal with them or those who are less capable to do so due to their being newer to the game with lower skills. There are no "zones" here limited to aggressive mobs of various levels in accordance to their difficulty to kill, since to program the game this way would be much more involved and time consuming; thus, wherever the player travels within these lands any type of killer aggro may be expected to appear in any amount of numbers.


 


The only real difference then is in the quantity of aggressive mobs that will spawn within certain areas of the maps and even this is just due to the bugginess of the code rather than being any intended effect. Xanadu is an extreme example of this in comparison to other servers, where a disproportionate number of aggressive mobs will spawn within some northern regions, whereas in the southern regions few of them will be found.


 


In the years that I have been playing I see no indication that this random type of system will be changed in its favoritism to the "hunter" type of player mindset. So those who are not so inclined to spend (waste) time devoted to dealing with these types of what they consider to be pests will have to either find ways to cope with the situation or take the long journey into nowhere land never to be seen within these realms again.


 


If you decide to remain for some time and not be pushed out by these aggressive pests, they can be reduced to mere annoyances by settling on some small free patch of land within calling range of a Guard Tower where saying help or guards! will bring a few of them running to your assistance while calling out their poetic aspirations of vanquishing these foes. You will still need some safe house or enclosure to retreat into until they get the aggro mob's target onto themselves and then while they tank it you can also add on to hitting it feebly to take out your justified frustrations upon it.


 


Also, you could place a small deed in some random open spot and hire a Spirit Templar for an additional 1 silver per month that will then automatically attempt to kill any aggressive mob that dares to make a trespassing step upon a tile named "within the Village of Nameyouchoose".


 


Beyond this, you will find little sympathy from the devil who opposes your ideas of how things should be. So either you will need to hold onto tightly for unending years your vision of a more sane vision of these mob infestations or just cope with things as they are and in turn defeat them by your stubborn refusal to be pushed out of these lands by the tyrants who hold precious the trinkets that these malicious aggros provide unintended within their demise. Then as the years pass a few more feeble squeaks of protest might be added to slightly raise the eyebrow of the sleeping giant, as it once again turns its back to the gentle rusting winds of change.


 


Happy Trails


=Ayes=


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Damn, lucky.


I travel around my area daily, and can't find anything....


Count yourself lucky, at some point they will become impossible to find, or nerfed down to useless.


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you need to notice the mobs b4 they notice you.

 

you have longer range of sight than them, and also can hear some of them

from quite a distance. hover your mouse from side to side to look for

the red outline of aggressive mobs thru tree infested areas. and dont

just run into ruins if you dont know whats behind the walls. circle the ruins first.

 

when and if you level fight skill you will maybe regret your post.

unless you are one if the ppl that dont kill pixels.

 

etc, etc. good luck.

You make some good points, however, I stand by my proposition that certain mobs should hunt and attack each other, as well as that different mobs should spawn where different ground typed are dominant. I especially hope my idea for mobs that spawn from decaying tree stumps, and so forth, catches on. Thanks for the advise though. (although, at one point, you say "tree infested areas", where I come from, we call those forests. It sounds rather like you regard trees as an infestation, a scourge. I happen to quite like trees, they are one of my favorite features of wurm online. Anyway, that part made me laugh.)

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i dont particularly hate trees. i have fond memories of my grandfather


making me plant a tree when i was a small kid, just so we (the tree and I) could grow together.


Old people did that sort of stuff i guess. it was a flamboyan tree, dont know its name


in english. it was this kind of tree.


 


flamboyan-rojo.jpg


 


it kind of surprised me that this came out of my expression and i didnt mean


to be demeaning towards our tree friends. :P  adopt a tree today.


 


ps: hopefully i dont start getting hate email from all the activist trees, or their human defenders.


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Interesting. I've been meaning to get to Xan for some time now, I'll try the swimming trick. Are there a lot deeds in southern Xan, or is the spawn rate just somehow lesser?

 

Servers can only handle so many mobs. Xanadu is huge, so the fixed animal cap is spread out much more. Don't play a small server if you dont like fighting.

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You make some good points, however, I stand by my proposition that certain mobs should hunt and attack each other,

 

 

That's a terrible idea.  You will understand why once you gain some fighting skill and go on hunting trips.

 

I know Wurm can be unfriendly to newer players, so I'm sure you figured out by now that going outside on foot in this game is suicide unless you have high QL and armor and decent FS.  Even then, you can get run down and killed.

 

 Having all the animals trying to kill each other really won't help you imo.

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Malidath,

The aggressive mob spawning system within Wurm has always been endorsed by those that prefer hunting them and seems to be Rolf's idea of how the game should function. There is no concern exhibited in accordance with players who would prefer not to deal with them or those who are less capable to do so due to their being newer to the game with lower skills. There are no "zones" here limited to aggressive mobs of various levels in accordance to their difficulty to kill, since to program the game this way would be much more involved and time consuming; thus, wherever the player travels within these lands any type of killer aggro may be expected to appear in any amount of numbers.

 

My very first day playing Wurm like 5 years ago I walked down to Freedom Docks from The Howl and there was a troll there.  Being used to other MMO's I think to myself "Well I'm in the starting zone, so I can farm this mob"....

 

And he proceeding to wreck my face!

 

But honestly a Wurm Online with "zones" for newer players where mob spawns are tailored for that....feels wrong. 

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Pve= Player versus enviroment. The mobs and the cliffs are pretty much the only thing we have to fight in Wurm.


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