Harder mobs, travelling in Caravans.

[Drayka 485]

I'm not sure if the majority of players have noticed, but rift creatures have a range they don't like to be aggro-pulled beyond. They either lose aggro and return to the rift area, or they bug and don't move again, like non-swimming creatures can get trapped on water tiles. This proposal reuses that behaviour, and even its ability to bug.

 

What is a caravan?

A replenishing group of multiple types of creatures that have a roaming spawn point which, like a caravan route, they follow around the map.

This is so that they do not stay too long in one location, attracting hunters and disrupting local life.

And so that hunters in different zones of the map have an opportunity to interact with them as they pass, rather than having to travel huge distances to even see them.

 

What about if a mob gets separated from the caravan?

Quite likely some mobs will bug, get hung up on fences, hedges and otherwise be left behind by bad pathing, leaving them isolated, unprotected, and relatively easy prey a high-level solo hunter.

If a mob becomes stuck, a new one will spawn from the caravan once the group moves out of range, to maintain population of the caravan.

 

What would it look like?

The mixed-group follows a huge, avatar-like caravan-leader, which acts as a mobile spawner. This is so that players can find it relatively easily, without it constantly sending up flares.

As the CL moves around the map, its oversized spawn attempt to follow it.

None of the spawn are hostile to players or structures unless they are attacked, or a pen is constructed around them.

The CL itself cannot be targeted, and ignores collision zones such as buildings, fences and trees.

 

Wait, it ignores all walls? What happens if this thing ends up standing inside my house?

If a caravan mob is spawned inside a pen, due to the CL having wandered into one when one of the members of its caravan is lost, it is spawned with a 'pen' condition. (like scared, or sly are conditions)

If one is spawned inside a building, for the same reasons, it gets a 'house' condition on spawn.

Pen and House conditions nerf the stats, possible drops, and change the behaviours dramatically. (Pen is normal-mob scale, instead of oversized. House is miniature-scale, like April-Fool's horses.)

They also are not counted as part of the caravan, but will reduce the caravan population count - inhibiting spawn behaviour - until the CL moves out of range of them.

Basically, if it ends up standing in your house, and spawns a mob, congratulations! Get on the Trade channel to the zookeepers.

 

Big whoop(!) A bunch of otherwise-ordinary migrating mobs using up valuable server-processing to move around the map. Why should I want this?

The caravan has guard mobs that will respond to any member of the caravan being attacked, within range of the CL.

To them the CL is like a guard tower location, and targeting any member of the caravan triggers hostility from the guard mobs.

So instead of it being as 1-day-novelty and as otherwise-disruptive as a mass migration of animals in RL;

It actually becomes a roaming-dungeon.

 

A roaming dungeon? This is Wurm Online, not a dungeon-delving MMORPG. How would it work?

One possible encounter, with one possible (low-level) caravan, being introduced to Wurm for the first time:

Spoiler

The Shepherd Caravan begins its route in the SE.

The Shepherd CL spawns off-deed and not in a pen, and is announced to the server.

Over the next Wurm week, Shepherd Goats and Shepherd Hounds spawn on the same tile as that of the CL and start to roam around, at a ratio of 5 Goats : 1 Hound.

The Shepherd Caravan has a mob cap of 20 Goats and 4 Hounds.

A nearby hungry, venerable troll attacks a young Shepherd Goat and injures it. All Shepherd Hounds become hostile to that venerable troll, and easily rip it to shreds even as the Goat stuns it senseless.

The young Goat then returns to the CL and gets a massive healing buff by standing on the same tile as the CL.

Whilst the hounds were otherwise engaged, an opportunistic player (with not-brilliant stats and skills) attacked a mature Goat, swung and missed.

The mature Goat headbutted the player for 70% of their health, stunning them in the process, detargeted, and debuffed the player from being able to target it again for 20 minutes.

Opportunistic player limps off to change their plate helm for something less vulnerable to bash damage and get a full heal, bemoaning the massive DMG done to their helm and the price of Mend.

A small group of priest veterans decide to try their luck. 4 of them use buffs on each other and attack one young Goat. One lands a hit.

The Hounds react, rushing to the defence of the Goat. And each Hound 1-shots a different, unbarded horse ridden by a hostile, before targeting the priest that was riding it.

The priest who managed to hit the Goat is taking bash damage from the Goat, and pierce and slash damage from the Hound. The Goat is a persistent Stunner, and the Hound is changing stances quicker than the priest can respond.

One priest manages to hit a Hound. All hounds now retarget that one priest, ignoring the other 3 players. The injured hound performs a special move and the Hounds collectively seem to get a DpS buff, zerging the player into respawn, before collectively retargeting the player the young Goat is still targeting, but without the DpS buff which expired with the dead priest.

5:1 The Goat-injuring priest is taking a lot of damage. The veterans retreat and the Goat doesn't follow, instead trotting off to the CL as soon as it's out of combat range.

4:1, with some healing buffs and a swift change of armour, weapons and stance, the veteran can tank fairly effectively, but the 3 of them are still losing ground to the Hounds.

One of the other priests manages to cast an AoE damage spell. The Hounds yelp and run off, back to the CL to receive their own healing buff.

The AoE managed to clip a few of the nearby Goats. All the affected Goats rush the caster. A venerable Goat - the first to reach them - nearly kills the caster before detargeting and preventing either the caster or the caravan from targeting each other for the next 20 minutes. The AoE injured goats all return to the CL for a heal buff, and the veterans retrieve their horse gear and their companion's corpse.

All of them took a LOT of damage to their armour, which was quickly reducing in its effective quality. Half the armour and the weapon their dead companion was using, is gone. According to Combat Logs, the Hound who was injured by it, targeted the weapon rather than the player, and broke it.

 

Conclusions (possibly erroneously reached):

Shepherd Caravan has Goats that will target you helm directly, and can cause massive injury to your head as a consequence. Plate headgear is not advised.

Shepherd Caravan has Hounds that allows them to target your mount, even untamed. Plate barding is advised.

Hounds have a special move that will cause the first hound to be injured to target the weapon that injured it, cooldown unknown. Unequipping that weapon is advised.

Hounds' special move causes all other Hounds to target the armour of the player who first injures a Hound, duration and cooldown unknown. Spare armour sets are advised.

Goats can detarget and debuff from targeting or being targeted-by any member of their caravan, any player they are massively superior to.

Goats will not aggro-pursue a player that initiated combat with them with a weapon.

All Goats affected by an AoE will attack the caster.

Hounds can retreat from an AoE attack.

Hounds target and retarget based on priorities of first injuries dealt to a type of mob.

 

Still sounds like content that would still become predictable and fully understood very quickly. Why should the Devs invest in this?

Because the Big-Job Spawner that stomps around the map leading these creatures, is doing more than just navigating.

It's logging data about these battles to a Caravan database, which will be used to adjust the stats and tactics of the creatures it spawns, either automatically, or manually.

It also has the ability to cull or nerf members of its caravan, as well as heal-buff (and feed) them.

Thus, not only does the caravan change its stats as it moves around the map, based on what it expects to meet and responding to unpredicted interactions;

It can be modded on an ongoing basis to be unpredictable to the playerbase, when it reaches key 'waypoints' on its route and updates its MO from the server.

Reusable, mutable content is good.

 

***Extension***

 

I have created a F2P account. How might this affect/benefit my game?

That monstrosity stomping through your local, might think of never-premmed accounts as opt-in members of its group. Feeding you like a bartender would, ( but without time or skill limit), boosting your healing if you stand on the same tile as it, and its guards mobs attacking any creature attacking you if you call for their assistance. Travelling in such company might prove to be a gateway to exploring areas of the map you would otherwise never visit. Maybe even a whole new lifestyle of gameplay.

But beware; I suspect that if you try to distract the guards with wildlife whilst other players are in its area-of-influence, your account name could be blacklisted and the caravan guards may never help you again. Betray your caravan-leader, and it may reject you with extreme prejudice.

 

Okay, say I want to travel with the caravan as part of it. How might this help my toon to become part of the Wurm community?

If you manage to keep up with the caravan as it travels around the map, and achieve a positive reputation with the CL, without getting kicked from the group, you could get 3 days free premium play, and your account would then never be deleted. Your account could get a Caravan-name title (which acts like a 50-skill title, in that it boosts certain skillgains), and you could work towards privileges with members of the Caravan. (Such as the ability to milk Goats and create Goat's cheese, or comb Goat hair and spin 'string of cloth, hair', as part of the Shepherd Caravan. Items that cannot be sourced in any other way in Wurm.) For as long as you manage to maintain your positive reputation with the caravan (and this trends towards zero, as with alignment for Followers and priests) you could continue to purchase premium time at a rate of 1 silver for 3 days from the Caravan Leader. You would probably never be able to trade for more than 15 days of premium at a time, even if you max out your reputation. And if you join or found a deed, you would probably overwrite your right to get premium-time from the CL.

 

If I'm a titled member of a caravan, can I respawn to it if I die?

It would make sense. Your CL is effectively your substitute token and mayor. Your death-debuffs may be different to other accounts too. If enough accounts join a caravan, it might even evolve into an NPC-Kingdom, with its own livery.

 

Sounds kinda cool. But will it ever get easier to keep up with the caravan?

Maybe. Maybe one of the privileges you can earn will be the ability to ride a caravan member as a passenger, and log-out, thus travelling with the group as-if in a boat. There's always the chance your mount might be killed whilst you're logged off though, in which case you'd log-in where it died. On the other hand, you might log-in and find yourself being carried up a sheer cliff on the back of a Shepherd Goat. I might recommend skilling fletching, as you can do that as a passenger, no matter where you manage to find yourself. It's certainly not a lifestyle for everyone, but I suspect it would appeal to some.

[Sheffie 1,120]

I think that this idea has potential, but it needs to be mercilessly edited down to the simplest non-exploitable form.

For example, if the spawner is passing through (over) a pen or building, just don't spawn anything.

And the routes need to be randomized. We don't want armies of cowboys putting up miles of fences to funnel the group into a trap. At least, I don't think we do

[Drayka 485]

Thanks for the reply, Sheffie! I know it's way too ambitious and would never make it into the game in this form, but I was having too much fun imagining it not to run with the idea, in the hopes that something about its quirks would spark some creative offshoot. 🙂

[Sheffie 1,120]

I do like the idea of a mob or swarm of creatures passing through an area, and players choosing either to fight them or avoid trouble, waiting until they've passed. That might annoy certain players who really just want an idyllic life, or they might get used to it, and simply stay inside fenced in fields and buildings - or just not attack.

 

I think that the spawner should be a flying creature or magical object. This sort of reminds me of a trash fantasy series I read decades back about the Sky City, which was owned by lizard folk and their patron, who was a demon. Obviously we'd want something a little more manageable. But in theory we could make a really fun event out of fighting this thing. Maybe people would find a better use for catapults.

[Darnok 209]

23 hours ago, Drayka said:

 

What is a caravan?

A replenishing group of multiple types of creatures that have a roaming spawn point which, like a caravan route, they follow around the map.

This is so that they do not stay too long in one location, attracting hunters and disrupting local life.

And so that hunters in different zones of the map have an opportunity to interact with them as they pass, rather than having to travel huge distances to even see them.

 

Ok

 

23 hours ago, Drayka said:

What about if a mob gets separated from the caravan?

Quite likely some mobs will bug, get hung up on fences, hedges and otherwise be left behind by bad pathing, leaving them isolated, unprotected, and relatively easy prey a high-level solo hunter.

If a mob becomes stuck, a new one will spawn from the caravan once the group moves out of range, to maintain population of the caravan.

 

Ok in 50%, mobs should destroy fences.

 

23 hours ago, Drayka said:

What would it look like?

The mixed-group follows a huge, avatar-like caravan-leader, which acts as a mobile spawner. This is so that players can find it relatively easily, without it constantly sending up flares.

As the CL moves around the map, its oversized spawn attempt to follow it.

None of the spawn are hostile to players or structures unless they are attacked, or a pen is constructed around them.

 

 

Not ok. Should we play open world-sandbox PvE MMO or sims online?

These NPCs should be aggressive, and if a fence is blocking their path, they just destroy them, as well as any building that gets in their way.

 

23 hours ago, Drayka said:

 

The CL itself cannot be targeted, and ignores collision zones such as buildings, fences and trees.

 

 

Players should be able to attack him, but they cannot kill him immediately, only gradually.

For example, on the first stop, he may lose up to 25% health.
In the second, 50%, etc.

CL should spawn more and more powerful mobs at each stop.

If he walks the whole path of the caravan, he will run away from players and they will not get reward, i.e. the loot.

 

23 hours ago, Drayka said:

 

Wait, it ignores all walls? What happens if this thing ends up standing inside my house?

 

 

Deeds have perimeters, it is enough for the leader to have a function that "pushes" him away from the center of the deed on which he stepped.

 

 

 

 

[Sheffie 1,120]

2 hours ago, Darnok said:

 

mobs should destroy fences.

 

 

These NPCs should be aggressive, and if a fence is blocking their path, they just destroy them, as well as any building that gets in their way.

 

 

Players should be able to attack him, but they cannot kill him immediately, only gradually.

For example, on the first stop, he may lose up to 25% health.
In the second, 50%, etc.

CL should spawn more and more powerful mobs at each stop.

If he walks the whole path of the caravan, he will run away from players and they will not get reward, i.e. the loot.

 

 

Deeds have perimeters, it is enough for the leader to have a function that "pushes" him away from the center of the deed on which he stepped.

 

 

 

 

 

Your vision is a nightmare for peaceful players. Destroying paths and buildings unprovoked, and attacking any player they come across? Nah. You missed the point. 

And arbitrary limits on how dead the leader can be? No. This is not some japanese RPG boss battle

[Darnok 209]

25 minutes ago, Sheffie said:

 

Your vision is a nightmare for peaceful players. Destroying paths and buildings unprovoked, and attacking any player they come across? Nah. You missed the point. 

And arbitrary limits on how dead the leader can be? No. This is not some japanese RPG boss battle

 

So this is PvE MMORPG or deed builder game?

[SirMuttley 151]

39 minutes ago, Darnok said:

 

So this is PvE MMORPG or deed builder game?

I think maybe you are on a personal mission to change Wurm into something it isn't? Given the lack of dev on this game, I think you may be better off looking to sculpt some other game to your image... or learn to program, pick up WU, and make your own server.

[Ekcin 2,414]

1 hour ago, Darnok said:

So this is PvE MMORPG or deed builder game?

Wurm is Wurm, and you appear to hate every part that makes it special.

[Darnok 209]

7 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

Wurm is Wurm, and you appear to hate every part that makes it special.

 

No, now I am just trying to discover it's genre... PvE game means that generated monsters pose a threat to player, and not that the player has ability to create an unlimited number of safe zones in which he plays sims + medieval-village-builder that can't be destroyed or even attacked.

In PvP other players can attack your deed and siege it, why in PvE mobs can't make sieges instead?

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by Darnok

[Ekcin 2,414]

Just now, Darnok said:

No, now I am just trying to discover it's genre...

In other words, you have not understood a bit of it, and instead of learning and listening your are hemorrhaging half bred (at best) or pointless proposals.

[SirMuttley 151]

30 minutes ago, Darnok said:

 

In PvP other players can attack your deed and siege it, why in PvE mobs can't make sieges instead?

 

I'm not convinced even a small % of players of PVE Wurm would enjoy logging into find their deed destroyed. That said, maybe the devs could add an opt-in deed option for this? That way folks like yourself could allow it "for the extra adventure" and others could carry on and not worry about it.

[Sheffie 1,120]

The whole point of this suggestion was to create an opt-in challenge. And no, I don't think that any player is going to log in, find their deed trashed, and think, "well, it's okay. I did opt in on my Deed Settings." The way to show that you're willing to be part of this fight needs to be something like attacking that only an online player could do.

 

It's pointless to ask whether it's an MMO or a deed building game. It is both. It transcends your pigeon holes.

 

Code Club would be insane to consider antagonizing players who pay good money to have ownership and control over a portion of the land. Invasion and siege by hordes of wandering monsters would be an absolute disaster -- unless the player can protect their property by measures such as fences as walls. That is the contract that has been established over the years, and it's what players pay for.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Sheffie

[Darnok 209]

1 hour ago, Sheffie said:

The whole point of this suggestion was to create an opt-in challenge. And no, I don't think that any player is going to log in, find their deed trashed, and think, "well, it's okay. I did opt in on my Deed Settings." The way to show that you're willing to be part of this fight needs to be something like attacking that only an online player could do.

 

It's pointless to ask whether it's an MMO or a deed building game. It is both. It transcends your pigeon holes.

 

Code Club would be insane to consider antagonizing players who pay good money to have ownership and control over a portion of the land. Invasion and siege by hordes of wandering monsters would be an absolute disaster -- unless the player can protect their property by measures such as fences as walls. That is the contract that has been established over the years, and it's what players pay for.

 

Exactly 🙂

Finally, it would make sense to build a different type of fence than a wooden plank in PvE.

Or you could hide in mine or gather your friends and actively defend yourself against mobs.

In my opinion, mobs should be very aggressive versus structures of players who are online or who are hunting caravan. Then it would be a challenge, because very fact that you kill something that does not threaten you, but politely walks around is a weak challenge.

[SirMuttley 151]

7 minutes ago, Darnok said:

 

Exactly 🙂

Finally, it would make sense to build a different type of fence than a wooden plank in PvE.

Or you could hide in mine or gather your friends and actively defend yourself against mobs.

In my opinion, mobs should be very aggressive versus structures of players who are online or who are hunting caravan. Then it would be a challenge, because very fact that you kill something that does not threaten you, but politely walks around is a weak challenge.

Sounds interesting... as an opt-in thing that pve players of the traditional wurm could ignore. Good luck on getting any dev time though. You would be better off learning programming and setting up your own WU server at this point.

[Sheffie 1,120]

Debating with Darnok is like trying to squash slime. Any time you put your thumb on something that looks substantial, it just squirms around and pops up somewhere else.

 

When you use the term NPC, people will assume that you're using the established meaning of the term, not a particular and limited meaning of the term "mob".

 

But anyway, I'm glad to see that you're now talking about the benefits of keeping this as an opt in feature, unless and except when/if you're not. Because your language is so imprecise.

 

 

[Drayka 485]

Okay, a few points to clarify are needed, it seems.

 

The point of the caravan leader being non-targetable and ignoring collisions, is to keep pathing logic SIMPLE and lightweight. It's substituting for a force of nature, and cannot BE destroyed or distracted or prevented. It's an unstoppable, but intrinsically unbiased force. And the less default interactions, the less bugs the leader itself can encounter/cause.

 

The point of the caravan as a whole having an adaptive response, is so that it WON'T be aggressive in areas where it ISN'T attacked, and might adapt to pass through those areas more quickly, because IT discovers them to be low-content areas for its intrinsic purpose. But it should start-off as equal-opportunity and benign.

 

Should players consistently try to 'grief' the caravan, then its threat response should ramp up. But to those ACCOUNTS, and maybe the structures THEY construct - which would be the point of it having battle-data to draw upon.

 

If it didn't work this way, then anyone could choose to wait until the caravan was in the local of a player they didn't like and kick the hornet's nest so to speak, resulting in wholesale destruction of the immediate area, and that would immediately require outlawing as griefing, would be immensely hard to enforce, and would be incredibly easy to abuse to eliminate 'rivals' - and THAT would count as PvP/griefing via exploit.

 

As a footnote, suggesting that the developers add content that is DESIGNED specifically to wreck the existing content of a specific type of player, equally counts as PvP/griefing, via developer.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Drayka

[Sheffie 1,120]

1 hour ago, SirMuttley said:

You would be better off learning programming and setting up your own WU server at this point.

 

It's funny. The players who are suggesting this in some form are almost as numerous as... well. As these threads

[SirMuttley 151]

2 minutes ago, Sheffie said:

 

It's funny. The players who are suggesting this in some form are almost as numerous as... well. As these threads

I was mostly being serious   The modders in WU have done awesome things, and if he were to setup a server with this then others may flock it it... if it's a great idea. There are mods out there that are used in almost every server because they are great, so ya never know this idea might be the next big one. And, since it seems that the actual wurm devs are busy with their current projects, the best chance of getting an idea "out there" is doing it themselves.

[Sheffie 1,120]

3 minutes ago, SirMuttley said:

I was mostly being serious   The modders in WU have done awesome things, and if he were to setup a server with this then others may flock it it... if it's a great idea. There are mods out there that are used in almost every server because they are great, so ya never know this idea might be the next big one. And, since it seems that the actual wurm devs are busy with their current projects, the best chance of getting an idea "out there" is doing it themselves.

 

Yep, I assumed it was a good faith suggestion. I think they all are. 

 

I just took another look at the OP and the simulated encounter there .... and I think it's too hard. It seems to be doing a great deal of harm and the potential for it to learn is either devastating, or technically too difficult

[TheTrickster 2,284]

35 minutes ago, SirMuttley said:

I was mostly being serious   The modders in WU have done awesome things, and if he were to setup a server with this then others may flock it it... if it's a great idea. There are mods out there that are used in almost every server because they are great, so ya never know this idea might be the next big one. And, since it seems that the actual wurm devs are busy with their current projects, the best chance of getting an idea "out there" is doing it themselves.

I think most of us making the suggestion ARE being serious about it.  

 

[Drayka 485]

12 hours ago, Sheffie said:

I just took another look at the OP and the simulated encounter there .... and I think it's too hard. It seems to be doing a great deal of harm and the potential for it to learn is either devastating, or technically too difficult

 

Interesting.

 

It's basically a translation into PvE - into mobs - of what it is like to live on a PvP server. Except it's a lot less impossible, a lot more predictable, and the caravan isn't hunting YOU.

 

I deliberate didn't define any of the drops - as I feel that the replies would become obsessed with, and only talk about, the drops.

 

I've seen Cadence rifts. Cadence Rifters would obliterate Shepherd Caravan with EASE. There's only 4 hostile-responsive mobs. I've implied that it takes a full day to spawn all 24 members of the Shepherd Caravan - that's 1 respawn every hour.

 

Do not pretend to me that a hundred Cadence residents couldn't EASILY annihilate every targetable member of that Caravan before the first Hound respawn.

 

It's easier than a Unique fight - and cannot be hogged like Unique spawns. More challenging than bashing a tower, which PvE doesn't even do, and therefore probably doesn't even know about Tower Guard Captains. And it has anti-griefing built in.

 

Edit:

It's not like Rifts aren't responsive and adaptive. This kind of code is already in Wurm Online. I'm just suggesting a different approach to achieving a similar end.

 

Should the Caravan find itself implemented on a low-population server, after 1 circuit of the map, it would nerf its stats to be far less challenging.

 

It's designed to be a missing link, between hunting mobs and fighting a unique, and exist alongside rifts so that anyday at a time of their choosing, any group of >4 people could attack a Caravan, have a fun time obliterating it, and go home with some worthwhile stat/skillgain and loot, without triggering massive server-lag.

 

And if a Goat or a Hound should become separated from the group - highly likely in areas even PLAYERS find it difficult to navigate around, they cease to work together, or even move, and could be easily picked off by decent solo hunters.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Drayka

[Drayka 485]

14 hours ago, SirMuttley said:

Good luck on getting any dev time though. You would be better off learning programming and setting up your own WU server at this point.

I may seriously consider doing so, IF anyone likes the idea enough to help me develop it, IF someone wants it for their WU server, and IF I get enough useful feedback to refine the idea into a workable mod.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Drayka

[Sheffie 1,120]

On 8/2/2021 at 8:00 AM, Drayka said:

I may seriously consider doing so, IF anyone likes the idea enough to help me develop it, IF someone wants it for their WU server, and IF I get enough useful feedback to refine the idea into a workable mod.

 

I'd be interested in collaborating on the idea, but I think I hate Java so no promises