Ideas to improve solo missions. Please post any ideas you have.

My idea is to make mobs more like players. Right now mobs have little AC and a crapload of hitpoints, and don't do anything but attack with there newbie gun, over and over and over until they are dead or we are. Once in a while you encounter a mob that casts a nano. Usually a snare or root a few moments before they die, and once in a great while a MP will cast Unmake on you, or a trader will cast Deprive. This always makes that encounter more fun to me, but it isn't enough.

I suggest mobs have the same typical AC and HP of an equal level character. A lvl100 solitus enforcer should have 4k HP buffed and 3k ACs. Not only this but they should use nanos and 'specials' that characters use. They should be able to brawl, cast Mongo etc. Heres an example that I've taken from another post I replied to.

"Right now, I see an Atrox Enforcer mob, lvl100, he has 12k HP, wearing Mixed Kevlar and Omni-Pol Elite (don't know bout clan mobs, I'm talkin an OT one) with AC probably only like 1.5k, he swings once per second maybe a bit slower, does good dmg to me (we are all a little weak to melee ah?). Like 120-140dmg to someone with 3kish ACs. He just swings, swings, swings, swings, swings.. till I die or he does.

With my recomended changes

lvl100 OT Atrox Enforcer, 4.5k HP, 3k AC, Wearing Omni-Pol Elite or what ever. (Weapons should stay the same, a mob with a similar weapon and QL 20 lvls above there lvl, would obliterate PC's, specially an atrox with a 120 I-Beam lol).

Combat begins, he casts Brave Challenger to Gargantula and gets some good extra dmg, doing 140-170dmg a hit. He swings, brawls (there specials shouldn't be nearly as good as ours, a 100 enforcer could brawl a lower-hp character to 1/2 hp in one shot lol). For 200, swings, swings. Now the fight is much more exciting and dangerious, but his HP are lower then before, so he's not quite as hard to kill, but the danger is still there, maybe he'll get a brawl crit. You use burst, crap only 700 burst, challenger wears out, he brawls again, your down to 1/3 HP, CRIT he's down!"


This would really ****e up combat. But I'm sure there are others with some great, perhaps even better ideas then mine. So lets stop whinning about stuff on here and post some ideas to improve missions. Perhaps even funcom will be listening ;).

Ok my idea. Now docs are casting those dots when they want it. Perhaps its an idea that the also look at the timer until the dot finishes and then cast it again. Healing also. Most mobs start healing when they are halfway their HP. Perhaps they can change that too. Same counts for roots. They cast roots when they want, but they dont use the advantage they get from it. They stand still so you still can kill them easy. Let them run away after they cast a root. Just some random thoughts i have when thinking about making missions more interresting.

but if you want your opponent to react like humans go to mmd.

unlikely mob ai in a mmorpg will deliver what you wish in the near future.

hehe, the thing is, what I'm asking for is not all that complexe. Besides, I want mobs to be interesting and fun so I can get xp from them and lvl, not because I want a pvp-ish challenge.

I'm not asking for enforcers that use a FoB, or fixers that root and kite me, or agents that use 100% crit buffs. I just want something more complex then, shoot shoot shoot shoot, almost dead, root, shoot, die.

But this post is about ideas, so instead of finding fault with mine, how bout posing one of your own :).

I don't think it would be a improvement in solo missions at all. What will happen though is that ther exact same power ladder which exists in PvP would exist in PvM and those that suck in PvP end up getting the big bad shaft even more then before.

May be a interesting idea but not a improvement at all. As the previous poster said if you want mobs to be more like players why don't you go down and fight with some players instead.

Fion, LOVE your idea.

You talk to those test people, you make them listen.

I know after the last patch they must be thinking about just taking the mobs out of the missions and puting sacks of exp on the floor because that's the kind of challenge a lot of posters here want.

I can't believe they even nurfed pets harder in team missions in that latest adjustment. Nothing but grey pets now and a few light green ones. Most of the time the caster is long dead before they get any command. goes something like "master I am hear to serve you" the gear/meta does nothing, then 5 seconds later "host system lost" or "hurry back master"

It's a joke how completly boring missions are.

No what we would really like is a reason to fight RMs and aces so we arent killing the same mobs from level 120-200 even though they have long past green and you get almost no XP from them. Your implying that we just want free xp but not true we just want xp worth our time. I don't know about you but i think a team of 6 people should be able to rip through a team of green and yellow mobs with next to no risk to them. Problem is FC has made it so anything higher then vets is not worth it time vs reward.

The solution is not make the weaker mobs stronger its to adjust the stronger mobs so that people would much rather kill them then the weaker ones.

I don't think Fion's idea would work because his new NPCs would not be the same NPCs that we have now, at all. These new ones would have skills, weapons, and really be just automated players. That's a totally new and different entity, which I think does call for massive development - perhaps even enough for a new game altogether.

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Originally posted by Intrepid
No what we would really like is a reason to fight RMs and aces so we arent killing the same mobs from level 120-200 even though they have long past green and you get almost no XP from them. Your implying that we just want free xp but not true we just want xp worth our time. I don't know about you but i think a team of 6 people should be able to rip through a team of green and yellow mobs with next to no risk to them. Problem is FC has made it so anything higher then vets is not worth it time vs reward.

The solution is not make the weaker mobs stronger its to adjust the stronger mobs so that people would much rather kill them then the weaker ones.

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Ahh so make the stronger ones weaker or make them give more exp.

I'd actually rather have good AI. I don't really care that much about experience, I'm going to finish doing all the leveling I can with this character soon enough, what I'd prefer is some interesting game play. Having mobs that are essentially mimiking player choices would be great. Maybe you'd die every so often, maybe you wouldn't, but if a RM had only 10k HP and still gave say 30-40k exp I think that would be a great incentive to hunt RMs. The problem is an RM wouldn't hit like the panzy he is. LOL one chain missed me (and I have dark blue evades, fully planted tho and had an AMS/DMS speech running) 5 times in a row.

I think the trick to making something like this happen really is to apply the same rules from PVP to PVM. This way mobs can cast things like LW, kels, and so on and not nearly instakill you.

For this to work though, mobs need to follow our phsyics, use our inits, our armor and AC, have the right nanos at the right level, have our evades, need to be susceptiable to debuffs, and so on.

In fact, right now they are just sacks of experience on the floor. Esp in solo missions, their damage is always consistant and low, their HP are always high, they never cast they are very predictiable in AI and after killing, maybe 100k of em, I'm damn bored and I bet I'm not alone.

I haven't died in a solo or team mission since level 124. That was 64 levels ago. I've managed to get myself killed outdoors plenty, but even then the mobs are just as dumb, it's the ones that are just immune to your abilites and make YOU play on THEIR dumb level that can kill you.

Anyway big bump again for a smart idea and something that should really come before shadow lands.

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Originally posted by Ityn

Anyway big bump again for a smart idea and something that should really come before shadow lands.

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Maybe if Shadowlands came in 5 or 6 years.

These new mobs (14 professions worth, since 2 new profs are being added in the expansion) would need to be created.

The entire PvM game would need to be rebalanced.

That's a significant body of work. If this is done, why stop with AI? Why not give some of these mobs the best stuff? Why not have, for example, Fixer NPCs in Grid Armor? So what if it takes you an hour to kill the - at least they have good AI :).

That's a good idea, some of them should be in GA. Not all of them should use the same weapons, some of them should have good stuff and others not.

Vydas, I know you want an effortless game, where everything is always the same and very predictable, a lot of people like that I guess, but some don't.

The pet nurf was pathetic. First interesting thing to hit the game in like 6 months, and now even in full team missions around ql199 they are a waste of time. They do no damage, they seldom even get an attack cmd before their master is dead and if they do they can't hit anything. It's a joke, they may as well just totally remove them at this point, they serve no purpose.

It's funny, because I really don't think funcom has a clue, they have already alienated most involved gamers, yet they put out a booster focused on PVP when maybe 90% of their player base really are people who don't want to play a game but rather watch a TV show that is slightly effected by the pressing of the remote.

i think you confuse what we want with what is technically possible.

even line of sight or pathing is not something you code like that (as funcom demonstrated).

what you want is WAY above that. you want the mob to know what its fighting and to react and adapt.

that is a nice wish and a lofty ideal but nothing we will see anytime soon.

in 5-10 years who knows? but short term as in this game? i doubt that.

They made mobs mopre interesting gave them pets, and then so many people whined they changed it back, so now you get same boring crap over and over. I wish Funcom would just give some of the whiners a mighty slap in the face and tell them to go grow up, and let this game evolve and improve rather than repeated attempts to stifle creativity and improvements.

All I can think to say is .. I don't think so.

I agree with you that mobs are kinda stupid.

I agree that mobs (at 50% or below mission level) are fairly easy.

would I love if mobs are smarter? fights more interesting? DEFINATELY.

HOWEVER, "most" players who do solo mission wouldn't stand for it unless they change LOT more than the mob behavior.

(Following points are based on normal to moderately twinked SOLO player at 50% setting)

1) most solo mission goes, go into a room, kill mob (30sec - 2 min), loot, regen hp/nano (5sec - 1min), repeat.

2) When encountering a mob that root, debuff, or is "challenging" enough to bring you down to below 25% of you hp/nano the regen time will be around 1 min or more.

3) even at early level of 60's or atleast by level 80's, single mission have around 100 mob easy. 2 hr to clear the dungeon if everything goes well.

4) You need to clear around 200 YELLOW mob before you will level. 400 if they are all slightly green. 150 if they are all orange.

5) make every mob as smart as you want. you will easily DOUBLE the time it takes to kill the mob (with more AC). also EASILY doubling the down time if all mobs debuff/root. And with each mob challenging, you will USUALLY come out with less than 50% hp. All in all, it would triple the time it takes to clean each room, although in all honesty I would have said 10 times as long.

Now sit back and tell me you WANT your solo mission to last three times as long for same exp/money/token you currently get for SOLO mission.

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Sure FC can

1) change the down time by making nano/hp treatment do more, but how would that effect team mission?

2) they can increase the exp per mob you kill, more loot, more credit. - would that be so easy thing to do?

3) make debuff/root last much shorter - and I don't even wanna get into that here.(or anywhere)

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maybe I am a whinner, but I don't go into solo mission looking for epic battle each room.

maybe you have all the token you need, but I need more. I am lvl 80 and I only have 500, each solo mission taking hr or more to clean every room.

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If you want challenge, Just run two or three rooms before you fight. by that time you will have 2-3 mobs to fight and unlike pet you will get exp/loot with everything that you kill.

If you want MORE challenge, don't buff up before you fight. don't use first-aid. take off all your implants. ONLY use equipment/nano that are equal or less than your level.

BELIEVE me things will be LOT more challenging for you even at 50% mission.

An idea could be that they change the risk/reward for a mission. Lets assume that people would get 40k xp and 2 tokens for a mission. This would be the normal reward for that mission. If someone wants the mission in a higher difficulty, pets or a higher ai for the mobs, the reward would be 80k xp and 4 tokens. Both parties would be happy about it. Mission takes more time now, but the reward would be bigger. So the players with little time to play still would have their reward. And those with a lot of time would get their reward.

I want better loot (teamish kinda loot).

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Originally posted by Ityn
Vydas, I know you want an effortless game, where everything is always the same and very predictable, a lot of people like that I guess, but some don't.

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I didn't even comment on if improved AI is something I'd like to see or not. That's a conclusion you drew. What I did point out is that it is not pragmatic. Personal comments about me will not make it more practical or achievable.

Well I guess you can say that I wasn't such fan of your original ideas, but I never gave one of my own for you to kick around.

here are some ideas that I think will improve SOLO missions.

1) no more empty chest after lvl 10 mission - I never understood why there is an empty chests in mission

2) no more ammo in chest after lvl 20 mission - By this level, they should know better than to not go into solo mission without a ammo.

3) no more nano/hp treatment kit in chest after lvl 30 mission - around lvl 30, people have better place to spend their IP than on treatment,first aid and whaterver skill they need to use the treatment kits at level equal to them.

4) Mobs in mission varies way too much. When I set it at 50%, mob should be within 5 level of me, not +/- 30

5) Mission difficulty setting should actually work "accurately". I know if I slide it to 100% I am gonna see red for sure. I know if I slide it to 1% I am gonna see green. but I want to see a difference if I slide it to 55%, 60%.

6) un-opened Chest should be blinking green in map

7) key for selecting nearest item (chest/corpse) so that when corpse are inside the wall you can still open it without having to do "scan screen dance"