Mobs AF and DPS

[Argo]

Gentlemen,

one thing i have asked me a lot lately is this:

We dress our mobs in armor and give them Shields and other weapons. We declare in npctemplate visibleslots, our mobs get resis, bodytypes and all kinds of other things. But what they do not get is real AF and real DPS. Wouldn't it be nice if a mob in leather would really have its xxAf and the according 10 Absorb? eg. a level 20 mob in leather dressed should really have its 40AF and 10 absorb and his weapon that he wears should have the according DPS, this would make the mob a bit more realistic. now we use str to determine how hard he hits that is not really realistic in my eyes. And a mob dressed in chain is somewhat nice to look at but except the fact that he looks like a mob in chain armor nothing else really happens. Would it be possible to implement such thing in daoc or is it to difficult?

kind regards
Argo

[Leodagan]

It's a nice question as recently I was working on a SQL script to split NPCTemplate depending on weapon model to create dedicated MeleeDamageType to weapon Model...

I think it would be simpler to implement some specific mob stats like Abs, AF, or DPS in NPCT/Mobs and make an average of NPC EquipmentType/NPCLevel to put non-realistic values in these but that may act realistic

Let's say you check mob equipment for armor type and not specific AF/abs, and set delta value to existing mob value, if it's cloth you lower the mob stats that can make him softer, if it's chain you raise stats that make mob tougher maybe add a weakness to thrust or something like that, like a passive buff/debuff ?

I say that because I don't think PvE is meant to use PvP rules, if you were to make Character-like Mob runned by the Server you could put an heavy charges on damage calculation, and you could make easy PvE abuses by using strategy that COULD work differently from mob to mob (let's say a strongly dex based boss get a strong dex debuff and become really weak, Weak mob wearing cloth could become really too easy if no AF/ABS buff are given, which is expected from cloth class...)

PvE has to be at least somewhat challenging no matter the class combination (that's what brought balance issue with pet caster and aggro) but changing the behaviour depending on the type of mob could be interesting as most it shouldn't need a real equipment settings to obtain expected behaviour just need switches to set archetype (low def/high attack, low def/distance, high def/low attack, high def/assist, low def/low attack but tend to aggro casters/healers, high def/high attack but easy to taunt...)

[Argo]

Let's say you check mob equipment for armor type and not specific AF/abs, and set delta value to existing mob value, if it's cloth you lower the mob stats that can make him softer, if it's chain you raise stats that make mob tougher maybe add a weakness to thrust or something like that, like a passive buff/debuff ?

if you check NPCT you'll see that there is a column called race, in that row we define right now already to what a mob is vulnerable and to what he is resistent. If you check now the Race table you'll find also a line called chain, where exactly these kind of resistances are defined. now taken for granted that the mob is wearing chain, and taken the fact that we know what lvl/lvlrange our mob is, we DO know exactly how many AF and ABS our mob will have.

- Cloth AF = Level / ABS = 0
- Leather AF = Level * 2 / ABS = 10
- Studded AF = Level * 2 / ABS = 19
- Chain AF = Level * 2 / ABS = 27
- Plate AF = Level * 2 / ABS = 35

this is taken from Albion, other Realms have same AF/ABS for their Armor.

Thus all we have to do as creator of a mob is to fill in the Data ourselfs and no difficult calculations. WE KNOW, what our mob is wearing, according to that we can set the values. To make one thing clear, i am against any unrealistic behaviour, that is why i started this discussion and a mob with real AF and real ABS and real DPS is in my eyes much more realistic than the ones we have now.

just my two cents
Argo

[Leodagan]

Well the good thing with realistic value is that you could asjust stats, and item "model" Bonuses to what you're used to see...

Like the stats your char can have at about same level (AF/ABS and damage modification of STR/DEX to Slash+Crush/Thrust or INT to Spells)

DPS is also level based... with playable character cap at 16.5 dps

So if all mob have the same AF/ABS depending on level / stuff and all mob have the same DPS depending on level / stuff

All you have to do is work on a formula Stat = StuffEnhancement * Level ?

[Argo]

enlighten me how dps is lvl calculated, i am missing that one.

regards
Argo

[Leodagan]

well maybe I'm wrong, but for me DPS for a playable char would be something like :

Min(Weapon DPS, Level DPS Cap) * Weapon Spec Level * Weapon main stat (STR for Slash/Crush, STR/DEX For Thrust) * Class Modifier...

I'm pretty sure Mythic did some specific DPS change to some classes (like lowering Hybrid DPS in favor of Pure Tanks)
Or maybe it's some formula with WeaponSkill...

As mobs don't have Skill Spec, or class modifier, and use only STR stat, and equipment isn't taken in account, this leaves only Level... But you could implement some of these modifier without having to implement all realistic damage calculation and it could already enhance PvE fights

trying to make mobs do realistic damage should be more like trying to create a Playable Character BOT without AI ?

[Sand]

Mob AF/DPS is by design not player like as that is what live does. I am not sure if we got it quite right but so far seems to be pretty close.

Mobs do have resistances/stats as you have mentioned as well as damage types in damage they do and can be defined in tables but don't think believe it is directly affected by equipment, and while not directly based on model it is definable so not sure what the issue that looking to correct.

A while back, I went to work to define bodytypes in the Storm db since they were not accurate thus charming not working properly and used the mob model as a way to do that. Possibly can do something similar to adjust resists and other abs/af/dps related values but would need to be careful with that but atm I believe our calculations of these are in keeping with live so unless have some data to point to a more correct formula for this, not sure we should be messing with the underlying damage calculations for pve combat.

The way live seems to work is they have ABS but not AF but is calculated in a different manner than players. The way to judge this is how debuffs and buffs work on mobs (in particular charmed mobs where you can see the effect). AF has been said to have no effect, in particular spec AF and Con buff will increase or decrease damage the mob takes rather than adjusting it's hitpoints.

Special mobs do not necessarily follow this on either live or DOL. For example, Realm guards do have shields and block and have higher resists than a regular mob.

Also btw, the armor resists were

[PlanarChaosRvrtwo]

You can just give the mobs self targeted buffs to give em absorb and reduce their resists to given damage type.....