Can we start a general definition thread?

[Gwendaline]

Is the medal made of gold?

[Diz]

...no, chocolate wrapped in tin foil...

[Furrawn]

I get a medal, too!

Thanks, Diz. I had a basic knowledge of aggro before your explanation, but I feel like I just earned a college degree on the subject. However, the risk of providing good explanations is that you get punished ... with more questions!

Well, just one more question. How do non-offensive skills/spells affect aggro? My main consideration is healing. I know that healing generates aggro. (Poor Atropos has been swarmed a few times for daring to heal her party.) How is that aggro generated? Do the mobs have to be within the healing AoE, or do I have to be within their aggro range? Worst of all, is it the intersection between the healing AoE and the aggro range? In other words, is it anywhere the invisible circles (nice analogy) could overlap?

As a follow-up (okay, two questions, I lied), I'd be interested to know how Taunt and/or Beckon affect mob aggro. I've noticed that Taunt will almost always draw all nearby mobs' aggro to me ... for a short while. However, some of those mobs will often go back to attacking their original target after a few seconds. Why?

First- these are defs from another thread-
The correct term for "people watcher" in an MMO is bank sitter.

The term for someone who usually stays in town[s] or within guard zones is townie.
Credit to Diz

Also, what is the answer to slipperyjim's question? I'm curious, too.
I notice a heal can bring the bad guys running so it hits their invisible circles?

The medal is chocolate wrapped in GOLD foil (made to look like tin foil)...
And it has great stats

[Diz]

[part 1 of 2]

SlipperyJim, I never saw your post. My bad.

I touched on these concepts very briefly in post #35 [page 3]. The main concern you're asking about is what would be called a "threat meter".

Every mob in the game has a threat meter. The threat meter dictates what target the mob will focus on. Learning why mobs change targets and react to different skills and actions is the key to understanding each mob's threat meter. Now, before we go any further, I must state the following -

I do not know whether or not there is a 'global' threat meter algorithm, or if each mob has a uniquely-coded 'local' threat meter. Understanding which way the mobs in PL are coded would be beneficial in truly understanding the behavior of mobs in Pocket Legends. Let me give a theoretical example of what the two algorithms would be like.

In a PL world where all mobs share a coded global threat meter, each mob would share a piece of code that tells them how to gauge and react to their threat meter.

In a PL world where all mobs have uniquely coded local threat meters, each mob would behave differently, according to their mob's set threat meter parameters.

Lets extrapolate these two examples into practical analogies.

1) Lets say in the global threat meter Pocket Legends, the threat meter was coded with strict rules that basically say the mob should attempt to focus on whoever is doing the most damage. In this way, whoever is doing the most damage will simply become the current [hard] target or find him/herself slowly creeping up the threat meter ladder and is next in line as a target [soft]. Lets also pretend this threat meter is coded for no overtaking of the hard position [no #2 on the threat list jumping into #1 just because of dps being higher than #1]. This means that every single mob in the game is going to react to damage [and damage per second] in this exact same manner. This means you simply get a tank, the rest of the party goes gung-ho, and, barring the tank dying, the mob dies while focusing the entire time on the tank.

2) Lets say in the local threat meter Pocket Legends, the threat meters are coded for individual mobs to create dynamic behaviors between different mobs. In this example, lets pretend that level 1 zombies were coded to have an extreme aversion [or in proper terms 'hate'] to fire. Considering that there are things like fire staves, fire wands, fire spells, flaming swords, etc... lets say they actually do 'fire' based damage [I doubt that damage is splintered into different categories, I could be wrong]. Lets pretend that Fire damage does more damage to these zombies than Ice damage. Then in this case, fire damage would clearly be the more effective way to do dps. However, what if the zombies were coded to not only take 2x from fire-based damage, but also were coded to take 2x the agro from fire-based damage? Would it be too hard to imagine a tank doing regular damage finding the mob switching off of him and targeting the mage spamming his fire staff?

These two examples are just that - examples. They may even contain concepts that are not even a part of Pocket Legends. However, they are simply there to illustrate the differences between local and global threat meters.

In simplest terms, a global threat meter that all mobs are coded by would be incredibly shallow and much easier to learn how to combat.

Now that we understand the two types of threat meters [there are others but these two set a tone for all PvE within a game featuring threat meters and agro], we begin to understand that the type of threat meter being used within the game will impact how the player interacts with that threat meter. Again, the examples were only used to illustrate how a player would interact with mobs differently if their behavior was dynamic.

Now, lets get down to nuts and bolts. Sorry if that part was really long and had nothing to do with your original question Jim, but it's important to know what type of playing field you're on before you start to practice and play on it.

Jim, you asked how is agro generated. Agro is dictated and generated by the threat meter. Imagine the threat meter like a baseball lineup. Someone is currently up to bat [current target] and either way - a hit, a strikeout, or an out -- someone is definitely coming up to bat after the current player's fate is decided.

Whoever is currently at the plate and batting, they're the hard target. They could've been soft before, but that isn't really important now that he's the hard target, eh?

Whoever is standing in the on-deck circle, taking their warm-up swings, and studying the pitcher before his turn - this is a soft target. He/she is the highest priority soft target.

Soft [and hard] can be explained within the context of this analogy, as well. Even though it is apparently obvious that the player in the on-deck circle is next up to hit, well, things can change. It could be 2 outs and the player hitting gets out too. Or maybe the manager decides to use a 'pinch hitter' and exchange the on-deck player for another player when their turn to bat comes up. Is this making any sense? The point is that a soft target can change. The only limits on the changing [or reordering of the threat meter] is going to be dictated by the way its threat meter was coded.

[read the next post for part 2]

[Diz]

[part 2 of 2]

In WoW there are mobs that will change targets twice a second, and completely obliterate a lot of meta-game "threat meter" knowledge that people have accumulated throughout the years and games, lugging this stuff around in their brain. There are some mobs in WoW that won't switch targets, even if the highest target on their threat meter is not the hard target but the soft target [like if the soft is dealing out obscene burst damage and the tank is just meleeing] - and the WoW example was just used to give a reference point against another game. Sometimes you just encounter a mob that exhibits such random behavior that it is almost like a riddle, trying to figure out just its threat meter, and that's not even including such potential sinkholes like attack patterns, etc.

Again the whole dynamic of threat meters within Pocket Legends hinges upon whether or not the threat meters are individually coded for each mob or just a global behavior-inducer. I have a feeling the answer is out there, however, I am not much of a PvEer and when I do PvE I am not studying the mobs behavior enough to detect differences regarding the threat meter.

It can honestly be very complicated or very simple, and I really do not know the answer so I have primed you to handle the reality, either way that may be.

Now to try and answer your questions directly, Jim -

Non-offensive actions such as a buff, a heal, or even something arbitrary like a meditation / regeneration skill [focus maybe?] can potentially impact agro. Again this is going to be something that deals with the way a given mob's threat meter is going to dictate. Does the mob react to a heal fiercely because it conceives a healer as someone drawing out the fight longer? Does the mob react to a heal fiercely because it conceives the target being healed as injured, and thus has a chance to kill it? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know that there are plenty of other MMOs that show precedence for non-offensive actions causing, raising, or changing agro. This can get even deeper, as you also alluded to whether or not the agro would be caused to the target, to the caster, etc. To answer your question more intimately, my personal answer is that a healer needs to focus on reacting. Know your limits, know your own targets and your enemies targets, and react accordingly. As a healer you want to finish things, not start them.

Also the invisible circles is just an analogy. Theres a lot more to mob ranges and why they do a particular thing at a particular location - I suspect PL to be a little more shallow than the typical PvE MMO, but a good rule of thumb in general is that there is usually more than meets the eye with regards to mob AI.

Taunt and/or beckon would be a prime example of soft/hard threat meter dynamics. When you begin to understand how threat meters work, you realize that agro is basically designed to keep the order of things in check - tank fighting the monster, archer dpsing, mage healing. This is how class-based MMOs work.

Look, to be really blunt, any class-based MMO would almost fall apart entirely if the combat was not somehow "ordered". This is why a lot of players find PvP to be a more challenging form of combat [although considerably less rewarding; in fact, PvP usually takes items from the player over time (potion chugging, obtaining a gear set, etc.) while PvE gives them stuff over time]. Quick example -

Me and you are fighting two other identical players in a PvP arena. I am playing an elf mage you are playing a bear tank. If PvP were like PvE, then you would go off and start attacking either of their chars while I sit back and heal you, yada yada yada. Well, guess what - the other team doesn't want to do that. They want to attack me, because I am weaker, have less HPs, less Armor, and no way of defending myself. This is what it is like without threat meters and agro in a class-based MMO. People, and mobs, would just go about the fight in the most advantageous way possible, negating the basic order of things - tanks, dpsers, healers, and so on.

So, in a nutshell, Taunt and/or Beckon are basically gavels of order. They are a form of bulwarking against sloppy PvE. Taunt and/or Beckon help maintain the consistancy that is necessary to form teamwork against monsters. Again if the mob just attacked whoever it wanted, then classes would be a vanity-based choice and not a gameplay choice [in a PvE context].

Taunt and/or Beckon are the most direct methods of control surrounding threat meters and agro. They, like Heal in some ways, are an "oh sh__" button. Also, like Heal, they are a "status quo" button. They keep things neat, orderly, help to clean up messes and get people on the right track, and all within the span of a couple seconds.

Technically speaking these two abilities are, at their core, agro modifiers. They basically are instant hard/soft threat meter rearrangers. They are target swappers. They are temporary windows of opportunity for the tank to get a handle on the mob, the DPS to move into a better position or launch a huge burst attack without fear of instant retaliation, and they are a miniature stop-watch that gives mages enough time to heal injured players who are thankful to have a mob off their butt.

There is so much that is potentially involved in agro and threat meters that there are literally jobs out there in the real world that pay nerds to sit around and devise new and challenging ways for mobs to behave in games. Typically these mobs are not very nice. Sometimes it takes months for thousands of different groups and/or guilds to finally achieve success [wtfpwning the mob]. In this perspective it is understandable that some players take their mob hunting very seriously and that agro and threat meters can be very complex concepts that are not readily or easily understand and disassembled like a pile of legos.

Whether or not Pocket Legends features quality AI and how the mobs are coded with respect to agro and threat meters and behaviors remains to be seen, because the game is so young and the developers surely have bigger and better plans for PvE, while we as the community have barely scratched the surface in regards to mob/player interaction.

More knowledge is required, Jim; perhaps you should be the one to become the master of Pocket Legends monsters... perhaps you shall be the one to create a compendium of mob behavior, or at least "crack the code"!!!!!!!!!!!

[Furrawn]

[part 2 of 2]

In WoW there are mobs that will change targets twice a second, and completely obliterate a lot of meta-game "threat meter" knowledge that people have accumulated throughout the years and games, lugging this stuff around in their brain. There are some mobs in WoW that won't switch targets, even if the highest target on their threat meter is not the hard target but the soft target [like if the soft is dealing out obscene burst damage and the tank is just meleeing] - and the WoW example was just used to give a reference point against another game. Sometimes you just encounter a mob that exhibits such random behavior that it is almost like a riddle, trying to figure out just its threat meter, and that's not even including such potential sinkholes like attack patterns, etc.

Again the whole dynamic of threat meters within Pocket Legends hinges upon whether or not the threat meters are individually coded for each mob or just a global behavior-inducer. I have a feeling the answer is out there, however, I am not much of a PvEer and when I do PvE I am not studying the mobs behavior enough to detect differences regarding the threat meter.

It can honestly be very complicated or very simple, and I really do not know the answer so I have primed you to handle the reality, either way that may be.

Now to try and answer your questions directly, Jim -

Non-offensive actions such as a buff, a heal, or even something arbitrary like a meditation / regeneration skill [focus maybe?] can potentially impact agro. Again this is going to be something that deals with the way a given mob's threat meter is going to dictate. Does the mob react to a heal fiercely because it conceives a healer as someone drawing out the fight longer? Does the mob react to a heal fiercely because it conceives the target being healed as injured, and thus has a chance to kill it? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know that there are plenty of other MMOs that show precedence for non-offensive actions causing, raising, or changing agro. This can get even deeper, as you also alluded to whether or not the agro would be caused to the target, to the caster, etc. To answer your question more intimately, my personal answer is that a healer needs to focus on reacting. Know your limits, know your own targets and your enemies targets, and react accordingly. As a healer you want to finish things, not start them.

Also the invisible circles is just an analogy. Theres a lot more to mob ranges and why they do a particular thing at a particular location - I suspect PL to be a little more shallow than the typical PvE MMO, but a good rule of thumb in general is that there is usually more than meets the eye with regards to mob AI.

Taunt and/or beckon would be a prime example of soft/hard threat meter dynamics. When you begin to understand how threat meters work, you realize that agro is basically designed to keep the order of things in check - tank fighting the monster, archer dpsing, mage healing. This is how class-based MMOs work.

Look, to be really blunt, any class-based MMO would almost fall apart entirely if the combat was not somehow "ordered". This is why a lot of players find PvP to be a more challenging form of combat [although considerably less rewarding; in fact, PvP usually takes items from the player over time (potion chugging, obtaining a gear set, etc.) while PvE gives them stuff over time]. Quick example -

Me and you are fighting two other identical players in a PvP arena. I am playing an elf mage you are playing a bear tank. If PvP were like PvE, then you would go off and start attacking either of their chars while I sit back and heal you, yada yada yada. Well, guess what - the other team doesn't want to do that. They want to attack me, because I am weaker, have less HPs, less Armor, and no way of defending myself. This is what it is like without threat meters and agro in a class-based MMO. People, and mobs, would just go about the fight in the most advantageous way possible, negating the basic order of things - tanks, dpsers, healers, and so on.

So, in a nutshell, Taunt and/or Beckon are basically gavels of order. They are a form of bulwarking against sloppy PvE. Taunt and/or Beckon help maintain the consistancy that is necessary to form teamwork against monsters. Again if the mob just attacked whoever it wanted, then classes would be a vanity-based choice and not a gameplay choice [in a PvE context].

Taunt and/or Beckon are the most direct methods of control surrounding threat meters and agro. They, like Heal in some ways, are an "oh sh__" button. Also, like Heal, they are a "status quo" button. They keep things neat, orderly, help to clean up messes and get people on the right track, and all within the span of a couple seconds.

Technically speaking these two abilities are, at their core, agro modifiers. They basically are instant hard/soft threat meter rearrangers. They are target swappers. They are temporary windows of opportunity for the tank to get a handle on the mob, the DPS to move into a better position or launch a huge burst attack without fear of instant retaliation, and they are a miniature stop-watch that gives mages enough time to heal injured players who are thankful to have a mob off their butt.

There is so much that is potentially involved in agro and threat meters that there are literally jobs out there in the real world that pay nerds to sit around and devise new and challenging ways for mobs to behave in games. Typically these mobs are not very nice. Sometimes it takes months for thousands of different groups and/or guilds to finally achieve success [wtfpwning the mob]. In this perspective it is understandable that some players take their mob hunting very seriously and that agro and threat meters can be very complex concepts that are not readily or easily understand and disassembled like a pile of legos.

Whether or not Pocket Legends features quality AI and how the mobs are coded with respect to agro and threat meters and behaviors remains to be seen, because the game is so young and the developers surely have bigger and better plans for PvE, while we as the community have barely scratched the surface in regards to mob/player interaction.

More knowledge is required, Jim; perhaps you should be the one to become the master of Pocket Legends monsters... perhaps you shall be the one to create a compendium of mob behavior, or at least "crack the code"!!!!!!!!!!!

Diz-
You are amazing. The metaphors help so much- baseball lineup, etc....terrific detailed answers....
I'm not the one who should be writing any of the content for the wiki for newbies- you should....
I hereby bestow upon you the medal of TOP COOL DOG.
(There is a fantasy book by Garth Nix that has a character called the disreputable dog which I loved- so the dog medal is a compliment).

[SamTheDog]

Nice reply, fast and useful. I was trying to tie in another mmo term but couldn't think of one, I didn't think zerging had a place in the game yet.

I know I'm late to the party, but great thread all. And "zerging", man that makes me smile. I miss Starcraft. Wish that Blizzard someday brings it as far as it has Warcraft.

[SlipperyJim]

[part 2 of 2]

Holy doctoral dissertation, Batman! If your last post was good for a college degree, these two posts oughta be worth a PhD or so....

More seriously, thank you for taking so much time to explain mob behavior to us. Most MMO veterans probably knew a lot of what you wrote, but I'm not an MMO veteran, and I didn't know it. So thank you! If this forum had some way to award points for helpfulness, I'd give you a bucketful of 'em.

Non-offensive actions such as a buff, a heal, or even something arbitrary like a meditation / regeneration skill [focus maybe?] can potentially impact agro. Again this is going to be something that deals with the way a given mob's threat meter is going to dictate. Does the mob react to a heal fiercely because it conceives a healer as someone drawing out the fight longer? Does the mob react to a heal fiercely because it conceives the target being healed as injured, and thus has a chance to kill it? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I know that there are plenty of other MMOs that show precedence for non-offensive actions causing, raising, or changing agro. This can get even deeper, as you also alluded to whether or not the agro would be caused to the target, to the caster, etc. To answer your question more intimately, my personal answer is that a healer needs to focus on reacting. Know your limits, know your own targets and your enemies targets, and react accordingly. As a healer you want to finish things, not start them.

In my PL experience, mobs tend to rush the healer when healing generates aggro, not the injured character(s). In other words, the badguys swarm the poor elf, not the manly bear who's taking all of the other shots. And this behavior is intelligent, because a good healer/tank combo could theoretically keep fighting forever. If the mob(s) kill the healer, then the tank will be overwhelmed eventually.

Although, now that I've written that, I seem to remember that "rush the healer!" aggro used to be a lot more severe than it is now. In fact, I think there was even a content update that specified a lower aggro level for healing....

Here it is! Update 46046:
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...-Update-(46046)
Interestingly, the Devs buffed the Healing skill in the same update. So Healing became more effective and simultaneously generated less aggro. Healers had it rough before that update!

So, in a nutshell, Taunt and/or Beckon are basically gavels of order. They are a form of bulwarking against sloppy PvE. Taunt and/or Beckon help maintain the consistancy that is necessary to form teamwork against monsters. Again if the mob just attacked whoever it wanted, then classes would be a vanity-based choice and not a gameplay choice [in a PvE context].

Taunt and/or Beckon are the most direct methods of control surrounding threat meters and agro. They, like Heal in some ways, are an "oh sh__" button. Also, like Heal, they are a "status quo" button. They keep things neat, orderly, help to clean up messes and get people on the right track, and all within the span of a couple seconds.

Technically speaking these two abilities are, at their core, agro modifiers. They basically are instant hard/soft threat meter rearrangers. They are target swappers. They are temporary windows of opportunity for the tank to get a handle on the mob, the DPS to move into a better position or launch a huge burst attack without fear of instant retaliation, and they are a miniature stop-watch that gives mages enough time to heal injured players who are thankful to have a mob off their butt.

That observation matches my own experience. Taunt & Beckon don't seem to permanently switch mob targeting to the Ursan, but rather swap targets on a temporary basis. I think your explanation is correct here. Thank you again!

There is so much that is potentially involved in agro and threat meters that there are literally jobs out there in the real world that pay nerds to sit around and devise new and challenging ways for mobs to behave in games. Typically these mobs are not very nice. Sometimes it takes months for thousands of different groups and/or guilds to finally achieve success [wtfpwning the mob]. In this perspective it is understandable that some players take their mob hunting very seriously and that agro and threat meters can be very complex concepts that are not readily or easily understand and disassembled like a pile of legos.

The more that we dig into this topic (mob aggro), the deeper we get. What I'm finally coming to understand is that aggro is basically AI programming in a very limited form. (No, the Pocket Legends servers are not the next Skynet!) And even limited AI can be formidable in its complexity. There are algorithms at the root of it all, and those algorithms can be understood, but doing so as players will require a lot of guesswork.

I have to ask: Diz, are/were you a game programmer? You seem to have a lot more knowledge about this topic than I'd expect from a hobbyist....

More knowledge is required, Jim; perhaps you should be the one to become the master of Pocket Legends monsters... perhaps you shall be the one to create a compendium of mob behavior, or at least "crack the code"!!!!!!!!!!!

ME?! Heck, no! I'll add my own observations, but I don't have the expertise (or the time) to become the PL Mob Behavior Expert! I'm just trying to learn some things so that Epimetheus can be a better tank....

[Diz]

Np, Jim. I think most of what I stated is just the type of stuff that is picked up if you play MMOs long enough. It's not rocket science, but PvE can be very challenging and exciting.

I like that they lowered Healing agro. My point in that section of the original post was just to show that while agro and threat meters can be very primitive in design and implementation, they can also be very deep and complex and emulate dynamic situations; the sky [or code] is the limit for mob AI, really. It's come a LONG way from the old school "cheating" style, to the more acceptable and practical "beefed" style [like how mobs have 10x hp/mp of players of similar level], to the insanely detailed and complex style seen in particular "end game raids" like in WoW, etc.

Taunt and Beckon are temporary, yes. However, I think I failed to accurately describe that the potential is there for Taunt and Beckon to create permanent threat meter switches. BECAUSE the Taunt and Beckon change the situation, it is surmisable that the threat meters can switch around and remain that way. For example, lets say theres a bear, an elf, and a zombie mob in a fight. The zombie is on the elf because the elf wandered into agro range. Elf is taking light damage while running away - not activating any skills. Bear taunts and temporarily becomes the main target of zombie. Bear starts going buck-wild on the zombie. Elf keeps running to safe distance and does nothing for several seconds. It's plausible that the zombie can switch to the bear permanently in this case. Or if the mob is killed - then it's a self contained [and in practice, permanent] situation. I could be wrong, I don't know a lot about Pocket Legends agro and meters in particular, but this is pretty much standard soft / hard agro switching that you see in your run-of-the-mill MMO.

Yes, mob AI can be very complex and exciting to interact with. Some luster leaves over time [like, say, killing the same end game boss in WoW 20 times just to see a particular item drop once... at that point you're only killing it for the item], but since the nature is to keep building [ie Alien Oasis], it keeps the carrot stick moving ahead of the horse sufficiently and in an engaging way. No I am not a programmer, I can barely code a website, but I have been playing MMOs since their inception a long time ago. I have been helping to design an independent [like Pocket Legends] MMO for over a year now, and I find Pocket Legends not only exciting and entertaining as a game but also very similar to my own dev situation. I find a lot of similarities between this game and Spacetime and my own situation, only Pocket Legends is about six months ahead of our schedule. And no I'm not working on a phone game and I'm not going to talk about my own stuff here on PL forums. Anyways, yes, I consider myself more than an enthusiast, but I would not call myself a professional. I've lost track of how many MMOs I've beta tested and I've done a lot of community work [GMing, Counselling, Admining] in games and their obligatory community outlets. Games are just a big part of my life, and I don't really take them super serious, I just find them to be fun and worth taking the time to figure out - like everybody else, I wanna be the best!

Someone is going to figure out the inner workings of the different AI scripts and whatnot in Pocket Legends, it's just a matter of time. At some point people will know the range for HPs a certain mob spawns with, every spell or skill it can use, etc. It's a lot of leg work, though, that's why wikis are huge for MMOs - each person giving input makes the homework easier.

[tjornan]

rez- revive/resseruct- mage spell

[Angriff]

At some point people will know the range for HPs a certain mob

I noticed that when a mob returns to full health after being pulled to far from the spawn point, you can see the number of hp it regains. I think it was on AO but not to sure, I can't remember any details as to what class it was, it was just a standard mob, no boss, but it was 500ish HP on a mostly dead mob.