MOB CLASS STANDARDIZATION

[Tocharaeh]

So, I'm sitting on BP trying to make mobs and what not, and it didn't don on me until now that the medit is really rather sloppy, and a lot of the affects and what not are stupid.

So for mob flags we have the standard "quest mob", "isnpc", !track, and so on.
Under mob affects we have the dumbest list of things I've ever seen.

While some things under the affects make sense like defensive spells, and what not...there are offensive spells that you can add taht HURT the mob. I didn't notice that until I tried to make a mob use suffocation on a player. I mean, I saw all poisons listed, defensive spells listed, amongst other things...so I figured "hey, he can cast suffocate people". boy was I wrong. I didn't notice until I turned nobat off that he was dying! So, we really need to get rid of "affects" that hurt the mob. It just doesn't seem practical, and I doubt they're used. (please correct me if I'm wrong).

So aside form the weird affects above...I have come to the conclusion that mobs classes don't make much sense, and are basically useless aside form deciding whether or not something is going to cast magic, encircle, bash, or just be a normal mob. I know Anubis is busy working on an awesome mob AI which is a HUGE step for 4D, so here is my suggestion in addition to the AI:

FIRST:
For the MOB class, lets be able to actually CHOOSE a player class for the mob. This way the mobs use the same skills/spells as we do. This makes it not only more interesting, but the mobs start looking unique in combat.

Second: the Undead mob class should remain as such, and I would like to write the small skill/spell list for this class.  I have a great list of spells, and skills for the undead. I would also like to branch the undead mob class into the following types::

Lesser Undead (it would be a basic mob with minor abilities)
Undead Caster (Undead that casts death magic)
Undead Warrior (Undead with undead warrior skills)
Greater Undead (has access to all spells/skills of the undead)

By choosing one of these, a builder would then have another function that allows them to choose what abilities from a list, that they specifically want the mob to use.
I think we could apply the same thing to the other mob classes, thus giving the builder the ability to personalize their mobs further rather than just dealing with stock functions that the AI automatically chooses.

Finally: I want to have UNDEAD MOBs immune to death magic.

Here is the medit window, I put in bold what I've added and changed. I moved choice O(subskill) to a new choice Z, and then changed choice O to the skill list option.

(medit window)
-- Mob Number:  [XXXXX]
1) Sex: male             2) Alias: mob unfinished
3) S-Desc: the unfinished mob
4) L-Desc:-
An unfinished mob stands here.
5) D-Desc:-
It looks unfinished.
6) Level:       [   0],        7) Alignment:    [   0]
Hitroll:      [   0],        9) Damroll:      [   0]
A) NumDamDice:  [   1],  B) SizeDamDice:  [   1]
C) Num HP Dice: [   0],   D) Size HP Dice: [   0],  E) HP Bonus: [    0]
F) Armor Class: [ 100],   G) Exp:     [        0],  H) Gold:  [       0]
I) Position  : Standing    J) Default   : Standing
K) Attack    : hit
L) NPC Flags : ISNPC
M) AFF Flags : NOBITS
N) Segments  : Not set        X) Training List : Not Set
R) Mob Race  : Humanoid      V) Mob Class     : UNDEAD: GREATER
T) Tier      : 0                    O) Skill list         : SET
U) Charisma  : 11                W) Skin Vnum     : -1
S) Script    : Not Set.          Y) Owner     : (null)
Q) Quit                              Z) Subskill      : UNUSED
Enter choice :


Anyway, just a few ideas I was tossing around.

[Molly]

All the Affect flags per definition affect the mob, not who he is fighting with.
Mostly they are used for things like aware, infra, detect_invis etc. which are all useful.
There are a few cases - very few - when you for IC reason might want to set a questmob as sick or hurt, so that a player has to cure it before interacting.

But in general, I agree that it's stupid to have a gazillion of mob flags that are never used, just because the spells exist in the code. I totally agree that they should all be removed, it's just irritating to have to scroll past them to find the few that might be useful. I suppose it's just done by lazyness, since someone had to evaluate and remove the useless ones.

If Anubis, or anyone else, ever gets around to cleaning up the OLC code, I really hope that they will remove something else that has irritated me for years too - that all mobs above level 50 for some stupid reason are autoset as flying.  The messages from that causes unnessecary spam, and often makes the mob look totally stupid too.

I don't know if the move messages and fight messages from mobs without arms and legs have been totally fixed either, but that's another thing that used to annoy me. This could be fixed by adding mob classes like bug, insect, snake, bird etc. instead of just animal, but might on the other hand mean that someone would have to wade through all the existing animal and alien mobs to set the right class. Not very feasible.

In fact, all retroactive additions to OLC result in the same problem with the existing world. Sometimes 4D is really a white elephant...

[Kvetch]

Here is the medit window, I put in bold what I've added and changed. I moved choice O(subskill) to a new choice Z, and then changed choice O to the skill list option.

Just a quick question - why change O to Z just to make a new O?  Doesn't that just require more work for whoever is going to try to clean this up?  Why not just make your O Z and leave the switching step out of it?

Other than that, I agree that the way mobs are made in medit is oddly irritating and could be cleaned up, but yet, better than what I had to do years ago.

[Tocharaeh]

Meh, I just changed them cause the mob class thingy would go dircetly under type.

[horus]

Shouldnt we be discussing this under builders forum?

The reason why there are a gazillion affects is because the code simply scrolls through the entire affects list, assigns a letter to each affect, and bob's your uncle. Its a simpler way of coding than to say, okies, out of a gazillion affects, please do not include blah, blah3, blah5, blah8, etc etc. And then, every time we add a new flag, we will then have to decide to include it into OLC or not.

It is too tedious to change it.

[Molly]

It's not a big priority, but if it adds to the confusion of the builders, and can potentially make them add flags to the mobs that are detrimental to the zone, I think the code should be told to keep the surplus flags out of OLC.

For an inexperienced Builder the task is hard enough as it is, without them having to spend time wondering and asking about things that shouldn't even be in the menus in the first place.

So please put it on the todo list - after the skilltrees are implemented.

[Prometheus]

I wonder how hard it would be to code in group flags ie (aggro to align / sex) And you choose that and then it gives you the options and you choose from those. That might make it easier. I don't know how hard it would be to code something like that in at some point?

Prometheus

I agree this should actually be on the builder part. I will see if I can move it.