Nerfing enemies infighting?

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pango
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Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by pango »

Enemies infighting is a cool proof of concept for enemies groups, is fun to watch, and add some tactical element to dungeoneering. However, it makes the game easier, specially since it's easy to abuse, and on second thought doesn't make complete sense (if the default behavior of enemies of different groups is to attack one another, how did enemies manage to all get crammed into a dungeon without killing one another in the first place. That seems difficult).
I can imagine enemies turning against one another in case of attack (say AoE "friendly fire"), but unconditional unprovoked infighting seems too much.
Maybe some probability (hashf(enemy1.id + enemy2.id) % 100 < infightingThreshold ?) or extra condition (enemies attacking significantly lesser or injured others?) could be added...
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Kab the Bird Ranger
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by Kab the Bird Ranger »

I agree that the situation is a bit silly right now, but I think I'd probably change the way enemies spawn instead.

Only put enemies from the same team in a given room. It would still be abusable on its own, but we can probably tweak the AI for that. Have some enemies always target the stronger enemy, and have some always target the weaker one. Players trying to drag a skeleton to a bear might be surprised that the bear is only interested in meat right now, and this particular skeleton doesn't care that much for animals.

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Ralzar
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by Ralzar »

Yeah, I always use Unleveled Mobs which gives much clearer themes for dungeons, reducing the amount of infighting.

What could be fun was if enemies had pacification chance against eachother :D

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pango
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by pango »

Kab the Bird Ranger wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:16 pm I agree that the situation is a bit silly right now, but I think I'd probably change the way enemies spawn instead.
Only put enemies from the same team in a given room.
(slightly off topic) Well, it's already not totally random in classic; The kind of an enemy depends on dungeon type, character level, and "enemy ids" in the dungeon modules; So dungeon modelers could (and did, sometimes) decide that some enemies would be of the same kind, even if that specific kind would only be known when the player enters the dungeon...
But yeah, it's the exception rather than the rule.
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King of Worms
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by King of Worms »

Just to drop my opinion here.

I really like it how it is now. But Im all for options. So we can have this "aggressive mode" vs new "conservative mode" and Im all in :)

I agree that if you think about it more deeply, you can come to conclusion the current model makes no sense, because how did the mobs get in that dung and not kill each other already? But than you can ask so many questions like this, why the mobs dont move, what do they eat, why are they there... and the game falls apart.

I judge the features by the gameplay they allow/create. And I love the gameplay this aggressive infighting creates. Lots of options, also new tactics, interesting unpredicted ingame events etc

If we change it to "attack only when attacked" it will remove 90% of infighting IMO

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pango
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by pango »

King of Worms wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 12:26 pm If we change it to "attack only when attacked" it will remove 90% of infighting IMO
That's not what I'm suggesting, I was giving a case where infighting made perfect sense, so could be considered a minimum for all the possible options.

But if say we implement the probabilistic solution,

Code: Select all

hashf(enemy1.id + enemy2.id) % 100 < infightingThreshold
then the amount of infighting will depend on infightingThreshold value. At 0 you'd get the minimum infighting, at 100 you'd get what you have now, but if it's set a 20 then you'd get one chance in 5 that a couple of enemies from different groups will decide to fight one another.
That would be deterministic, so reloading wouldn't change that. And it increases the number of possible outcomes in unpredictable ways, so I think it would be more interesting than current state.
Worse case you keep the threshold at 100 and nothing changed.
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King of Worms
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by King of Worms »

I see, right.. I think if you could turn this thing which is currently only ON/OFF to some kind of slider like you mentioned here, it would be awesome.

"it increases the number of possible outcomes" - agreed and I like it

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Blue Footed Booby
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by Blue Footed Booby »

King of Worms wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 12:49 pm I see, right.. I think if you could turn this thing which is currently only ON/OFF to some kind of slider like you mentioned here, it would be awesome.

"it increases the number of possible outcomes" - agreed and I like it
If I were god-king, for each pair of factions/groups/whatever there would be a few different possible relationships. Like, maybe thieves tolerate orcs that keep their distance, but draw on any that get too close. Daedra will turn on the undead if hit by them, but otherwise ignore them. Wild animals attack undead on sight because they exude evil vibes. I feel like throwing in probabilistic stuff like "this specific bear doesn't mind skeletons" may be more realistic, but it introduces enough chaos that it's paradoxically harder for the player to appreciate. As in, from their perspective it'll all look just totally random, rather than tendencies with exceptions.

In general, though, pretty much any enemy should prioritize something that's actively attacking it over even a hated foe that just happens to be nearby. And if attacked by multiple enemies, they should prioritize the most dangerous. It shouldn't be possible to kite one enemy to another and have them focus each other while you stab one in the butt, unless the other enemy is more powerful than you.

l3lessed
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Re: Nerfing enemies infighting?

Post by l3lessed »

Best way to handle this would be to add some nuance to faction relationships, as mentioned above, tweak the attack threshold some, and then also change the spawning system, so only friendly factions, or even a single faction spawns at locations.

Why are orcs chilling in dungeons with necromancers and skeletons? Makes no sense. Now Orcs, with some tamed bears and bats, and yes maybe a bandit or two that has joined their ranks after being kicked from society. You get the idea. But as mentioned also, we probably need some better enemy AI too, so enemies wander/patrol based on conditions.
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