[MUD-Dev] The quandry of mob combat in MUDs

[William Murdick]

Peter Tyson said on Friday, April 26, 2002

> Anyway, I survived long enough to think about the bashing of
> critters and the enjoyment one gets from it. I then stumbled
> across a quandry.

> The most dangerous fights are the most enjoyable, but they are the
> least likely to help you advance, due to the penalty for
> dying. Therefore, through design, the majority of MUDs encourage
> you to tackle the easiest monsters (that still provide a reward)
> and thus have you doing boring, repetitive tasks over and over.

> So while I very much enjoy tackling the risky creatures, (where
> perhaps a variety of combat techniques have to be employed) I
> really can't afford to do this unless I want to be dying far more
> frequently than is acceptble.  Instead I bash the same weaker
> creatures over and over for smaller reward and quite a lot less
> fun.

> I see this as being a fundamental problem of the whole idea of
> mobs in games to date. It only gets better if you are doing things
> in groups but even then the same principles do apply.

> Some might argue that the fun comes from the risk of death, but
> I'd disagree. The fun comes from applying new and various
> techniques to the combat, stretching those tactical muscles which
> lesser creatures never challenge.

I completely agree and this is a tough thing to work out...

You can reward for roleplaying, but that is hard to code and most of
the time requires online judges and what-not.

The biggest problem with MUDs is the whole solo thing. Very few
adventure games were designed to be played by a single person. Even
single-player modes on PC RPGs let you pick up lots of NPCs to
assist you.

The goal, therefore, should be to encourage players to band together
and fight more challenging monsters and tackle harder quests.

The one thing that many muds neglect is that team concept for the
mobs. For example, you find out there is a goblin cave not far from
town. You wander out there and there are goblins around and you can
fight a room of them at a time. None cry for help or run get help or
even come to the source of the fighting to help. But is this
realistic? No way! If you attacked a goblin cave then all of the
able-bodied goblins would come to the front of the cave to stop you
to keep you from getting further in. Very quickly (or as quickly as
goblins could arrive) you would be facing large numbers of goblins.

Now, if you were a single individual you would be hopelessly
outnumbered even if you were high level (think Dragon Mountain
campaign for AD&D 2nd edition - 100s of Kobolds vs a party of 10 to
13th lvl characters). The reward for killing a single goblin might
be miniscule, but the reward for killing a BUNCH of goblins might be
much greater. And, maybe the mud could be written to give greater
awards for the challenge of the situation itself.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the majority of muds look at
combat as a 1 on 1 type of thing and reward based on that. But the
world doesn't work like that and you should in turn begin thinking
about awards for combat in a much different way... Group vs group.

- William 

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