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

[shren]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Peter Tyson wrote:

> While bashing some critters over and over the other night I
> started thinking. Dangerous I know, usually gets me killed.
 
> 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.

<snip>

> 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.
 
> Anyone else have any thoughts.

First thought:

  I followed the development of Ultima Online 2 pretty closely.  One
  of the things they were planning on doing was spawning the
  monsters as the players approach the site of the monsters, so the
  monsters don't have to stand around eating memory when there's
  nobody there to kill them.

If you're doing that, if you're aware of what player you are filling
your encounter for, then you could always try counting the number of
times the player does the encounter (say, in a byte).  Then, make
each of the first 255 times a player does the encounter slightly
different.

The first time you do the encounter, there are 10 kobolds around a
campfire.  The second time, there are 9 kobolds around the campfire
and one walking towards the campfire from the north, armed with a
bow.  The third time there are are 11 kobolds around the campfire,
and one of them is a healer.  You could store the differences
between each visit in a table, and probably generate the table
randomly.  Write 30 different places kobolds could be, and 30
different ways each kobold could be slightly tougher (healer,
archer, shaman), then pick (visit number / 10) + 10 of the first and
(visit number / 20) of the second.  Thus, each situation may not be
life threatening, but it's tactically different.

--
http://www.shren.net

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