140 réponses à ce sujet

[Naked Fury]

Suppose there's a bunch of bad guys which are far away, barely in sight. Shoot an arrow at the closet one. The enemy you hit (or missed) will run towards you, but the others will stay put. You can pick off whole mobs like this, one by one. You might attract more than one at once, but you can almost always prevent this by retreating the moment the arrow leaves your bow. In most cases don't even need a bow -- just inch closer and closer to them until one starts running (or shooting) at you.

Using this technique I played a solo dual-wield rogue on nightmare until I got fully bored around 60% through. It wasn't very difficult -- hide around a corner after shooting then assassinate when the guy turns the corner. It works for all but the hardest bosses, which can be handled with a trap placed at the corner. (There are a few other solo rogue techniques, but this covers almost all encounters.)

I do consider it a bug. Even the simplest fix would likely foil my solo adventure: make a "shout" radius around the enemy that spots you; all enemies within it are alerted to your presence. That would bring at least a tiny bit of realism to enemy behavior in this regard.

The bug is present in NWN, KOTOR, and other incarnations of Bioware engines. It's been in there so long that maybe it's considered a feature. I don't know.

But I wonder if the reason the bug (or "limitation" as the charitable might call it) persists is because players like it. Do you lure?

Modifié par Naked Fury, 14 décembre 2009 - 09:01 .

[Sloth Of Doom]

In certain fights with my solo nightmare rogue I use this. For example, the 2 wolf packs in Lothering before I get combat stealth or have that many trap components.

[Bibdy]

Some call it an exploit, others call it a tactic. Depends if its intended or not. You can turn a difficult encounter into something fairly trivial by separating the mobs with pulling tactics. I try not to do it, opting for the frontal-assault approach, aggroing everything before committing to the attack, but it was usually the first thing I turned to when I encountered a difficult fight in my first couple of playthroughs.



I think its a big shame it exists, to be honest. Its too easy to fall back on that for almost every encounter in the game, then if things get a bit hard at the moment, you can just start kiting. Both of those combined make a lot of potentially challenging fights really simple. I certainly don't have the capability to program a more advanced AI for the game, to make mobs act more sensibly, but I hope someone can.

[Chadoe]

It's generally called body pulling, and it's present in many MMOs as well as RPGs. Why call it a bug?

[Skellimancer]

Its a bug that needs to be fixed.

[Faerell Gustani]

It's not a bug. It's a flaw in AI design.

Even games with a "shout" radius like WoW can still have this problem crop up.



So while it's not a bug with the AI, I classify it as AI abuse in this game. WoW design their encounters around this flaw, so I don't feel it's cheating or abusive in WoW.

[Sloth Of Doom]

Chadoe wrote...

It's generally called body pulling, and it's present in many MMOs as well as RPGs. Why call it a bug?

Gonna split hairs here.

The terms (not the concpts) 'pulling' and 'body pulling' both originate from EQ.  "body pulling' is where you use the physical proximity of your character to a mob to engage its aggro (run up and ****** it off).  'Pulling' or 'ranged pulling' is where you use a ranged weapon or spell to draw aggro.

So no, this is not 'body pulling'

/nitpick.

[kevinwastaken]

It's kind of lame. If the enemy was smarter then the developers could have and probably would have implemented different gameplay to compensate.



The only people who like this so-called tactic are players who are lazy and don't like a challenge.

[SheffSteel]

In Baldur's Gate (and more so in Icewind Dale), you could open a door or attack an idle monster and next thing you knew, half of the monsters in the level would be attacking you. I really miss that sort of battle in DA:O, and I'm sad to say I think it was a deliberate design decision.
I say this because if there was no communication between enemies, you'd only ever get one at a time attacking you. Since other enemies do sometimes attack in response to a cohort being attacked, communication obviously is possible between them. Why isn't there more of it? Is the shout radius broken? That seems like a hell of an oversight. More probably, the designers had to work within technical limits on how many enemies should attack you at one time.

Modifié par SheffSteel, 14 décembre 2009 - 09:25 .

[rmp]

I have a character shoot at a group of enemies, but I make usually shoot the farthest one or get my character close enough to pull all of them. My mage farther back at the same time is casting blizzard into an area where they're about to be running into. Then if there's time I add Tempest. Eventually most get through, but at different times and various levels of depleted health. I consider it valid CC, but some of you might think it cheap.

[Dolomite808]

I consider it tactics, personally, lthough I tend to use it to pull partial groups moreso than individual mobs.

[thewatcheruatu_old]

Man, if they ever "fixed" this, I would be in trouble. I have had to reload many times after getting party wiped when trying to take on full groups. If possible, I'll try to pull more than one, but my number one tactic right now is to pull as few as possible and trap as many of them as I can in a Blizzard. My parties tend to be extremely squishy, I don't often run with a healer, and I don't use health potions for the most part. Luring is about the only thing I've found that works.

[DarwinJames]

I see a place for nerfing pulling on the highest difficulty levels. On normal and easy, leave it alone.

[pathenry]

I suspect this is one of the ways that people solo at hard and above levels. Then they post about how easy this game is and how they have beachballs and massive epeen.

Intended or not, its full of cheesy goodness and its lame. 'The Art of the Pull' should be restricted to MMOs.

IMHO, they designed (or should have designed) the game to have "encounters". Big ogre in center with guys all around him is an "encounter". Not kill all his guys one-by-one, while him and others stare ahead blankly.

/ogre emote scratchass
/ogre say 'where all my guys go?'
ogre bumrushed and die

[NetBeansAndJava]

I don't really see it as an exploit. It's just flat out silly to rush headfirst into a group of 10+ bad guys.



Still, I do understand the point of view of those who think it is exploiting... and if the designers ever decide to link all the mobs, then I guess mages will become that much more important. ...that or you'll need to use traps constantly.

[Skellimancer]

NetBeansAndJava wrote...

I don't really see it as an exploit. It's just flat out silly to rush headfirst into a group of 10+ bad guys.

Still, I do understand the point of view of those who think it is exploiting... and if the designers ever decide to link all the mobs, then I guess mages will become that much more important. ...that or you'll need to use traps constantly.

Its also silly for a single bad guy to rush your team

[Dolomite808]

NetBeansAndJava wrote...

I don't really see it as an exploit. It's just flat out silly to rush headfirst into a group of 10+ bad guys.

Unless you have Wrynn in your party.  Seriously, since I picked her up, I can throw tactics and micromanagement out the window for most fights.  Just run in and bash stuff to death, occasionally pausing to make Wrynn drink a mana potion.

[Naked Fury]

pathenry wrote...

IMHO, they designed (or should have designed) the game to have "encounters". Big ogre in center with guys all around him is an "encounter". Not kill all his guys one-by-one, while him and others stare ahead blankly.

/ogre emote scratchass
/ogre say 'where all my guys go?'
ogre bumrushed and die

This is hilarious, and it perfectly summarizes the problem. Well done, sir.

[NetBeansAndJava]

Skellimancer wrote...

NetBeansAndJava wrote...

I don't really see it as an exploit. It's just flat out silly to rush headfirst into a group of 10+ bad guys.

Still, I do understand the point of view of those who think it is exploiting... and if the designers ever decide to link all the mobs, then I guess mages will become that much more important. ...that or you'll need to use traps constantly.

Its also silly for a single bad guy to rush your team

Haha, I guess you're right.

The OP's suggestion of a shout radius would be a nice compromise.

<Enemy gets hit by arrow>
Enemy: "You three come with me.  The rest stay behind and guard this room."

If they did that, it would at least lend some realism instead of everyone just watching their friends run one after the other to their deaths

[Bibdy]

NetBeansAndJava wrote...

Haha, I guess you're right.

The OP's suggestion of a shout radius would be a nice compromise.


Enemy: "You three come with me.  The rest stay behind and guard this room."

If they did that, it would at least lend some realism instead of everyone just watching their friends run one after the other to their deaths

That's still reducing a large pack into something smaller. I don't think that should exist in a game like this. Either construct and balance the entire pack to be a challenge to the player as an entire whole, or don't fight it at all. Finding the encounter too difficulty and then falling back on pulling a smaller group out of it, doesn't lend itself to a tactical RPG. Its too easy to fall back on and doesn't make the player think about using the multitude of other tools in the game, like having their Rogue stealth in and take out the major threat in the group, different spells, Traps, Poisons etc.

Having pulling there as an option turns a difficult encounter trivial because of simple math (less enemies = easier), not because the player is thinking more strategically, or using different tools as his disposal.

You could say pulling is a tactic, and it is a tool, but its not a fun one.

[SheffSteel]

The problem, I think, is that once a game features pulling as a mechanic - or rather, once the designers are aware of pulling as a tactic - they will tend to balance the encounters with pulling in mind. That makes it so much harder for anyone to approach an encounter from a different angle.
ETA I don't think splitting a group is bad in itself. It's when splitting off one or two minions can be repeated indefinitely. If a group is damaged from long range, between a fifth and a third of its members could set out to investigate. If they don't come back... next time the alarm goes up, I think the whole group should move. There's no fun doing anything more than once or twice.

Modifié par SheffSteel, 14 décembre 2009 - 10:24 .

[Damar Stiehl]

It's called pulling. Standard MMO tactic. Deal with it.

[CBGB]

I've never used it. I have no issue with it, but I'm finding it fun to stumble my way along.

If it's troubling, though, this seems a reasonable fix:

DarwinJames wrote...

I see a place for nerfing pulling on the highest difficulty levels. On normal and easy, leave it alone.

Just chain together nearby mobs, as pathenry implies above. "Everyone got a buddy?"

[Bibdy]

SheffSteel wrote...

The problem, I think, is that once a game features pulling as a mechanic - or rather, once the designers are aware of pulling as a tactic - they will tend to balance the encounters with pulling in mind. That makes it so much harder for anyone to approach an encounter from a different angle.
ETA I don't think splitting a group is bad in itself. It's when splitting off one or two minions can be repeated indefinitely. If a group is damaged from long range, between a fifth and a third of its members could set out to investigate. If they don't come back... next time the alarm goes up, I think the whole group should move. There's no fun doing anything more than once or twice.

It would be tempting to do it on EVERY pack, since you know they won't all react on the first alarm. At the very least, it would still be the first thing you resort to when you find the encounter too challenging.

I say just take on everything as a whole. The pulling formula might work for MMOs, but in a single-player game that tries to focus on mid-combat strategy and tactics (at least I assume that much), this game shouldn't have that as an option.

Limiting the number of creatures you fight at a time should involve the use of crowd control, spells like sleep, grease, earthquake, mass paralysis, sleep traps, the kitchen sink and whatever else you have access to. It shouldn't involve fighting an opponent who's dumb as a doornail and watches his friends run off to their death and only attacks when the player exposes a pixel into his line of sight.

When you find an encounter a challenge in a game like this, your first thought shouldn't be "Oh, I'll just grab a couple off to the side, kill them, and try the full frontal assault again".

[BeerMeister]

Better AI exists in games already. NWN has an "on death" trigger that brings the mob to you, I really don't see why they couldn't have implemented that here as has already been suggested in the OP with a shout radius.



As it stands now, either the encounter is too hard or the AI looks silly, take your choice. To its credit though, this game has a lot less cheese tactics than others.