Please *increase* the aggro radius throughout the world (sorry if duplicate thread)

[phaelan2]

Do you folks who want the aggro range increased seriously think it's going to add more 'challenge' to the game? Do you find congested traffic on a highway more 'challenging' than light traffic? Do you pick up quests and think to yourself, "I'd rather just randomly run into mobs as a priority instead of just completing this quest where I'll have to fight other mobs anyways"? I for one hate traffic, and I dislike things that slow down my enjoyment of questing, so any lesser amount of traffic is always welcome.

I have no real issue with the aggro range on the landscape (although there are times when it's a little silly how close I can pass a critter by without them noticing me, but not too bad in general). I agree that it could get very annoying having those stupid birds aggro on me every other step! So I agree with you there (at least in part)

However, as noted in my previous post, it's more within the encampments that it's an issue. i shouldn't be able to just walk (not sneak) into and enemy camp -- visibly surrounded by enemies -- and walk right up to the item I'm after, turn around and walk back out without any danger at all.

There are currently places like that. With the change in aggro radius (for which Vastin gave a decent explanation), they should revisit some of the quest locations and move a few mobs to maintain the challenge.

[cipher_nemo]

However, as noted in my previous post, it's more within the encampments that it's an issue. i shouldn't be able to just walk (not sneak) into and enemy camp -- visibly surrounded by enemies -- and walk right up to the item I'm after, turn around and walk back out without any danger at all.

There are currently places like that. With the change in aggro radius (for which Vastin gave a decent explanation), they should revisit some of the quest locations and move a few mobs to maintain the challenge.

I have no problem with keeping the original aggro range at encampments or combat-focused areas such as Brigand's Watch, Dol Dinen, Fornost, Sarnur, Great Barrows, etc. But roadways of the over-lands and roadways of Moria should have these reduced aggro ranges (which is where I understand the load issue to be according to our blue name's post here).

[Darmokk]

I think that some small pieces of code might fix this:

• "Is there a quest item or a crafting resource in the old aggro range and not in the new range?" => use old aggro range.
• "Is there another mob just like me within old aggro range?" => use old aggro range.

The latter in particular fixes camps and guarded mountain passes. The former should be obvious.

Still, if you do this you get less random pulls in the landscape.

Also:

• Don't follow players that are much faster (mounted) for as long as if they had the same speed. Come on, this is just dumb and now you got the server load from it and blame us for it.

[Niwashi]

I have no real issue with the aggro range on the landscape (although there are times when it's a little silly how close I can pass a critter by without them noticing me, but not too bad in general). I agree that it could get very annoying having those stupid birds aggro on me every other step! So I agree with you there (at least in part)

However, as noted in my previous post, it's more within the encampments that it's an issue. i shouldn't be able to just walk (not sneak) into and enemy camp -- visibly surrounded by enemies -- and walk right up to the item I'm after, turn around and walk back out without any danger at all.

This is a case where what works from a gameplay perspective and what works for realism are the same thing.

IRL, both people and animals will be more aggressive towards strangers entering their home territory than towards strangers encountered in neutral territory. If you consider aggro range to represent not the range at which they notice you, but the range at which they'll interpret your presence as threatening, then it makes sense for aggro range to be significantly larger within encampments than out in the general landscape.

For questing and travelling, it also works better if there's more aggro in enemy encampments where you want the quests to be challenging than in open landscape where you're more likely just trying to travel past or explore.

The only problem with the recent change in aggro range was that it was applied too globally. If the aggro was left alone in encampments (including any guarded area like around animal dens, etc.) but shrunk smaller in open landscape and unguarded travel routes, it would have worked better both for realism/immersion and for players' combined need to travel with minimal interference and to quest with sufficient challenge.

[FoxFire]

The game should be on a larger scale, and the time to travel to locations as mentioned above much much longer. Middle Earth is a huge & wonderful place but you'd never know it by the games scale. I'd pay big bucks to play in a truly massive Middle Earth with more distance, long traveling times between places & extensive quests like EvE: the masses of course would revolt since they want everything easy & NOW.

Sadly it's too late for changing the scale of distance in this game. I too would have liked to see the scale at least doubled or tripled, with a lot more wilderness (They could have put in a lot more fast travel options for people to get around in a hurry.)

Still the game is ever growing so you can really put some long treks in to go from one far end to the other, even though unlike Tolkien's descriptions it's nowhere NEAR a day's march from the Northern border of Lorien to Cerin Amroth (more like a 5 minute run).

[FoxFire]

There are currently places like that. With the change in aggro radius (for which Vastin gave a decent explanation), they should revisit some of the quest locations and move a few mobs to maintain the challenge.

Indeed there are plenty of such areas now. I was just doing the Fanuidhol area yesterday, and (while intentionally trying to avoid them) I aggroed hardly any mobs as I walked into their encampments to pick up (or burn) the items I needed. Those are some REALLY deaf, dumb, and blind orcs. I don't think the Galadhrim have anything to worry about from them.

[Realhoot]

Has anyone considered the impact on burglars with this nerf? Burglars have been built and balanced with bypassing mobs in mind. Burglars lack skills and abilties because bypassing mobs was to be part of there gamplay, But now all classes can now just walk up and do what burglars have have been balanced around. The result is an indirect nerf to burglars with no compensation.

[Darmokk]

Has anyone considered the impact on burglars with this nerf? Burglars have been built and balanced with bypassing mobs in mind. Burglars lack skills and abilties because bypassing mobs was to be part of there gamplay, But now all classes can now just walk up and do what burglars have have been balanced around. The result is an indirect nerf to burglars with no compensation.

You say there's something wrong with my Dwarf Guardian stealth?

[moonsdancer]

This probably fits here in the discussion: a quick test of the aggro range vs. a low level character going along the roads heading to Enedwaith.

My intent was to follow only the main roads with a new character as far as I could before I died and see how the mobs along my path reacted to me. I created a new dwarf for my trip as Thorin’s Hall was the longest distance to travel. I left TH as a 6th lvl Guardian with only the basic intro gear. I ran the entire way and solo

Note- I had no idea if any mobs that should have along my path were already "killed" & missing by other players so my comments & the outcome concern just what I saw & encountered. I did take screenshots but can’t see how to post any.

Journey:
I left TH and went south then west at Dullond into the Shire then west towards Bree. I didn't encounter one close mob until I hit the Breelands, a lvl 15 Duskwolf was just off the road but he didn’t aggro on me as I passed. Several boars along the road close to Bree snorted at me but didn’t attack.

My next encounter & first "aggro event" was along the road in the Lone Lands when a Crabain came after me but I out ran him. The Orcs I saw along my path were too far off the road to notice me. I will say that there were other players in the area past Ost Guruth who may have been killed any mobs that had been closer to the road.
(Btw- Ost Guruth was the last Map Home point I could use at my low level.)

I then entered the Trollshaws just before dusk (took me 1 hour to get to the Last Bridge from Thorins Hall) & I got the "Dangerous Places" notice. The agrro range here to my 6th level was large (as it should have been) as everything came off the sides of the road after me. I was being chased through most of TS. I was lucky to be able to out distance everything: this was mainly because they aggro'd on me when I was even with them and they couldn't catch up. (My dwarf was more of a long distance runner and not a sprinter)

In last section of TS past Thorenhad every bear along the rises along the road came after me and only by popping some healing potions did I manage to stay alive, that and my running into the Ford of Bruinen. I now had to leave the road since the bears were thick along the road heading south to Eregion and that meant certain death. (So a low level cannot simply follow the road into Eregion alone.)

To keep going I swam down the river instead. It seemed to me the aggro range in the river increased as every frog & worm along my way came after me. But as before I was again able to get ahead and out distance them. I continued unhindered to Gwingris.

In Eregion the aggro clearly changed: the range was huge which meant the mobs ahead of me were activating quicker and getting in front of me instead of having to chase me from behind. The first part of Eregion was at a crazy run as I was forced to go on & off the road through the trees trying to avoid activating more mobs. Once I crossed the ravine north of Echad Eregion there were no gaps in the mobs aggro at my level and I was unable to slip between any of them. Everything I could see was activating & coming after me at this point and I forgot to take any "action" screenshots. I ran right thru Echad Eregion with numerous boars and lynx behind me (the NPC’s acted like nothing was going on!) and then it got worse. With mobs now coming at me from 360* it was only matter of time before I was hit, and of course beyond EE were the thug "throwing" Half-orcs. I did my best to avoid them but being chased by boars, flies and lynx coming at me from every angle I was running in circles. As I turned to avoid one Half-orc Thug another Thug threw and hit me and then a Tusker ran me down. The ruin of the world was upon me; my tiny 470 morale points were gone in 3 minor hits. I attempted to revive right there but I was thrown back to Ost Guruth as a note informed me that Eregion was “too dangerous for me to revive there.” And so my test ended.

In the end I nearly made it to the road running east to Mirobel, which I think is way too far for a lowly 6th level to get in such a dangerous world. (Btw- it took about 90 minutes for me to get to Echad Eregion.)

The aggro range along the road vs. a low level in the Trollshaws & Eregion was good and I would have quickly died if I had left the roads. But a low character can get pretty far by just running along & using a couple of healing potions, but what he can do once he gets to some of these dangerous locations I don’t know.

My test didn’t really prove much beyond that all the roads are extremely safe to travel along except as a new character and you can out run almost everything if you’re scared enough and most importantly, that Sauron clearly doesn’t expect the Ring to be traveling down the roads. I’d really imagine that where the Humanoid minions of Sauron / Saruman are that they’d be actively patrolling and watching the roads (large aggro range along them), not standing around with their backs to them.

Maybe someone can do a test with higher alts at various levels to check if the aggro ranges change off the roads?

[Macfeast]

To keep going I swam down the river instead. It seemed to me the aggro range in the river increased as every frog & worm along my way came after me. But as before I was again able to get ahead and out distance them. I continued unhindered to Gwingris.

I gotta say, I'm impressed you survived. When I tried it (and this was before the aggro change), I got just a wee bit south from the Ford of Bruinen before all the boglurkers got after me and rooted me. That was a quick death for me at level 15, I'm impressed you managed to get by at level 6.

[cipher_nemo]

In Eregion the aggro clearly changed: the range was huge which meant the mobs ahead of me were activating quicker and getting in front of me instead of having to chase me from behind. The first part of Eregion was at a crazy run as I was forced to go on & off the road through the trees trying to avoid activating more mobs. Once I crossed the ravine north of Echad Eregion there were no gaps in the mobs aggro at my level and I was unable to slip between any of them. Everything I could see was activating & coming after me at this point and I forgot to take any "action" screenshots. I ran right thru Echad Eregion with numerous boars and lynx behind me (the NPC’s acted like nothing was going on!) and then it got worse. With mobs now coming at me from 360*

I had a similar experience.

I took a friend -- level 20-something at the time -- through Eregion to get to one stable master. I had my level 60 LM, so we were safe. We were completing one of his crafting quests in Giant Valley, where mobs didn't aggro from too far away. I remember doing this crafting quest a year ago and mobs would aggro from almost off-screen. Any ways, since Eregion was close I decided to show him some of Eregion. Well, there was the surprise. Mobs were aggroing 360 degrees around him, so I had to watch him and pull off mobs as they came running in. Boars, ravens, worms, and orcs all aggroed from very far away.

[moonsdancer]

I gotta say, I'm impressed you survived. When I tried it (and this was before the aggro change), I got just a wee bit south from the Ford of Bruinen before all the boglurkers got after me and rooted me. That was a quick death for me at level 15, I'm impressed you managed to get by at level 6.

I hugged the cliff face as I swam by as I knew the Boggers were down there but I don't recall seeing any near the river- which was a good thing as I forgot about the rooting deal! I was probably just very lucky and they were on their "backward" patrol. I was more surprised I made it past the first section of Eregion running between the trees as it was a dark night and I couldn't see a dang thing for all the branches.

The 360* aggroing of mobs coming at me from far away was actually a fun experience (after the fact) as normally at level you have to be much closer & purposely try to get that many to activate at once. I can't tell how long or far each mob chased me (has that changed any?) in the last minutes since I was focused on avoiding the mobs running straight at my nose.

[Ceifwien]

I find aggro radii to be ridiculously small now- i was able to ride, unmolested, at 44, through the Angmarim camp in Forochel, discover the Ironspan, stop to take a screenie of 2 Angmarim standing next to my pony, then ride back, with no particular effort to dodge patrols.

[Guil1984]

/agree with OP. Aggro radius is ridiculously small.

[Banaticus]

When looking at how much xp can be gained from quests and how much xp comes from a mob, how long it takes me to kill an average mob and how long it takes to complete a quest...

Questing gives far more xp than grinding mobs. Racing back and forth completing quests is the most efficient way to generate xp. Stopping and fighting every mob along my path is literally a waste of my time since I'm not earning as much xp as I could earn. I love the story, I love the quests -- it's like reading a book. I love rereading that book, but I hate having to travel all over the world in order to "turn the page". I hate the slayer deeds and avoid them as much as possible -- I don't like grinding.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. It must sure be a drain on the servers to have to animate a huge horde of mobs chasing you, constantly updating their position, trying to make attacks on your moving avatar, when you have absolutely no plans to stop and fight. It sure seems like it's just a big waste of server resources -- Turbine must feel the same, as I think that's why they lowered the mob aggro range, so that they don't have to bother with all the high overhead and processing for something that's ultimately just a waste because players aren't going to stop and fight those mobs, they're just going to race past.

[BINKLEY1]

For Pete's sake please restore the aggro radius outside of the starter areas!

In particular, the reason stated for reduced radius (server load) applies well to the starter areas, Lonelands and North Downs, but no so much higher level areas than that. It is unfun to run through mob-dense areas and pull few or no mobs.

Example: Placing the first warning sign in the Misty Mountains I expect to fight my way there through lizards, hillmen and snowapes--at least some--I'm having to work at grabbing mobs in the Misties. Evendim likewise. Angmar likewise. Even Enedwaith!

Cheers,
Gloimli @ Windfola
Herry @ Riddermark