Dev Diary Feedback: New Monster Creation

[KainXI]

Hey guys, thanks for all the posts. I'm glad those of you in Beta have been having fun with my baddies. Now to spam you all with infinite responses to a bunch of your questions and comments.

Thanks for all the responses! That is great to hear hounding fear will no longer go off on grey mobs. And also: I HATE HILLBEASTS (in a bad way)

[Locklear93]

Good point, I'll definitely keep this in mind. With all the sounds from player skills and combat itself it might be tough to get a sound in there that will stand out and yet not be annoying. I'll chat with the audio guys and see what they think.

With the implementation of the Induction and Aura FX we filed a request bug for engineering to make a toggle for the Induction and Aura FX for people that didn't like them. However, it was a low priority task, so it didn't make it into Moria. But we're always cranking out updates so hopefully we'll get it into one of those.

THANK YOU. I love over the top effects. Truly. <3 flashy spell effects, screen filling super combos and all that--in their place. Which is not Lord of the Rings. If I could turn that stuff off, it would go a VERY long way toward reducing my "grr, time to look for a game that's faithful to its world..." grumblings. (And with three lifetime accounts, I REALLY don't want to leave.)

[Nianalind]

Let me know if there are any other specific monsters that annoying in a bad way. I'm typically very cautious about nerfing monsters that are "too hard", however I'll nerf 'em right-quick if they're annoying. And getting randomly dismounted/stunned while riding by a green hillbeast is definitely annoying.

Since you asked, absolutely: the norbogs (and ghosts) that burrow in the middle of a fight and just sit there, when all you want to do is kill them. It's basically forcing you to just stand around and wait for it to pop out, and needlessly lengthens the fight without really making it harder or more interesting. I hate quests involving norbogs for this very reason. The ghosts don't seem as bad, and the wolves in Forochel that stealth don't bother me at all (partly I think because the time they're gone is much shorter).

The one exception to this is situations where you're fighting multiple mobs; the burrowing forces you to switch to another one and then back when it returns, which keeps things slightly interesting, but not much. If I could suggest a change, I'd say shorten the norbog burrow considerably, or get rid of it altogether unless it's either a) only when another creature is in the fight or b) when it's combined with a heal. Or make it much easier to interrupt; usually there's not enough warning or induction to prevent it happening.

There, that's my pet peeve.

[Mafia]

I'll second the norborgs and ghosts that burrow/disappear. Specially when they have maybe 5% of their morale left and are just making us wait an extra 5 seconds to get that killing blow in.

[Grampsaz]

Let me know if there are any other specific monsters that annoying in a bad way. I'm typically very cautious about nerfing monsters that are "too hard", however I'll nerf 'em right-quick if they're annoying. And getting randomly dismounted/stunned while riding by a green hillbeast is definitely annoying.

Hounding fear from Grey Mobs.

That is all.

[swisskdl]

Since you asked, absolutely: the norbogs (and ghosts) that burrow in the middle of a fight and just sit there, when all you want to do is kill them. It's basically forcing you to just stand around and wait for it to pop out, and needlessly lengthens the fight without really making it harder or more interesting. I hate quests involving norbogs for this very reason. The ghosts don't seem as bad, and the wolves in Forochel that stealth don't bother me at all (partly I think because the time they're gone is much shorter).

Very true, it's very annoying grinding shades in Fornost for the trait when a very simple fight takes an extra 10 seconds because they just up and disappear for fun, or not so much fun.

[Benucio]

Hounding Fear ... has been fixed for Moria, so now it works like this: against an on-level mob Hounding Fear will have a small chance of procing. The more you out-level that mob the less likely it is to proc, eventually dropping to 0% chance when the mob is gray to you. When a mob is +1 or +2 levels above you, it maintains the same percent chance as if it were on-level (we didn't want to punish you for fighting yellow mobs). Against mobs that are +3 or +4 above you, Hounding Fear's proc chance only increases slightly. However, against mobs that are +5 and above, that's when Hounding Fear's proc chance increases significantly....

Thanks for your response! After reading this quote (above) I hope the above fixes include slowing "wounds" as well. Specifically from wargs/wolves/birds, etc.
To me, that is the single most annoying thing about any mob in LOTRO.

[Digero]

A drake sprays fire at your feet setting the ground on fire; you’d better jump out of the way if you don’t want to take a hefty chunk of damage.

Very nice! I love being able to move around and dodge attacks -- using actual player-behind-the-keyboard skill rather than just a roll of the dice against your character's stats.

One thing I've always found annoying is when fighting fire worms or goblins who throw fire is that there's no way to avoid the fire patch landing at your feet. I see the fire worm warming up to spit fire at my feet so I move out of the way, and the fire magically appears at my feet instead of where he was spitting. Is the type of mechanic you mentioned going to apply to SoA mobs as well?

Goblin Defender
[...]
This little fella carries a shield and knows how to use it. He will begin performing an induction and will then smash out with his shield, briefly stunning anyone in front of him.

So when are guardians going to be able to do that?

I just looked into Hillbeasts and you're right, they are jerks. I'll fixed them for a future patch so they'll be significantly less likely to stun/interrupt you when you ride by on your horse.

Let me know if there are any other specific monsters that annoying in a bad way. I'm typically very cautious about nerfing monsters that are "too hard", however I'll nerf 'em right-quick if they're annoying. And getting randomly dismounted/stunned while riding by a green hillbeast is definitely annoying.

Hillbeasts and snowbeasts are definitely the worst offenders in this respect, but most enemies with ranged attacks are also capable of dismounting you in one shot, even significantly below your level. Is it possible to fix all one-shot dismounts (at least from lower-level enemies)?

[Eavis]

Some buffs and debuffs will pile-up over time (but not stances, stances just reflect which set of skills a monster has). When we pile-up Corruption buffs we keep the stack size limited to 3 for soloable mobs, while mobs which fellowships will face will be around 5. Bosses can pile-up even more. But these are just general guidelines we're trying to follow. The percentages of the buff/debuff vary significantly, but I'd say on average we stick to about 10% per buff. So if the mob has piled up all their buffs you'll be looking at around 30-50% increase in whatever stat the buff is affecting.

Great response, so 30 - 50% enough to make you want to get it off but not enough to make you OMFGWTFBBQ 300% insta-buff

[gildhur]

Hounding fear from Grey Mobs.

That is all.

Hounding Fear was here long before I showed up. However, the players in beta did find an issue with it procing too much. This has been fixed for Moria, so now it works like this: against an on-level mob Hounding Fear will have a small chance of procing. The more you out-level that mob the less likely it is to proc, eventually dropping to 0% chance when the mob is gray to you. When a mob is +1 or +2 levels above you, it maintains the same percent chance as if it were on-level (we didn't want to punish you for fighting yellow mobs). Against mobs that are +3 or +4 above you, Hounding Fear's proc chance only increases slightly. However, against mobs that are +5 and above, that's when Hounding Fear's proc chance increases significantly.

...........

So when are guardians going to be able to do that?

You mean like the guy at the Guardian trainer in TH who stuns two dwarves in front of him? False advertising, I say!

[Merciful_Death]

I tried to address this by keeping each monster fairly simple. Only one or two special skills for any given monster. My hope is that that way you'll be able to learn their abilities easily. If you find any monsters that are particularly spammy, please let me know.

Yeah... that's not the issue. It's one or two special skills per monster type, time all the different monsters and variations of those monsters (Orc Warior, Orc Shaman, Orc Raider).

I know that I may be in the minority on this gripe, and that game designers may have a totally dofferent view than I do.

And, the problem is a lot less on the one-two mob encounters, it's when you get clusters of mixed mobs in the open or especialy in an instance.

Another example of what I'm talking about is the length tactics briefings that are required on a Rift run.
And how was anyone expected to find out in the first place that standing in a particular place when a particular mob takes flight is necessary?

I guess I just don't like the side effect that people will be inadvertently pushed to research my fights online before I go into them.

[BTiger]

Very happy about the change to hounding fear as well as wounds/fear..etc from lower level mobs scaling in effectiveness. I have no eggs. You defiintely have a better job than the class devs.

[BoomWave]

Since you asked, absolutely: the norbogs (and ghosts) that burrow in the middle of a fight and just sit there, when all you want to do is kill them. It's basically forcing you to just stand around and wait for it to pop out, and needlessly lengthens the fight without really making it harder or more interesting. I hate quests involving norbogs for this very reason. The ghosts don't seem as bad, and the wolves in Forochel that stealth don't bother me at all (partly I think because the time they're gone is much shorter).

The one exception to this is situations where you're fighting multiple mobs; the burrowing forces you to switch to another one and then back when it returns, which keeps things slightly interesting, but not much. If I could suggest a change, I'd say shorten the norbog burrow considerably, or get rid of it altogether unless it's either a) only when another creature is in the fight or b) when it's combined with a heal. Or make it much easier to interrupt; usually there's not enough warning or induction to prevent it happening.

There, that's my pet peeve.

About them, what I would do is prevent them of using the skill if they're less than 50% and let them move while underground.. then call friends to their aid. That'd be awesome..

[Roarack]

I just looked into Hillbeasts and you're right, they are jerks. I'll fixed them for a future patch so they'll be significantly less likely to stun/interrupt you when you ride by on your horse.

Holy **** thank you thank you thank you! Nothing is more annoying than riding around MM looking for ore and being dismounted every ten feet. Fantastic change!

[Benucio]

Our hope is that these new icons will be able to quickly communicate the basic information you need to know about a buff or debuff.

How about making these icons CLICKABLE for the detailed description. Come on Raskolnikov, you can persuade someone to do it.

[Jeffrai_NO]

Hey guys, thanks for all the posts. I'm glad those of you in Beta have been having fun with my baddies. Now to spam you all with infinite responses to a bunch of your questions and comments.





I agree, the way our icons sort is chaotic. Unfortunately, we were unable to get this feature into Moria in time. However, we're definitely pushing to fix this in an upcoming update.

Great post Rask - thanks for the info! On the issue of debuffs - is there any chance we can get a seperate scaleable window for debuffs only - and another scaleable window for buffs on your character (or 2 windows one for long term buffs and one for short term buffs) ?

Filtering debuffs to a seperate window would help alot to monitor what your current status is (and what needs to be cured).

The main feature we were able to implement for Moria is the colored borders on Poison (green border), Disease (yellow), Fear (purple), Wound (red) debuffs and on Corruption buffs (blue border). This way you can quickly scan the debuffs on your character to determine which ones can be cured. Same with monsters: quickly scan its buffs and if you see a blue bordered one you know that's a Corruption buff and it can be dispelled. So while the icons might still be jumping around (for now), it'll be much easier to pick out which ones you can do something about.

We've also tried to make the effect icons applied by monsters more consistent. We've done this with the help of our UI artists by creating a suite of different icons all following the same basic principles. The new icons have two components, the center image and corner image.

The center image represents what will be affected. If you see an icon that is a pair of swords, you know offensive ability has been affected in some way. A suit of armor represents mitigation. And a shield represents avoidances (Parry/Block/Evade). The trick with the center icon was to keep the number of images small enough so they don't all blur together and become difficult to remember, yet large enough to effectively categorize the majority of the effects you'd encounter from monsters.

The corner image represents how that effect will affect you. If you see a corner icon that is two blood droplets, you know this effect is a DoT. A green arrow pointing up represents a buff, while a yellow arrow pointing down represents a debuff.

Our hope is that these new icons will be able to quickly communicate the basic information you need to know about a buff or debuff.

Good work so far - thanks !

Good point, I'll definitely keep this in mind. With all the sounds from player skills and combat itself it might be tough to get a sound in there that will stand out and yet not be annoying. I'll chat with the audio guys and see what they think.

Can you talk to them about implementing an audio trigger system - where triggers can be assigned by the player and tied to specific text strings. You could then run a text based system - with specific text strings uttered by the the NPC that dovetails with what they are doing in combat.

[NothingToSay]

I definitely appreciate the amount of dev diaries on the forum. It allows me to get a feel for what the devs are thinking and how many different parts must come together to make an effective, challenging, and fun game.

I've enjoyed all the dev diaries, but this one was the best and most informative. I would encourage the devs to not apologize for "too much" info. I believe in most cases that more info is better than less info.

My only concern, that will have to wait until I am actually in MoM, is the "grind game" and if these new monster skills will make it even less enjoyable to grind deeds. This new system may be challenging and fun for the first 150 mobs, but the next 300 mobs will get annoying if it takes longer to grind them even if I am mutliple levels higher than the mob. It seems like mobs at level are tougher, but mobs lower than me will also be tougher. Maybe I am mistaken, so I will wait and see. In the meantime, can the devs help me with a potion for my "grind gloom" disease!

Anyway, three cheers to all the devs that have given us a glimpse into their worlds so that we can better understand what is taking place behind the scenes.

[Raskolnikov]

Round 2, Post!

What will happen when there are 100 different FX's for these kind of things?

That's why we made the Induction and Aura FX as simple as possible, so as not to clutter things up. For inductions you have: Healing induction (green) and Harmful induction (orange). For Auras you have: Helpful Aura Source (green), Helpful Aura Target (green), Harmful Aura Source (red) and Harmful Aura Target (red). We're not communicating the details of the situation, just a broad sense of the mechanic.

It's the same philosophy we took with the new icons, make them as easily recognizable as possible for broad topics. Don't try and explain the details of what's happening in the icon itself, use the tooltip to get those details across.

Since you asked, absolutely: the norbogs (and ghosts) that burrow in the middle of a fight and just sit there, when all you want to do is kill them. It's basically forcing you to just stand around and wait for it to pop out, and needlessly lengthens the fight without really making it harder or more interesting.

Great example! I'll check these guys out and see what kind of tweaks I can make.

One thing I've always found annoying is when fighting fire worms or goblins who throw fire is that there's no way to avoid the fire patch landing at your feet. I see the fire worm warming up to spit fire at my feet so I move out of the way, and the fire magically appears at my feet instead of where he was spitting. Is the type of mechanic you mentioned going to apply to SoA mobs as well?

There's different variations on this type of behavior. In the case you mentioned, the mob is targeting you directly; spitting the fire onto you. Whereas with the Dragonettes, the acid breath sprays outward from the mob. In a situation where something is planted at your feet, while you won't be able to dodge the projectile you can certainly move out of the area of fire.

Is it possible to fix all one-shot dismounts (at least from lower-level enemies)?

The reasons the hillbeasts were easy to fix was because they have a specific interrupt skill which I was able to modify slightly. Most monsters, however, can still get critical hits on you with their normal ranged attacks, which causes you to lose a large chunk in the "Riding" bar.

Another example of what I'm talking about is the length tactics briefings that are required on a Rift run. And how was anyone expected to find out in the first place that standing in a particular place when a particular mob takes flight is necessary? I guess I just don't like the side effect that people will be inadvertently pushed to research my fights online before I go into them.

I don't have a clear answer on this one, sorry. (I do think this is a valid argument, though.) Basically all I can say is that Raids and Instances are special cases.

How about making these icons CLICKABLE for the detailed description. Come on Raskolnikov, you can persuade someone to do it.

Engineering time is very tough to get, and I don't think I've put enough skill points into 'Mind Trick' yet. As someone mentioned above, you can mouse-over an icon and hit a key (forget which one) to get the tooltip to stay up.

On the issue of debuffs - is there any chance we can get a seperate scaleable window for debuffs only - and another scaleable window for buffs on your character (or 2 windows one for long term buffs and one for short term buffs)? Filtering debuffs to a seperate window would help alot to monitor what your current status is (and what needs to be cured).

I'm very leery about commenting on features that don't exist currently. So I guess I'll just say, we'll see what the future holds.

My only concern, that will have to wait until I am actually in MoM, is the "grind game" and if these new monster skills will make it even less enjoyable to grind deeds. This new system may be challenging and fun for the first 150 mobs, but the next 300 mobs will get annoying if it takes longer to grind them even if I am mutliple levels higher than the mob.

My goal for the landscape mobs was to definitely make sure players can still grind them. Some mobs may be harder than others, but I didn't want to burden the more casual player who just wants to kill dudes with having to struggle for each kill. Did I succeed? You'll have to let me know once Moria goes live.

Hopefully there will be a "Monsters and AI" forum available shortly after launch where you guys can post on these types of issues which I'll be keeping a close eye on.

[DYMongoose]

Round 2, Post!

...

Engineering time is very tough to get, and I don't think I've put enough skill points into 'Mind Trick' yet. As someone mentioned above, you can mouse-over an icon and hit a key (forget which one) to get the tooltip to stay up.

That would be (under a default setup) the 'H' key.

[Swordmaven]

I'm confused about the corruption buffs on the Moria monsters. I see a mob that appears to clearly have a corruption buff due to an icon present. I use my LM's remove corruption skill and the icon doesn't go away. (No miss/resist/etc.) Is the Icon just to let you know what kind of buff will be used and then you have to wait for the buff to actually appear before you remove it?

Or is this another bug?

[swisskdl]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if something would eventually happen, but when fighting the defiler morrevail that are in that big area to the right of the 21st hall (the level 58 and 59 ones), they go into this induction animation like they are trying to summon something or heal themselves but there is no induction swirls around there feet.

The thing is, they do this for the entire fight and I just kill them and they never harm me. And I'm a burg, so I'm not exactly killing them at hyper speed.

If I use my induction breaking skill it says interupted and then they fight me. But if I never break the induction, I can just kill them with no fear of getting attacked back.