Petition: Bring back mob AI!

[Jynx]

Personally I miss the days of being able to farm among efts as long as I watched my step and didn't move around them.

I miss when crabs would raise their claws at you if you came too close before attacking.

I miss when Deer would flee in my pressense.

Yes I also miss "Curious" monsters to an extent.

Personally I think SE removing these unique features "And who knows what else" from some monsters was a very bad move. I hereby declare this post to be a petition for Mob AI to be put back into the game, and for more monsters to have unique quirks.

Feel free to post what AI you know of, and what you think some awesome ideas would be, or great ways to tweak the system.

Known AI "Quirks"

• Funguar wont use Queasy cloud, or (not sure on name) Mushroom whip if you don't attack them when they inflate or deflate.
• Mice mobs tend to flee after you weaponskill and cower for a few moments
• Red crabs "Used to" Raise their claws instead of flat out agroing until you got closer to them
• Drakes will warn you before they agro
• Efts "Used to" Become "Aware" of your presense via sound, and if you stopped moving during this phase where they appeared to be listening for you...you could avoid agro!
• Many mobs used to follow you around Monkies, and Aldgoats being a prime example.
• Deer and Quqirn would run away from you.

What do you guys think? I personally wish efts were the way they used to be, it's sad to see them just flat out agro now.

As for the "Curious" monster I do think they need to have a short follow radius, only do so for a short time, and perhaps flee when you enter battle mode. "Not sure of many goats who would be curious about me after I started swinging"

Other communities.

French post: Here

Rep response:

Discussed this with monster wrangler Matsui. Firstly, as I'm sure you're all aware, the reason that aldgoats and other monsters stopped coming closer was due to the fact that they would be tagged by player AoEs (and all the frustration that brought with it); we don't have plans to bring that aspect back. However, we would like to add more liveliness to monsters as you have been suggesting.

[Estellios]

Don't forget Qiqirn would run away from you when you got near and glare at you with their backs turned. It was great.

The "curious" enemies can go to hell. If anything just have them look at your character when they go by and nothing else, or follow at a significant distance and lose interest quickly. Anything else on that list I'd love to see again, especially the enemies that warn you before attacking.

[Razor]

I agree wholeheartedly. While the "quick fix" among a pressing deadline to fix more important issues was to remove mob AI entirely, It would make the world become much more lively to re-examine monster interaction. When zones get adjusted I think this would be a great time to add the mob AI back in. It would make the world much more "real" to have monsters that growl/hiss at your prescence while they watch you cautiously instead of mindlessly looking around

[Keith_Dragoon]

Signed, we need this! Made the game interesting even in the lol state it was in at launch.

[Wynn]

I miss it too. The only thing that was somewhat of a problem was the mobs following you because you'd inevitably AOE on them when you are doing your leves. They didn't need to toss the whole system to fix that one small issue though. It was a good idea and gave a little life to the game. It is too bad that it is gone.

[Coldfire]

They could just make those "curious" mobs run away if you draw your weapon. That would even make sense.

[Xatsh]

I will sign this, the interactive mobs was one of the great things about this game from the start... was a major step backwards removing it.

[Shikaree]

There was this whole spiel about monster/animal behavior way back, and it's true that we don't see a whole lot of it now. Leves are already preprogrammed in a way where you know what to expect every time, and it has the odd combination of different species which doesn't make sense.

I had an example before with the goats. If you attack a nanny and there's a billy in plain sight, that billy should be able to pick up on the urgency of his fellow (possibly same flock?) goat being in danger and rush in. Maybe for any goat in particular, usually groups of animals defend each other when they sense another member in danger unless the said member is weak or dying. If you attacked a sheep in FFXI, you really had to watch where you were pulling that sheep to.

I knew about the mice cowering in the corner, always thought it was a low on health reaction deal.

Not sure if it was the spriggans or coblyns, wasn't there a mob early back that would run away if you drew your weapon out at it?

Yeah the world feels bland with the reaction between animals out there. I'm not sure if the overcrowding of monsters in a spot would affect it in a good or bad way (imagine if all those marmots outside of Grid by the stream decided to link aggro on a rank 1 player), but possibly monsters that have fewer numbers in a larger area could have something setup. Wasn't raptors supposed to lure you into traps if you tried to engage them (think Jurassic Park)?

It feels like someone just decided to litter monsters from the sky with a brain dead capacity for thinking if another of it's type is getting attacked. Some of it was a nuisance like the monsters following you to the extent you couldn't do any area of effect attacks without drawing unnecessary hate, but there's not much going on otherwise in the free environment.

[Lorthethf]

Signed too.

I used to love when the mobs looked at you. I agree that i didnt like them following, but like Wynn said, at least acknowledge you are there even if you didn't attack them.

Hopefully they put it back in or it was a temporary remove. Don't remember if they said if it was a permanent remove.

Nice post!!

[Obsy]

Signed!

(nitpicky spelling note: 'used to' only has one O, just in case you want to fix that later.)