Mechanics to add variety to dungeon mobs

[kikix12]

Below are some mechanics that could be used to add to standard mobs some tactical element, requiring players to pay more attention to things happening between bosses. They can be seen as buffs on mobs at all times, where applicable.

Pack Member (Buff): A member of a pack.
No effect on its own. Necessary for different mechanics.

Strength in Numbers (Buff): Strengthened by other pack members attacking the target.
When a pack member with this ability attacks a player, that player receives a debuff stacked to the amount of pack members for which he is at the top of the enmity list. The members of the pack with this ability are then significantly more dangerous based on that number, so even small packs of weak mobs can be deadly. HP, defense and attack are strengthened. Current HP is decreased along with max HP if one of the pack members dies or is pulled by someone else.

Leader of the Pack (Buff): Strengthened by other pack members in vicinity.
Doesn't care about the pack members aggro target. Its radius may be fixed or based on individual mob (at which point it should be mentioned in the buff description). The boost should be high enough to make even a single three-mob pull a challenge to bring to a Leader of the Pack, making it a sort of wall that can be dealt with by a DPS pulling it to the side.

Tyrant (Activated Buff): Forces those nearby into its pack./Added to the pack.
A cast skill that will constantly turn every mob around it (radius should be shown by a small, glowing circle around it) into a pack member. This skill should have cast time and should be used first thing in battle (in place of an attack, not on aggro), to allow melee members to enter mob groups to pull a Tyrant away from the pack without being one-hit-killed in the process.

Alpha/Omega (Buffs): Powers up when near Omega/Alpha.
It's present in this game already. This could be used to make it more obvious and to use it on standard mobs in dungeons without any issues.

Healer/Fighter Hunter (Buffs): Focuses on enemies with high healing/offensive capabilities.
Basically a buff that negates (or turns into negative) enmity bonuses on tank skills. Healer hunter reverses healing and damage enmity generation on top of that. Provoke puts tank on top of their enmity list as normal, but is short-lived. This is the skill most meant to force DPS into paying attention, as they need to kill the mobs before they slaughter the healer. Their stats should be based around them attacking the healer/DPS, not the tank.

Weakling Hunter (Buffs): Focuses on the weakest person.
Similar to healer and fighter hunter in concept, but enmity bonuses are ignored while healing and damage generate it normally. Instead of going after the highest enmity though, weakling hunter goes after the person with the least enmity (possibly the tank, or lazy DPS).

Commandeer (Buff): Able to command others in vicinity.
Simply shows that the mob is able to issue commands (see below).

Command (Active)
Creates a debuff on player (chosen at random, or targeted by the user of Command that have one of the Hunter traits) which makes them the targets of other mobs attacks regardless of enmity. The debuff goes away after a time or if the one issuing the command dies.

Under Command (Buff): Following a command of his superior.
Simply shows that a mob is not affected by enmity, as well as for how long the effect lasts.


Many of these depend on the DPS doing their share of crowd control, but they also validate skills that cause Bind or Sleep in everyday situations. If mobs that attack the healers are mixed into a bunch and the DPS focus on the group instead of the stray that the tank cannot grab, the group may actually wipe to standard mobs. By clever use of mobs with AoE, including silence-causing/mp draining, one can prevent that healer to approach the group in order to put it into the DPS's AoE range as well. Adding a Leader of the Pack with Tyrant into a group of mobs will force the tank to pull the group by generating enmity on a weak mob, while the DPS pulls the leader away from the rest to deal with it separately. The party would then need to work on 'two fronts', either giving priority to clearing the mob first, or leaving it to the tank while the DPS and healer attack the leader.


Any other suggestions as to how turn the mundane battles could be require a bit more strategy beyond class rotation?! I'd like to hear em too.

[Ghastly]

These are all great. Anything that gets us closer to extreme dungeons to keep dungeons alive is a great thing.

It doesn't even have to be as hard as extreme primals
Make it somewhere between dungeon difficulty and extreme primals

[MoroMurasaki]

Super interesting in theory, implimentation and the overhaul required would be hugely expensive but I would still love to play this dungeon.

Also come at me healer hunter, I'll stunlock you with Holy like everything else.

[Musashidon]

all this will do is stop people from doing dungeons.

unique mechanics are nice and all, but once its worn off (aka after the first run) it's annoying and i will just pvp for my seals since dungeons will take longer/more wipes because of players who don't care.

the other thing to remember any monster that is going to ignore the tank is going to do basically no damage or their attacks will all be dodge able aoes meaning the mechanic is lost/ignored because if they did any real damage it would be wipe city, that's why the random target bosses are weak/dodgable.

[Airget]

all this will do is stop people from doing dungeons.

Ya, in reality Dungeons should be renamed "Adventures" since that's what they are. They are story-driven adventures that always go down the same path. Now if they were to release actual dungeons with different paths and focus on keeping players on their toes, the above could work. Sadly these adventures are designed to help players gear up, nothing more. When they design the Adventures they do it with 20-30 min completion time in mind, since they can't break that mold the dungeons have to remain stagnant in design with limited to no RNG.

[VargasVermillion]

I don't have much to contribute but i always thought garlean enemies should have a 'leader of the pack' style system when a centurion is around, as they have little functions aside from being damage sponges compared to the other garlean enemies.

[kikix12]

all this will do is stop people from doing dungeons.

I disagree. It would stop some people from doing dungeons, but those people are usually the ones you don't really want in your party in the first place. The lazy sort that doesn't want to care about what the heck is happening, cause they are doing something else and want to just spam few buttons while doing so.

unique mechanics are nice and all, but once its worn off (aka after the first run) it's annoying and i will just pvp for my seals since dungeons will take longer/more wipes because of players who don't care.

Players will start to care if these and similar would become something regular. And it not being "fresh" on second and latter runs doesn't change the fact that it can still be fun.

Using your argument that once you do it, it's not something you care to do anymore, I don't know why you're still playing. Anything at all. Everything that happens in any game is something you have been doing at some point in some game. What's new?! Story...maybe...So yeah, maybe it's worth playing until the part where you're saving the world all the same. In this game in particular, once you do the first two or three dungeons, there's nothing new. Just different graphics slapped on top. Every fodder fight is the same, like..literally. From a ranged persons perspective, there's only two possibilities to consider, and maybe 90% if not more belong to one of them. The mobs have long-range AoE (like those Magitek Colossus do) which may end up aimed at where you are...or they don't. If they don't, you do the exact same thing and wouldn't even notice being in a different dungeon. Healers at least need to react to the tanks health dropping.
PvP is actually the same. Once you play the map once, there's nothing fresh in it at all.

But do you know what's making it a bit more interesting?! Variety. Even if you repeat the same actions over and over again, so long as there are MORE actions that are repeated, it takes longer to get bored of them. These are supposed to do just that. Prevent every fight from being the same. If 10% of fodder would play like this, 10% like that, 10% yet differently and so on...the dungeons would actually take longer to get bored of. As a healer, the most interesting part of healing on fodders to me is the changing of targets from tank to mobs and from mobs to tank. Seriously, I'm not joking. Cause it makes me do something more than just push a few buttons over and over. There's some actual thinking added, too.

These don't have to make dungeon more difficult. By properly controlling the mobs stats, they would be quite easy to deal with, without any detriment to the length of dungeons. Ultimately, if there's the same amount of "HP" to take down and the same amount of "length" to walk, the time it will take will be roughly the same as well. These would just add some necessity to placing though into spreading the damage differently when making dungeons, cause some of these mobs simply could not be killed as a group. That's the point of their design, after all. Not hard to compensate for at all, though.

the other thing to remember any monster that is going to ignore the tank is going to do basically no damage or their attacks will all be dodge able aoes meaning the mechanic is lost/ignored because if they did any real damage it would be wipe city, that's why the random target bosses are weak/dodgable.

What a lazy answer. If mobs can be balanced around the tank getting whacked left and right and prove some challenge (without making it too hard), the same can be done with mobs that go after other party members. Sure, at high enough gear, they will become noticeably weaker in comparison, but that's why tanks make multiple pulls in the first place, and that would mean that on healers/DPS there would potentially be multiple mobs as well.

Not all random attacks are weak. The golem in temple of quarn is entirely random, and he really CAN hit. I mean, bad. And his stunning punch, dealing high damage, is also undodgeable, possibly opening the person for a death on next hit, if he will follow it up with a high-range AoE with the person being cornered. Happened in parties I was in. There's just nothing that can be done about that.

Large part of the reason why the random attacks are mostly irrelevant is because they are not followed up. The healer have all the time in the world to recover from them. But if there was a mob constantly of the healer, that would be a non-issue. It would need to be killed, unless the mobs die fast enough while the tank can be healed easily even with a random instant cast here or there to make the healer kiting the mob enough. Then again, that's already different too. Good enough in its own way.

[Arrius]

Large part of the reason why the random attacks are mostly irrelevant is because they are not followed up. The healer have all the time in the world to recover from them. But if there was a mob constantly of the healer, that would be a non-issue. It would need to be killed, unless the mobs die fast enough while the tank can be healed easily even with a random instant cast here or there to make the healer kiting the mob enough. Then again, that's already different too. Good enough in its own way.

Trash groups should remain trash, with some minor abilities too keep things interesting. Sure, you can add the occasionaly spongy, hard hitting dude inbetween (like the colossi and vanguard in doma), but anything more than that and people will take issue with it.
I don't need another level of problems like Biasts from the Aery or Sordets from Neverreap with their neverending cone/aoe attacks, which forces me to dodge them every second.
Dodging means distraction, distractions means DPS loss. And that is always a hazzle.

The dungeons need to be grindable for future content (relics, roulettes) or else we face another disaster like the Steps of Fate.

[Launched]

This just sounds like another version of those ideas to stop big pulls. There's nothing interesting about "focus Wolf Leader or wipe", which is what they all sound like. No thanks.

[kikix12]

I don't need another level of problems like Biasts from the Aery or Sordets from Neverreap with their neverending cone/aoe attacks, which forces me to dodge them every second.
Dodging means distraction, distractions means DPS loss. And that is always a hazzle.

The only part where I mentioned a lot of AoE's is to prevent a healer from dragging in a mob that focuses on healing to the remainder of the pull, to make the DPS mindlessly throwing out AoE's a viable option. And if you think that's something you would need to avoid, then I think you did not read carefully.

The AoE's in question would be irrelevant to melee fighters (except Red Mage going into melee, or the situation where Dark Knight wants to cast Unleash). As a melee, you hardly (if at all) care about getting silenced or having your MP emptied. A healer, on the other hand, very much does care. None of the casters have much of a reason to approach the group though if that's the case. And having every pull be like that is not going to change much of anything either. Dungeons need variety, not more of the same...just a bit different kind than before.


I am not suggesting anything that would make the dungeons harder. I am suggesting something that would make them different. Not something that would require players to try and form complicated strategies. Something that would make players follow the plain obvious path, that is different from the norm. No one have any problem with healers or DPS classes having to do more than just spam their buttons all the time in mostly any other MMO I played. Why the heck is this suddenly a problem here?! The only reason why so many people don't give much of a damn in the average content is because they don't NEED to. They will STILL be able to clear it. Make very simple changes that will force a change in playstyle, without being complicated themselves, and people will easily adapt.

You complain about the dungeons being a chore, yet you want them to stay being a chore. Where's the logic in that?! Repetitiveness is a chore. It is a psychological trait natural to all humans that is considered a detrimental work condition. Governements, psychologists and work safety regulation groups all agree that wherever possible, even small changes to the repetitive nature of the jobs can have significant impact of the safety, efficiency and acceptability of the job. And you want the repetitiveness, that so many people want to combat...to stay?! Yeah, I don't understand you one bit.

This just sounds like another version of those ideas to stop big pulls. There's nothing interesting about "focus Wolf Leader or wipe", which is what they all sound like. No thanks.

So you prefer an artificial wall every other pull that you cannot pass at all, even when being 20+ levels above the dungeon in an unsynced run?!...Okey...No wonder the games are so overly simplified nowadays if those are peoples expectations.