With the expansion release coming closer and closer, we decided to pry a couple of developers away from their desks for a few minutes and bring you some information about what they are working on.
This time it was the AI team's turn. They have been hard at work the past few months and they where quite eager to reveal some of the improvements and additions that players will experience with Darkfall's second free expansion, “Conquer the Seas”.
First, the wildlife creatures that we mentioned in a previous spotlight article will be introduced to the game with the upcoming expansion. The AI team also had quite a few things to add when talking about this new feature.
The wildlife creatures of Darkfall will be non aggressive and they will be found in every corner of Agon, thus satisfying the player request for a more alive and immersive world. While they will not be much of a challenge to kill because of their low health, they will not be sitting there idly while you pepper them with arrows or cut them down with your swords. Running away is the only defense they have, so expect to do some proper hunting.
Once killed, these creatures will provide the aspiring hunters with resources like leather and meat, essentially becoming a new resource gathering node of sorts. Also some of these animals, depending on their actual real life habits, will form packs and follow a pack leader around. Those packs will of course scatter and run away when they are attacked.
Another thing to note is that the monsters of the world will interact with these animals as well. Some will attack and kill them, while others will protect and even heal them. There will be of course monsters that completely ignore the wildlife as their only concern is ripping players apart.
Additionally, the AI team revealed some major changes in the AI system. This is something that they have been working on for quite a while and the changes will be substantial. As they told us, this is the first major AI overhaul for Darkfall and one that will change the PvE aspect of the game quite a bit. Of course they have addressed a series of AI bugs such as monsters de-spawning suddenly among others but the big news here is the changes and additions.
The first thing that they stressed is that the monsters have been rebalanced in such a way that now, players will need to use a variety of tactics, depending on what they are fighting, to be victorious. To be more specific, monsters will now have different weaknesses and strengths that players will need to figure out. Some examples of this diversification of the monsters include skeletons being more resistant to piercing damage while being very susceptible to bludgeoning damage and fire elementals being next to immune to fire damage while ice damage will do the job a lot better.
That does not mean that certain types of damage will be all together useless on specific monsters, but let's just say that figuring out the weakness of a monster and using it against it will be way more efficient.
Additionally there has been a reconfiguration of the AI that will make the monsters react differently on player actions, making them a lot harder to outsmart.
Because of these changes, the health of many monsters has been reduced so that the PvE experience will be more challenging and diverse but not frustrating. Also the loot of many of the monsters has been increased to be in accordance to the increased challenge they will pose and it will also be more random so that every kill will not provide you with the exact same items every time. The AI team hinted that, after the expansion, it would be worth trying to kill some of the monsters that right now do not have noteworthy loot, as you will be pleasantly surprised by their new loot drops.
As a final note, these changes should give a boost to the economy, as different types of weapons will be now required to defeat different monsters. With the correct choice of weapon, melee can be the preferable combat option in many cases. Additionally, these changes should encourage diversity in magic usage as well; for example de-buffing will play a much more important role in exposing a monster's weakness.
As a closing comment, they AI team told us that players will need to think a lot differently than they do now, when it comes to PvE in Darkfall.
We hope you enjoyed reading. Stay tuned for our next Developer spotlight article.
Subject: New Spotlight Article -- MOB AI 
Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:05 pm
