NPC Behavior improvements!

[Xularianne]

How come so many npcs do not behave as expected? If it is a city guard, and a enemy nears the gate, shouldn't the guards attack? Shouldn't so called allied factions in Khitai help you if need be and there are any of their members nearby? The only time I really see this is the repeatable caravan defend quest in Gateway to Khitai. It makes no sense to even call themselves either city guards, or allies if they do not actually help or do anything to protect either their home, city, or anyone entering peacefully like you the player. They should all be fired or get their pay heavily docked. On the flip side, most enemies do not follow the player all the way to friendly cities or allied camps of any kind. Some npcs seem a bit unrealistic and overly aggressive and do follow you all the way across the entire map or are unrealistically powered for their so called level.

[camilleboucquill]

npc behaviour is FC's biggest priority

[weretiger302]

How come so many npcs do not behave as expected? If it is a city guard, and a enemy nears the gate, shouldn't the guards attack? Shouldn't so called allied factions in Khitai help you if need be and there are any of their members nearby? The only time I really see this is the repeatable caravan defend quest in Gateway to Khitai. It makes no sense to even call themselves either city guards, or allies if they do not actually help or do anything to protect either their home, city, or anyone entering peacefully like you the player. They should all be fired or get their pay heavily docked. On the flip side, most enemies do not follow the player all the way to friendly cities or allied camps of any kind. Some npcs seem a bit unrealistic and overly aggressive and do follow you all the way across the entire map or are unrealistically powered for their so called level.

Well, the city guards used to do this, but what happened was they would kill the mob, and nobody would get credit for the kill. This was particularly bad during the 5th anniversary world boss event. So, Funcom just had them do nothing as it was seemingly easier that way...

[wancow]

I think we need more drunk NPC's, myself... Captain Phoenic should be the model...

[Xularianne]

Well, the city guards used to do this, but what happened was they would kill the mob, and nobody would get credit for the kill. This was particularly bad during the 5th anniversary world boss event. So, Funcom just had them do nothing as it was seemingly easier that way...

There are other ways they could have solved this such as, put some sort of preventitive measure to keep a npc from delivering a killing blow to any boss or extremely tough enemy, or be as ineffective as pets though that would not be so great either, maybe not as tough as pets if pets were actually made a bit tougher than it would work out alright maybe. It would also have to be respectful and reflective of whatever the npc's level is. They could also make bosses unable to pursue players into area where npc guards are and limit the guards range from crossing over into the range of the boss. That is two ways, a third could be, the boss would heal or respawn instantly back at their home if it was killed or finished by a npc. They sort of already do that sort of thing if a player goes too far away from a npc enemy or the zone that npc inhabits.

Another way to solve it would be to give credit to whatever player delivered the most damage to said enemy npc and no credit given to a npc finishing it. It shouldn't really work that way anyway. Supposedly in regular play if a player gets the first hit on a boss such as the demon bat in archeron ruins or maybe its the last hit or the most damage, that player gets the credit. They already have forms of one sort or another of everything I mentioned in the game, so it should not be to hard to apply it to a npc guard. I understand the concern though that you might run to protection from a enemy there but, at least in my case, I would only do that or run at all if I was losing to much health to stand a reasonable chance of winning. Sometimes the game sort of cheats when, you inexplicably get attacked by extra npc enemies that were not there or near you when you started the attack and appear to have no reason whatsoever as to why or where said extra enemies came from. So occasionally there is good reason to run for protection when you are not getting a quite so fair shake or chance or maybe its bug or glitch that sometimes pops up. Enemies sometimes appear to heal or restart health or vanish or teleport behind you or other odd little mishaps.

In the end though, the funcom solution of nonreactive npc guards is as bad or worse as it was before. There must be a better solution than either of them and I listed a few possible ones. Other games never seem to have such an issue and there are plenty of games mmo and sp that have responsive and reactive npcs such as guards that respond to threats and do not step on player experiences. Then therefore is it not possible that such a similar solution could be found by Funcom?