[karlan]

I recently imped hunting mobs properly, many's the time I have been annoyed by people fleeing 2-3 rooms away from a mob and feeling (and sometimes being) safe..

I REALY enjoyed watching my wounded bandit hunt down and kill the guard (more wounded) who thought they could slowly and safely attack time and time again. Run back to your village shack and hide, cause he will find you

The lesson... don't leave easy to follow tracks anymore.

Admittedly a locked door still defeats a hunting mob, and anything that destroys/changes/hides tracks (horse, water, indoors, city...), but the tracking seemed more fair than the original algorithm, that always succeeded if there was a link between the mobs room and yours somewhere. One day the AI may quickly and simply handle the sudden loss/change in tracks, but for now, a scan on losing the trail to see if they are visible will have to do.

Somewhere deep inside there seems a hint of meglomania (and probably other problems as well) that dervives some joy from making the world more dangerous for our citizens

NOTE: this applies to virtual worlds, as an ex army-medic, I have NO desire to make the real world nastier than it is, so do not take this post out of context.

[jornel]

Kudos on your recent success promoting mob equality.  One of these days I swear I will imp a party of mobs, grouped, who go around dungeons hunting for xp and gold.... but I digress.

Out of curiosity, how did you handle multiple tracks from the same fleeing player in the same room.  I'm thinking of the 'fox' trick - you run back and forth through (say) 2 or 3 rooms, then finally exit.  Do you keep ALL the tracks and randomize which way the hunter goes (which might be a fair way to handle this), or do you just simply delete older tracks by the player, leaving only the final tracks leading out (easier to imp, but what about those deliberately broken branches we left leading into the false direction?)   You should contemplate having some skill that allows for players (and mobs!!! ) to successfully leave false tracks.

Just an idea for you.

Again, gratz.

[Treestump]

Very cool! This is something we have been meaning to do for ages. One of these days.

How does your tracking work in relation to sentinel mobs? Do they simply not track?

And what about STAY ZONE or STAY SECTOR mobs? I would assume they follow their flagged rules and just track within their allowed territory?

Have you considered letting thief mobs pick locks where applicable? Do you have a warrior skill that lets them force open doors?

I would think that, perhaps for higher level mobs, these sorts of things would make the hunters a bit more challenging for players.

Heck, we have a few unique mobs that will summon players back if you make them angry enough.

[karlan]

Some of those questions/ideas are already in the works, I have a framework in place for cover tracks (simple) and a false tracks skills, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

as for multiple tracks of same person, again it is something I have wanted to do, but havent gotten around to really looking at (even slightly), I would like each track to have a TTL, and an age, and depending on the skill of the tracker, is how well they can determine the age.Also, for the moment, the tracker magically knows the difference between bob's tracks, and his identical twin brother (who wears the same boots).

but one day I will win lotto, so I can give up 90-100 hr weeks and devote myself to mud stuff, but untill then *sigh*