Mob Understanding / Remake

[Crazys]

I'm thinking of overhauling NPC's Basic brain and possibly add group handling.

A) Is this currently being worked on by someone else?
B) Was the behavor system ever fully utilized or even usefull at this point
C) Are we trying to give the NPC class types like healer, caster, fighter, hybrid be handled in the basic brain itself. Or just have the support there so advanced brains can utlize it.
D) ... more questions to come

[geshi]

I think this is another thing which isn't really needed.

Healer/Cabalist etc brain like the dragonsworn mobs on live would be neat to have though..

[Tolakram]

Aredhel started to remake aggressive brains but left the project soon after. I'm not saying this was the reason ... So no, no one is working on it. Left over work still in SVN. http://dolserver.svn.sourceforge.net/vi ... /ai/brain/

We still use IOldAgressiveBrain which I am threatening to rename back to agressivebrain. The amount of work for a brain to work correctly is daunting. Certainly creating another brain for testing and optionally using once everything works is the preferred way to do this. I think Aredhel's plan was to have the current brains use the IOldAgressiveBrain interface while a new brain was developed, then once the new brain was shown to work at least as well as the existing brain we could make the switch, but always have access to both.

In short, make a new brain, but do not make modifications to existing brains. Too breakable.

[Crazys]

So basicly what you are saying is. If i'm going to work and recreate the mob brain. Leave the current in place till a full overhaul is done and can be easly dropped into the DOL core as a full replacement. as what Aredhel was doing.
My Idea was to create a Tier system
Basic Brain - and Tier into specifics so that way the server was not burning through checks that where not needed on generic NPCs.

[Tolakram]

Sort of. I see no replacement. I reject the idea that we have to eliminate the old for the new. Too much change at this point in DOL's life is not a good thing. So a new tiered brain system would be perfect, and testing it or using it would simply require someone to update their database to use a new mob class.

And yes, it will require a new mob class because the current one is infected with brain crap all over the place, including one line of code in GameLiving, though this is protected and can be ignored for now.

So you'll need to create a new GameNPC class, a new brains, and once you have it working then analyze all the other code that contains StandardMobBrain, for example, too see what changes are required.

Somehow incorporating standardmobbrain is fine as well, as long as no existing functionality is impacted.

[Crazys]

From waht i've seen The functionality we are pushing into the "Basic/standard" is far beyond standard. I didn't know it was normal for an NPC to style and cast spells... Infact i think that 50% of live is just a spank and tank mob style. Now Yes I agree the support for those functions should be in the standard. But not the actual Use. I'll start seeing what i can do.
End goal is to Restructor the system into a stronger format with little to no impact on current custom scripts or handling that can not be easly updated to support inside the new system/tier structor or be based off it. Also, the biggest change I see impacting DOL would be the addition of say 2 DB lines per mob that with null sets wouldn't impact the current setup world.

[Tolakram]

Sounds good, but remember usability.

As a GM you want to be able to walk up to a mob and make a template, maybe assign it some specialties. This is the ideal way to be able to run a server because you can have people at the GM level make the improvements. Right now we demand some DB work to do a lot of this. In game I should be able to walk up to a mob and create or assign it a template, then assign spells / abilities / styles / etc. Hell, if a npctemplate is required and the mob has none the creation might be automatic.

It seems to me the standard brain should be able to handle this, but I personally don't object to some specialized brains living on top of 'standard'. Once you specialize, though, you can quickly box yourself in. What about the mob who can cast and style, for example? A true brain rewrite would allow us to create anything from the common just fight mob all the way to the epic mob with styles, spells, and abilities.

A lot of work, and certainly can be scaled way way back, but the organization of the brains should support it if someone wants to write it.

[Crazys]

It seems to me the standard brain should be able to handle this, but I personally don't object to some specialized brains living on top of 'standard'. Once you specialize, though, you can quickly box yourself in. What about the mob who can cast and style, for example? A true brain rewrite would allow us to create anything from the common just fight mob all the way to the epic mob with styles, spells, and abilities.

EXACTLY!
The problem i see with this. is with 1 brain the true functionality would be so in depth that it would almost kill itself in processing which with the tier system it would allow au ser to set a npc to hybrid type NPC that would style or a support NPC or caster or Tank or Skald... I could develop a handler for each class. Which would allow more indepth handling in the in game world...

As a GM you want to be able to walk up to a mob and make a template, maybe assign it some specialties. This is the ideal way to be able to run a server because you can have people at the GM level make the improvements. Right now we demand some DB work to do a lot of this. In game I should be able to walk up to a mob and create or assign it a template, then assign spells / abilities / styles / etc. Hell, if a npctemplate is required and the mob has none the creation might be automatic.

So your reuqetsing that any changes and design setup be able to work through the ingame interface /commands which is simple enough!

[Crazys]

Questions Part 2 -
What currently problems do we have with game NPCs?

What features (besides pathing around objects/not thorugh walls) are we looking to see start to appear?

[Tolakram]

I don't have any big issues with mobs. pathing requires client maps on the server, and would be nice but I don't see it as such a big deal. Maybe because I never played a pet class.

[Ukobat]

unable to set night/day spawns still afaik

[Crazys]

unable to set night/day spawns still afaik

Boobies digging up the dead i see LOL! Was really surpized when i got an email from dol

[Dinberg]

I'm suprised to see you still about Crazys! How are things going?

[Aredhel]

Aredhel started to remake aggressive brains but left the project soon after. I'm not saying this was the reason ... So no, no one is working on it. Left over work still in SVN. http://dolserver.svn.sourceforge.net/vi ... /ai/brain/

We still use IOldAgressiveBrain which I am threatening to rename back to agressivebrain. The amount of work for a brain to work correctly is daunting. Certainly creating another brain for testing and optionally using once everything works is the preferred way to do this. I think Aredhel's plan was to have the current brains use the IOldAgressiveBrain interface while a new brain was developed, then once the new brain was shown to work at least as well as the existing brain we could make the switch, but always have access to both.

In short, make a new brain, but do not make modifications to existing brains. Too breakable.

No, that wasn't the reason for leaving the project, I was quite busy starting a new project at work, I didn't fancy coding after work at that time. That might have changed though.

Mark, I spotted you in the CU KS comments section, we're both backers then

[Tolakram]

Excellent. I went for Alpha access, and I hope they make it. Have you received any info in the forums or anything yet?

Nice to see you.