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Punching Bag Enemies
duke7763
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
Hey all,
I thought I'd leave a link here from Reddit about a problem I've seen in most modern RPGs over (the lack of) enemy AI. While he does not refer to Neverwinter specifically, I feel that his post applies to the game. I want to stress that I did not write this, but agree with it and hope that the devs will consider improving enemy AI to remove the feeling of repetition in defeating waves of "punching bag enemies."
Here it is with the link:
Recently, I've been starting to suffer from some sort of “gaming depression”, where I would grow tired of or turn out uninterested by most of the games that have been coming out in the recent years. Initially, I thought I was simply growing older and therefore losing interest in the hobby that I've had since I was a kid (it can happen)... but then I began to really think about it. I tried figuring out what made me gradually lose interest in games in general. I thought about all the games that I've enjoyed in the past, about what my favorite game series are (Zelda, Castlevania, The Elder Scrolls, Diablo) and then I tried comparing them to other games that I've played recently. I also attempted to find what made generally well-received games by the public somewhat boring to me (at least after a few hours of gameplay).
Now, all games have their flaws. Sometimes a game will have game balancing and difficulty scaling problems. Others will have story pacing issues or lack some originality in the enemy designs. Some games are, simply put, broken. But after putting some thoughts on it, I found out that there is one thing that keeps coming back in today's games that always ends up rendering the gameplay pretty dull: punching bag enemies (as you could guess from the title :P)
I'm unsure as to when they started getting popular... but enemies in most recent games simply do not react to player damage and can generally be defeated with a constant stream of attacks. I'm not necessarily talking about AI issues here – the problem is that regular enemies can always be defeated simply by attacking them up-front.
Let's look at the Zelda series, at the game “Zelda: A Link To The Past” in particular (since it is one of my favorite games) to see what this game does right. Most of the enemies found in this game have special attributes and defensive abilities that makes it hard (and sometimes impossible) to kill them simply by wailing at them. Most Hyrule Guards carry a shield and sword which block Link's sword and bow attacks from the front, forcing the player to move around them or to bait them into charging him so as to attack them from the sides or back. Hardhat Beetles are impervious to most attacks, bouncing backwards when they are attacked, forcing the player to kill them by pushing them down holes. Stalfos are fairly simple but jump backwards as soon as the player swings a sword near them, forcing him to stand very close to them to deal damage. These are only examples of enemies found in this game but in all cases enemies blink and fly backwards whenever they take damage. In short, they react to the player's attacks.
Now, if you look at most action RPGs out there, enemies do not react this way. No matter how often you strike at them, they take all the damage without flinching until their HP drops to 0. Therefore, because of how simple it is to defeat these punching bag enemies, the difficulty of these games is entirely dependent on the statistics and gear of the main character(s). Some of the simpler games also lack any sort of strategy, requiring only to stand in front of a mob of enemies, chugging potions whenever health drops low.
This issue can also be seen in a lot of FPS/third person shooters – some enemies do carry shields or have increased resistance to damage, but most of them can take a lot of bullets to the face and will never react to the “hypothetical” pain they should feel from receiving 50 machine gun bullets in a short time frame.
This problem, at least to me, ruins some of the enjoyment that I could get from a game especially after going through the part of the game where everything is still “fresh and new”. Once I get comfortable with the controls and then focus on a strategy (the regular rifle/shotgun/magnum combo in FPS, or after starting a specific character build in RPGs), all encounters (aside from boss battles) are taken care of the exact same way – head-on, all guns blazing to the enemy's face. I can often dodge their attacks... but the enemies usually can't (or don't want to!)
I think it's a shame, really. Developers needs to put more thoughts on the enemies because after a while, the game starts lacking any kind of challenge, meaning you have no need to use other strategies. Even if you find out how to defeat a specific enemy, putting them in different situations and pairing them with other enemies can really make fights far more intense. If you add an enemy that can block damage from the front, that's great... but what if they then spawn right next to you, in an area with barely any cover? Are you going to shoot their faces off like usual, or are you finally going to use those mines that you never had the need to use before? What about pushing them down from a platform? What if the enemy's shield can actually block your fully-upgraded, min-maxed +200 Fire Sword attacks?
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1cxx9z/punching_bag_enemies_one_of_the_biggest_flaws_of/
I thought I'd leave a link here from Reddit about a problem I've seen in most modern RPGs over (the lack of) enemy AI. While he does not refer to Neverwinter specifically, I feel that his post applies to the game. I want to stress that I did not write this, but agree with it and hope that the devs will consider improving enemy AI to remove the feeling of repetition in defeating waves of "punching bag enemies."
Here it is with the link:
Recently, I've been starting to suffer from some sort of “gaming depression”, where I would grow tired of or turn out uninterested by most of the games that have been coming out in the recent years. Initially, I thought I was simply growing older and therefore losing interest in the hobby that I've had since I was a kid (it can happen)... but then I began to really think about it. I tried figuring out what made me gradually lose interest in games in general. I thought about all the games that I've enjoyed in the past, about what my favorite game series are (Zelda, Castlevania, The Elder Scrolls, Diablo) and then I tried comparing them to other games that I've played recently. I also attempted to find what made generally well-received games by the public somewhat boring to me (at least after a few hours of gameplay).
Now, all games have their flaws. Sometimes a game will have game balancing and difficulty scaling problems. Others will have story pacing issues or lack some originality in the enemy designs. Some games are, simply put, broken. But after putting some thoughts on it, I found out that there is one thing that keeps coming back in today's games that always ends up rendering the gameplay pretty dull: punching bag enemies (as you could guess from the title :P)
I'm unsure as to when they started getting popular... but enemies in most recent games simply do not react to player damage and can generally be defeated with a constant stream of attacks. I'm not necessarily talking about AI issues here – the problem is that regular enemies can always be defeated simply by attacking them up-front.
Let's look at the Zelda series, at the game “Zelda: A Link To The Past” in particular (since it is one of my favorite games) to see what this game does right. Most of the enemies found in this game have special attributes and defensive abilities that makes it hard (and sometimes impossible) to kill them simply by wailing at them. Most Hyrule Guards carry a shield and sword which block Link's sword and bow attacks from the front, forcing the player to move around them or to bait them into charging him so as to attack them from the sides or back. Hardhat Beetles are impervious to most attacks, bouncing backwards when they are attacked, forcing the player to kill them by pushing them down holes. Stalfos are fairly simple but jump backwards as soon as the player swings a sword near them, forcing him to stand very close to them to deal damage. These are only examples of enemies found in this game but in all cases enemies blink and fly backwards whenever they take damage. In short, they react to the player's attacks.
Now, if you look at most action RPGs out there, enemies do not react this way. No matter how often you strike at them, they take all the damage without flinching until their HP drops to 0. Therefore, because of how simple it is to defeat these punching bag enemies, the difficulty of these games is entirely dependent on the statistics and gear of the main character(s). Some of the simpler games also lack any sort of strategy, requiring only to stand in front of a mob of enemies, chugging potions whenever health drops low.
This issue can also be seen in a lot of FPS/third person shooters – some enemies do carry shields or have increased resistance to damage, but most of them can take a lot of bullets to the face and will never react to the “hypothetical” pain they should feel from receiving 50 machine gun bullets in a short time frame.
This problem, at least to me, ruins some of the enjoyment that I could get from a game especially after going through the part of the game where everything is still “fresh and new”. Once I get comfortable with the controls and then focus on a strategy (the regular rifle/shotgun/magnum combo in FPS, or after starting a specific character build in RPGs), all encounters (aside from boss battles) are taken care of the exact same way – head-on, all guns blazing to the enemy's face. I can often dodge their attacks... but the enemies usually can't (or don't want to!)
I think it's a shame, really. Developers needs to put more thoughts on the enemies because after a while, the game starts lacking any kind of challenge, meaning you have no need to use other strategies. Even if you find out how to defeat a specific enemy, putting them in different situations and pairing them with other enemies can really make fights far more intense. If you add an enemy that can block damage from the front, that's great... but what if they then spawn right next to you, in an area with barely any cover? Are you going to shoot their faces off like usual, or are you finally going to use those mines that you never had the need to use before? What about pushing them down from a platform? What if the enemy's shield can actually block your fully-upgraded, min-maxed +200 Fire Sword attacks?
http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1cxx9z/punching_bag_enemies_one_of_the_biggest_flaws_of/
Post edited by duke7763 on
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A city to protect
innocents to save
"Why?" They ask "they hate you"
We're heroes it's what we do.
*patiently waiting on Paragon City*
This is precisely why the rogue does so well. With Stealth and CC attacks they can attack unmolested against a few enemies for an extended period of time. Their really high damage makes alot of rogue playing a cakewalk especially at low lvs. Just look at he GWF and how drastically their performance went down when their best movement power Punishing Charge was moved from lv 1 to lv 45 in Beta weekend 4. The nerf this class received at least by a numbers standpoint is comparable to the nerfs all other classes faced.
The advantage that Neverwinter has is the array of moves you get to choose form and how most have effects other than just damage. like Damage and CC, Damage and movement, Damage and healing, as well as buffs and threat control. My current problem with the game is that in many moves these secondary effects are not as impressive as they should be and alot of them need to be buffed up to give players that strategic edge. And not just buffing damage. The Devs have already acknowledge in a post that CW wizards control powers will be buffed for PVE but remain the same for PVP. This is a good start.
The GWF is one of the lowest damage classes from Beta 4, but if his threat powers, defense, stun and healing buffs, where increased. No one will complain about his low damage, as he could be on the front lines all the times using abilities to mitigate damage and from being an Instigator class, his total damage dealt will be higher simply because he can get more hits in than other classes by being the first into combat.
Now say if all enemies in an MMO where knock backed and "blink" on every attack like in a Zelda game, Neverwinter will be a cake walk as 5 players could spam attacks on a monster and they would be in too much "pain" to fight back. This is precisely why we have special moves that provide knockback and CC. These effects on mobs are very significant.
However seeing a mob with a shield stand and block attacks would be interesting as we have the movement powers to roll behind that mob and attack them to bypass defenses. But then again it needs to be a limited block just like a GF and can't be used all the time. Maybe Lair bosses could use with a bit more complicated attack strategies, but none should require specific moves from certain classes to win.
I have been feeling this way for a few years, but I don't necessarily agree with the writer's conclusion. I can still get excited over new games, like Neverwinter now, but there are few games coming out that meet my expectations. I'm happy as a kitten if I get to play something like Diablo 2, without any fancy extras. I want fast-paced combat, random loot, and non-stop action where I can shred through endless hordes of monsters. Diablo 2 did that, Nerverwinter does it.
But many other games don't. Most games now try to be "innovative", which either makes them too artsy or too tedious. I do NOT want something like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls, where it's all about skill. I want most of my monsters to be "dumb", and many of them. That doesn't rule out clever combat design and skill components, or good boss encounters that require thinking, but I just want that feeling of brisk pace and progress, with my XP bar going up and loot covering the floor. Every trash mob does not need to be a boss fight.
The problem is also age/saturation. I started gaming when I was around 10, in 1982, and every game was new and exciting, because I had never seen anything like them before. As gaming evolution progressed, things got more same-y. There'd be new genres, but also a lot of repetition. The more you play, the better you know what you like and want, and then it gets harder for games to deliver, because not only do you have specific expectations, but also fond (and sometimes rose colored) memories of past games.
And whenever I think I've just gotten too jaded, then something like Neverwinter comes along and I feel like a kid on Christmas. I know this game will completely dominate my spare time in the next few months, and I will enjoy every bit of it -- dumb monsters or not!
Now I am not saying that all PvE has to be that way (trash mobs) but some variety would be nice and it would be nice if boss mobs did not always use the same script for every fight as well.
Besides this, why should game devs bother to make expensive and quality masterpieces when the top most popular games seem to be sports, sims, car racing games and generally any <insert random <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> by Electronic Arts> ?! Most video game buyers are...let's face it...super casual weekend gamers that wouldn't know quality games if it hit them in the face.
I don't care how much false publicity EA makes, I don't want any of their games other than DA3, which i need to know what happend after DA2..... After that, i'll probably never ever buy a game made by EA or it's partners again...