Help Index :: Misc :: mobs_vs_players

Far too often we see notes on the bugs, general, and ideas board asking
why mob skills that mimic player skills are better than player skills, or
even demanding that the mobs be better balanced as they have better
skills than the players.

This extends to things such as... My level 10 warrior can only have 2
attacks, so why can the mob I'm obviously better than have 3 attacks?
...Why can this mage I'm fighting cast a fireball every round yet it take
me several rounds? ...How can this mob cast lightning bolts at me and
manage to claw me twice at the same time? ...How can this mob is using a
sword like a fighter, spin kicking me like a monk, and casting a fireball
at me like a mage?

Trust me, the mobs ARE balanced to the players.

The experience on a mob is automatically determined by several factors,
which include how much damage the mob generally does and how long it
lives. This leaves only a few options open to us to keep the mobs of TFE
interesting to the players.
- Either we give every mob you come across the same types of armor the
players have, meaning almost everything would have a hodgepodge of +1,
and +2 armor with every slot filled with something. This would greatly
devalue the cost of equipment and one of the things that we strive for is
to have value placed on valuable equipment, so this is not an option.
- Or we modify their attacks. Even here a balance must be struck.

Since there must be higher lever, more powerful mobs for the more
experienced players to fight they must be able to do enough damage to
provide a threat to people wearing the kind of armor and defensive spells
our high level players use. To this end TFE has a set of standards to
which the builders adhere when creating mobs. When a mob is assigned its
level, the standards determine how much life the mob has as well as how
much damage it must have the capacity to deal. To preserve the value of
equipment, and insure everyone isn't pulling Flaming Mithril Swords of
Death +3 off of the kobolds, this means we modify them and give them
special attacks. Sometimes this means we will give them a few extra
attacks in the round with mundane weapons, or modify the damage so they
tend to be doing more damage with a mundane weapon then it normally deals.
For all you know, they are just better trained to use it.

Spells... Not every spell you see a mob cast is exactly what the players
have. The damaging effects of spells are also a part of the damage
covered under our standards. If a mob is able to cast a fireball every
round, faster than you, it is only doing the damage it is supposed to and
its experience reward will reflect that. Perhaps they just cast it
differently and had a better teacher or perhaps they have a better inate
ability to focus magic. Deal with it.

We do try to keep them sensible, but we can not apply the same rules to
the mobs that apply to the players. Otherwise there would probably only
be a handful of mobs on the mud yielding over 5000 experience. Even if
that seems like a lot to you now, it won't later. Later on, when you
need a million exp, or even just a few hundred thousand, and you need to
be killing mobs that yield 10,000 or more exp at a time having mobs whose
skills and equipment are the same as players that yield only a 5000 exp
tops will seem quite boring. How fun do you think it'd be to kill a
million rabbits over several hours and still not level? So bear with us,
play, have fun... But most of all enjoy it.

Shade and sweet water,
Talis