The Secret World has a complex character build, good graphics, significant amounts of action and a quest system that allows for varied levels of involvement from somewhat casual to quite deep.  I am surprised, however to see an amateurish and frustrating issue that has long been resolved in other MMOs.

Every mob in TSW is "hard leashed" to its spawn location, and has a very limited range of movement. It is extremely poor gameplay mechanics to have not just a few specific bosses or guards, but EVERY mob in the game simply turn, heal instantly to full, and run back to its spawn if drawn more than a step outside its boundary.  Some quest specific mobs are so tightly leashed as to make them practically a forced toe-to-toe encounter; 10 "steps" in any direction and the mob heals to full and resets. 

TSW shows significant promise, but the developers need to provide much more intelligent AI in terms of this behavior. A mob with aggor, under direct attack, might turn and run if it is in danger of defeat perhaps, and certain positional guards might resist being drawn away from their posts, but the reset of every mob in the game when it reaches its distance limit, even while fully engaged, is both exploitable (run outside the range any time you are getting low) and frustrating to the point that many players will look for something better written if it is not addressed.

 

I agree OP. Why do they have kiting tools in the game if mobs have such a tight leash. Kiting and running in tight circle sucks. I had not played since the first beta weekend and I was suprised at the amount of good changes. I'm sure they can address the mob tight leashing in no time.

Originally posted by stranger911

Mobs chase you forever....is it that they eventually run back that makes you call it "hard leashed"?  Do you want mobs to chase you forever?

If this is an extremely poor mechanic id like to know what game your basing great mechanics off of.

 

What game or games does this right in your opinion?

 

Also what dungeons have you participated in and do you consider boss encounters to be poor mechanically?

 

I think the comparison that mobs turn around and full heal within 10 steps is a pretty extreme exaggeration...dont you?

Nice try, your still way off in the idiosyncrasies though.

Originally posted by Wolfguru

The Secret World has a complex character build, good graphics, significant amounts of action and a quest system that allows for varied levels of involvement from somewhat casual to quite deep.  I am surprised, however to see an amateurish and frustrating issue that has long been resolved in other MMOs.

Every mob in TSW is "hard leashed" to its spawn location, and has a very limited range of movement. It is extremely poor gameplay mechanics to have not just a few specific bosses or guards, but EVERY mob in the game simply turn, heal instantly to full, and run back to its spawn if drawn more than a step outside its boundary.  Some quest specific mobs are so tightly leashed as to make them practically a forced toe-to-toe encounter; 10 "steps" in any direction and the mob heals to full and resets. 

TSW shows significant promise, but the developers need to provide much more intelligent AI in terms of this behavior. A mob with aggor, under direct attack, might turn and run if it is in danger of defeat perhaps, and certain positional guards might resist being drawn away from their posts, but the reset of every mob in the game when it reaches its distance limit, even while fully engaged, is both exploitable (run outside the range any time you are getting low) and frustrating to the point that many players will look for something better written if it is not addressed.

 

10 steps is a little extreme, I"ve had mobs chase me for a very long time before they turned back, and boy was I glad they did. In every MMO I"ve played, and I've played a lot...this is usually the case. I'd like you to list 5 MMO's that this doesn't happen in and then I'll consider your point valid, until then it has no substance to base it upon.

Originally posted by stranger911

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by stranger911

Mobs chase you forever....is it that they eventually run back that makes you call it "hard leashed"?  Do you want mobs to chase you forever?

If this is an extremely poor mechanic id like to know what game your basing great mechanics off of.

 

What game or games does this right in your opinion?

 

Also what dungeons have you participated in and do you consider boss encounters to be poor mechanically?

 

I think the comparison that mobs turn around and full heal within 10 steps is a pretty extreme exaggeration...dont you?

Nice try, your still way off in the idiosyncrasies though.

 

Also im still waiting on what games do this diffrent or better...all games have some point where the mobs turn back around.

Not all games. FFXI mobs will chase you all the way to the zone if you're within range still.

 

Oh and Aion does it way better. No mobs are hard leashed. If there is no interaction between the character and the mob within 7 seconds they run back to their spawn point

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by stranger911

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by stranger911

Mobs chase you forever....is it that they eventually run back that makes you call it "hard leashed"?  Do you want mobs to chase you forever?

If this is an extremely poor mechanic id like to know what game your basing great mechanics off of.

 

What game or games does this right in your opinion?

 

Also what dungeons have you participated in and do you consider boss encounters to be poor mechanically?

 

I think the comparison that mobs turn around and full heal within 10 steps is a pretty extreme exaggeration...dont you?

Nice try, your still way off in the idiosyncrasies though.

 

Also im still waiting on what games do this diffrent or better...all games have some point where the mobs turn back around.

Not all games. FFXI mobs will chase you all the way to the zone if you're within range still.

 

Oh and Aion does it way better. No mobs are hard leashed. If there is no interaction between the character and the mob within 7 seconds they run back to their spawn point

And how do you know it is not the same in this case. How can you determine if it was programmed to run back after few steps, or run back after time it takes for you to make those steps?

Originally posted by everland

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by stranger911

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by stranger911

Mobs chase you forever....is it that they eventually run back that makes you call it "hard leashed"?  Do you want mobs to chase you forever?

If this is an extremely poor mechanic id like to know what game your basing great mechanics off of.

 

What game or games does this right in your opinion?

 

Also what dungeons have you participated in and do you consider boss encounters to be poor mechanically?

 

I think the comparison that mobs turn around and full heal within 10 steps is a pretty extreme exaggeration...dont you?

Nice try, your still way off in the idiosyncrasies though.

 

Also im still waiting on what games do this diffrent or better...all games have some point where the mobs turn back around.

Not all games. FFXI mobs will chase you all the way to the zone if you're within range still.

 

Oh and Aion does it way better. No mobs are hard leashed. If there is no interaction between the character and the mob within 7 seconds they run back to their spawn point

And how do you know it is not the same in this case. How can you determine if it was programmed to run back after few steps, or run back after time it takes for you to make those steps?

It's not really that hard. When your kite killing a mob that's chasing you, constantly putting DPS on it, and it turns and runs and it's HP bar goes back up to full, I think it's obvious.

Originally posted by stranger911

Originally posted by everland

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by stranger911

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by stranger911

Mobs chase you forever....is it that they eventually run back that makes you call it "hard leashed"?  Do you want mobs to chase you forever?

If this is an extremely poor mechanic id like to know what game your basing great mechanics off of.

 

What game or games does this right in your opinion?

 

Also what dungeons have you participated in and do you consider boss encounters to be poor mechanically?

 

I think the comparison that mobs turn around and full heal within 10 steps is a pretty extreme exaggeration...dont you?

Nice try, your still way off in the idiosyncrasies though.

 

Also im still waiting on what games do this diffrent or better...all games have some point where the mobs turn back around.

Not all games. FFXI mobs will chase you all the way to the zone if you're within range still.

 

Oh and Aion does it way better. No mobs are hard leashed. If there is no interaction between the character and the mob within 7 seconds they run back to their spawn point

And how do you know it is not the same in this case. How can you determine if it was programmed to run back after few steps, or run back after time it takes for you to make those steps?

I think this is an issue that only the OP and people grasping for negatives

Funny thing is, you don't really need to grasp for anything. The negatives are pretty obvious. I'll leave your thread now though before I'm viewed as a fan boy instead of just being right.

Just from my own experience, the OP is stretching things a bit with the "10 steps" comment.  Will they turn and run back to their spawn point, yes.  I haven't been in the actual closed beta, but have participated in all the weekend betas.  My character had the accolade for over 1000 zombies killed by the end of the first weekend, just for example.  In all that fighting, not once did this 'hard leash' occur to interrupt a combat.  It did happen in the third beta weekend when my group was trying to fight the final boss in the first dungeon.  At least, that is why we think he reset. 

Lmao OP I thought there would be people complaining that mobs chase too far. lol

 

The chase farther than WoW, Swtor, RIFT, Aion, Lotor, Mortal, matter of fact I haven't played an mmo where the chase longer...

It would be a good idea to prove your point by uploading a vid of this happening on youtube since many people seem to have different experience.

And argument goes "Yes they do", "No, they don't","Yes they do", "For me they don't"

---

Originally posted by everland
It would be a good idea to prove your point by uploading a vid of this happening on youtube since many people seem to have different experience.

And argument goes "Yes they do", "No, they don't","Yes they do", "For me they don't"

---

The OP is using the good old 'hyperbole' thing. The mobs do reset after a certain point. Imagine there are two groups of mobs. One group of zombies feeding on a corpse, and a very large crab boss thing standing in a different location. If you pull the zombies, they'll reset before you get to the crab boss thing. If you pull the crab boss thing, he'll reset before you get back to the zombies. It would be abnormal to run through several groups of mobs and pull them all together. That is the limiting factor. If the mobs are farther apart, the 'leash' is longer. If the mobs are closer together, the 'leash' is shorter. It isn't a hard setting though...there are spots where it's possible to pull multiple groups together, but you have to pick a location central to all the groups instead of just running down the street grabbing all of them.

Maybe he wanted it to be like in knight online, where you could taunt entire area of mobs with your tank and then aoe the shit out of them with mages. But it wouldn't fit in this game completely.

The "ten steps" is based specifically on the encounter of the junkyard horror in the "life imitates art" questline. The mob in that encounter turns and resets before a shotgun wielder can get out of range from its center point, which is pretty extreme.

As far as substance, my observations find the mobs sensitive specifically to distance. Either an immediate run to X distance, or kiting and getting to that distance will produce exactly the same results. regardless of the time spent in the encounter.

I can see mobs resetting if they are chasing and you are not attacking or doing damage; this is pretty much the standard behavior in most MMOs and expected/acceptable. The real effect is on combat, whether kiting or in adds. Anything cone-based or area based, such as a shotgun wielder or a magic user, combined with the tab-based targeting where one mob gets out of range and the rest become essentially invulnerable as the effect is considered "out of range" whenever the current target resets. The leashed mob resets and the rest will chase to the limits of their reach while the player fumbles to retarget anything near enough to get an effective DPS re-established.

The end result is a very poor mechanic.  Move  X distance from the mob's spawn point (which varies with some mobs, but only in overall distance, not in the effect) and the mob resets, whether in combat and at 10% remaining health or simply travelling past th mob and entering aggro range without doing damage.  There is no variation other than the distance that the mob will travel from its spawn, and that has a recognizable maximum, with some mobs resetting at shorter distances.

At the very least, this needs to be changed to where a "normal" mob, in combat and in its range of the player, does not simply reset, heal to full and run back, ending the combat, if a CC or Kiting role is to be significant in the game. 

 

As for comparisons to specific games, that is more difficult as many of the ones I have played have been modified over the years. EQ for the first 3 expansions had mobs chase to the zone, but modified this behavior for many in later expansions, beginning in Velious with some of the "named" encounters. Chasing became less of an issue there when summoning mobs were added to the gsame in Velious.  I'm not sure of the most recent; I stopped playing after about 8 years from Kunark, then played progression servers occaisionally. The few "leashed" mobs there vary; some are leashed pairs and will reset if they get too far apart, others are leashed "guard mobs" with spawn point leashes, but pretty much all of those are situation based and make sense in context or in the design of the encounter. 

Horizons had agrro based resets, where a mob that was chasing would give up the chase after a given distance if no damage was done to it, but would continue to follow if there was damage being done.  This behavior became more common in EQ as expansions were added.

SWG was primarily distance based for resets, again based on combat status; a mob being damaged would chase to the end of a planet, but one that was aggro but not in combat would reset after a period of time.

WoW has primarily the same mechanism, or did in the initial stages; I did not find it compelling or challenging enough to continue too long at a time, though I have returned a few times with friends.

Tabula had distance based resets without aggro, and mobs which would retreat when they were below a given health level. It had a significant chase distance, but mobs not being damaged would reset.

I've played, either for a time or in beta, a pretty wide cross-section of the more well-known games, and a fair number of the lesser known ones.  In addition, I have a pretty deep background in actual beta-testing of software, not just playing the latest to see what I thought of it and generate buzz, while possibly stumpling over a bug or a server-population issue.  Doing the boring "run this encounter over 100 times to look for patterns" is not what most of the people in the betas today think of, and lends a very different understanding of the process.

In summary, I have played enough of the different games to recognize a feature that works for the player base, and one that works against the immersive and enjoyable nature of the game.  I like the general design and premise of TSW, and I have been following its development for some time.  I am dissappointed to see such a poor implementation of mob behavior in a game I have hoped would turn out compelling enough to become my game of choice.

 

 

 

 

It seems like each group has a different range. The mobs in some cases are placed with their range taken into consideration. So it it seems entirely possoble that a fight mechanic and the leash range could conflict. I would report the specific instance where this happens as a bug.

Originally posted by Dfix

Originally posted by stranger911

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by stranger911

Mobs chase you forever....is it that they eventually run back that makes you call it "hard leashed"?  Do you want mobs to chase you forever?

If this is an extremely poor mechanic id like to know what game your basing great mechanics off of.

 

What game or games does this right in your opinion?

 

Also what dungeons have you participated in and do you consider boss encounters to be poor mechanically?

 

I think the comparison that mobs turn around and full heal within 10 steps is a pretty extreme exaggeration...dont you?

Nice try, your still way off in the idiosyncrasies though.

 

Also im still waiting on what games do this diffrent or better...all games have some point where the mobs turn back around.

Not all games. FFXI mobs will chase you all the way to the zone if you're within range still.

...

FFXI had a bit of a complex system. The mobs will chase you for as long as they can "detect" you. They have various detection methods such as sight, smell, sound, and magic detection.

In EQ1 the mobs used to chase you down right to the zone line, this also ofc brought about the infamous "TRAIN"

I prefer having mobs return to their spawn points after being pulled over a set distance, it stops the griefers from pulling mobs onto other players, I certainly do not want to go back to the days of having my playtime ruined when some moron decides to pull his grp of mobs onto me while I'm afk in a supposed "Safe area"

As for the 10 steps, yeah right, talk about scare mongering.

 

 

I listed the mob and the quest line that had the extreme leashing - 10 steps was a generous estimate of the leash distance there. Do the encounter and see if you find the same result. The quest is started by an NPC author at the top of the lighthouse in the savage coast zone, called Life imitates Art. I think it is around the third tier of the quest line.

As for not training; try standing or fighting near a roadway or other common path and having a dozen returning mobs show up.  While you cannot easily raw mobs onto another player over a distance, pulling them away and allowing them to return has its effects as well.

 

I got annoyed at how far I had run to shake a mob off of my tail.

It was frustrating.

But I "get it" so to speak.