Game Mechanics: Green NPCs should flee at 50%

[Rygar]

I was doing some research into this mechanic and tested it yesterday on P99, I could not get any green NPCs to flee at 50% health. I tested in Beholder's Maze and RunnyEye. I was able to get them to flee below 20% health, but not below 50% health. I even verified they weren't social rooted via FDing at say 40% and they would not go to flee mode, yet when I stood and whacked them again they would flee when dropping below 20%.

I should note that fleeing 50% mobs should be true 'runners' and not walk, as evidenced by the old over-powered bard snare that could stop green runners when compared to normal snare (I do not know what their actual speed should be, such as runspeed * 90% or 95% or whatever).

I saw that TakP has enabled green mobs to flee at 50%, so not sure if some of those devs can offer additional sources / mechanics info. But here is what I've found:

08/23/00 Evidence:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc60.shtml
Player question/comment:

Bard Chains
[Quote from original post: Prior to your patch of the level 54 AE Snare song, the lower level Chains song (level 23), for high level Bards, was able to stop a SINGLE damaged MOB dead in its tracks at 50% health. In order to do this, considering the high resist rate and the early break problem, Bards had to devote ALL of their casting to doing this one thing and this one thing alone.

We know that green MOBs that run run at 50% health, and that blue MOBs that run run at 25%. After the change, the song does not stop MOBs dead in their tracks until 20%. This means that, prior to the level 54 patch, Bards could stop ALL runners. Post the level 54 patch, Bards can stop NO runners. We CAN'T STOP TRAINS now. ]

Developer response:

The change that was implemented about two months ago placed a cap on the maximum amount that a creature can be slowed prior to the addition of damage. At the time, the people making that change didn't think that it would affect any other spells or songs than the 54th level song. After it did, and due to the complaints here, we tested the song in depth, and determined that the way it was working before was far too powerful. The current functionality that you are describing is the correct functionality for the spell.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc59.shtml
Player Question:

Overpowered Song
[Quote from original post: Abashi, Aradune, etc: Just how the hell was the song "over powered?"]

You've explained it well just outlining what the song did:

[Quote from original post: It could stop a "SINGLE" blue from running at 25%
It could stop a "SINGLE" green from running at 50%]

These stopped creatures would just sit there, essentially rooted, but passive, not fighting back.

Essentially, if the creature is fleeing, there is risk because he might flee into something that would cause the attacker a problem. If the creature was rooted, there would be risk because the creature would fight back. However, in this case he's fleeing and rooted, which is the problem.

8/27/99 Evidence:

These same green mobs will also run from you at less than half health
when you fight them, so you will sort of get what you want here too.
Making a mob instantly run from you if green would make places like Guk
even more of a nightmare than they already are. Remember, mobs that run
are programmed to aggro all the other mobs they pass towards you.

Be careful what you wish for. By L40 you will be very tired of having to
deal with L18 mobs attacking you then running away after your first good
hit.

10/20/99 Evidence:

True GREEN mobs run when their health reaches 50%. Time your DOT to go off when
it's hit points are just above this level (yes, I know. Your a caster not a
fighter and you will be interupted, but that's the time you should cast it.
Besides, it's only a green). Necro DOT's slow the runner so it shouldn't be too
hard to run the creature down and it shouldn't get too far before the DOT kills
it anyway.

01/24/2000 Evidence:

> Actually he's right and you're wrong. The speed at which something
> is damaged alongh with your health has more to do with when it runs
> than the amount of damage you've done on it. You just havn't had
> to clear enough green crap out to get stuff worth killing to spawn
> to see how it really behaves.

I think it's actually a function of level, not rate of damage. I
hurt things very slowly when I melee them (Enchanters are not
impressive with weapons) even if they are very green.

A monster will run when it hits a certain percentage of its health.
If the monster is green to you, that percentage is higher than if
the monster is blue to you. I think the highest percentage is
around 50% for very low greens. If there is more than one person
attacking it, it responds to the highest level foe.

Some out of era evidence around 2006 or so, for what its worth:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/...ng-away.48203/

I saw this thread in bug forums about fleeing in general, but didn't really address the 50% mode on green mobs.

I have to say, after reading some of the other comments in these threads, I'm reaching back into my memory banks to my warrior on live. This could easily be a tainted memory, but I thought fleeing mobs would 'run' away from me when I was soloing and it was a white knuckle scramble to get a few more hits in to get them to 'walk mode'. Anyone else recall this? I don't remember mobs just walking off like they do on P99, but as Rogean said in that thread some may have been sowed.

So maybe like those first few links they would 'run' at 25% if blue, and walk when hitting 20%. Snare would stop them regardless. Probably not enough evidence for that portion in here (maybe someone else will want to contribute additional findings), but I think the green mobs fleeing at 50% should be good?

Let me know if any more info is needed, thank you.

[Jimjam]

Thanks for resurfacing some terrifying memories, classic quester.

[Tecmos Deception]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thanks for resurfacing some terrifying memories, classic quester.

[Rygar]

Found another mention of 50% life fleeing

2/9/00 Evidence:

As a Druid the spell that has always been in my number 1 spot has been
Snare. In a group the spell I always try to cast is Snare, because after
awhle you know the monsters that run when they get below 50%. However,
I'll only try it twice and after that I give up. Some areas will give
you, or at least me, a high level of resists. Two areas I had problems
with Snare being resisted was Runneyeye and Unrest. Also sometimes
people just plain forget. Heaven forbid people are not allowed to make
mistakes anymore.

I was thinking on this and some previous posts, this is in an exp group about some mobs running at 50%, a link in the OP mentions the mob uses the highest level person to determine when it runs. So could very well be the case where say a level 60 is in the group and fighting a true green con to them (not a light blue), but is grouped with a level 50 that cons that mob blue. In that case the monster would flee at 50%.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thanks for resurfacing some terrifying memories, classic quester.

[Jimjam]

They would do this even if allied mobs were nearby, making it super hasslesome. Right?

Or was this a test server only feature?

[Rygar]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They would do this even if allied mobs were nearby, making it super hasslesome. Right?

Or was this a test server only feature?

I admit that I don't remember 'social rooting' mechanics on live, but I wasn't a full on meta-mechanics junkie either (I mashed Taunt as a warrior as soon as it was off refresh cause I thought it earned me more hate).

That being said, I did find this mention on fleeing from Gordon:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc52.shtml

To Flee Or Not To Flee?

One of the most philosophical questions one can ask, at least in Norrath, was raised by Gordon Wrinn in the following thread:

Hello all,

I noticed a number of people here talking about the way that creatures decide to flee, referring to a change that went in with the last patch. After speaking with the programmer responsible for AI among other things, it's apparent that there was a change made while optimizing code that caused an "unintended fix" to the AI. Though no one sat down and said, "I'm going to make creatures flee more", that's the result.

Without going too far into specifics and formulae regarding the decision to flee, there are several "components" that NPCs use to determine how brave they are. One of the common ones that everyone knows about is the interrelation of hitpoints and level with the attacker. One of the other less-known components was using some uninitialized memory (memory space allocated to a variable that hasn't yet been 'set' to anything, and usually contains garbage) that had the effect of making NPCs much more brave than they should have been.

We are going to discuss this in the tuning meeting Monday, but my initial impression is that the AI is now working as it should, and I like how things are turning out so far.

What are your thoughts?

-Gordon

And from same link this quote (original thread he responding too no longer working, so not sure of the question):

Mobs Fleeing
I haven't heard of this before. MOBs have been fleeing for some time, they just recently became more cowardly over all. I would imagine that if what you are suggesting happens, then it would have been happening before, if perhaps under more limiting circumstances.

It certainly 'sounds' like there is more to it than they flee simply if 25% blue or 50% if green. Dev comments are typically a grain of salt as they may be speaking to how they believe it 'should' be working or told from a programmer how it should work, but actual gameplay was different (not working as intended). However, these were gripes brought up from players reporting more fleeing than would be expected. But who knows, I would love to see any old videos if anyone has them to see if mobs would flee when in a social setting or whatnot.

Maybe there were some factors like 'if my HP drops below 50% in 10 seconds and I have 3+ folks on my hate list... I'm OUTTA HERE!!'. May never know the full truth.

[DinoTriz]

Maybe my 60 Rogue will finally be able to solo greens

[Jimjam]

@Rygar I agree the social rooting here seems op. Caution wa certainly needed in big fights to avoid tunes on live. That doesn't seem to apply here.

[Rygar]

Originally Posted by Jimjam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

@Rygar I agree the social rooting here seems op. Caution was certainly needed in big fights to avoid trains on live. That doesn't seem to apply here.

Fixed that for ya (mobile bathroom break reply i assume).

But yes, definitely seems OP on p99. Maybe it is classic, but definitely on my radar to verify. Original McQuaid era was obsessed with balance and never making anything guaranteed (fizzles, gate collapses, etc) in hopes of keeping folks on their toes.

So seems odd that they would let you fight near an npc on other side of a wall to prevent runners.