Melee attacks on moving mobs

[crschoen]

Hello,

Sorry if this concern has been previously posted (I haven't been keeping up with the posts lately), but for what it's worth, I thought I would make a suggestion to fix some of the game mechanics with regards to melee fighting and moving mobs. I think these types of game mechanics are what makes one game stand out from another. And so far it has always been a big advantage of DDO. But lately it has been more and more frustrating, I think since some of the AI changes to the mobs. The particular problem is with the inability to attack moving mobs. There are 2 common scenarios (virtually every fight encounter) where this occurs:

(1) When a mob gets aggro on a target in the back line, most often a ranger, or a caster. Most rangers draw first blood and hit a mob before the fighters get within combat range The mob will run past the front line fighters. It's very difficult to get a registered hit on a mob moving past you like this. They seem to be almost immune to your weapon swings. The intimidate action doesn't seem to work very effectively here either. I think it worked better before when it took longer to invoke - at least it seemed to have a wider range of effect. I think every fighter has experience running after a moving mob that is chasing a ranger (who is backpedalling/kiting), and taking many swings at the mobs back without getting any dice rolls.

(2) The new AI causes a lot of mobs to "flee" away from you. The game mechanic here is seriously broken, as you don't seem to be able to register any attacks on a mob running from you. In reality you should get a HIGHER attack bonus because you're swinging at his unprotected back.


I think what makes some of this so frustrating is that it doesn't work in vice versa. When you are running from a mob, they have no problem at all registering hits on you, even when not within their attack radius.

[Riddikulus]

Yeah I've noticed this lately too. It seems they reduced the melee "reach" sometime recently so that a melee attack only registers on a mob that is right next to you.

Maybe this was done on purpose to equalize melee with ranged... I've been missing moving mobs ranged for a long time.

[FlyinS]

(2) The new AI causes a lot of mobs to "flee" away from you. The game mechanic here is seriously broken, as you don't seem to be able to register any attacks on a mob running from you. In reality you should get a HIGHER attack bonus because you're swinging at his unprotected back.

I have found this AI change to be quite annoying. I understand and agree that a mob that is ranged focused will try to get away from us, but not to the point of running across the entire world rather than just pulling out a sword.

Combine that with the idea that you don't seem to get an attack roll on them very often when you're chasing them it's just plain annoying.

What I would like to see is more mobs run, but run to go get friends or something. Seems like a more likely scenario than just running aimlessly and endlessly.

[akla_thornfist]

melee attack range has been reduced by at least 50%, ive noticed that you need to be standing inches from your target before an attack lands, forget about trying to hit a running mob its just plain stupid. what drives me nuts the most is rangers and casters in my party running mobs around and all the fighters chasing them around, i gave up chasing now they either kill the mob or the mob kills them.

[DSL]

You can get your hits on them, but you have to "lead" your swings a little by running at least partially alongside them rather than right behind them. WHat seems to happen is that the game registers your position when you start your swing, but checks the enemy position when you complete your swing, by which time a fleeing MOB is out of melee range unless you were closer to the MOB's center along the movement vector.

You should get bonuses to hit based on the MOB moving and you facing it's back, but this is offset by your taking a -4 penalty to hit because you're moving (unless you have Spring Attack).

It is certainly frustrating to have to chase these things halfway accross the map, but often they do move into areas that cause you to draw more aggro, and in any case, I've seen many occasions where PC rangers/casters ended up doing more or less the same thing (I've even done it while soloing with melee characters to try to isolate enemies), so it's not that strange a behaviour.

What is most annoying is that nearly everything you face seems to have the equivalent of barbarian fast movement or 15% striding.

[Riddikulus]

You can get your hits on them, but you have to "lead" your swings a little by running at least partially alongside them rather than right behind them. WHat seems to happen is that the game registers your position when you start your swing, but checks the enemy position when you complete your swing, by which time a fleeing MOB is out of melee range unless you were closer to the MOB's center along the movement vector.

It's worse than this tho... I can be right on the mobs back and it won't do a roll. If I'm swinging a 3' sword, and have an arm reach of about 3' the sword should still be able to connect with a mob up to 6' away...but it just doesn't. Actually at the distance the game requires you to be at to actually connect is not realistic in terms of actually being able to swing a weapon like that and connect unless you have really short stumpy arms.

[Roguewiz]

It's worse than this tho... I can be right on the mobs back and it won't do a roll. If I'm swinging a 3' sword, and have an arm reach of about 3' the sword should still be able to connect with a mob up to 6' away...but it just doesn't. Actually at the distance the game requires you to be at to actually connect is not realistic in terms of actually being able to swing a weapon like that and connect unless you have really short stumpy arms.

**Just for the sake of arguement**

Negative. Base reach weapons is 5ft. This can only be modified by:
A. Being of Large or greater Size (not possible in DDO)
B. Having a reach weapon (do not exist in DDO)

[tihocan]

And, yes, it's been a regular complaint on these forums. I sure hope they'll try to do something to fix it, as it's quite annoying.

[Riddikulus]

**Just for the sake of arguement**

Negative. Base reach weapons is 5ft. This can only be modified by:
A. Being of Large or greater Size (not possible in DDO)
B. Having a reach weapon (do not exist in DDO)

5' is fine. I don't think it's currently 5' in the game though.

[wraith87]

5' is fine. I don't think it's currently 5' in the game though.

I would almost be willing to bet it is. The distances in the game seem fairly short for what they happen to be.

Plus, if you are really running after someone...do you have the dexterity to be swinging that sword with full power and still keep up? I'm not sure, but I really don't think it would be possible to run behind a person and still be attacking them while keeping up. Just my opinion I guess.

[Tavok]

This is what I have noticed with moving mobs, hope this diagram helps, and I do agree, this should be changed.

Swing Range: ||
.....
Mob Virtual Area: ..x..
''''''''' . . .
Mob Virtual Area (while moving): ..x..
' '
'x' is the mob, and you have to get your swing range within one of the dots to get a registered dice roll. And obviously on the front and back of MOVING mobs, theres less dots to hit, so unless you are on the specific area that you need to hit them (mainly on the side of the mob) then you don't get a registered hit. I think to fix this, the Mob Virtual Area while moving needs to be changed to the one that the mob has while STANDING still.

Few questions:

Noticed this in PvP also, does the MVAwa apply to PC's also? If not, it should apply to PC's since it applies to mobs.

EDIT: ****, the diagrams didn't turn out right lol. Will fix them after a food run

[JosephKell]

Perhaps the Developers want to encourage people to use Hamstring and similar effects?

[Olaff]

I would almost be willing to bet it is. The distances in the game seem fairly short for what they happen to be.

Plus, if you are really running after someone...do you have the dexterity to be swinging that sword with full power and still keep up? I'm not sure, but I really don't think it would be possible to run behind a person and still be attacking them while keeping up. Just my opinion I guess.

I can be running faster than a fleeing mob (Exp. Retreat active) and swinging a greataxe and I still don't even get an attack roll.

I can be running so much faster that I keep bumping into the mob and triggering the anti-collision code (which bumps you to one side or the other) and I still don't get an attack roll.

I even have Spring Attack so that I'm not losing -4 attack, and I still don't get an attack roll.

The mechanics are borked.

[Harbinder]

I don't get it.

I mean, I don't have this problem/issue on my fighter, or my fleric for that matter. They swing and get dice rolls and hits (and misses) on running mobs all the time.

[Riddikulus]

I would almost be willing to bet it is. The distances in the game seem fairly short for what they happen to be.

It is probably 5' center to center. If you have a "large" character (human/WF) that 5' would appear to be right on top of each other. Perhaps a "small" character (halfling) has less trouble with missing because the relative distance between you and the mob looks bigger.

Plus, if you are really running after someone...do you have the dexterity to be swinging that sword with full power and still keep up? I'm not sure, but I really don't think it would be possible to run behind a person and still be attacking them while keeping up. Just my opinion I guess.

Well in theory that is taken into account with the reduced to hit you get when moving if you don't have spring attack.

[Darkdominion]

The idea of them running away endlessly is entirely reasonable. You're a 70 pound kobold, with nothing but a crappy ranged weapon on your person. There is a 6'4 Barbarian with giagantic muscled arms wielding a sword twice as long as you are. He already killed all your friends, including your shamans. Do you stand and fight this gigantic killing machine? Or do you run, run and keep on running? Sure, its annoying as hell, but its entirely realistic.

On the note of attacking moving monsters, it would help alot if they synchronized the animation with the actual attack for the first swing of a 1 handed weapon while moving. This is probably a source of a lot of peoples problems, although it does seem that the attack radius has been decreased. As for the movement speed, you'd have to look them up for each creature to see if they are correct.

[captain1]

I have spring attack also and can run circles around mobs as they run....I only get attack rolls when Im in front of them or to the side and slightly ahead.

anyone notice that when u successfully hypno wolves of any kind they take off running endlessly with pink dots on their heads. they come back to get u when the dots go away.......no matter where u are.....thats some tracking skill they have.

[Kaldaka]

Guys,
Come on . . . its not that hard to figure out. I figured it out within the first week of this change. You need to STOP chasing the mob, then they will stop and turn around. Once they go to attack/cast, you can then run at them and smack them good.
The only issue is the caster/ranged guys attacking first. That is a problem with party communication. You need to let these guys know that they need to let the tanks get the aggro BEFORE they cast/shoot. If they can't take the hint, don't party with them again.
Its that simple.

[Missing_Minds]

Plus, if you are really running after someone...do you have the dexterity to be swinging that sword with full power and still keep up? I'm not sure, but I really don't think it would be possible to run behind a person and still be attacking them while keeping up. Just my opinion I guess.

This is a game that has magic, so real life physics HA. so the answer is YES you can.

Now in real life... I think it would be more weapon dependent. I can see piercing being able to still be done without much issue, but larger two handed stuff.. yeah, that would have to take a hit.

[The_Silver_Griffon]

According to the developers way back (the Dev Diaries from the Beta boards), this game actually registers collisions between your weapon's model and the enemy's model. This means that if your sword touches the mob, you get to roll to hit. There is no radius or "range" of your melee weapons other than the actual size of the rendered model.

However, since the very nature of the internet keeps our clients and the servers from ever being perfectly in synch much of this elegant system is lost on us, visually speaking. In an instance with lots of mobs and other players nearby the server and client are indeed registering these collisions, but we can't see them because the models being registered on our client are often out of synch with their "real" positions on the server.

As far as mobs running away, if you are referring to when the yellow icon pops over their head and they run back to where they started from, then this stems from an anti-exploit mechanic. While that icon is up, the mobs are indestructible and will regenerate to full health. This is because they are actually respawning. The fact that we can see them run back at all is just because it looks better than having the mob just disappear and reappear back "home". The devs have this turned on in certain areas where they feel that the terrain would make it too easy to range mobs to death with no risk and is considered an exploit. This information is in the release notes for one of the previous updates.

Unfortunately, the mobs are now running away and hitting the end of their leash and popping the icon. So they are triggering the anti-exploit mechanic themselves. I think that in some cases this may actually be related to the occaional bug where a mob has his back to the party and vigorously attacking while apparently targetting nothing. I think some of those "running" mobs actually believe they are charging towards somebody instead.

If that's not what you are referring to, then I have not experienced this. I have had mobs that were so fast I couldn't swing and hit them while pursuing, but a speed boost or expeditious retreat usually lets me catch them.