Let's Talk About Monsters!

[Panzermeyer]

Which non-raid-boss monsters in DDO do you find the most memorable and engaging to interact with, and why?
If you think part of the reason for your answer is your class/build/playstyle, please include that!

First time through one of the most memorable was the Purple Worm in the Underdark Explorer Area. Jumping up out of the ground, in a super dark area, with nar a warning, that was awesome!
They still freak me out a little from the trama it induced. =)

The new shadows are pretty **** awesome. Much much better than that umbral shadows in the Necro. Hard to see, coming up flat, and then jumping up to attack, with the whispering. They are pretty awesome.

The new dragons, much larger in size, vicious and whatnot are very very awesome. Being able to talk to some of them it pretty sweet as well.

And definitely Werewolves. The animations and detail of them is really really awesome. They are way under utilized. Why Shadar-Kai assassins where picked for Mabar and not Werewolves is way beyond my comprehension. Very very poor design decision. I bet since Shadarkai or mostly responsible for the the lag, if yo0u replace them with werewolves everyone would be much more happy. Also loved their attack mechanics, my guildies and I took on the Werewolve in the shack in "A Study in Sable" and we where lining up to create a shield wall to have out caster dot the hell out of it, only to have the werewolf jump over our line and attack the caster anyway. That was super unexpected and awesome and so in character to how a werewolf would fight.

[StoptheRock]

For me, any monster type which mechanics encourage the use of blocking or tumbling away in response to telegraphed attacks. Make the best out of DDO's action combat system!

[brian14]

I believe there actually IS one of these, in the Vale. Or is that an invisible stalker? Either way, I love that it's there, and think there should be more of them.

It's an invisible stalker, and yes I think it is the only one in DDO.

[TeacherSyn]

- The Spinner of Shadows in her self-titled quest is a fun boss because of the need to fight her in different ways, her minions and the lighting of the crystals to finish her.

Definitely a pants-wetting honorable mention to the Spinner of Shadows. She's got attitude and really brought the O* $#!T factor to parties at the end of that quest in when Lolth literally ripped a new one in space and time.

[voodoogroves]

It's an invisible stalker, and yes I think it is the only one in DDO.

There are a pair of them in Running with the Devils as well. They aren't limited to just that one explorer area.

[Seikojin]

For me, beholders were the first serious monster in DDO. The first time I saw one I turned tail, ran and had to plan. Invaders has a pretty good way of handling Beholders + mobs to really make it hard on you. If you haven't ran it before. It would be nice if quests checked your log and then did something to spice things up if you have ran the quest before.

Maralith are good ones, the dragons I love. Also most demons (not devils) are good in the game.

Most animals have really solid mechanics and can be a challenge when epic difficulties are used.

I really liked the Worg riders that have to be killed twice. I think they need better mounted tactics, and having more combat like that would be nice. Like a dragon mounted by a wizard.

[oradafu]

It's an invisible stalker, and yes I think it is the only one in DDO.

There's a few of them, you probably didn't see them. *wink, wink*

Tomb of the Shadow Guard, the swimming one, has an optional Invisible Stalker.

Tomb of the Shadow King, the torches one, has one or two Invisible Stalkers right after you drop down.

I believe there's one in the Cinnis side of Litany, and possibly one out in the Orchard.

And I believe in the first batch of mobs on the stairs of Running with the Devils has an Invisible Stalker in there.

[PsychoBlonde]

Howdy forumites!

Which non-raid-boss monsters in DDO do you find the most memorable and engaging to interact with, and why?
If you think part of the reason for your answer is your class/build/playstyle, please include that!

I am actually kind of fond of ghasts, scorpions, and wolves, just because I've had funny moments with all of them sidling up to my character in an odd moment (usually when I'm trying to pull a lever or open a chest) and then *CHOMP*. I like hellhounds and thaarak hounds. Duergar and golems are fun.

I find minotaurs to actually be pretty enjoyable--you gotta watch for those charges. I do wish they were a bit more consistent about not climbing the walls, though.

I like ogres, particularly the big armored ones from the Droaam chain. Actually, that chain has a lot of the most fun and interactive mobs in the game. Medusae are surprisingly enjoyable.

I find packs of orthons to be intensely amusing. Get 3 or 4 of them following you and it starts sounding really funny: "RRRRR! AAAAAAGH! RRRROOOOORRRR!!!" It's like they're mad that they can't keep up. Orthons overall are good mobs--the fact that they're slow but will pepper you with crossbow bolts is cool, plus they'll cleave the heck out of you if you run into melee range. It's a good combo.

I like werewolves and draegloths with their "jump" ability. Those are cool. It'd be even neater if they could rebound off walls.

I like rats for how fast they move and attack. They're insignificant individually but a lot of them can rip you up very quickly.

I like Taken and Mimics but a lot of mimics just have way too many dang hit points.

That being said, I HATE the "haha suddenly I'm invulnerable!" mobs, largely because they do it too often and it lasts too long and just slows everything down to no purpose. The new shadows are particularly awful, because not only do they randomly go invulnerable but they port all over the place and just become really annoying to fight. Vampires aren't as bad as they used to be, but I still run across cases of mobs going invulnerable and staying that way for too long, then popping out and IMMEDIATELY GOING BACK IN ARGH. (Purple worms do this sort of thing too, it's weird.) Djinns are just invulnerable for too dang long. The whirling thing they do would actually be a neat mechanic if, say, in normal form they were immune to spell damage and in whirly form they're only immune to weapon damage, and they had a mechanic where they went from attacking weapon folks to whirling the HECK out of the casters and back. That would actually be REALLY entertaining. You could make a really fun boss fight out of that alone: "Okay, everybody beat on him WAIT NO . . . " *party members flying everywhere AIIIIEEE* "Okay, he's back! Quick get him!" *HAHAHAHA NOPE* Mess with us, yes. Make us wait around, no.

I dislike giants and other knockback mobs because it's too hard to tell when it's time to block. (Air elementals are much improved in this regard, but often there are too many air ele's at once for it to be any use.) That, and they knock you around even when they don't actually land a hit or deal any damage. It kinda makes sense on air elementals but how did a giant knock you back without ever landing a hit? Did he just fart really bad or something? Makes no sense.

I kind of wish there weren't so MANY archers because they're just kind of boring and annoying filler a lot of times. In a lot of the new content the focus seems to be on "tons o' mobs" rather than "here's 3 or 4 mobs you can fight and some more around the corner if you want a bigger challenge or are in a hurry". I really dislike mobs that spam dispel effects. I think there's just too much of this. I think there are often just too dang many casters in general and they don't do anything particularly interesting most of the time. I think if there were more melee mobs with more interesting and unique abilities (anti-kiting abilities in particular), this would make the game a lot more enjoyable.

Mobs like medusae or shadar-kai assassins would be more fun if there were interrupts that could kick them out of their big casts or whirling chains. This would be a perfect thing to do with bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate--if you successfully use one of those abilities on them, it throws them out of their "I'm swingin' the chain!" mode for a few seconds. It'd give melee folks an option other than "RUN AWAY!!" but also a chance that it won't work so you have to book it.

Some things that might be fun to add to the game:

More "turret" mobs that stay in one place and either shoot stuff or suddenly spring up and grab you or similar.

Melee mobs with "c'm'ere, you!" abilities. Melee mobs that LoS (line of sight) casters would be hilarious too. No, I'm not going to chase you through the firewall. Imma go wait around the corner and then Trip your ass.

Mobs that fasten onto you and do damage over time (like, say, stirges or leeches).

Mobs with abilities that have "friendly fire" effects that can be manipulated in interesting ways. Or mobs that cause PC's to friendly fire each other, like with reflected damage.

The ever-beloved mobs that charge you and promptly explode.

(more) Mobs that "engulf" you or swallow you whole. There are some nasty epic oozes and swarms out there. You could do a "swallowed" effect on people by a.) freezing them in place, b.) letting them make melee attacks on the critter that swallowed them, c.) making them go invisible, d.) giving them a big gooey reddish (or whatever) splash screen (like with fog only more intestinal). Once they deal so much damage or the mob dies they reappear and the screen goes away. Getting swallowed is a D&D tradition.

Mobs that trample (not like minotaurs, who butt you and knock you back, these would actually RUN OVER you and SQUASH you.

Mobs that grapple you.

Mobs that **** traps or leave trails of fire when they move so you have to move obliquely.

Mobs that summon walls blocking spells and ranged attacks.

Mobs that can shoot around corners.

Interesting stuff.

[Thumbed_Servant]

It's an invisible stalker, and yes I think it is the only one in DDO.

When protecting the Rare Radhnik Odeen in Orchard of the Macabre there is often an Invisible Stalker among the mobs that attack him. I remember an Invisible Stalker in at least one other location, but cannot remember where at this time*

* Ddowiki.com lists them as in Tomb of the Shadow King and Tomb of the Shadow Guard as well as in Litany of the Dead-Cinnis Wing.

*Shout out* to ddowiki.com people...you're awesome, I use the wiki ALL the time, ty ty ty.

[Havok.cry]

Howdy forumites!

Your friendly neighborhood monster maker here, just stopping by to say hi and give you all an update on some of the things I’ve been working on.

My first big post was about the stealth and detection updates of last year, but I do a little bit of everything on the systems side, with a focus on making monsters (as opposed to character progression.)

Some other things I’ve worked on include:
· Planning which monsters we make with the artists and leads, and designing how they will work
· Creating monsters and behaviors for The Shadowfell Conspiracy and Menace of the Underdark
· Updating monsters that have been in game for some time (giants, dragons, vampires, and air elementals to name a few)
· Improving certain behaviors such as phasing, grease, and trip
· Fixing bugs with CC states, spinning, and sliding, while improving responsiveness, detection, and other core AI systems (making them harder, better, faster, stronger, and smarter!)
· Making monsters easier to use, including a new way for quest designers to quickly and easily vary their AI per-encounter
· Creating monsters that work together (satyr, harpy, and howler group attacks were just a start)

What do I mean by “updating” older monsters? Here’s a look into just some of the things I do with them:
· Make sure all of their attacks use the newest combat scripts
· Make sure attacks hit the proper number of targets, only the proper targets, and things like knockback can be blocked
· Make sure effects scale in effectiveness for all versions of that monster across levels and difficulties (Like vampire dominate DCS)
· Make sure they face their targets before executing attacks
· Make them perform faster by removing old script systems and calls that aren’t used anymore
· Make them do different things if their target is knocked down
· Make them do different things if they are moving, such as different attacks
· Make them do specific attacks when swinging “blind”
· Make them support special attacks in unique situational conditions
· Tune detect sizes, animation speeds, and timing of hits, effects, sounds, and sometimes adding new ones to improve feedback (air elementals!)
· Give them modern systems such as smart weapon-switching
· Fix movement hitches
· Fix any weird bugs I find (vampires having invisible shields and maces but animating as if they had them!?)

Since you do this sort of thing, and it was your work to improve the stealth system in the game, (great job on that btw ) how about some work on monster stealth and invisibility, especially in older quests. Monsters that "turn invisible" by phasing out of the game and becoming non-interactable are annoying. We have spells that should let us see invisible things, but still don't work on those mobs. This mechanic is irritating. In addition, mobs that stealth, but in reality are just disappearing and are not interactable until they return from stealth are equally annoying. A spot check should be able to over come a monster's hide/move silently skill, and those monsters should still be able to be hit just like a stealthing player can. Ogre mages and hobgoblin/bugbear rogues are the primary culprits.

Now I get to ask you questions!

Which non-raid-boss monsters in DDO do you find the most memorable and engaging to interact with, and why?
If you think part of the reason for your answer is your class/build/playstyle, please include that!

1-The minotaurs and wargs in Framework. You have some who run for reinforcements, some who charge in and use terrain to push you about, some who self heal and rain down destruction and some who stealth. There is a lot of terrain to use to your advantage, and the mobs can sometimes use to their's. A combination of the terrain and the mobs make every encounter in this quest very very fun.

2-Mephits. You are never sure when they are finished spawning. Any encounter with even a single one can quickly turn in to an encounter with many.

3-Eveningstar Necromancers, preistesses, and slavers. They alter my usual target order. Normally I bring down casters first, then rogues/stunners, then the rest. In the case of these drow leaders I have to alter that order to bring down the slavers first, then manage to free slaves in the middle of the fight to reduce heat on actually important party members (like myself). After slavers and slaves are handled necromancers have to die before anything else to reduce the amount of mobs I have to fight. Lastly unlike any other caster in the game I make sure everything else is dead before trying to kill a priestess. This alteration of the usual order of things makes those encounters more engaging.

4-A random korthos mob that tells you to, "Bow down to the devourer!" and when you do (by typing /bow), he kneels back down and doesn't engage you. Any mob with interesting scripting like that is vastly more interesting than the any other mob in the game. This game could use stuff like that throughout it.

5-Mobs with interesting Dialogue. The Dreaming Dark is a good example of a quest with mobs that have interesting dialogue. Also have the dialogue appear in our general chat box, while we are fighting it. Mobs use to be able to multitask by talking and fighting at the same time. Mobs that sit around and have a two minute conversation while we are swinging a sword through its head and finishes it's conversation with, "But alas there are enemies here for us to deal with." really ruins the game. Just ask a member of the swat team if they ever stop and wait for a bad guy to finish his monologue before taking him down.

Specific to my archer:
1-Teleporting Devils, especially in shavrath. The reason is that figuring out the timing, and setting traps (by traps I am referring to putting yourself in a place where they would have a hard time walking out of once they teleport to you and would have to wait to teleport again before they can reach you once more, I am not talking about the consumable item or rogue abilities) for them as they teleport to you and getting away makes those encounters more fun than most any other encounter. It actually has a feel of outwitting your enemy, at least to me it does.

2-Any mob that will use terrain to force me to get closer to it. IE rather than dumbly charging, it steps arround the corner, forcing me to get into closer proximity to it without having already done tons of damage to it. Killing things that feel like they are not just to dumb to live is more engaging than being the agent of natural selection.


Specific to my casters:
1-Tharaak Hounds. They appear in many quests and alter the dynamic of any fight they are in because of there ability to remove persistent aoe crowd control or damage effects.

2-Mobs that cast buffs like deathward or FoM. I have to depart from my usual, mindless way of handling the encounter and engage the mobs in a different way than usual.

3-Mobs that are not immune to charm effects and do not have to be killed before a door can opened. (doors opening only when everything is dead is literally the stupidest mechanic mankind has ever invented ever in all of time and space, and the stupidity of this mechanic will never ever be matched by anything mankind can ever do stupidly, even past the end of time. This mechanic prevents entire playstyles (and not just zergers, but stealthers, and charmers as well) from enjoying a dungeon that they otherwise might find engaging.)

[PsychoBlonde]

I think Air elementals and such would be cooler if they had a bigger radius for the vortex effect and they MOVED AROUND LESS. Like, they can't move *at all* when they're vortexing. Kind of like shadar-kai. Then you'd have some control over it and it would actually be an interesting tactical mechanic instead of just a random pain in the ass.

If giants did something like the little hoppy dance thing (in place) that ogres and trolls do when they're doing their knockback, that'd be more interesting, too. Or maybe the sword move that the Lord of Blades does when he's about to whirlwind. Something to warn you "quick! Either block or gtfo!"

[fool101]

Oh,

I forgot about the mind flayer sucking out your brain! That is very memorable and a good mechanic since it can be thwarted in a group. Too bad it doesn't happen more.

[PsychoBlonde]

When protecting the Rare Radhnik Odeen in Orchard of the Macabre there is often an Invisible Stalker among the mobs that attack him. I remember an Invisible Stalker in at least one other location, but cannot remember where at this time*

There are invisible stalkers in:

Tomb of the Shadow King
Tomb of the Shadow Guard
Tomb of the Shadow Knight (the Shadow Rogue is actually an invisible stalker)
Orchard of the Macabre
Litany of the Dead
Running with the Devils
Vale of Twilight

[PsychoBlonde]

I would like it very much if whatever controls the drow Necromancers was improved. They get annoying because sometimes a necro that isn't even aggro'd yet will rez mobs in a completely different group and they get the "haha I'm tougher because there's an undead around here somewhere!" buff really unpredictably. Their abilities need to be limited to functioning when the necro is activated only (so one down the street and around the corner won't rez a pack of mobs long before you ever see him) and also to only working off activated undead mobs.

[PsychoBlonde]

Also it's dreadful that Satyr's can sleep elves. ELVES ARE IMMUNE TO SLEEP. Even magical sleep. NO SLEEP.

[sirgog]

Which non-raid-boss monsters in DDO do you find the most memorable and engaging to interact with, and why?
If you think part of the reason for your answer is your class/build/playstyle, please include that!


Most memorable is probably air elementals. They aren't the best of memories, but you do not forget them.

As for positive memories, Phantasmal Wizards from CR 25 Rushmore challenges, with their pre-MotU AI and pre-MotU spell list, because they were legitimately deadly, but didn't kill you via alpha strike but via CCing your whole party with Discoball, Power Word Stun and the like, then whittled you down with damage spells, giving you plenty of time to recover from their assault but always posing a threat.



Now onto what is important with monsters. The post-MotU system of giving all monsters the same spells and abilities on n/h/e/en/eh/ee and just scaling their stats has been a total failure.

It has led to ridiculous monster stat bloat, self-healing that weaker players cannot overcome solo on the 'solo-friendly' difficulties, and ridiculous things like hybrid melee/caster mobs (eg the Pyromancer giants in Tor) being better at spellcasting than pure casters and better at melee than pure melee mobs because their CR is bloated - when the non-epic version of the quest was made, CR was determined from D&D stats, so these mobs were given the higher CRs.

It also led to monsters having offensive capabilities that are extremely punishing to solo players on the solo-friendly difficulties - witness Epic Normal Chamber of Raiyum, where there are mobs that cast both Greater Dispelling and Destruction.

At the end of the 20 cap, you got GOOD at designing monsters to be fiendish in their capabilities. Pre-MotU, there were actually dangerous melee mobs without ridiculous stats (Bladesworn Paladins, the Hezrous in Servants of the Overlord; both of which took 5 or more swings to kill a melee unlike the modern three-hit kill stupid melee mobs), mobs with effective countermeasures to kiting (most epic archers), and devastating casters (Bladesworn Artificers, Phantasmal Wizards).

Now you've lost that and have gone for 'difficulty = higher mob stats'. Go back to the old way of 'difficulty = requiring quick responses to changed circumstances'.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I liked the Illusionary Sprites and always wanted to see real ones somewhere in the game.
(the sound they make when the lot of them dies was fun. )


Speaking of illusionary monsters.....they need work. They need to have the traits of illusions.
Which I understand have always been an issue in D&D. But these guys even have a description of being illusions that says that Dissel Magic can get rid of them.... yet... it doesn't. I go in there on normal lvl 5 with my lvl 20 Wizard.. cast Dispel... and nothing.

The Illusionary traps should also be (wil) save for NO DAMAGE... from everyone. They are currently a Wil save.. which evasion will nto work against... that is fine. But instead of save for half, they should be save for disbelief...

I would liek to see more illusionary monsters... when they are fixed. And I would like to see more illusion spells. If nothing else, habe them be illusionary summon monsters.

Speaking of summoned monsters.... these need beefed up. Especially for Rgrs.
But it seems to me that simply having them scale with caster lvl for everyone would be a great fix.
This would fix Rgr summons and fix the uselessness of Druid spontaneous summons... which currently have no purpose other than having an Air Ellie...

What I mean is, once the Druid can cast a higher lvl summons, there is no reason to ever cast a lower lvl one.
But if their HD scaled, at least we could summon a lower one for cosmetic reasons.

This would help summons at epic lvls as well, because at lvl 28 a Summon Monster IV is pretty useless.
But if his HD scaled with caster lvl that is often increased via destinies, this would help a lot IMO.





Now that we have Deer, they should get the Rudolph treatment that Winter Wolves have.

Black Squirrels?

Angels/Archons/Devas etc.

More Demons and Devils.

In fact... isn't there a way to change the monsters in a quest for epic difficulty?
I hate epic Hobgoblins...etc.

Epic VON 1 would be so much cooler is it was full of Demons instead of Ogres and Trolls.

I would like to see the occasional surprise guest.
Like doing Kobold's New Ringleader at lvl 4 and seeing the Demon Queen burst through the door instead of the Ogre.

Anyway... stuff like that.

[Teh_Troll]

Best Monsters?

That's easy.

Trolls.

[Czekojin]

Nice vid

So, non-raid boss monsters (dang, I wanted to mention Black Abbot) for me:
beholders, succubus (amazing in The Weapons Shipment), dragons (obviously) and bees (lol, yes, i know).
:')

[Qhualor]

Which non-raid-boss monsters in DDO do you find the most memorable and engaging to interact with, and why?
If you think part of the reason for your answer is your class/build/playstyle, please include that!

Kai-Teng Fairuza may not be a quest boss but definitely memorable. he has a variety of weapons he switches out to and deals pretty good damage. must wear DB/DW or die. he can fatigue you and deal con damage. he is pretty badass and keeps me on my toes when soloing.

Cinnis. he is very intimidating and love the jumping attack. without protection he can whittle your hp down fast. in Inferno, I think its pretty cool watching the Cinderspawn come up from the ground to fight.

Ghola-Fan pretty much kills me every life I do that quest at level. his disintegrate and chain lightning can be nasty. he disappears and comes back with full health for round 2.

The Spinner of Shadows plays dirty. she likes to trip with her web and her poison venom really hurts. she has a very menacing look about her and creepy feeling when around her. very tough drider to kill.

Hestuss is just fun to play with. she comes across as a bully and I think she is going to kick my butt but really she is just a push over once you know her attacks. she has an intimidating look, but I still enjoy killing her.

as far as regular mobs, the most memorable are the ones I see more in the early levels and don't really see anymore past mid levels. I feel like there was a lot of thought and imagination put in when creating these types of monsters. I would love to see more of this in the later levels if possible. its nice to see something different than undead, trolls, bugbears, kobolds, elementals, wolves, rats, minotaurs, ogres, oozes.

bugbear bards. I think Cerulean Hills and i think i see some in a couple other low level quests.

barbarian shamans. i think Bounty Hunter and i don't think ive noticed them anywhere else.

halflings. i think Purge the Heretics and see them randomly in other low level quests.

giants. i think Gianthold wilderness and Threnal. you know, the really really tall guys.

dwarves. the best place i see them is A Relic of a Sovereign Past.

i would love to see more old D&D monsters make their way into the game that we haven't seen yet. not a fan of fighting plants, im sick to death of undead, wolves and spiders and annoyed with kobold hopscotch fighting tactics. more originality, more old rare Eberron monsters and more imagination please.