General consensus on a "fix" for mob AI

[Wurtstool]

Say that you are fighting Dragonfly and you have set up your walls for the Larve to get stuck on, you have your pan flute, armor, weapons, and healing ready and everything goes as planned for the 100th time you have fought her. Now taking the time to think back on the fight, you notice that the Larve that got stuck between and the magma pool isn't natural behavior for some monster that is trying to kill you in the constant, it is an obvious exposit in mob AI in order to make the fight easier on your self. This is where the conundrum come in, this setup is so ingrained in our playstyles that it is generally agreed upon to be the most efficient and proper way to fight Dfly, so if Klei were to patch Larve AI to attack walls to reach us will there be backlash in the community on this change? Before you say anything I know there are many other ways of fighting Dfly but right now I'm stating the most common method that people use.

Another non-combat day to day mob exploits we use are pig farms. With common sense you would think a pigs would open gates and remove any obstacles to reach food, or flat out ignore food if they cant reach them but instead they run face first into the wall indefinitely even if it gets dark. This isn't new and has been used ever since the beginning of DST, so if Klei were to patch this would people be unhappy that the method they have been using to farm pigs for years don't work all of a sudden?   

I can go on with other examples such as exploits using fossils and statues to exploit mob AI, but the general question still stands: do we think it is better for the game if these interactions are left in or is it better in the long run to "fix" these "exploits" for a more immersive experience?

[Thrul]

why do you want a videogame to have common sense?

[Juny Pear]

Well I personally say it heavily depends on a lot of factors.

Player habits and behaviour are definitely something many people will immediately think of. It's been in the game for such a long time that making specific changes to AI across the board like that would impact the experience of a lot of people pretty negatively, just because players have been used to this for years.

Another factor is immersion. It very much does feel odd for thinking creatures not to think of just... taking a different route or opening a gate within the context of this being a living world. So a more adaptive AI would contribute to making mobs feel less like objects with a set in stone and absolutely predictable behaviour and more like something that can think.

But that brings up another point. General perception of mobs and AI predictability. While it would be really interesting for mobs to behave that way, at the end of the day it could lead to the problem of unpredictability or just things seeming stacked against the player in an unfair way. Giving players options and ways to handle things by combining different simple mechanics and tools helps them feel both in control and not extremely helpless, on top of rewarding them for understanding mechanics and knowing how to utilize them.

An example, in order to make use of a pig farm players must understand several things about pig behaviour: They will eat most edible items [and even some that are inedible to the players], they always respawn at their houses and they don't break down walls or fences in the way to their food. If pigs were to either always break down walls or open gates, sure they would seem smarter, but in a way this would undermine the players' feeling of accomplishment in actually building a farm like that. The same goes for using walls to gate off lavae during the Dragonfly fight. Instead of letting players use different items/buildings in intuitive ways [blocking a mob's access to something or somewhere with walls for instance] this would rob players of options and thus experimentation. Now granted, dst is not the most complex game in its mechanics and experimentation can often end up falling short, but the little bits of experimentation and interesting interactions stem from certain restrictions to AI amongst other things.

The term for this is emergent gameplay. It's part of what makes more sandbox-like games so interesting and satisfying in my eyes. Having access to a lot of options and simpler mechanics that combine into something more complex and rewarding is a big part of what makes dst fun to me personally. But part of that relies on the individual parts being simple, and that is where a more complex AI can throw a wrench into things. Plus, even with an AI that counteracts certain player actions more, it could just lead to players either finding a different workaround, if one presents itself, or giving up on some things entirely because the game punishes them for trying things out. I don't think it would be too far fetched to say for instance that if lavae could bypass walls or other objects blocking their paths that a lot of players would not bother trying to fight dragonfly without a bigger group of people.

[Cheggf]

I don't think it's generally agreed upon that it's the most efficient way to fight her. If you just use two or three blue gems (a generally not very useful item) you will gain a ton of rocks from the fight since the lavae shatter into rocks. I think that's way more efficient that spending 10,000 rocks and a bunch of time on those walls. Most people don't even know you can do that, they've only seen people use walls so that's all they know how to do.

I don't really care whether or not the lavae attack walls like other mobs do. I don't use walls so it won't affect me.

[Juny Pear]

9 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I don't think it's generally agreed upon that it's the most efficient way to fight her. If you just use two or three blue gems (a generally not very useful item) you will gain a ton of rocks from the fight since the lavae shatter into rocks. I think that's way more efficient that spending 10,000 rocks and a bunch of time on those walls. Most people don't even know you can do that, they've only seen people use walls so that's all they know how to do.

I don't really care whether or not the lavae attack walls like other mobs do. I don't use walls so it won't affect me.

you only need like 30 walls to do it
that's 10 cutstone/30 rocks

using ice staffs on lavae also works, but is also a more expensive cost longterm, because they run out eventually and you use up 3 uses per lavae. You may get rocks out of it, but you're spending several twigs, rope, flint and bluegems per fight

[ArubaroBeefalo]

is something that doesnt affect people that dont like it (except when a mob gets stuck walking or something) so i dont care if they change it or not since i dont usually relly on pathfinding exploids. There are priorities imo and making people angry doesnt seems like a smart one

[Guille6785]

I think that if you're obsessed with limiting how other people choose to play a sandbox game maybe sandbox games aren't for you to begin with

[Well-met]

yea it would create alot of crying because exploiting is a "playstyle"

fortunately klei has shown they are willing to do ai fixes from time to time

[Yuuko]

imo these types of changes take away play options without adding anything for players or the game.  They are purely a meta-based decision, and break immersion.

Why can Klaus walk over his sack?  He has two basic interactions between himself and structures.  He either smashes through them, or he is blocked by them.  Why is this 1 item different?  It blocks player movement, why not Klaus?

Why can't Wanda attack over small gaps in the ruins?  Her attack has a certain range and attacks over structures.  The gap is shorter than her range.  Ranged attacks can go over them.  Why is this 1 attack different?

The reason is entirely meta-based.  Someone didn't like what some player chose to do and in a few blunt keystrokes, clumsily patched it out.  What a waste of creative design, dev hours, and player innovation...

Lavae being walled off does not break immersion because it is consistent with game logic.  When mobs run into walls they have a few interactions.  They can path around them, attack them, fly over them, or smash through them.  Lavae path around walls, check.  Lavae pools are a class of structure which is both impassable, yet is undetected by mob pathing.  Mobs ignore them like they do ponds etc, and can become stuck due to it being ignored when pathing.  Lavae are again consistent with their interaction.

Ancient Guardian cheese was removed, but along with removing it we got an actual rework to AG.  It didn't just remove this cheese, arbitrarily deciding pillars don't obstruct AG's movement the same way they obstruct players and other mobs, they changed the fight and terrain to give us consistent interactions and removed the necessity of the cheese by giving us a fight worth engaging in.  If you really want the lavae to be unable to be stopped by walls, consider a better interaction that players can engage with instead.  Just deleting things you don't like makes the game seem like a patch-work of disjointed edge cases and short-sighted decision making.

[Mike23Ua]

People need to gather the evidence of what has already been done to the game to get a glimpse of the games future..

Character reworks with new mostly useful unique gameplay and abilities.

Boating, Fishing & Farming Rework to be far far more complex and in depth then they have been in the past.

Exploits removed such as getting Klaus stuck on his Krampus sack or AG stuck between pillars.

Boss Reworks  (AG & Deerclops so far.. but I doubt they will be the last.)

New world Gen settings for a bit of easier or harder gameplay.

Then they tease stuff in their animated shorts such as Pig raids on your base.

Its only a matter of time before we see more changes..

And personally- it’s no different from changes you’d find from DS to an actual DS2 sequel.

People who enjoy the game will adapt to the changes, people who won’t I suppose can hope for a “Classic mode” or just play Solo DS.

[Gashzer]

Mobs lack animations, so its hard to know if pigs or larve getting "stuck" on things is legit behaviour or not...

if Klei added a sniffing/jumping animation to pigs when they reached walled off food and if larve did attack walls but bounced off doing no damage but got dazed.

These things would increase the immersion of the constant.

2 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

I think that if you're obsessed with limiting how other people choose to play a sandbox game maybe sandbox games aren't for you to begin with

Go play goat simulator if you like sandbox games that are filled with buggy AI, people don't want to limit DST at all they just are pushing for a more polished/bug free experience... Ancient guardian for example is a much more fleshed out and polished fight now.... 

Hate when people defend buggy gameplay. Im sure Klei could give more life/animations/interactions to pigmen, bunnymen, dfly larve etc... for a more enhanced an fun experience without interfering with peoples go to norms for stuff. But no no, Guille doesn't like change... so bring back old ancient guardian... bring back klaus sack blocking... bring back old wolfgang...... man needs his cheesy speedruns hehehe

[Cloakingsumo198]

7 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Mobs lack animations, so its hard to know if pigs or larve getting "stuck" on things is legit behaviour or not...

if Klei added a sniffing/jumping animation to pigs when they reached walled off food and if larve did attack walls but bounced off doing no damage but got dazed.

These things would increase the immersion of the constant.

These type of changes while not necessary add a lot to the way players will perceive the "buggy" looking ai.

[Eughstein]

8 hours ago, Wurtstool said:

Say that you are fighting Dragonfly and you have set up your walls for the Larve to get stuck on, you have your pan flute, armor, weapons, and healing ready and everything goes as planned for the 100th time you have fought her. Now taking the time to think back on the fight, you notice that the Larve that got stuck between and the magma pool isn't natural behavior for some monster that is trying to kill you in the constant, it is an obvious exposit in mob AI in order to make the fight easier on your self. This is where the conundrum come in, this setup is so ingrained in our playstyles that it is generally agreed upon to be the most efficient and proper way to fight Dfly, so if Klei were to patch Larve AI to attack walls to reach us will there be backlash in the community on this change? Before you say anything I know there are many other ways of fighting Dfly but right now I'm stating the most common method that people use.

Another non-combat day to day mob exploits we use are pig farms. With common sense you would think a pigs would open gates and remove any obstacles to reach food, or flat out ignore food if they cant reach them but instead they run face first into the wall indefinitely even if it gets dark. This isn't new and has been used ever since the beginning of DST, so if Klei were to patch this would people be unhappy that the method they have been using to farm pigs for years don't work all of a sudden?   

I can go on with other examples such as exploits using fossils and statues to exploit mob AI, but the general question still stands: do we think it is better for the game if these interactions are left in or is it better in the long run to "fix" these "exploits" for a more immersive experience?

no, it will just make everyone's experience worse, not even talking about Winona mains 

[Dextops]

7 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Mobs lack animations, so its hard to know if pigs or larve getting "stuck" on things is legit behaviour or not...

if Klei added a sniffing/jumping animation to pigs when they reached walled off food and if larve did attack walls but bounced off doing no damage but got dazed.

These things would increase the immersion of the constant.

Go play goat simulator if you like sandbox games that are filled with buggy AI, people don't want to limit DST at all they just are pushing for a more polished/bug free experience... Ancient guardian for example is a much more fleshed out and polished fight now.... 

Hate when people defend buggy gameplay. Im sure Klei could give more life/animations/interactions to pigmen, bunnymen, dfly larve etc... for a more enhanced an fun experience without interfering with peoples go to norms for stuff. But no no, Guille doesn't like change... so bring back old ancient guardian... bring back klaus sack blocking... bring back old wolfgang...... man needs his cheesy speedruns hehehe

Except guille was the main outcrier in the hotfix  thread which made ancient guardian exponentially worse (and where Klei said they were aware in the state he was in which later led to the ag rework in the qol)

If bosses weren’t an absolute pain in the ass people would be less reliant on cheese methods and fixing cheese methods without fixing the reason people used those cheese methods helps absolutely 0 people except for people who absolutely hate hate hate hate the thought of others using cheese methods. People weren’t mad when the pillar cheese for ag was fixed cause it made the boss not a boring clunky mess 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

20 hours ago, Dextops said:

If bosses weren’t an absolute pain in the ass people would be less reliant on cheese methods and fixing cheese

people cheese even the easier and funnier bosses (just see the cries when the collision on the Klaus sack was removed, they complaint because they arent able to hold F to win without even build anything). Dont use that as excuse. People just wanna win without frustration or/and effort.  Just the see the workshop, there are even revival campfires, extra equip slots, 50 inventory slots, people use rollbacks for everything, people use wall on DF even when they are 6 players, they watch guides spoiling everythingg after 2 attemps of surviving. autumn, pubs get empty when winter starts, etc 

Our brains want rewards withe minimal energy investment. That is how social media webs like tik tok are adivtive and that is why youtube is filled by video tutorials

Dont blame bosses when this a game where most of them are fun even in late game which is a rare thing with that many games with rpg progression 

[Wurtstool]

First off I am in no way trying to insinuate limiting a player towards tackling a challenge, in fact I am more than happy of there are more ways to tackle said challenge. In my example for Dfly I am amazed that there are so many ways people do the fight, be it with walls, ice staffs, killing the Larve out right, and even doing it panfluteless. Player creativity breeds new life and reward into previously existing content. So I completely get why people want old methods to still exist.

But the compromise is that because if this, some things would look "buggy", "unimerssive", and "out of place" in the constant. So to alleviate this I suggest to change AI such that player methods that worked before still works but also have mobs behave natural. For example if a pig can't reach food, instead of running face first into a wall, they will mingle around in close proximity to that food even when it turns night, this way your pigs farm still works and the pigs act like they are still tempted by the food without breaking immersion. If they can do something similar to Dfly Larves, I'm all for it.

Stuff like this creates Polish, and can we all agree that polish is always better for any game, this also makes it that "exploits" are perceived more as "features".            

[Dextops]

59 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

people cheese even the easier and funnier bosses (just see the cries when the collision on the Klaus sack was removed, they complaint because they arent able to hold F to win without even build anything). Dont use that as excuse. People just wanna win without frustration or/and effort.  Just the see the workshop, there are even revival campfires, extra equip slots, 50 inventory slots, people use rollbacks for everything, people use wall on DF even when they are 6 players, they watch guides spoiling everythingg after 2 attemps of surviving. autumn, pubs get empty when winter starts, etc 

Our brains want rewards withe minimal energy investment. That is how social media webs like tik tok are adivtive and that is why youtube is filled by video

Dont blame bosses when this a game where most of them are fun even in late game which is a rare thing with that many games with rpg progression 

I disagree completely. Just because there are a lot of “qol” mods doesn’t mean that people don’t cheese bosses cause they’re a hell hole. I barely see anyone cheese klaus cause he is a genuine fun boss but ones that have garbage mechanics like dfly and beequeen are more cheesed than usual. Instead of JUST fixing the cheese method if you made the boss an enjoyable experience while simultaneously fixing the cheese less people would complain. Klei has done this before and it worked wonders so I don’t get your point when it’s shown to have worked before. Either fix the cheese and make the asinine boss better or just don’t fix the cheese at all.

Just now, Dextops said:

I disagree completely. Just because there are a lot of “qol” mods doesn’t mean that people don’t cheese bosses cause they’re a hell hole. I barely saw anyone cheese klaus cause he is a genuine fun boss and the cheese method they did use just trivialized a single attack but ones that have garbage mechanics like dfly and beequeen are more cheesed than usual. Instead of JUST fixing the cheese method if you made the boss an enjoyable experience while simultaneously fixing the cheese less people would complain. Klei has done this before and it worked wonders so I don’t get your point when it’s shown to have worked before. Either fix the cheese and make the asinine boss better or just don’t fix the cheese at all.

 

Just now, Dextops said:

I don’t know why it quoted myself instead of editing but now it’s stuck like this ????

[ArubaroBeefalo]

5 minutes ago, Dextops said:

but ones that have garbage mechanics like dfly and beequeen

hard disagree

[Cloakingsumo198]

I just want these things to look prettier but kept in game.

[Frosty_Mentos]

The argument for these things that were described in the thread is that we don't exactly have specialized structures to tackle these issues without some kind of AI abuse. 

Think about this. We've been abusing one or another way of using gates, walls or whatever to lure pigs or other livestock into a location to have an easier time of killing them. There's no specialized provided lure, automatization to shut or open gates, there's really nothing we can do about creatures being trapped without them running back to their homes. Also the fact that houses for pigs and bunnies are made as sort of livestock that you keep. If those weren't a viable option then next case are beefalos with bells for slaughter or goats. There's technically no actual ranching in the game either, only exploiting AI for what's intergraded.

Singleplayer was like that for a long time and I'm not sure if that many people really cared to complain about it when food in general was easy enough to obtain. Especially with bunnies or spiders. For multiplayer we have some bits of ranching and farming, but creatures remain either passive friendly or hostile depending on the creature and their states. Saltlicks exists as a 'livestock' persay thing, but we nothing more but keep beefalos satisfied with them.

To conclude meat farming - we don't have anything farming wise yet reworked for keeping livestock in the game and we just kinda keep wild animals or sentient ones for slaughter. Unless Klei decides to tackle that someday to add some sorts of new ways of getting meat and pigskins without killing when building villages, or at least some alternative way like reputation or something then maybe there would be something going on.

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Dragonfly and other bosses are a kind of a split thing personally. While I would want more diverse ways to combat without abusing AI, on the other hand the game is not made for PVE combat besides the few characters that specializes at that. And a couple of scenario reliant tools. All bosses are nothing but a resource farms for one thing or another, albeit bee queen for honeycombs, fuelweaver for thulecite and rare gems, Celestial for infinite lights. Bosses are varied but combat strategy often is the same. Do as much damage as you can and change your battlefield to your liking. Either hire armies or use walls, outcome ends up sorta the same - you get loot, you come back again later.

If you don't like the way combat goes in the game, you can instead try different methods to approach them first, then write a review of those methods and how you feel about it.

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I'll just say there's nothing needed to be fixed when it's not broken. If you want diversity to these boss killing or resource gathering methods then make a thread about that cause then there's perhaps more to agree to, there would be more to debate or talk about. Applying sense to the game doesn't apply enjoyability factor to the game. If there's negative reception about something then it's more of a problem that's necessary to be tackled upon...

To be fair, this thread's theme is rather really vague by definition. The game's whole theme is kinda like "Just don't think about it and it'll make sense" like Wanda's or someone's quote is.

[GamePlayer42]

too many wurts in this place, but i think this isnt the way to go about making dst a more immersive game. and with some stuff it somewhat makes sense. for the pigs just walking they are extremely dumb and inferior to humans on an intelligence basis. nothing for larvae( besides them thinking they are pure lava and abel to go through small cracks but their body has a magma in it)

[Wurtstool]

ya know, it's ironic how Klei patched a Mob's AI only a day after this was brought up. Stuff like this is the reason why discussion on this topic is important and peoples opinion on a change matter in the future.

[Masked Koopa]

10 hours ago, GamePlayer42 said:

too many wurts in this place

10 hours ago, GamePlayer42 said:

or the pigs just walking they are extremely dumb and inferior

Sure sounds like something a Wurt might say 

[00petar00]

8 hours ago, Wurtstool said:

ya know, it's ironic how Klei patched a Mob's AI only a day after this was brought up. Stuff like this is the reason why discussion on this topic is important and peoples opinion on a change matter in the future.

The bee queen boat exploit wasn't patched because of this thread but because it was reported last Sunday when there really was no reason to fix this and it was in the game for years. So any players that complain when they see you cheese a boss, they can just report exploits instead and get them fixed. Now you can be forced to play their way or not fight bosses, which is unfortunate to see.

[Pig Princess]

17 hours ago, GamePlayer42 said:

for the pigs just walking they are extremely dumb and inferior to humans on an intelligence basis

 

7 hours ago, Masked Koopa said:

Sure sounds like something a Wurt might say

Wait, but merms can be baited in such a way as well, and rock lobsters, bunnymen, aren't they? And also players. I accidently made bone shard farm on public server once: there was tentacle trap near Bee Queen set by me, and since Winter's Feast was on, I farmed Been Queen for honeycombs a couple of times; I left blueprint since I didn't need it after first time, but the next time I came there there were quite a few skeletons of people that tried to pick blueprint and failed (later corpses were from people who probably were stuck on previous ones as well). Also I saw with my own eyes people dying in same exact way after I helped them to resurrect on that same trap.

That's all I wanted to say about intelligence and inferiority.