Revisiting this Npcs dont friendly fire each other so neither should we - Conan Exiles / General Discussion - Funcom Forums and likely other posts
With the advent and release of Age of War, I really though they’d have put something such as this into place.
I also find the rebuttals in the above post to be dismissive while also missing the point
Someone said ‘just let the mobs kill themselves’ um yes exactly that’s a fair strategy. If a bunch of idiots try to attack you and you cause them to attack themselves, well done sir…
Now I appreciate that there’s concern you could use this to in effect to ‘cheese’ mechanics, however isn’t mobs all ganging up on you without any consequence also cheesing?
And I am certain the persons who would like to have monsters act more realistic and dynamic, would therefore enjoy the combat more and spend less time avoiding it
So if you’re concern is they’d in effect be avoiding combat, trust me, they already do
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One of the most frustrating things Conan’s combat, is when mobs can all gang up on you, and there’s limitation, no penalty, no physics in a manner of speaking - there’s no cause and effect to their actions
Ever watched a real reenactment of a close quarters combat scenario with many combatants all using short ranged hand held weaponry?
Firstly, it’s not necessarily fluid or ‘smooth’ it’s often tedious, tiresome, gruelling, slow completely influenced by external factors such as weather and soil or surface traction…the list goes on
Therefore wildly swinging or being reckless or not respecting your surroundings means trouble in a myriad of ways, of which attacking or causing injury to your fellows being one the most notable
Or how about a fight scene in the street. You’ve got thugs with fists, some knives, some longer ranged weaponry
Do you really think they’re all going to run in at the same moment and start swinging for the fences? No, they don’t want to take a knife to the face or a punch to the back of the head or worse.
So they in some ways take turns; it’s why ridiculous fight scenes from a Chuck Norris film are not that far fetched (in that regard at least). The don’t all attack him simultaneously for a variety of reasons
It’s like everyone things real combat is something from the Batman Arkham game series, where you all you do is stand back and riposte or parry every attack, even multiple simultaneous attacks with artistic fluidity.
Conan has no actual real time defensive system, (which is another discussion)
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Some of us(shocker, we want some realism) play with friendly fire on, however if we go in wild and without caution we can do significant damage to one another. We cannot simply gang up on some mobs due to this
Yet mobs can gang up on us as stated before without consequence
Even if you some players don’t care for it or agree, simply in the sense of keeping things and features uniformed, Funcom expand the NPC system (properly for once) and their capabilities, and include friendly fire for us to toggle this feature on/off
And if you are someone that sees the point(s) or even agrees, then you appreciate that some more order and control of situations would open up more variety of how to deal with them. Maybe sometimes the damage is worth the risk and you go hard in as multiple persons and take some collateral damage, and others you have to thread the needle sot to speak
The same would be true for mobs and this would massively improve the dynamic of playing, especially solo or in small groups, because like a real battlefield (unlike Vikings television show), you square off with persons and battle it out in many cases.
And then…you can start to expand the current ‘defensive’ system and elements, as now you have reason to include real time ripostes and parries in a meaningful and useful way because you’ll be able to actually play strategically where it concerns defending by having correct counter attacks available to you
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I live and know this because I started this game way back in early beta, and among other things, this one element has stuck out like a sore thumb - to the point that we just end up avoiding combat as it’s no fun with such poorly designed and seemingly ‘dumb’ AI. For a game heavily based around PVE content, the mobs are sorely lacking meaningful and rewarding interaction.
We play then tire of the combat. Wait six months, revisit community page, see all the big updates and this is never included
So please make it a priority to flesh out the mobs and creatures more, including the ability to hurt one another