Social mobs running

[drplump]

Many mobs that run when low on hp do not run under certain conditions. The main two I remember are you are low on HP or they have friends. Everything I have quad kited except specteres runs individually what that mobs hp gets low enough even though there is 4 of them chasing me. The gnolls in South Karana are an easy example as well as avaiks.

[postmoderntease0]

I have noticed this too, and remember it similarly. Social mobs, if in close proximity, wouldn't run even when low on HP. Similarly, if a mob was running but then your health dropped below a certain point (maybe 40%? 50%?) they would stop running and recommence killing you.

Also, am I the only one who remembers MoBs running at 20% health unless they were undead? I'm *lucky* if MoBs run if they drop below 10% right now... but I'm only level 14, so maybe that will change...

[Tallenn]

I was going to bring this up, too.

From everything I remember on live is that when mobs who run drop below 20% health, they start running (again, unless there is some other circumstance, like they have friends nearby, or you are also low health). On P99, it seems that when they run is some random number between maybe 0% and 10%. It's not consistent, even on the same type mobs that are the same level from one kill to the next.

Also, if a mob is green to you and is a runner, it will often run at much higher %- at least if it is really green, like 10 or more levels below you.

[Phallax]

I always thought the run % was 6, could be wrong. But yes the social running should be fixed. Most if not all social mobs would not run if there was at least 1 other with in 10-15ish feet.

[postmoderntease0]

This might be because I played a druid as my primary, and the majority of my leveling was done after Kunark was released, but I know for certain that mobs began to run after dropping below 20%, and more, that druids'/ rangers' snare completely prevented them from running when this took place. MoBs (except undead) would act as though both rooted and trying to run, and therefore could be held in place until finished without also turning to attack. This is why druids and rangers were sometimes desired in dungeons, as they would actually prevent runners from accruing adds rather than only slowing them and making it less likely (although this was part of the purpose of snare when MoBs were above 20%). Therefore, while I cannot say for certain if this was true for long pre-Kunark (because I was a newbie until after Kunark's release), I know it was at least true about a month beforehand.

[guineapig]

I don't know about quad kiting but when I am pulling 2 mobs and one is almost dead he never runs while the other is nearby. This goes for aviaks, orcs, bandits, you name it.

Maybe it has to do with your proximity to the specters? I know that's now supposed to have an impact since you have aggro, just trying to think of a reason why it would not be working the same way when you kite.

Of course mobs (as well as players) move slower when they are low on health so the specter that's closest to dying should be running slower than the other specs in the quad. That part would be normal.

[Omnimorph]

I remember this happening, but then i also remember on live when i was PLing a bard with my chanter that kobolds in stonebrunt all ran on low health independently of each other, the only way to counter this was to sit.

I do recall it happening the way as you have described it here, so i'm guessing they changed it on live at some point.

[guineapig]

I think it all depends if the mobs are programmed to assist each other or not.
I can't imagine the kobolds not being social on live but it's the only possible explanation that I can think of that would make sense.

[postmoderntease0]

I would bet it has more to do with the pathing in certain zones than whether mobs are programmed to assist each other or not. As for quad-kitin, all (N)PCs in EQ begin to run slower due to AGI hits when their HPs drop below a certain threshold. So if you're quad-kiting, and enemy 1 gets that runspeed hit because its HP dropped too low, while enemies 2, 3, and 4 resisted and therefore had higher HP, they would outrun enemy 1, which would then begin to run away (rather than stick with the other 3) once enemies 2-4 cleared its aggro radius. I had that happen a lot when I was kiting wyverns in cobalt scar with my druid-- they were social but not all the same level/ starting HP.

Myself, I care just as much about individual enemies running when they drop below 20% HP. I suppose a different thread should address that...

[Rogean]

This works with some mobs and not others, right?

I think the issue lies in the check it does for the mobs around it, it borrows from another function that does a check to see if the mobs around the mob deciding to flee or not are KoS to the player on the top of the mob deciding to flee's aggro.

Basically this means, if you were fighting something like, gnolls.. they won't flee if they have friends, but fighting something that isn't KoS to you off the bat, even though they do social aggro with their friends, they will flee even when their friends are around.

Does this seem accurate? I only took a few minutes to peek at it.

[postmoderntease0]

This works with some mobs and not others, right?

I think the issue lies in the check it does for the mobs around it, it borrows from another function that does a check to see if the mobs around the mob deciding to flee or not are KoS to the player on the top of the mob deciding to flee's aggro.

Basically this means, if you were fighting something like, gnolls.. they won't flee if they have friends, but fighting something that isn't KoS to you off the bat, even though they do social aggro with their friends, they will flee even when their friends are around.

Does this seem accurate? I only took a few minutes to peek at it.

I'm not sure, myself; I'm a dark elf on this server, so everything is KoS to me, lol. I will make a druid and see if I can't reproduce it today, but it's very difficult because MoBs never seem to run once dropping below the same hp %. The best example I can think of currently is in EK, with gnoll reavers. I know they can be random levels, but even the spawns that are the same level won't always run at the same HP. I've had white cons run at 10% and yellow-cons run at 5%. If MoBs aren't consistently running at the same HP-level, it's really difficult to test the 'social' aspect. Just my opinion.

[bionicbadger]

Also the part about mobs turning around to fight you even if they were running if your health gets below a certain level is something I remember from classic. I got killed a couple times because of being too enthusiasic with cannibalize and mobs would stop running and come pound on me. Also they would stop running and attack you if you sat down to med.

[ithaqua]

yes, like previously stated mobs should run at 20% hp unless they're social and
a mob is in assist range (doesn't have to be an aggroed mob, was enough that
one was nearby behind a wall or so, used that as a ghetto root with my monk
all the time) or if the one on top of aggro list is at lower hp

also, like the druid said, snare should set walk speed to zero, both when they
try to path home after fd/pc death and when they flee

[postmoderntease0]

Whew, glad it's not just me. I've made some posts about correcting stuff recently that I was *sure* I remembered being a certain way in classic which I'm now *sure* only served to confuse the devs even further/ make me sound like I didn't know what I was talking about (because I didn't, lol).

[girth]

yes, like previously stated mobs should run at 20% hp unless they're social and
a mob is in assist range (doesn't have to be an aggroed mob, was enough that
one was nearby behind a wall or so, used that as a ghetto root with my monk
all the time) or if the one on top of mob's aggro list is at lower hp

also, like the druid said, snare should set walk speed to zero, both when they
try to path home after fd/pc death and when they flee

This is exactly how I remember it.

-Running at 20% except for social mobs or a nearby mob or tank is <20% also
-snare kept mob from moving at all when fleeing, idk about after FD'ing tho - we used to have an SK help with pulls in live for the snare and after she FD'd all mobs would return just that one is slower(not rooted)

[Striiker]

I'll weigh in on this too. While I don't have the exact percentages (others are quite certain of their calculations though), I do remember using proximity to hold mobs in place when I didn't have a means of rooting / snaring. The Ghetto root phrase was one I used and heard used as well, referring to the proximity of a mob to others of its social group. We could hold stuff in place while also being far enough away from mobs so that they didn't engage us. This also allowed the quad-kiting I guess. I used to quad the Gnome guards a lot with my wizard and they all stuck together until the last one (on partial resists).