Game Mechanics: More than 4 npc's shouldn't be able to attack a target at once

[Rygar]

Just wanted to add some relevant information to this thread and give it a brief ressurection. Nilbog, it seems you were asking when these mob and pet limitations went in. Hopefully this can shed some light...

There was a developer interview in 2002 that brought to light a '4 pet limit' on mobs here (it is a repost of original interview):

Is there a code imposed limit on the number of pets that can be actively
engaging a single monster, and if so what is that limit? -Istaron

Yes. No more than four pets can engage a single target. This is basically to prevent use of only pets to defeat opponents. We think it's important to have some player characters involved in the combat at times.

I believe at this point in time that code they are referring to is no longer working as intended. I'll get more to that later. Other people disputed not being able to have more than 4 pets at once after the interview.

One comment here:

Try it and check your logs.

Get 5 pet classes together, have them all hit /pet kill and step close enough to log the hits. You'll find something rather interesting.

I also found video evidence of more than 4 pets attacking at once on revamped CT in fear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig7k_-2B8l8

During this fight there are 3 shaman pets, 2 spectre necro pets, and an enchanter animation (so 6 in total). At first glance when they engage you can see a shaman pet just stand back and do nothing. I thought maybe this 4 mob limit was preventing it from attacking, but we just don't know (shaman could have been asleep, or a strategy to engage after the first knockback from CT).

Go to about 0:45 seconds in and you can see 3 wolves and 2 spectres all swinging their attack animation. I didn't notice the enchanter animation, he is seen running around after the videographer got knocked back (the animation is not engaged / attacking). But that doesn't appear to be definitive proof, chanter could have summoned after he got knocked back, previous animation maybe died on a riposte or something. But we do see it attacking later, which is 6 pets total.

So we either gather from this that the 4 pet rule is not in place, or maybe it had some proximity rules (such as only the 4 closest pets can BEGIN to attack, once new pets move into range, they can begin the attack as well). I'm leaning towards the former.

Digging further, we see an in length rant discussing the 'max of 4 pets' on an NPC issue here. Has an interesting blurb:

Many of us have seen in excess of 4 summoned pets
swinging away at a single target - but have seen
a charmed pet just wander away from the same mess.

So, like many things, it appears that the 4 pet
limit is for charmed pets (and NPC's) not summoned
pets which were made more PC like quite a while back.

First of all, there is a lot of counter evidence in the thread about summoned pets being able to maul a single target. They point to a mage website where a group of some 20+ mages went to PoA and farmed crowns with their pets. Even claim there was logs of 12 pets doing damage in the span of 2 seconds and screenshots of them all engaged. I couldn't find that site to verify, but for now I'll focus on the 'pets being made more PC like' being a culprit here.

11/29/2000 Patch:
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20001129.html

Random-effects on weapons carried by pets will now behave as if the pet is a player character rather than an NPC. The change last patch reduced them to a rate below player characters. As part of this patch, target-specific random effects will only work if the target is the intended type. For instance, a weapon that processes 'Dismiss Summoned' will only 'go off' on a summoned NPC instead of everything.

It's quite possible that at this point in time, 11/29/2000, is when pets were able to by-pass the '4 pet limit' code that was in place, because they were no longer treated as NPCs.

But when did this go in place? Perhaps initially, who knows. Let's dig a little deeper, some discussion here, kind of switching to the 'only 4 mobs can attack a PC' side of the argument, but I'm thinking it is part of the same code that went in:

So, if someone's neglected their defense for a long time, they could run around a newbie zone collecting rats and bats until theres a dozen beating on him, and defense will start to go up?

There was a patch a while ago that insured you won't have more than 4 beating on you at any given time, so I think the dozen theory won't fly that well...

Additional confirmation below and some potential evidence for the 'can only root 4 mobs' theory (one questions why not root more for powerleveling, but I digress):

Only 4 will engage you at once, but the others will wait. My 37 Wizard was helping my new Monk the other day (two computers and accounts), and one of the ways I'd do it was run around and root 4 mobs, then run around and use a level 1 nuke on 4 more, and then run back to the monk. The monk could then pick one of the 4 that were on me, and start beating it. Meanwhile, the roots were wearing off. As the roots wore off, these mobs would come over and stand nearby. As the monk would kill the mobs beating on me, they would be replaces from those others.

On a side note, in browsing some classic 'powerleveling' guides and dev questions, the number 4 is referenced a lot in terms of damage shield leveling:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc22.shtml

They pull 4 mobs and make sure they hit them all. Then the cleric casts CH and the mobs all aggro onto the cleric. If someone puts a dam shield on the cleric the mobs will all die and the warrior will get credit.

So anyways, there is reference to this '4 mobs attacking a PC' being patched in. I haven't discovered that smoking gun yet. My theory is it was in Kunark. Basically, reading over old testimonials and interviews, the player base was not aware of what 'leash' was (it WAS in old world, but due to smaller zones and habit to zone before dying, few knew about it).

Basically there was a problem in Kunark where a tank or whatever would pull and a mob would leash. Hate list would extend over and over as it passed mobs out of range and a character got added to the list. Eventually they would get too close to a pack and BOOM, insta gibbed by a bunch of mobs. They did a lot of work to the 'call for help' function and such to fix this, but it wasn't perfect. So I think that is when the 'max 4 mobs' got added in (but just a theory).

Real quick want to go back to how this 'only 4 mobs can melee a PC at once' thing works and other discussion, link again here:

Probably because pets are mobs, and so use the same rules as mobs. Go to
some newbie or lowbie area sometime and aggro a bunch of different kinds of
mobs (use different mobs so you can tell them apart in the status messages).
Get 6 or 7. Notice how only 4 actually try to melee you at once?

<snip>

Anyway, the Wizard has about 20 mobs aggroed, all deep deep green to him.
At any given time, four of them are standing in his face, trying to hit him,
but mostly missing. The rest are all standing around, at a respectable
distance, waiting their turn. Whenever the Monk kills one of the four,
another rushes in from the surrounding circle to take its place.

A rebuttle to this:

Yes and no...

You can tow 4 wimp mobs around the zone so that any higher level that tries
to agro on you can't get into melee range...

HOWEVER... [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.])

This only applies to MELEE RANGE... casters that agro can still cast on you
if they're beyond melee range, healers can heal/buff the lawn trash if
they're on the same faction, mobs with missile weapons can use them on you
from beyond melee range.

Last but not least... are charmed mobs affected by the '4 pets per target limit' even after the patch making PCs more pet like? I seem to think it has some merit, quotes from same link above (in addition to previous charm quote):

Many mages have seen more than 4 summoned pets hit a mob, you're not alone. However, several of us have seen a charmed or direcharmed pet avoid engaging a mob with 4 pets on it already. Given that summoned pets are no longer NPC's (see changes to Sword of Runes) and more PC like, I think that is the distinguishing difference.

This Trakanon raid appears to be Luclin, the charmed golems seem to behave strangely. Some of them just sit and look away, don't appear to be attacking and charm appears to be on. I also see a necro pet bug out because of this, just standing at one point instead of meleeing. So perhaps charmed mobs by-pass this 'more PC like' change and are considered more NPC like (perhaps so they can cast NPC only spells?).

Anyways, take away from this what you will. I'm too tired to write a summary right now, am happy to research any missing information further, or information you'd like more corroboration on.