"Who gives a %#$" - EQ devs on Bard NPCs, 1999

[Stinkum]

Originally Posted by xCry0x

I mean, is your expectation of a Bard NPC that twists songs one that simply sits there playing a flute?

lolwut? I don't even know what you're smoking but I would imagine the non-dragon Bard NPCs would melee while twisting songs appropriate for whatever level the NPC is (slows, PBAEs, DoTs, charms, etc). This is the same way any other class mob works.

[stormlord]

Well, if you want a realistic reproduce of the classes then the standard NPCs in classic EQ weren't a good example anyway. The rangers I killed on live, for example, never were smart enough to try to root/snare me and then run away a safe distance to heal up. And if I was on a warrior they feasibly could have rooted me and used their bow to supplement their killing power. Instead they just stood there within melee range and I killed them. For that matter, none of the classes were very smart. So while they did implement an abysmal example of the bard, the rest of the examples weren't great, either. Don't skip over that, please.

Bottom line, don't expect much from NPC AI. In fact, I've seen many examples in the MMORPG arena from different companies that they think smart NPCs would be too hard/grindy for players to kill. Honestly, would you enjoy it if an NPC kited you or used the walls to protect itself while it healed up? Would you like it if they always ran to other NPCs even when they were above 70% health just to ensure they'd win?

Good AI would make the game more inaccessible. Think about the warrior example I gave. I tested the idea several times with a lvl 17 ranger and lvl 17 warrior. Basically, the ranger's root gave him infinitely more power versus the warrior. The warrior had no chance. So if we had good AI in classic EQ then soloing warriors would never touch a ranger or any class that roots/snares. And we all know that one of the compaints warriors had was that they couldn't solo well. Imagine their ability to solo being even worse...

This is why on the pvp servers most starting players would do hybrids or casters. Doing a warrior or monk, by comparison, put you in harms way because it exposed you to twinks AND new players, unless you had a close knit group of friends to play with. The other thing was that there were less players on pvp servers and non-hybrids couldn't find groups. So the beforementioned warrior will wander from zone to zone looking for a group and then get potentially killed by a random hybrid that's not even twinked.