DRL > Requests For Features

Lost Soul AI change

(1/4) > >>

Klear:
Ok, I began writing this as a reply to discussion on some mortem, but then I dedcided to dedicate a thread to it.

Right now lost souls give a lot of trouble in AoMr, with the city of skulls being extremely hard. I have an idea how to change their AI, though I don't really know if A) it can be implemented, B) if it would really help.

No reason not to throw it out here, though:


Lower their ordinary speed a little, but give them the ability to charge the player. Basically the lost soul would check if it has clear line of sight to the player and then (with some probability) perform a charge attack, that is move directly in the direction of the player and damaging him if it hits. This charge would be dodgeable (as if it was a projectile) and if the player successfully dodged, the lost soul would continue in its path until it hit an obstacle or reached maximum charge distance (not sure how far that should be, but it should represent the very rapid movement of the lost soul).
If there is an enemy in the path of the charge, the soul would stop and damage that enemy instead (as it worked in doom, according to what I read recently).
The souls would not always charge, sometimes they'd simply close in on the player as normal, and when in melee range, they would always attack normally.
I'm not sure if such a behavior can be scripted easily, I suppose it could be done using some sort of fake ranged attack, which would cause the soul to move instead of a projectile. The good thing about it would be that the souls would not hopelessly swarm the player so easily and souls in the back would probably end up biting the ones in front, making the encounter easier.

I imagine that a few sucessful dodges would lead to souls being all around the player, but not in melee range, hopefully. That could give pistol-based builds time to attack (and gun kata would benefit greatly from the ability to dodge them), while it would make the souls more spread out and thus make it a little harder for a dodging shotgunner.

Additional benefit is that single souls would be fun to encounter, with the possibility to bait them and use them against other monsters, plus YASDs by souls missing players and running into a barrel nearby instead.

Also, they would behave more like their counterparts from the real Doom, instead of being simply faster and weaker version of demons, so that is a definite plus, I think.

What do you think?

Uitë:
I like it, because I think it makes them both more manageable, and more interesting at the same time, without really weakening them as well.

Klear:
BTW, if this charge behaviour was implemented, it would be possible to further "doomify" pain elementals as well:
They could spawn only a single lost soul (probably with a greater probability, or more often, or both), which would instantly charge the player.

Such a change would utterly change the gameplay of CoS though, and I don't dare to imagine how exactly. It would definitely have to be tested extensively, if it is even possible.

One more thing - LS charge would make it much harder to kill single souls without any loss of life, unless you got dodgemaster.

Creaphis:
I like this idea.

Clustered lost souls would charge into each other, "thinning the herd" a bit, but this would make lost souls and pain elementals easier to kill with bullet builds. Also, right now, pain elementals are extremely non-threatening when you're equipping a shotgun. I'm certain that I've never even been damaged by the agony elemental or its spawn as I always have at least a combat shotgun by the time I get there. If lost souls charged and scattered, and if pain elementals fired a single lost soul as a projectile attack, different builds would be more evenly matched against these enemies.

skarczew:
My little spam:

--- Quote ---Right now lost souls give a lot of trouble in AoMr, with the city of skulls being extremely hard.

--- End quote ---
You should have seen Pain Elemental - only - cave that I encountered on my AoMr run. City of Skulls cannot match it at all :| .


--- Quote ---What do you think?

--- End quote ---
Nice idea, very doomish. Very similar to the original behavior.

Moreover, typical Doom LS was very slow when compared to the other monsters. It was their charge that was making them so fast.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page