Curing system and NPCs

Accipiter

So, with server side curing around now, do you think it would be possible for special mobs to be able to be affected by pvp skills in the future? They would still have their huge health pools and massive damage like all mobs, but you could slow down their offense.

Of course you couldn't do this to single mobs like Bella or Big Z, because then big groups could just shut them down entirely with afflictions, but say next event comes around with the Inatrev invading, 4 or 5 soldiers attacking cities that you could hinder PvP style, slightly faster curing balance than players so it is balanced for groups. Sounds like fun to me.

Sarapis

Doing so is an absolutely massive change to the game's backend unfortunately, and as you say we can't actually have most mobs affected by afflictions for practical reasons (not to mention that for most mobs, there's no reason to afflict them as doing so would just slow down your hunting rate).

We'd like to get more skills affecting NPCs, but it has to be carefully proscribed because a) the amount of work involved is a lot more than you'd think due to the fact that mobs and players are completely different data structures that share nothing and b) the effort vs. reward ratio is not that great.

Having said that, with our trend of making the newbie experience better, we've been talking about making more low-level class skills bashing-oriented, since PvP isn't something, even with server-side curing, newbies can really get into anyway. 

Accipiter

@Sarapis Oh, I didn't mean converting mobs so they could cure, aside from anything else that would make knights/bards and possibly blademasters completely overpowered in bashing (and any other class that has a primary damage+affliction attack). It was more creating a new class of NPC that would cure/allow player attacks.

There are problems with it aside from the huge effort of coding it would require, how to tell players that this is a mob that can be affected being a large one, but it would mean that divine events could have larger scaled battles with less micromanaging. 

Another pro would be making training areas for newbies working their way to PvP in the smaller cities, or even the larger ones in off peak times. In Hashan at least, it is difficult to find anyone to allow you to practice your offense unless you are on in peak times, having a dueling type in say the Matsuhama Arena where you could face npc opponents whose only difference is the complexity of their priority lists. It could also encourage the PvP community in less combat orientated cities like Hashan and Cyrene by giving them mercenaries to hire so that they could sanction raids without an overwhelming numerical disadvantage.

But I guess making a new data type like that is a huge undertaking and probably not worth the time with a limited staff, especially when you are already working on large changes like multiclass. Just something to think about when you get to the end of your not-going-to-be-finished-in-the-next-10-years list.

Cynlael

Spoiler tagged for length, but taken from Imperian:
[spoiler] These afflictions are supported on mobs right now:

- fear: 50% chance to scare the mob out of the room; anything immune to Intimidate is immune to this one as well

- peace: the mob doesn't attack until the effect wears off

- amnesia: the mob forgets whom it was attacking

- shivering: a small periodic chance to become disrupted

- frozen: mob doesn't attack or move

- prone: mob doesn't attack or move

- disrupted: same as prone/frozen (for now; further additions will differentiate between these three)

- disloyalty: other loyal mobs do not assist this one

- sleep - the mob falls asleep; this one has no cooldown, but instead only works 33% of time, and doesn't work on guards

Not all attacks that give these afflictions work against mobs. For now, these do:

Assassin/Renegade: Freeze (Spatium)
Bard: Kiyan, Mellaon, Kawis (Voice)
Deathknight: Chill (Necromancy), Battlecry(prone only) (Brutality)
Defiler: Sleep, Pacification (Shadowbinding), Harrow (Desecration)
Diabolist: Chill (Necromancy), Fear, Amnesia (Evileye)
Druid: Swing (Evocation)
Hunter: Glare (Shapeshifting)
Mage: Freeze, Disrupt (Pyroglacia)
Monk: Fear, Disrupt (Telepathy)
Outrider: Icebreath (Wyrmriding)
Predator: Gouge (Knifeplay), Disrupt (Beastmastery)
Priest: Panic (Fayth)
Ranger/Amazon: Legsweep, Battlecry(prone only) (Warding)
Runeguard - Battlecry (prone only) (Chivalry)
Summoner: Rixil, Eerion (Enslavery)
Templar - Battlecry(prone only) (Chivalry)
Wardancer: Distract (Bladedance)
Wytch: Fear, Amnesia (Curses) [/spoiler]

Though I imagine the coding being a lot different to Imperian, since Achaea is a decent bit older older, it could be a neat thing to gradually introduce over time.