I'd like to submit that the current options for patrols and the like are a bit limited when you're designing missions.
Here's the completely fictitious scenario to go by. Imagine that your mission circles around a group of 5th Council invading a Crey facility, and there are civilians in the base. The players have to get into the base, recover clues, rescue civilians, defeat the big bads at the end, and whatever else you can think of, while 5th and Crey are fighting for control of the facility.
If I recall correctly, the current alignment settings for AE are as follows:
ENEMY: Patrols of this type will only attack players. If your mission involves two different villain groups, those groups will not attack each other. Consequently, if you have a patrol from group A walk past a static spawn from group B, they will not attack that spawn. Also, two patrols from opposing groups will not attack each other, even if that's the behavior you desire.
ALLY: Patrols of this type are friendly to the players. The patrol won't follow or attack the players, but will attack any enemies around them.
ROGUE: Patrols of this type will attack ANYONE, including other members of their own group. Consequently, if a patrol of 5th Column runs across another patrol of 5th column, they'll wipe each other out. Or, if a patrol of 5th column runs across a Crey patrol, those two will engage in combat until one of them emerges the victor.
Now, here's where things are lacking:
Patrols never attack static spawns. This breaks immersion. If the 5th are trying to take over the base, why are they ignoring all the Crey standing around trying to look menacing?
Patrols set to Enemy will ignore each other, again breaking immersion. If the 5th are trying to take over the base, why are they ignoring the Crey patrol walking right past them?
In either case, you almost never want 5th Column patrols to attack other 5th Column patrols. That would kind of defeat the purpose of trying to take over a Crey facility. In point of fact, it would probably do a lot to help the Crey fight off the 5th, and tick off the Invasion Leader.
The sensible thing for patrols to do is attack any character on the map that isn't in your own group. Unfortunately, the Mission Editor currently provides no setting for patrols that encourages them to behave in this way.
So I'm suggesting the addition of a new alignment, appropriately named Group, that would do just that. Patrols with this aligment will attack any character they encounter that is not within their own group.
This would allow for roving battles between groups within maps.
Naturally, players would not receive XP for those NPCs defeated by NPC patrols. However, this setting is a story-telling device, as it creates a more dynamic environment within the mission. If I want to create a map where Crey and 5th Column, or Nemesis and Rikti are fighting for control of the map, that can be very easily done with lots of patrols set to GROUP. That cannot be done with ROGUE, since the patrols would wipe each other out, regardless of which group they belonged to.
(Also noteworthy is that my testing of the current implementation of Rogue appears to be buggy. Sometimes, patrols set to Rogue attack each other, and other times they completely ignore each other. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to this behavior.)
I'm open to comments, critiques, rebuttals and suggestions.
I'd like to submit that the current options for patrols and the like are a bit limited when you're designing missions.
Here's the completely fictitious scenario to go by. Imagine that your mission circles around a group of 5th Council invading a Crey facility, and there are civilians in the base. The players have to get into the base, recover clues, rescue civilians, defeat the big bads at the end, and whatever else you can think of, while 5th and Crey are fighting for control of the facility.
If I recall correctly, the current alignment settings for AE are as follows:
- ENEMY: Patrols of this type will only attack players. If your mission involves two different villain groups, those groups will not attack each other. Consequently, if you have a patrol from group A walk past a static spawn from group B, they will not attack that spawn. Also, two patrols from opposing groups will not attack each other, even if that's the behavior you desire.
- ALLY: Patrols of this type are friendly to the players. The patrol won't follow or attack the players, but will attack any enemies around them.
- ROGUE: Patrols of this type will attack ANYONE, including other members of their own group. Consequently, if a patrol of 5th Column runs across another patrol of 5th column, they'll wipe each other out. Or, if a patrol of 5th column runs across a Crey patrol, those two will engage in combat until one of them emerges the victor.
Now, here's where things are lacking:- Patrols never attack static spawns. This breaks immersion. If the 5th are trying to take over the base, why are they ignoring all the Crey standing around trying to look menacing?
- Patrols set to Enemy will ignore each other, again breaking immersion. If the 5th are trying to take over the base, why are they ignoring the Crey patrol walking right past them?
- In either case, you almost never want 5th Column patrols to attack other 5th Column patrols. That would kind of defeat the purpose of trying to take over a Crey facility. In point of fact, it would probably do a lot to help the Crey fight off the 5th, and tick off the Invasion Leader.
The sensible thing for patrols to do is attack any character on the map that isn't in your own group. Unfortunately, the Mission Editor currently provides no setting for patrols that encourages them to behave in this way.So I'm suggesting the addition of a new alignment, appropriately named Group, that would do just that. Patrols with this aligment will attack any character they encounter that is not within their own group.
This would allow for roving battles between groups within maps.
Naturally, players would not receive XP for those NPCs defeated by NPC patrols. However, this setting is a story-telling device, as it creates a more dynamic environment within the mission. If I want to create a map where Crey and 5th Column, or Nemesis and Rikti are fighting for control of the map, that can be very easily done with lots of patrols set to GROUP. That cannot be done with ROGUE, since the patrols would wipe each other out, regardless of which group they belonged to.
(Also noteworthy is that my testing of the current implementation of Rogue appears to be buggy. Sometimes, patrols set to Rogue attack each other, and other times they completely ignore each other. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to this behavior.)
I'm open to comments, critiques, rebuttals and suggestions.