[abandoned Mod] Hard Mobs [hard_mobs]

[duane]

Edit: I won't be working on this much since I'm using nmobs now.

This is a very simple mod that increases the health and damage (that they do to you) of every mob based on how far they are from origin (0,0,0). This means that as you go up, down, or out, the same mobs will be tougher to kill and more likely to kill you. By default, they'll be five times as tough at the edges of the map.

Obviously, there are lots of better ways to make a mob tougher, but this has the advantage of working automatically and effortlessly. It's also simple to scale up if you add an armor mod and realize that combat is now much too painless.

This mod ONLY works with mobs redo.

+ Spoiler

The source is available on github.

Code: LGPL2

Mod dependencies: default, mobs_redo

Download: https://github.com/duane-r/hard_mobs/archive/master.zip

[duane]

Problems:

- nametags may not update with new health -- This is because TenPlus1 keeps hiding functions in mobs redo. On my system, I fixed it by making check_for_death public again. I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to come up with a way to override his changes, so this issue won't be fixed.

[TenPlus1]

duane: the self.* values are very configurable inside a mob definition and changing self.hp_max to your new HIGH value as well as self.health will show nametags properly without changing the api.

[azekill_DIABLO]

i like the concept. it should be more advanced though (like adding bigger mobs and special mobs farther you go)

[duane]

Thanks, TenPlus1.

i like the concept. it should be more advanced though (like adding bigger mobs and special mobs farther you go)

I suspect that would require tinkering with or replacing the mobs spawn function if you wanted to support more than a limited set of mobs. The code would also have to somehow decide which mobs are inherently tougher or make new definitions to add features.

It would make more sense to me to have the mapgen put down different terrain the further out you go. I'm considering that for squaresville, mostly because I'm sick of spawning in the snow. It would be cool if I could get the landscape to be darker and uglier as you move away from origin, and the cities fall to ruin along the way.

[texmex]

This is good, thank you for making it.

[azekill_DIABLO]

Thanks, TenPlus1.

i like the concept. it should be more advanced though (like adding bigger mobs and special mobs farther you go)

I suspect that would require tinkering with or replacing the mobs spawn function if you wanted to support more than a limited set of mobs. The code would also have to somehow decide which mobs are inherently tougher or make new definitions to add features.

It would make more sense to me to have the mapgen put down different terrain the further out you go. I'm considering that for squaresville, mostly because I'm sick of spawning in the snow. It would be cool if I could get the landscape to be darker and uglier as you move away from origin, and the cities fall to ruin along the way.

even harder to do.

[duane]

This is good, thank you for making it.

Glad you like it.

even harder to do.

Actually, I just finished it. : )

[azekill_DIABLO]

hard and CRAZY to do. just what you like doing :D

[ErrorNull]

this idea is fantastic. i remember a while ago you were creating this behavior - and i'm glad to finally see it available as a mod for the rest of us. having mobs automatically become tougher as you explorer farther out adds a nice dimension to survival. two things i would love to see - though not sure how possible it is from your mod? or perhaps tenplus1 may need to alter things on the mobs redo api as well?

- as mobs become tougher, they also walk/run faster
- as mobs become tougher to kill, they also drop better loot
- as mobs become tougher they begin to wear some armor
- as mobs become tougher the colorization of their model textures automatically changes to become darker or more red or purple.

[duane]

- as mobs become tougher, they also walk/run faster

Done.

- as mobs become tougher to kill, they also drop better loot

Done. However, the problem with this is deciding what's better loot in your game and what mob should drop what. If they all dropped coins like some games, this would be easy. The one thing I won't do is try to make a list for individual mobs, since there are so many. I just put in a "good" loot table and an increasing chance of dropping as they get tougher.

- as mobs become tougher they begin to wear some armor
- as mobs become tougher the colorization of their model textures automatically changes to become darker or more red or purple.

While I could theoretically change their appearance, it would involve changes to the prototypes, not (just) the individuals, and might require manually remaking five or more textures per mob. You can change a mob's texture, but it has to be one that's already in the prototype. I can't easily make them bigger or smaller for the same reason.

[ErrorNull]

- as mobs become tougher, they also walk/run faster

Done.

- as mobs become tougher to kill, they also drop better loot

Done. However, the problem with this is deciding what's better loot in your game and what mob should drop what. If they all dropped coins like some games, this would be easy. The one thing I won't do is try to make a list for individual mobs, since there are so many. I just put in a "good" loot table and an increasing chance of dropping as they get tougher.

Nice. That was quick! That implementation of just having a 'good' loot table with increasing chances works for me too.. as you can leave it to us to define what goes in the good loot table. so is there in fact two loot tables now? a 'normal' loot and then a 'good' loot? perhaps it can be nuanced slightly further with 'level1' loot, 'level2' loot, 'level3' loot, etc.. where each increasing level is better loot than previous and each level of loot depends on the distance the mob was from origin? of course, minetest admins will be the ones to specify what goes into each loot level themselves.

- as mobs become tougher they begin to wear some armor
- as mobs become tougher the colorization of their model textures automatically changes to become darker or more red or purple.

While I could theoretically change their appearance, it would involve changes to the prototypes, not (just) the individuals, and might require manually remaking five or more textures per mob. You can change a mob's texture, but it has to be one that's already in the prototype. I can't easily make them bigger or smaller for the same reason.

Hmm.. how about not the actual texture file, but simply altering the colorization layer. Say if each mob uses a black&white or yellow base texture, but through dynamic colorization layer during spawn, the mob's color will have a different hue based on the origin distance. I take advantage of this with my villagers mod to accomplish the random colors for the villager's hair, clothing, shoes, etc. All the base textures are black&white.

[texmex]

I'm thinking how this concepts of inner and outer realms can be taken further as a game concept. For this mod to work optimally, I believe the players must be given more incentive to travel further out (other than the mob bashing challenge itself). Better loot drops is one of those, but the mapgen could also be structured around this same concept (out of scope for this mod of course!). I'm thinking "normal" biomes such as grasslands as starting point and then more extreme biomes further out. Perhaps only the harder biomes contains ores such as diamond and mese, adding that incentive to travel.

Sorry for thinking out loud and off topic. :)

[duane]

- as mobs become tougher they begin to wear some armor
- as mobs become tougher the colorization of their model textures automatically changes to become darker or more red or purple.

While I could theoretically change their appearance, it would involve changes to the prototypes, not (just) the individuals, and might require manually remaking five or more textures per mob. You can change a mob's texture, but it has to be one that's already in the prototype. I can't easily make them bigger or smaller for the same reason.

Hmm.. how about not the actual texture file, but simply altering the colorization layer. Say if each mob uses a black&white or yellow base texture, but through dynamic colorization layer during spawn, the mob's color will have a different hue based on the origin distance. I take advantage of this with my villagers mod to accomplish the random colors for the villager's hair, clothing, shoes, etc. All the base textures are black&white.

That's interesting. There's nothing in the mobs redo api to access it indirectly though, and TenPlus1 already uses a few texture modifiers, not to mention some mob's definition might use it. I'm not sure I'd want my mobs to be tinted. I think that would annoy me.

I'm thinking how this concepts of inner and outer realms can be taken further as a game concept. For this mod to work optimally, I believe the players must be given more incentive to travel further out (other than the mob bashing challenge itself). Better loot drops is one of those, but the mapgen could also be structured around this same concept (out of scope for this mod of course!). I'm thinking "normal" biomes such as grasslands as starting point and then more extreme biomes further out. Perhaps only the harder biomes contains ores such as diamond and mese, adding that incentive to travel.

Sorry for thinking out loud and off topic. :)

Unfortunately, for that you need to change the game (or use a singlenode mapgen). I suppose it would be trivial to add an x_radius and z_radius (max and min) to the biome handling. It would have to stay radial to do much good. Maybe somebody should bug Paramat about it.

[duane]

Abandoned. <spooky soundtrack>