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Some baddy AI is unique, but all of it? Therein lies the problem. How much do you have to do when you want to create a new baddy, in general, for an RPG server? I'm not talking about that one baddy that has a new skill, but what about a common baddy that's just there for players to grind on? A boss is not a common occurrence, but you make it sound like making a boss is a lot of work... and I don't doubt that it is. In fact, I agree. It's unique, and only one per dungeon? Now imagine the time it takes to make a boss on Delteria... that's the time it takes to make every single baddy on Classic. Because nearly every single baddy is unique.
And I didn't say making a mount and making a baddy is the same thing, but it's a good portion of the work for any RPG. If I had an RPG dungeon... let's say the first cave the player enters has rats. Rats are common enemies. On an MMO fighting that rat would be simple. You hit it, and it aggros at you and chases you. It either chases you, or runs away, and sometimes attacks. Creating that first baddy that uses that sort of AI would be hard. But let's say 50 levels later there is a new area. And a new bigger rat. What do I need to change to make this new bigger rat worth a level 50 player? I'll make a new graphic for it of course, one that looks like a large rat. Maybe make it look rough and tough. But if it has the same stats as the rat from the first cave what good is it? So I give it more health, more strength, maybe a little faster, slightly more defense. Yeah I might have to balance it but that's just tweaking some numbers. Maybe I'll give it a rare drop, "Rat's Claw". A giant rat claw tied to a stick. Melee weapons already exist so I'll just add a new melee weapon with a new graphic. Stats will have to be balanced, but again, tweaking of numbers until they're right. Even then you can release it and tweak it later if you really need to. And add a new ability? Maybe I'll make the rat spawn smaller rats from the first cave. Pretty easy imo. Maybe I'll make it do something more unique... maybe a spell. Why would a rat need a spell? I dunno but it's the most complex thing I can think of that a baddy would need that's unique. I'll give it meteor storm. I can probably make a meteor storm in a few hours.
All in all, a completely new baddy, mostly relying on systems that already exist and needing to fill in the gaps. Even the most unique things needed to create this new baddy isn't that much compared to Classic's process:
- New graphics
- New behavior design, concept, and ideas
- Scripting said behavior and AI from scratch. This includes its walking pattern, its chasing pattern, its attacking pattern, as well as wall collision and anti-sticking methods. A baddy stuck in a wall is a useless baddy since once they're stuck they're not going to unstick themselves unless they respawn. There's little in the way of attacking a baddy in a wall on Classic, so we try to avoid this as best as possible. Sometimes still happens sadly due to lag, but it will respawn with little loss.
We could just take the already existing rat baddy and make another rat with different stats but on Classic there's no reason to do that. Baddies only drop gralats. They don't give experience, they don't give loot. So on Classic the only worth-while reason to add a new baddy is for variety, and because it's more fitting for a new area. Destiny has a beach, the most logical baddy we should put there were crabs. Crabs were especially complicated because they can dig underground and resurface to align with players and try to get in a swift attack. It wouldn't have made much since to put a reskinned rat on the Destiny beach.
And what do players get for this new crab? Nothing, baddy kills. If it dropped loot it would be a much more rewarding experience for players don't you think? But there's little we can reward players for grinding, and grinding is a very easy method of gameplay to design for.
Even if you aspire to have more fulfilling content for an RPG content, which you may... you don't have to. You have a choice! Say you're working on a big dungeon and let's assume it does have lots of unique content and work put into it. But months have passed, well-deserved months of work. But still, months, and players are becoming restless. If you really want to, you can push out a filler dungeon to keep them happy for a while until the big stuff is done. It might take a few weeks or even a month to do, but you can cut corners. Leave out the unique stuff, but still give players something to do and they'll be happy. There isn't anything like that on Classic. At all.
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