Its very possible, Do not let "players of the game" tell you its not possible due to Coding (they have never seen and never will) The only REAL question is, How much would it take to get it started / finished ..
Because your suggestion isn't what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about pre disposed list of possible steps. I'm talking about true dynamic encounters with real time, at will artificial intelligence where encounters are constantly gathering data and changing their mechanics on the fly. Examples: You're facing a mob tanking him straight up and the mob realizes this and shifts behind you. A mob realizes it's being cornered and backs out away from the raid. The mob realizes the healers are keeping the tank and chooses to attack them or orders other mobs to attack healers or the mob calculates person doing the most damage and kills them and aggro has no bearing. A mob realizes it's surrounded and PB AEs the raid. A mob calculates the person that's most vulnerable and attacks him based on armor type, distance from everybody else, stance, buffs, etc. A mob calculates damage intake and how it's incoming and changes it's defensives based on this. If geography and terrain had any sort of bearing on mechanics and mob could find advantageous areas to fight (I'm talking well beyond the rudimentary LoS mechanies of current EQ). Like higher ground allows natural defenses, moats, narrow passageways, etc. There are so many endless possibilities and it's a coding nightmare - virtually unheard of in any game to date, but if you want endless possibilities of raids, this is the future. I'm talking encounters with true survival instincts that will react almost human-like maintaining a cognitive thought process with diagnostic, reactive, and analytical abilities. The main problem is will people accept this...ever? They are so used to pre-designed mechanics that are rigid and allow for hours of planning and outlining. I would love to see real strategic battles where your actions determined/impacted outcomes and responses from the AI outside of tank the primitive game foundation of: Tank a boss here to avoid X,Y,Z; Kill A,B,C in order; Follow 1,2,3 emotes and you win.
For myself, that type of endless options would probably turn me off of raiding entirely - but that's because for myself, I like the predictability of raiding and prefer 'farm' status to 'progression/learning' status. I get satisfaction from cleanly winning an event because I know what to expect.
Exactly my only concern. There are so many people enamored with the "win now, gimme my loots" mentality. They care more for the end result then the road to the result. They are missing a huge part of the possibly enjoyment of a game...the adventure to think freely, to learn, to adapt. It would be such a thrill to me to have to try to out think the AI, to be aware of my surroundings, my tactics, my actions.
Your idea is a bit beyond what I'm looking for and like the previous poster said would probably become too frustrating to participate in. The idea that I would like to see take hold would start simply with current raids. Weekly events held on twitch between rival guilds. Two guilds enter an instance with a giant wall separating the raid forces and a copy of the raid encounter on each side. The raid forces then try to defeat the raid with the best score. Whatever "best score" entails would be decided on. I would then like that expanded and new raids developed with GM's in control throwing out random ae's, adds, mechanics etc. However in no way would I want this GM purposefully choosing to respond to the raid force he/she has in front of them. The same mechanic should hit both raid forces at the same time. With this in place we can come up with some sort of EQ league of guilds with weekly matches, power rankings etc. I think it could really bring some excitement to this game.
They tried team pvp in Underfoot with the gnolls and boomerang thing, never took off for various reasons, one of them there are a lot of older folk who play this game; twitchy reaction time required for pvp isn't their strong suit. Also, pvp = someone has to be the loser. Contrast it with OMM where everyone wins, even the GL afker.
I don't think you meant it this way, but one could read that as me saying I'm a 'gimme my loots' type of girl. In case it's misunderstood, here's what I meant. My real life and professional life is challenging/stressful enough, so when I come on the game, what I want to do is relax and doing a raid I know backwards and forwards relaxes me. I do, on occasion, like a little 'fly by the seat of our pants' action, but not on a regular basis.
Arx 2 raid already allows for several different challenges in how you choose the possession order at 50 and 25%. You actually get to choose it vs it being randomness though. Even with this in place im sure most guilds do it the easiest/fastest way after achievements are done. Green to 50 and green to 25% first. Proposing several different possible phases of raids being random would decrease the number of raids. I think I would rather have more raids.
