Mob variety in Reborn

So, after the recent blog post I was wondering if there will be any more Variety in mobs.

Currently from the betas I’ve seen 3 mob styles. the ‘strat’-type mobs that are just like twig creatures. In my opinion they are all brown and boring in colour, for the first area of highsteppe its fine to see them every where but to then see them frequently in other places like the swamp was disappointing.

Then the ‘second’ mob type is the purple version of the ‘strats’ that seem lore wise relevant. From memory they appear less often as harder mobs in back alley corners of the map or in caves. I like how there placed around sparingly or more widely in Lamavora (if i remember correctly there’s more because that was a battlefield for them).

And the third mob being the ‘Scavs’. I can’t comment too much on them as i didn’t fight these guys too often last beta (mainly because the walked in hordes of 30) but from what i could tell the variety and mechanics are mixed up nicely enough.

Compared to the current Orbus these 3 mob types get shadowed by everything else. from highsteppe: Redtails, wolf, sprites, deer, dragons, spiders, vulpes, skogtrolls, bandits
deserts: snakes, cactaur, ifrites, worms
Jungle: hogs, (the green healer guy with a staff), felids, hornets
other things idk where to list for: armoured worgs, bucks/moose, char dragon, pigs, blue tails, narwhall, the troll in Maeo, the corrupted version of mobs, passive mobs like chicken/sheep/goats, (discord asked me to add danger noodles?)
A huge variety of abberations: mi-go kelpie, tentacular, leshak, dakma, astarte, mutated cactaur

the list is huge and probably is still missing a few mobs.

So my question is will there be more variety to mob type, style and colour? As coming from the previously diverse group of mobs, to the now smaller and more same-y mobs is something that makes me lose interest. I liked the current games way of each area having its own theme and set of mobs.

A suggestion to remedy the current lack would be to have another new type of mob that inhabits the swamp area. perhaps swamp monsters.

There could be a tribe of descendants of the green healer from the current game in the rainforest. These guys would be green mobs with different tribe paint across there body with the mechanics like the other mobs in Reborn. I imagine them like a wild tribe that are trying to defend there home of the forest.

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I also thought the betas felt a bit bland compared to current orbus in it’s creatures and varieties between them. also I’d like to see some more mobs that remind you of real life animals and not just these kinda humanoid creatures.

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Same feeling here. Too less Mobs and just everything feels tiny and brown in reborn… can we just get more colorful things? Or is the current situation just a beta-thing?

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So this is definitely an interesting topic of discussion. From a gameplay standpoint, the vast majority of the mobs in the old game, while they had different models, basically did the same thing (with the exception of the corrupted models/aberrations in the Wilds and some small mechanics like the poison from the Spiders/Wasps). Almost all were melee attackers that would just run up to you and stand there and do a simple attack, possibly adding a status effect.

In Reborn, our goal was to make it so that generally speaking all the mobs in the game had a unique and interesting mechanic (or multiple mechanics) for the player to deal with. That’s why you’ll notice that the Chaos Tear casters have a different mechanic than the Scav Casters, for example. The downside to this approach is, of course, that we have to spend a lot more time on each creature type because they have unique mechanics.

So I think part of the question is, are we talking about world decoration here or are we talking about gameplay challenge? Because I actually think the variety in gameplay challenge of the overworld creatures is much higher in Reborn, especially once you get into the higher-level zones where some of the enemy types start to overlap and form different groups that lead to interesting crossover.

But from a world decoration standpoint, it’s true that while there are actually something like 30 unique “enemies” to fight in Reborn (e.g. 4 types of chaos tear creatures, 4 types of scavs, 3 types of giants walking around, dungeon minions, a few enemies that weren’t in the last Beta, etc.), which is about as many as the last game had, since they are all grouped much more closely into each enemy “type” from a design standpoint, it probably feels like there is less variety. So basically, a spider looks really different than a wasp, even if they both had only one basic attack and had the exact same combat mechanic.

We are doing some work right now to address the world decoration part of it by bringing back in some of the wildlife creatures; however, what I’m leaning more on those is making them passive (in that they won’t aggro you unless attacked) and then just having them fight back with more basic attacks. So they would be more about making the world more alive and adding some variety, maybe they are a source of some ingredients and resources but they don’t fill the same role as a full-blown enemy type in Reborn.

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I honestly think that this is exactly what we’re all asking for. Some complex-AIs with a different feel to them would be good as well, but purely for the variety this world is currently missing out A LOT. Having some of these types of normal/simple-AI enemies will also help out with regard to quests, since you can add quests to kill them as well without having significant difficulty working out an advanced AI system for them.

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Thanks for the response! For sure this is an interesting conversation. Will the passive mobs be in for the next beta? If so i’ll see how i feel with the more ‘alive’ world. i understand that the reborn design point now makes it a lot harder to just add mobs.

seeing as this wasn’t a complaint before i think, putting it into simple words, the re-skin of the same mobs (e.g. spider and wasp) is what i would like to see more of. I would like to hear others opinion on this though.

The decoration of the mobs and surroundings is what feels lacking. when playing the beta a lot of areas felt empty/had wasted space - this could hopefully be fixed with the passive mobs.
Then the mobs it does have are the brown strats or the purple tears - tend to be same-y. (or the scavs that i haven’t got any issues with from my limited play against.)

I like the change in play currently from a normal mob and a corrupted mob, the elks are melee usually but with corruption become a whole new mob with there ranged attack. perhaps a similar situation could happen. Around highsteppe the mobs are normal and passive but further away and in dungeons they are corrupted with the interesting and unique combat to accompany it. This would also help with Asmund’s suggestion of less humanoid enemies.

I’m suggesting these with the thought of late game shard dungeons in mind, I know its not going this way but if doing shards means clearing the same looking mob groups in a dim cave with only the 2 bosses being the highlight then it could become stale quick. mechanics wise everything seems to be going as you guys plan but decoration wise the game is lacking currently.

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I brought this point up before and for me it is ALL about decoration. I like the variety in the mechanics, but even the gameplay experience is infringed because I can barely tell at first sight if I am fighting a caster, a melee, etc. They all look kinda skinny and brown-ish, and some mobs are all purple-ish, but they all look unfinished to me.
The original game got mobs looking like actual entities or beings with eyes, bright body colors and colors distinguishing different body parts.

While I understand reworking the models itself like their shapes is likely not going to happen, a bit more of color to at least distinguish the several mob types (have them humanoids wear pants and shirts, perhaps…) would already change things around a big deal.

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Yes please. I think the new mobs with fancy mechanics are cool (though that ninja kick dodge mocks me as a runemage :yum: would also like more visual distinguishment between variations of same-ish type at least like Metris suggested) but I would very much appreciate a wide variety of “simple mobs” (no fancy dodges or extra fancy AI necessary) to feel like some semblance of natural wildlife still exists (did it all really die or become people like Darius? Darius is cool, but everything evolved to humanoid or died? No new or same animals / evolutions?) I absolutely love current Orbus layout of zones and mobs, and I’m still mourning losing it. It’s level of diversity (zones and mobs) and color (zones and mobs) is something I would really like maintained or somehow recreated. I’m looking forward to next beta with the passive mobs and hope additional wildflowers and plants are around. This last beta made me feel better about zones, like with the wagon graveyard and that newest zone added, but I would like some extra ‘fluff.’
will mourn forever the invasive species flower of Lamavora that made it so distinct and magical and the flowing grass everywhere filled with wildflowers and the super cool mega tall wall grass in jungle and the sand in the air in the desert and the evergreens of Frosted Spit and the falling snow of the necropolar and the different architecture across civilizations and the sheep and chickens and that Guild City guy feeding hopping birdies and the Obnobi goober lizard hanging out and dancing
I know it isn’t all possible to keep considering how performance is being improved (if I said that right?) but it’s those little things with landscape and creatures that just really brought out the beauty, the wonder, the magic
Reborn does capture it occasionally, like with the butterflies. The thing is, we’re all already spoiled :sweat_smile:

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Lack of animated foliage concerns me but I’ve heard rumors it will be added in Reborn live. Little details like flowing grass and trees and variety of enemies will definitely make the world feel more alive.

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I agree with everything said in this thread. The reborn world felt empty to me as well.

It would be nice to have some of the old mobs ported over, sometimes its just nice to have a basic thing to beat on ( I think that may be why I like the bigger mobs in the new game) it would also be nice to have things like the bores, foxes and dears (also chickens) because they make the game feel like it has its own wild life other than the enemy mobs.

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one more thing I thought would be cool and add a bit of life to the game would be random critters every now and then outside of the ones you spawn for the critter capture, not too many, but just so you occasionally see one and go “oh look, a squirrel”

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I’m talking about world decoration. The new monsters are kinda cool, but for a new mage who needs a minute to cast a spell and then the mob is jumping away that will be just a biiiit annoying :rofl:
I would like to see some ‘old’ colorful not jumping monsters around the world. Atm the World is soo empty and if you see Monsters they are all brown and kinda the same, it’s so boring.

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My biggest issue with the mobs in reborn was the little brown dudes, there was the ones that dodged and the ones that exploded but the only way to tell them apart was that one of them had a brown shoulder pad which wasn’t easy to see, it blended in with the colour of the mobs, it would be great to throw a bit of colour on the ones that explode so you can easily tell from a distance which is which

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I had thought we were told by the devs that the small world details would be added closer to release so they could put the majority of the time into the big mechanics for us to test. As we get closer it’s more and more obvious how dry the world looks. Nothing moves but groups of enemies. Each Zone looks like it’s just open land with some rocks or ruins scattered about. Those two things combined make Reborn look like more of a demo scene than a flowing, living, breathing world. Now that most of the systems are in place, please, please update the zones so when we adventure it feels like we’re in a new world

Edit: The landscape itself is beautiful and the current details are great. It just needs some love.

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it could be nice if they added more colour to them to give a better difference.

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Just as a follow up to this, we’re adding a bunch of wildlife to zones for the next beta (not sure if they will be in every zone quite yet, but some at least) and we’re excited to hear what you think of it. It should make a big difference!

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