Please help! (Era mob pathing question)

[rrrreeezzzzzz]

Hello all,

I thank you for taking a moment to read my question. Here it is then: I would like to either start, or join, an FFXI private server. However, there is one very specific feature I should like to have on such a server, and that is the zoning conditions that existed when I first started FFXI in 2003/2004. At that time, if someone zoned a mob, that mob would then attack the nearest adventurer, regardless of whether or not they were in the party of the person who just zoned that mob. I found a setting here on LSB, in the map.lua, that should enable mobs to walk back home instead of despawning, and that is fantastic! However, I have not found a setting anywhere else in the code that would seem to govern the targets of that mob. Will it attack anyone, will it attack no one, will it only attack party members of the person it just chased to that zone?

Thank you!

[TeoTwawki]

The mob will return to its default state which means if it detects someone and is aggressive, it will agro. For example a Quadav detects by sound so getting near it while low enough lv (or resting near it) should agro the player again. Goblins would agro if they had a line of site to you from the direction they face. Unfortunately at the moment the AI walks itself home a bit too fast compared to old retail, so where you see it on your screen might not be where the server sees it and getting it to notice you might be inconstant and sometime cause it to seemingly ignore you, not to mention the almost constant moving towards home.

Its even worse without a navmesh - in that case they will march right through walls

To do it right they should pause long and more often on the way, and actually route a semi wandering path there instead of a straight line (similar to roaming, but all movement that take them farther from home get discarded unless for the purpose of obstacle avoidance).

[rrrreeezzzzzz]

So in other words all I have to do is submit a PR?

[TeoTwawki]

So in other words all I have to do is recode some tricky roaming/pathing C++ code spend days testing it with the setting to control it both on and off and then finally submit a PR, survive both CI and code review retesting after any required changes?

something like that yes.

[rrrreeezzzzzz]

Is there any possible way for you to explain in intricate detail what I need to do so I can just do it on my own? Or is it not able to be explained?

[zach2good]

How's your C++? This would be significant changes to mob entity and mob ai controller - I would imagine.

Since this is an era thing, and LSB is a retail emulator, we're not likely to spend any time implementing something like this when there's so much else we could be doing.

[zach2good]

Probably also pathfind

[rrrreeezzzzzz]

I have at least one, possibly two, other people who are now very much interested in working on this. I understand from Zach's response that it may not be implemented, but we're considering all possibilities regarding implementation. We can discuss our ideas in that regard in more detail if anyone would like to jump in on this and join us. This message is essentially an update that the idea is alive and well, and that we intend to begin work on it very soon.