New "hate management" techniques

Hello all, new student/new poster. Figured I'd start off with a conversation piece.

If any of you have played MMORPGs, you know about "hate" or "aggro" management. Hate and aggro both refer to the simplistic planning techniques used by the AI in current-generation MMOs like World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Lineage 2, and Final Fantasy XI. Essentially, the enemy NPCs derive a mathematical score for each player in their immediate vicinity, representing how "dangerous" that player is or how attractive a target. A player doing a lot of damage, or using healing spells, or performing various other actions will increase the amount of "hate" or "aggro" they are incurring, and if they increase it enough, the enemies will turn on them.

If you've played them a while, you also will understand the limitations of the aggro/hate system. One of the biggest problems is the ability for players to essentially cheat the system if the understand the math behind aggro/hate well enough. This is called "aggro bouncing" in game parlance, where a group of players will carefully control the amount of aggro they gain such that they "bounce" the player with the maximum aggro around rapidly through the whole group, causing enemies to spend more time running from player to player than they actually spend attacking. Because the current-generation style of aggro/hate management is so deterministic, so predictable, it has become a simple matter of mathematical finagling to successfully defeat any combat-related challenge.

I know there must be something better.

Can anyone brainstorm suggestions about what you'd like to see in the next generation of MMORPGs, something that would entirely replace "aggro" as we know it?

My dream system would give every NPC an emotional model, perhaps based on FLAME (Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotions--view citation at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=608653&dl=ACM&coll=ACM) or a derivative thereof. Rather than "hate" being what directly controls the action of the NPC, it would now only be one emotion among a sea of other emotions--it would still have an effect, but not quite so dramatic and certainly much less deterministic. I'd also like to see some more advanced form of planning in the battles, however that might be implemented. The enemy would say "okay, first I'll kill the mage, then I'll kill the priest, then I'll go after the warrior..." rather than "must kill that guy; wait! must kill THAT guy; no wait! must kill THAT guy..."

Any other brainstorms out there?

k
.

Relevant Pages

  • New "hate management" techniques
    ... Hate and aggro both refer to the simplistic planning techniques used by the AI in current-generation MMOs like World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Lineage 2, and Final Fantasy XI. ... Essentially, the enemy NPCs derive a mathematical score for each player in their immediate vicinity, representing how "dangerous" that player is or how attractive a target. ... The enemy would say "okay, first I'll kill the mage, then I'll kill the priest, then I'll go after the warrior..." ...
    (comp.ai.games)
  • Re: The silliness of pulling mobs
    ... aggro and such. ... It probably makes it easier to handle player ... AI where the enemy leader says "everybody mob the healer!" ... "Kill the one in the dress!" ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: jindo the hexxer in ZulGurub
    ... aggro and the fight took too long. ... Jindo is immune to taunt. ... to see the shades, to go kill them. ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Some progress on group aggro management
    ... is not a typical instance and if someone decided to kill me, ... no way he could get the aggro. ... "do your job, priest". ... past and let me die. ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Broodlord Lashlayer tips?
    ... healing, we had 2 groups of 3 on the tanks, switching groups at ... The biggest problem with Broodlord is the aggro ceiling - the knockback ... death) with running up to melee range when my hate started ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)