Grit, grit, and more grit. Why do I have all these CC abilities if they are worthless 90% of the time?
Random CC immunity. Why do mobs just walk or dodge out of my Gravity Well? Why do my hammer CC abilities seem to never stick on certain enemies, even when they shouldn’t be CC/debuff immune?
Dodge spam. This is a problem in so many areas of the game, but Angry Earth enemies are the worst offenders. Good luck landing a hit on those blight wolves in Edengrove because they never stop dodging. In many cases, it seems as if dodging is hard coded into the mob’s movement patterns, which is just dumb.
Erratic/ridiculous movement patterns. Obviously most of your art budget went toward animations instead of mob variety. PVE enemies move in ways the player character can only dream of. 80% of the time I miss an enemy with an attack it’s because it moved 3 feet in a random direction during a single frame and the mob is no longer where I just aimed my ability a second ago.
Broken hitboxes. The large demon elites in SM are a perfect example of this. You can only hit them from one precise angle and they are surrounded with an invisible wall that extends the range of their…
Pushback. Forget positioning as a tank, and if you get caught in a corner forget about any visibility or escape, either. If you are solo, it’s gonna be GG a lot of the time because you are constantly interrupted trying to use any abilities and there’s no escape. Lawd help if you are near any kind of ledge.
Absurd speed. Saying that mobs are twice as fast as player characters may be an underestimate. Not only do they move much faster, but their abilities also execute way quicker than the player character’s does. This not only highlights how unbalanced PVE mobs are but also makes the combat system feel incredibly clunky.
Heal potion spam. Really? This seems like something where you couldn’t figure out how to balance certain mobs/areas, so you just said F it, give them heal potion spam.
In my experience this is why a lot of people use two melee weapons and not any ranged weapons. Enemies turn into Neo from the Matrix and dodge the attacks. The pathing for enemies is a bit broken at times and it makes the NPCs move in ways they shouldnt. leading a target doesnt work because theres a piece of geometry in the ground we cant even see but the NPCs do and they just turn around or move in ways they shouldnt or even go into “retreating” when it doesnt even make sense. I will say though seeing all the wolves dodge around like they are Sif from Dark Souls is pretty great.
Some mobs know how to dodge in this game, they also have charge attacks and jump attacks, they also have powerful skills that if you are not careful will kill you, its not like other games where you just have to press skill and no aiming needed…
I can see where they were going with mob pathing. Erratic movements and dodging does add an element of challenge and keeps you on your toes, although yes, it can be annoying spinning the camera through 360 for the tenth time in a row but I find animals especially easy to block.
Agree on the interrupts and stagger with groups of mobs, though. As a melee build, in areas of high mob density and fast re-spawns, it can feel like wading through treacle. Getting knocked around like a ping pong ball before you can even shout ‘‘dirty rotten scoundrels!’’, all whilst in heavy armour and shield, is infuriating.
Been thinking of switching one melee weapon for a staff or gauntlet. I may be wrong but it seems that ranged aoe is better for clearing groups of mobs quicker, with less chance of getting knocked off ledges and into corners. The mage setups certainly always seem to do the most damage in invasions, by far.
getting tossed around like a hacky sack while tanking was really annoying for sure. it really can be annoying to do positionals when you get thrown every which way.
At 554 GS and 350+ hours played, I understand very well how these mobs work. But there’s a difference between intuitive, challenging combat design and erratic, bugged, unbalanced, and ??? PVE mechanics.
For example, when I use Reap on an enemy and it immediately jumps backwards after, that’s just good AI. But when a plague dryad steps out of my gravity well because it is overly animated and never stops moving, that’s just bad game design.