Challenge
From Neverend
[edit] Monster challenge
Monsters will determine if they should target a single powerful player, a group of players, or multiple groups of players. In a siege or war setting monsters will engage with players and parties who are a high threat, medium threat, low threat, engaged in combat or not in combat.
[edit] Environment challenge
Challenges are context sensitive. They automatically place themselves (or spawn) in the world when players are not within a certain radius. Challenges are appropriate to the skill level of players that enter their radius. Challenges include outdoor obstacles, dungeon obstacles, outdoor traps, dungeon traps, animals, monsters, intelligent monsters, bosses, and NPCs (bandits, merchants, thieves, rogues, etc). Challenges are spawned based on the map area and appropriate terrain. This includes trolls under bridges, powerful monsters guarding treasure, trolls and ogres in caves, trapped chests and mimic chests in dungeons, door or stair traps, floor traps, wall traps, statue traps, magical traps and enchantments. NPCs will present challenges to players, most of which can be dealt with through conversation, bribery, aiding in a task, finding or giving something. NPC challenges will test moral values and good/evil, so dealing in a non-combat manner may help good characters while outright killing and threatening will help evil characters. Challenges are terrain and landscape specific, and skill level specific. This means hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, forests, plains, swamps, mountains, volcanoes, beaches, oceans, catacombs, dungeons, cities, towns, castles, houses, manors, strongholds, and wastelands will have their own specific challenges, which are stronger or weaker based on players in the surrounding areas. If there are no players to base the average challenge level, then challenge level is based on the average challenge level of surrounding areas. Obstacle monsters Monsters may appear out of certain objects. Examples include wolves coming from bushes, Golems from large stones, ice creatures from ice, and spiders from webs. A random selection of objects has monsters appear from them, but not all objects will have monsters. This allows for less predicability, as a suspicious bush may have nothing in it. Typical challenges include wolves hiding in bushes, birds hiding in trees, ambushes from behind rocks, cave walls, and large obstacles.
Static challenges include objects that must be destroyed, such as stalactites, ice walls, ice mounds, snow walls, overgrowth, vines, vine walls, and spider webs.
Guard challenges are the tendency for powerful monsters to inhabit certain areas. Like obstacle monsters, there is a random chance that there may be a monster there at all. Instead of being associated with an object, they are associated with an area type. This includes cave entrances, cave exits, tunnels, bridge centers, bridge ends, under bridges, on ledges, in large cave rooms, near treasure, near corpses, near large doors, near gates, near archways, etc.
