I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

[SecretAsianMan]

It's just odd to me that we're still referring to the mobs in DS as trash mobs while calling them not trash mobs because they offer meaningful engagements. It just points to the term not having much value, as it's being used almost interchangeably with non-boss encounters. Perhaps I'm just being pedantic. I do concur with the point that some games have more meaningful non-boss encounters than others, Dark Souls in particular.

 

I agree with that.  I think if we're going to use those definitions, then I would say I haven't seen trash mobs in a long time.  Games at this point have evolved enough that there's a lot of nuance in even the basic types of enemies.

[Bjorn]

I think you're just being a bit pedantic, it's just that we don't have good terminology for valuable non-boss enemies. 

 

 

Trash mobs used to be there to put a slow drain on your resources to make the eventual boss fight harder. These days games are easy enough that the trash mobs really are just trash and most bosses in games aren't much better really. Thus, in Dark Souls which is actually challenging, the trash mobs actually have a point.

 

Edit: Also, save points right before boss fights negate the effect as well.

 

 

The most obvious example of that is that there aren't trash mobs in good survival horror games.  Since survival horror is often about resource and engagement management, even the most basic enemies can be a threat due to depleting resources.  In games with functionally unlimited resources, the potential stress caused by trash mobs evaporates. 

[Cordeos]

Trash mobs used to be there to put a slow drain on your resources to make the eventual boss fight harder. These days games are easy enough that the trash mobs really are just trash and most bosses in games aren't much better really. Thus, in Dark Souls which is actually challenging, the trash mobs actually have a point.

 

Edit: Also, save points right before boss fights negate the effect as well.

 

In WoW some boss battles had trash mobs as an important part of them, usually they are easy monsters to kill but they start swarming and will eventually overwhelm the group if not properly managed. I really wish more games had something similar to WoWs threat system, where the higher level you were the closer you would have to get to a monster for it to attack you. Games like Skyrim could really benefit from this so the monsters don't vanish, but super weak creatures won't charge lvl 99 players.

[JonCole]

In WoW some boss battles had trash mobs as an important part of them, usually they are easy monsters to kill but they start swarming and will eventually overwhelm the group if not properly managed. I really wish more games had something similar to WoWs threat system, where the higher level you were the closer you would have to get to a monster for it to attack you. Games like Skyrim could really benefit from this so the monsters don't vanish, but super weak creatures won't charge lvl 99 players.

 

One of my favorite mods for Skyrim has a feature like this, but through the perk system. Basically you could get "wilderness survival"-type perks that would make it so animals wouldn't fight you. I believe Fallout 3/NV also has perks like this in the vanilla version of the game. Since animals (rather than humanoid stuff) comprise a huge chunk of the overworld encounters, it felt pretty much the same as what you're describing.

[Mangela Lansbury]

My definition of a trash mob would be any enemy which is highly unlikely to present a threat, quickly or immediately becomes boring to fight and offers little of value to the player (whether that is through actual reward, mechanical satisfaction of beating it, etc).

Trash mobs often do provide incremental value to the player, though -- grinding through dungeons in Final Fantasy dungeons can be a bore and offer little challenge, but without going through that grind, you won't be strong enough to take on the boss at the end.

I just think of them as the smaller monsters that you see a lot of and who may have rewards, but their main function is as a way to artificially inflate your time investment or as a kind of gating mechanism. Things like the inter-boss stuff in WoW dungeons that have a low, low, low but nonzero chance of dropping anything good, or really anything in an RPG dungeon that isn't a boss or miniboss.

[Jutranjo]

In WoW some boss battles had trash mobs as an important part of them, usually they are easy monsters to kill but they start swarming and will eventually overwhelm the group if not properly managed. I really wish more games had something similar to WoWs threat system, where the higher level you were the closer you would have to get to a monster for it to attack you. Games like Skyrim could really benefit from this so the monsters don't vanish, but super weak creatures won't charge lvl 99 players.

 

That's the aggro range system, the threat system was what determined which target a mob attacked; tank or healer.

[Badfinger]

It's interesting that we seem to be in agreement that both the Souls monsters and LoMa creeps are not "trash mobs", but the Souls monsters decrease in value as the game unfolds (the first mob in the first area is always worth the same number of souls forever, but that number becomes less valuable in proportion to your level) while creeps (In League at least, the game with which I'm most familiar) increase in gold value over the course of the game.

[Twig]

Also extra mobs in WoW boss battles are colloquially referred to as "adds", not "trash". At least, they were when I played. There, they serve a purpose beyond just slowing the players down. It's a mechanic of the boss fight. That's different from mobs that just sit around blocking a path and are always easily slain with little to no effort from the party involved.

[Griddlelol]

In WoW some boss battles had trash mobs as an important part of them, usually they are easy monsters to kill but they start swarming and will eventually overwhelm the group if not properly managed.

  

That's not a trash mob. That's called a boss encounter. I've always (and everyone I've ever played any MMO with) named the enemies that join in on boss fights "adds" because they're not trash; they are part of the encounter design. Trash is the annoying junk you have to kill before you get to the boss. The enemies where I'd put my rogue in stealth type /f on a healer and make myself a cup of coffee are trash.

Trash mobs often do provide incremental value to the player, though -- grinding through dungeons in Final Fantasy dungeons can be a bore and offer little challenge, but without going through that grind, you won't be strong enough to take on the boss at the end.

Isn't that just called bad design? I feel like one of the biggest issues with JRPGs in general is their reliance on grinding random, trivial battles. I'm not sure if that's valid to call them trash since they're basically a mechanic which allows the player to decrease difficulty by investing time. Weird when you think about it.

While you're right that they provide tiny value which adds to something meaningful, they could be replaced with a better system.There could either be a better difficulty curve, or they could take the souls approach and make the enemies challenging, or at least punishing.

Musou games do trash well, but they are the crux of the experience.

[JonCole]

Musou games are Trash Games, confirmed. (I love trash ((((()

[Jutranjo]

It's interesting that we seem to be in agreement that both the Souls monsters and LoMa creeps are not "trash mobs", but the Souls monsters decrease in value as the game unfolds (the first mob in the first area is always worth the same number of souls forever, but that number becomes less valuable in proportion to your level) while creeps (In League at least, the game with which I'm most familiar) increase in gold value over the course of the game.

 

Creeps in dota don't increase in bounty but do increase in stats and the number of them.

[Cordeos]

That's the aggro range system, the threat system was what determined which target a mob attacked; tank or healer.

 

 

That's not a trash mob. That's called a boss encounter. I've always (and everyone I've ever played any MMO with) named the enemies that join in on boss fights "adds" because they're not trash; they are part of the encounter design. Trash is the annoying junk you have to kill before you get to the boss. The enemies where I'd put my rogue in stealth type /f on a healer and make myself a cup of coffee are trash.

 

Derp! Its been a while since ive Played WoW (stopped after the first expansion) I have forgotten some of the lingo. 

[eot]

Do you guys refer to enemies (or groups of enemies) as mobs outside the context of MMOs?

[Mangela Lansbury]

Do MUDs count as MMOs?

[JonCole]

I call enemies in Destiny adds. I don't think I ever really integrated mob into my vocabulary as it does seem to be a pretty MMO-centric term.

[Cordeos]

Do you guys refer to enemies (or groups of enemies) as mobs outside the context of MMOs?

Most definitely, lingo I pick up in one game or type of game totally gets brought over into other games and media.

[Bjorn]

I know I've referred to trash mobs in my head while playing a game, but since this discussion started, I've actually really struggled to come up with a good example outside of JRPGs and some RPGs.

[Twig]

I think another key thing, in my mind, is that trash mobs take no skill to utterly annihilate. So, for example, a mass of zombies coming at you in Left 4 Dead, while generally easy to deal with on their own, still require the basic skill of pointing your gun at them and shooting. A trash mob is generally something that I can just auto-pilot on, which is why all of my examples are from RPGs. (That's sort of a flaw in RPGs in general!)

[Ninety-Three]

Do MUDs count as MMOs?

 

Technically, but since we already have the name "MUD" for them it would be weird to call them that. Like how bullet hells are a subset of schmups, but we call them bullet hells because it's a more specific term for the subgenre.

 

 

It's interesting that we seem to be in agreement that both the Souls monsters and LoMa creeps are not "trash mobs", but the Souls monsters decrease in value as the game unfolds (the first mob in the first area is always worth the same number of souls forever, but that number becomes less valuable in proportion to your level) while creeps (In League at least, the game with which I'm most familiar) increase in gold value over the course of the game.

 

It's because trash mobs present both zero challenge/threat and zero reward, you're thinking of it only in terms of reward. Creeps aren't trash because they're walking sacks of gold, while random hollows in Dark Souls aren't trash because they can still kill you.

 

 

I know I've referred to trash mobs in my head while playing a game, but since this discussion started, I've actually really struggled to come up with a good example outside of JRPGs and some RPGs.

 

Flesh in STALKER (FPS). All the other enemies in that game are really good, but Flesh are (relatively) slow-moving, melee-only unevasive enemies with not many hit points. I guess you could make the argument that they're not complete trash because they're a tax on your ammo/weapon durability, but it's not a very harsh tax.

 

Green slimes in Crypt of the Necrodancer (Only sort of an RPG?). They're stationary, literally incapable of harming you, and they drop one gold.

 

A heavily randomized game like Spelunky or Binding of Isaac will have enemies where not every instance of that enemy is a trash mob, as they can be placed in complicated rooms where they add to the challenge, but often you'll come across one or two simple enemies in a large empty room, and that will be an encounter with trash enemies.

 

Trash enemies are pretty common in schmups, exactly how many there are depends on the game, but pretty much every game will have at least a couple.

[Griddlelol]

It does seem that RPGs rely on trash as a mechanic while other games don't. FPS games have them, but because each one requires at least engaging with the game enough to point your gun at them and hit them I'm not sure if they qualify.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Minor note, there IS a way to get attacked by the green slimes in Crypt of the Necrodancer. There's an achievement for it.

[Griddlelol]

Has anyone played SotN on PS3 or Vita in the form of PSOne classics? It feels...weird. Loads of motion blur and seemingly delayed inputs. I'm not sure whether it's shit emulation, or whether it's just the game. 

[Vasari]

Thanks to this discussion I tried to go back to World of Warcraft last night. I had a free trial sitting in my inbox, so I activated it and logged in, and the first thing saw was a message saying "HEY ALL YOUR ADDONS ARE BROKEN CAUSE YOU NEED TO UPDATE THEM", so I immediately logged out again because I realised how much work it is to get into that game again. I really love the boss encounter stuff in games like that, which is the thing that's kept me coming back to it over the years, but I don't think I can put in the time to get access to the raids anymore. Even the idea of raid matchmaking turns me off of it because I like the challenge and don't want to see easy versions of the fights. I think that's why I'm so into Destiny; it's really easy to get to the endgame content and find a group to raid with. It's the same kind of complex boss encounters but with a lower barrier to entry.

[Griddlelol]

The addons for WoW were all pretty much defunct by the time Cataclysm came out. You could just delete all of them and be happy.

All the most popular ones were incorporated into the standard UI. The only ones I used were some hardcore PvP ones that let me target people without having to click them, or had cooldowns pop up on my screen essentially shouting YOUR COOLDOWN IS COOL NOW.

 

The reason I can't get deep into Destiny is exactly the reason you can't get into WoW. I just don't have the ability to sit down for 2 hours and raid. Also the social side of Destiny is non-existent. What's the point of a guild in Destiny? 

[JonCole]

I don't know if this is true in other MMOs, but when everyone knows what they're doing raids take no time at all. I once did VOG in 30 minutes, Crota in less.

 

Clans definitely serve a pretty minimal function in the game. I use mine as basically a somewhat curated lobby for LFG chat and general information sharing.