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NPC
NPC is an acronym for Non-Player Character. In EverQuest, like many RPGs, characters are living, unliving, or otherwise animated entities which talk, interact, fight, sell, bank, or train players. NPCs are controlled by server-side scripts (or several commands in the case of pets) while in contrast player characters (PCs) are avatars controlled by players.
NPC behavior on p99 is not externally documented but over the years veteran players have observed consistent patterns which usually make NPCs very predictable, once these patterns are understood.
Contents |
Behavior
Spawn
The life of an NPC begins when they spawn. Every time an NPC spawns, it has a cause:
- Simulated Respawn, a.k.a. Earthquake, patch day resets or other forms of server reset
- Respawn - usually occurs a fixed period of time after the NPC's last death/despawn. This is the most common cause for NPCs to spawn, and the most common respawn timer is 6 minutes, 40 seconds. Many NPCs in dungeons will have the same respawn time zonewide, usually around 20 minutes, but patrolling NPCs may have a shortened timer. Many bosses and important NPCs have a variable respawn time known as a window, such as 7 days +/- 8 hours.
- Summon - pets are summoned by other characters with spells available to certain classes.
- Kill trigger (e.g. The Avatar of War) - killing one NPC spawns another NPC. This usually happens in the same location where the trigger died, but sometimes the spawn can occur somewhere else in a fixed location. A common mechanic in the higher islands of Plane of Sky.
- Trap trigger (e.g. An evil little imp) - pretty much identical to kill triggers but are triggered by being too close to a certain location
- Quest trigger (e.g. Vorash) - NPC(s) are spawned by completing a quest turn-in. Very common in epic quest segments and many Velious quests.
- Aggro trigger (e.g. Vindi's pets) - very uncommon trigger for special bosses
- In-game time (e.g. undead or animals in Kithicor Forest) - certain zones will respawn most or all NPCs at dawn and dusk. This describes the mechanic behind the day/night cycle in many outdoor zones. NPCs with this respawn mechanic may also have a traditional respawn timer
- GM ability - GMs can respawn NPCs via commands at will
- Charmed players - when a player is inflicted with a charm debuff, their character is replaced with an uncontrolled NPC pet commanded by whoever casted the charm
Despawn/Death
The life of an NPC ends with a despawn or death. There are less causes for despawn:
- Death - semantically this is not a despawn but it's effectively the same except it leaves a corpse.
- Simulated Respawn a.k.a. Earthquake (a type of server reset) most NPCs respawn
- Quest trigger (e.g. any Plane of Sky quest gear turn-in NPC, and many examples in epic quests)
- In-game time (e.g. the undead and animals in Kithicor Forest or Mammoth in Surefall)
- No owner - pets summoned by PCs will immediately despawn when their owner dies, zones, or receives buffs like Invisibility
- No aggro - pets summoned by NPCs without owners and certain triggered-spawn NPCs will despawn when they don't have an aggro table and/or have been alive for a minimum period of time
- Charmed players - when the charm debuff wears off or is dispelled or removed, the NPC representing a charmed player is replaced by the normal player-controlled character (PC)
Perma-root
Some NPCs will never move from where they spawn, and cannot be pushed or pulled to a more advantageous location. Most of these are Velious boss dragons like Yelinak, certain Temple of Veeshan inhabitants and Tunare. Perma-rooted NPCs do not have the same aggro behavior as regularly rooted NPCs, and may attack further targets than the closest tank.
Aggro
See main article: Aggro
Un-aggroed Behavior
Before an NPC is aggroed, it will generally display one of three behaviors:
- Patrol - These NPCs patrol (pat for short) between fixed locations in a fixed order. There are no randomly pathing NPCs in classic EverQuest. All NPCs have fixed patrols, though some patrols may be so long and complex that they may seem random. If you observe an NPC long enough, you will eventually discover a repeating pattern.
- Static - These NPCs simply stand where they spawn and do not move until aggroed.
- Scripted - A few NPCs follow more complex scripted behaviors, generally in response to quests or dialog. Many NPCs in the Great Divide Ring Wars have unusual, advanced behaviors.
Flee
See main article: Flee
Abilities
Spells
See main article: Spell
Many NPCs which are of a class capable of casting spells will cast spells. Bard NPCs never sing magical songs available to player Bards (they are pretty much just warriors with weaker stats).
NPCs seem to have finite mana, but it regenerates much more quickly than players, especially when NPCs are out of combat (as does their health). Mana Sieve or Theft of Thought are very useful for preventing an NPC from casting spells, but may require more applications than you might expect. NPCs on P99 may also have a larger mana pool, as on live they had "an insane amount of mana" [1].
Like players, NPCs have a fixed number and selection of spells appropriate to their class and level. An NPC Wizard, Druid, or Shaman may be capable of casting Gate, but a Shadow Knight cannot. Most NPCs of a given class and level can be expected to have the same set of memorized spells, but there are exceptions of customized sets of memorized spells, especially among bosses or raid targets. Certain spells such as Gate are only available to higher level NPCs or bosses, even though the spells are available to lower level players.
While aggroed, the NPC will, at random server ticks, attempt to cast spells if they are in line of sight of their aggro target. NPCs are more likely to cast movement restricting spells (like Root or Snare) on distant targets they are chasing down compared to melee range targets, they might nuke more often as well. NPCs with stuns, mez, or fear spells may cast them on secondary targets instead rather than their aggro target. NPCs with targeted AOE spells will cast them just like regular nukes and make no distinction about targetting groups of players with those spells. NPCs with PBAOE spells will not begin to cast them unless their primary aggro target is in range of it. AOEs casted by NPCs with players as their targets will never hit other NPCs, except for pets summoned or charmed by players.
NPCs never attempt to interrupt themselves from casting a spell, even if a player moves out of range, dies or FDs. They will wait until the casting timer is completed and cast on the corpse if available. If an NPC casts a spell on an FDed player in this way or by AOE, then the FD is broken and the NPC will immediately re-aggro if they were aggroed before.
While out of combat, NPCs will buff themselves and nearby social NPCs with memorized spells if available. It seems that they begin to cast a buff on a random chance basis on server ticks. They seem to check if they already have a buff before casting it again to save mana. NPCs will heal and summon pets in the same manner. Heals may also be cast in combat, but only if the target is themselves or a social NPC and their target is damaged below a threshold at about 30-40% HP. All beneficial spells cast by NPCs do not check line of sight, but do check range. Unintuitively, when an NPC heals another through a wall, it does not confer a social aggro check.
Procs
Like players, NPCs can proc effects from their melee attacks. The chances of procs is presumably affected by DEX, might be reduced against players with Disciplines like Evasive and Whirlwind, and will never occur on absorbed attacks (those mitigated by Runes, Rampage, Divine Aura, etc.).
Procs may come from weapons, buffs (like Vampiric Curse) or from innate procs (like Ghoul Root, Deadly Lifetap or Efreeti Fire).
Rampage
Introduced in Velious, rampage seems to be a special type of innate proc which splashes melee damage onto a nearby secondary aggro target. The choice of target is a bit mysterious, but it usually follows these rules:
- It is never the primary aggro target (tank)
- It must be someone in melee range
- It must be someone with aggro
- It will be the first person to satisfy all of the above conditions until they break one of the conditions
- Regardless of hate, the rampage aggro will stick to this player until they break one of the conditions
- If no character satisfies these conditions, rampage does not occur. So if only a single aggroed person is in melee range, it won't occur.
- Rampages have a chance to occur on each melee attack. The NPC must be meleeing or no rampages will occur. The chances of a rampage seem to be reduced by the same factors as procs listed above.
Flurry
Another Velious era innate proc is the flurry. This proc simply generates additional attacks on the primary aggro target. NPCs like Tunare (God) or Vulak`Aerr who are capable of flurries are already extremely dangerous and this certainly doesn't help. Again these occur randomly on melee attacks and speculatively this chance can be mitigated by the above methods for mitigating proc chance.
Special abilities
Special abilities are often confused with procs. These are very similar to skills like Harm Touch, they often have some limited range beyond melee range (or can be zone-wide in the case of Cazic Touch). All of these abilities have a cooldown, and probably don't consume mana (or very much mana). Like spells, NPCs use these abilities at random server ticks after the cooldown has expired, but that random chance each tick seems to be much higher compared to spells, so they usually use them more quickly. Some examples:
- Summon - a zone-wide ranged ability that teleports the primary aggro target to the NPC
- Enrage - the NPC ripostes all attacks for a few seconds
- Cazic Touch
- Dragon Roar
- DryBoneFireBurst
- EarthElementalAttack
- Specter Lifetap
- WhirlBolt
- Most dragon AOEs that aren't available as spells to player classes
If an NPC can cast something many times in rapid succession, then it's certainly a proc. If they can cast it while chasing a player and not quite in melee range, then it's probably not a proc but rather a spell, skill or other special ability.
Special types
Vendor
See main article: Vendor
Banker
See main article: Banker
Guild Master
A GM (a.k.a. class trainer) is an NPC which is visited by players to train their skills. They are usually high level and undercons (an unusually difficult fight for their level) of the relevant class.
Pet
See main article: Pet
Boat
There are generally two types of boats.
- Large, invincible NPCs which resemble galleons, frigates or larger vessels which transport the player between zones
- Small, invincible NPCs which resemble canoes which players with low swimming skill can use to traverse bodies of water at moderate speeds
Boats have a long history in EQ of being notoriously buggy and fickle beasts, prone to leaving the hopeless player stranded in the middle of an ocean.
Other objects
Although not formally thought of as NPCs, other mobs (mobile objects) exist such as doors and elevators. These usually cannot be targetted by the player and can never be destroyed. Some are locked and require keys or
WT: 0.1 Size: TINY
Class: BRD ROG
Race: ALL
