goodcoolguy wrote:If I understand the idea correctly, it sounds like the rats would act as if they can move through each other (if that's not exactly what people are saying, let's pretend it is). As it stands, river rats are heavily limited by space and turn considerations. Even in the open, they take a lot of turns moving to get around each other and surround the player. There is almost always a lot of them in a pack that spend most of the encounter not attacking. This swarming stuff would totally change that. Combined with the usual pack AI, they would get surrounds much more readily in the open as well. I think they'd be pretty dangerous to a lot of characters.
I dunno, the way slimes work (which is what most if this idea's mechanics are coming from), for some reason they don't really combine all that readily. For the most part when they are chasing the player they act like any other pack animal, stumbling past and over each other slowly trying to get to the player.. Occasionally, slimes will combine, and un-combine instead, but the vast majority of my personal experience is they take the time to surround you first, then usually while you're fighting them they'll combine once in a while. When you try to corridor them, or limit their space, however, then they will most certainly group together much more quickly. I'm not the most experienced with midgame enemies I'll admit, I'd like to hear if anyone else's experiences are different.
Personally, I don't really see a need for sprucing up the rats.. So what, there are occasional swarms of rats in the lair branch. They don't offer any challenge. That fact alone makes them different, adds some variability to the opponents you face in the branch, imo. I don't get why every single thing in the game needs to be extremely impactful to be meaningful and add to the game. Obviously it's the kinda thing that appeals to newer people more than the vet that has killed a million pointless rats.
I've killed enough rats, though, do with them what you will. :p