parvo
02-26-2009, 08:57 PM
Reposted from a thread I posted in response to Slithe's question:
Right now, enemy caster AI is the most broken part of the game. Every enemy caster that is not anchored and not attacked from range, runs right up to the player and bumps into them. If they aren't immediately chopped to bits, they turn around ant try to get some distance, often firing off a spell in the opposite direction of the player. This is 100% repeatable. Just run within sight of any (non-anchored) enemy caster and it will happen. This has a very unbalancing affect on play. Enemy casters often have spells that should balance player melee types, however the AI is set up so they "suicide" on the melee characters. Fixing it would go a long way toward restoring player/environment balance.
The poor caster AI contrasts what in many ways is very exceptional AI. The spot and listen AI affects are superb. The way mobs will invesigate sounds they hear is quite worthy of being called intelligent. Patrol paterns are realistic. The part of caster and ranged type AI that causes them to run away, while possibly annoying to the barbarians, is fair and not unreasonable. Even some of the scripting as substitute for AI is ingeneous. But the overall grade is brought way down by mob caster suicide.
Right now, enemy caster AI is the most broken part of the game. Every enemy caster that is not anchored and not attacked from range, runs right up to the player and bumps into them. If they aren't immediately chopped to bits, they turn around ant try to get some distance, often firing off a spell in the opposite direction of the player. This is 100% repeatable. Just run within sight of any (non-anchored) enemy caster and it will happen. This has a very unbalancing affect on play. Enemy casters often have spells that should balance player melee types, however the AI is set up so they "suicide" on the melee characters. Fixing it would go a long way toward restoring player/environment balance.
The poor caster AI contrasts what in many ways is very exceptional AI. The spot and listen AI affects are superb. The way mobs will invesigate sounds they hear is quite worthy of being called intelligent. Patrol paterns are realistic. The part of caster and ranged type AI that causes them to run away, while possibly annoying to the barbarians, is fair and not unreasonable. Even some of the scripting as substitute for AI is ingeneous. But the overall grade is brought way down by mob caster suicide.