PLEASE help me improve AI......all suggestions welcome. The more the better!

[Vaskez]

I love the last idea about turning blue and surrendering. I might actually use this, although too often otherwise you'd never get any experience or new stuff. Thanks for that idea.

Also, don't worry, I will try to keep the AI realistic (as realistic as a fantasy RPG can be ) i.e. orcs will not be as intelligent as human enemies for example but they will be more intelligent than golems. And randomness is this MOD's middle name. I am gonna try and improve replayability by at least 300% using in part, random events and encounters. As an example, a mission which at some stage might involve getting an item: the item will be placed at a random location or on a random character chosen from a list so it will probably be different each time you play....I will try to do this with as many missions as possible and of course randomness already features in my scripts and will do so in future ones.

[Blade]

don't know if you can do this but could you provide the enimies with multiple weapons, and have them change weapons during combat to get maximum effect against your party? Like starting off with a bow, then switching to diffrent types of swords? I found they didn't do this inteligently enough in BG2 and ToB.

Just thought of this, could you make the enimies weild dule weapons?

[ 11-13-2001: Message edited by: Blade ]

[250]

you know

the herd can only move as fast as the slowest one

that does make some sense here. if you want to provide some challenge, why not have all the encounters focus on the weakest PC member? this way will constantly frustrate players because they have to actually NOT-RELY on all tanks

[Vaskez]

quote:

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Originally posted by Blade:
don't know if you can do this but could you provide the enimies with multiple weapons, and have them change weapons during combat to get maximum effect against your party? Like starting off with a bow, then switching to diffrent types of swords? I found they didn't do this inteligently enough in BG2 and ToB.

Just thought of this, could you make the enimies weild dule weapons?

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Of course you can do this.....in fact this was one I thought of myself......look at the first post, last item under "improvements so far".

[Vaskez]

quote:

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Originally posted by 250:
you know

the herd can only move as fast as the slowest one

that does make some sense here. if you want to provide some challenge, why not have all the encounters focus on the weakest PC member? this way will constantly frustrate players because they have to actually NOT-RELY on all tanks

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Good idea......I will use this sometimes........but not always as then the strong characters will have freedom to attack how they wish.......while attacking the weakest character, a high-level mage could be casting sybol-stun on the whole group then again......u start at lower level in this conversion so symbol stun won't appear for a while...

[Amergin]

well, "simply" start with the most complicated party based AI for human opponents and work down for the rest.

iow, what would an AI party do if faced against the exact same characters? as an example, let's say our party is korgan, edwin, viconia, valygar, and the pc, an elf f/t.

potentially the mage is the most dangerous character, so they both might throw up a mantle or other protection from physical damage spell so they can get off a spell or two. then comes the breach followed by valygar's arrows (i think bow users should always go after mages as the high rate of fire can wear down a stoneskin very quickly).

the clerics go into summoning mode (consider making a protection from good spell for them) then buffs.

and all good melee people understand the efficiency of concentrating attacks on one enemy rather than setting up a bunch of 1 on 1's.

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as far as picking out the weakest character to target, dont make it too unfair or unrealistic. if possible, make this based on what kind of armor theyre wearing initially, so a group smash on the dude in leather armor before hacking at the full plate guy. the only exception i see for this is if a character is at "near death" status where finishing him off is more of a priority than beating down an easier to hit one.

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definitely make the spell casters smarter. those skull traps and meteor swarms right into their own faces is downright absurd.

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enemies should make full use of items available to pc parties of comparable level. while this means more loot for the winner, it also means that their best fighter wont be charmed or confused. actually, you can always make these items "undroppable" so they just disappear at their death.

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introduce the anti-classes. a vampiric lich would literally raise hell. a true anti-inquisitor with his own level x2 dispel magic. a genuine gith raiding party, complete with vorpal sword wielding leaders and swarms of fighter/mages.

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basically look at all the "best party" and "best item" lists and counter them.

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if you want/need someone to make up spells and items (not just in theory but with ieep) i'd be more than happy to assist. my most recent spell ive been tinkering with is greater lower resistance. level 8, effects all (enemy and ally) creatures in a 10' radius, range line of sight, lowers by a flat 20% for 5 rounds, 10% chance the caster becomes affected by wild magic for the next 2 rounds (had to have a balancing effect and this seems appropriate).