AI and Pouncing

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AI and Pouncing

Postby Shadowdweller » Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:13 pm

Playability suggestion:

Having one's tanky minions pouncing suicidally off seems to be a common problem. I expect that the AI algorithms are more or less the same for minions and enemies - but something I think might improve playability a bit for player-controlled demons ONLY would be to prioritize attacks against adjacent enemies over pouncing/charging attacks. Presumably one would still be able to order them to attack distant enemies. I expect this is less desirable for enemy demons because the AI is probably better off prioritizing weaker targets as it does presently.
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Re: AI and Pouncing

Postby Ferret » Mon Feb 15, 2016 10:46 pm

Well, it wouldn't be the first time I made pouncy AI different for players than enemies. For example, AI already will not let friendly players pounce/charge out of player vision (if they were in player vision to begin with)

Lemme leave this one open for a bit and see if we get any dissenting opinions though. It's true you could issue a kill order, but that also has other effects. If no one speaks up as vastly preferring I leave it alone, I'll see about an adjustment.

Thanks for the suggestion. :)
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Re: AI and Pouncing

Postby wizzzargh » Mon Feb 15, 2016 10:47 pm

I dunno if I'd like that change. I sometimes like it a lot when Turdak leaps into the fray to Whirlwind Slash the entire enemy pack, and if it's a bad idea (like against Oni) I can just unsummon him and place him in a more sensible melee position.

Besides, can't you just tell them to prioritize whoever they're in melee with if you don't want them charging off?
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Re: AI and Pouncing

Postby Ferret » Mon Feb 15, 2016 10:49 pm

What I might really be hearing is that I need to finally get around to letting you issue individual kill orders instead of group ones. :D
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Re: AI and Pouncing

Postby Sandman25 » Mon Feb 15, 2016 10:57 pm

I used to like Pounce but now I try to amnesia it as soon as possible. I can see the point about Turdak though, so probably Pounce-priority should depend on whether the target demon (and/or the pouncing demon itself) have AoE abilities. I mean it does not make much sense to jump in the middle of Raicho group if all you are going to do is just to attack 1 monster per action and get attacked by melee of each of the enemies (maybe except when you can kill the target by the pouncing and it had a dangerous ranged attack/effect).
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Re: AI and Pouncing

Postby Shadowdweller » Tue Feb 16, 2016 12:50 am

wizzzargh wrote:I dunno if I'd like that change. I sometimes like it a lot when Turdak leaps into the fray to Whirlwind Slash the entire enemy pack, and if it's a bad idea (like against Oni) I can just unsummon him and place him in a more sensible melee position.

Besides, can't you just tell them to prioritize whoever they're in melee with if you don't want them charging off?

Hmm, that's actually a fair point. I guess I was thinking that one could just as easily direct an attack at a distant foe, but I can think of cases where that would disrupt one's battle lines pretty significantly as well. One can, of course, focus upon a nearby foe; it's just a little inconvenient and doesn't always work. I suppose trading Pounce for Bull Rush would probably improve things. Meh....was just a thought.

I have many more problems with allies leaping out of position than the reverse, personally.
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Re: AI and Pouncing

Postby Nakarai » Tue Feb 16, 2016 10:44 pm

Shadowdweller wrote:
wizzzargh wrote:I dunno if I'd like that change. I sometimes like it a lot when Turdak leaps into the fray to Whirlwind Slash the entire enemy pack, and if it's a bad idea (like against Oni) I can just unsummon him and place him in a more sensible melee position.

Besides, can't you just tell them to prioritize whoever they're in melee with if you don't want them charging off?

Hmm, that's actually a fair point. I guess I was thinking that one could just as easily direct an attack at a distant foe, but I can think of cases where that would disrupt one's battle lines pretty significantly as well. One can, of course, focus upon a nearby foe; it's just a little inconvenient and doesn't always work. I suppose trading Pounce for Bull Rush would probably improve things. Meh....was just a thought.

I have many more problems with allies leaping out of position than the reverse, personally.

Thats a good point, most Demons could just have Bull Rush, but ones with Pounce could be given abilities to help them survive or some AoE for crowds. It would be nice if the AI could consider different Pounce angles (So they end up on the side of the crowd and not in the middle) and whether or not they'll get obliterated if they Pounced, but I have no idea how hard it would be to implement. Still, making you micromanage Pounce Demon's targeting for every fight isn't an ideal fix either. Maybe you could be able to disable skills for Demons along with being able to tell them "Its ok to use it now" as another command would work.
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