FEAR - the most glaring omission in enemy AI

[RefinedBarbarian]

TLDR: Improve immersion and keep enemies from being such nuisances by having them avoid fights they cant win.

Its a common thing but nothing kills my immersion in a game faster than enemies that continue to attack or pursue me in spite of having no hope of victory and no good compulsion to enter a hopeless fight.

I’m running back and forth between resources and my base. Along the paths I take are crocodiles and rocknoses and both run right at me on sight. By this point dispatching them isn’t even a fight but I have to do it if I want to mine in peace. What were once challenging enemies have become nuisances and I just want them to go away.

Now I understand these species might just be dumb but you would think that they would eventually notice the smell of gore from dozens of their kin wafting from my armor and stay clear. The canines and cats certainly would.

The human AI is the least excusable. No one with rags for armor and stone for weapons is going to go out of their way to attack someone in full steel plate wielding a sword of ice.

There are, of course, instances where players intrude on enemy territory and the AI should attack anyway. In such cases it would do so much for immersion if survivors turned and ran after I cut down a few of the others. Unless he has had one ale too many, a cook shouldn’t stand and fight after I bisect the best fighter in two hits.

[Sparilas]

Exile camps should be neutral. They really don’t have any reason to attack their fellow exiles (namely you). I mean, all they do is sit around a fire in small bands and just try to survive just like everyone else. I can understand why the other various factions would attack anyone that trespassed their turf, but why the hell would some guy in rags raise his stone club at you when he’s just as cold and starving as any new player? It just doesn’t make any sense.

[RefinedBarbarian]

That’s a good point. Some of them might be opportunists (who should be scared away by good gear) but most of them shouldn’t want to attack you in the first place.

The same goes for the wildlife. Ill see a crocodile or hyena with a kill and it will come charging at me from a distance. That shouldn’t happen unless I get too close to the food.

[Caco]

Deers, gazelles and rabits should run from you and bigger creatures. Hyenas, crocs, wolves and “normal” animals should attack if you get close enough and in their way, but when badly hurt, they should run for their lives, thats instinct of every animal.

Insect, demonic, undead and dragons fight to the death as its expected.

Npc’s camp could act more like brain individuals, its kinda non sense all those ppl attacking the moment they see you, I can understand the Darfari doing this, but the rest? They would taunt as the Skyrim bandits do, and non fighters and even tier 1/2 fighters/archers would run/ surrender when badly hurt.

Now, Thralls is what makes this game so different from others, if they put a deeper work on Thrall AI, like they having an actual personality, behavior, random speech ( they do battlecries wich is awesome), interaction between others like in Dragon Age.

The Setlement System, could bring us the “city life” aspect, the Thralls/Npc’s could have an interaction for dialogue, with most not having nothing at all to talk, but saying random things when pressing E on them, and those we already interact, having a better dialogue interface.

Imagine one named Thrall you capture, after getting him/her out of the wheel, after sometime, you can interact and start a conversation with him/her, they tell you stories, their backstories and can even have side quests for you to pursue, getting an iten, weapon, souvenir, you name it, there would be a living world in Conan Exiles.

[Ko6ka]

Gazelles do run away when you kill one near them, so such behavior is available in the engine of this game. Why not to make hyenas and Tier 1 Thralls run away on seeing death of their comrades? They are not fighters, just poor weak creatures.

[Caco]

Indeed, it would be lovely to see a non fighter/archer Thrall running and screaming for help after seeing you slaughtering his comrades hehe. And gazelles should run from you as soon as they see you (a little bit farther than agro range), not only when you hit them, this would make the “hunt” feel more real, you would have to use stealth comming from behind crouching or ranged weapons to kill a gazelle.

[RefinedBarbarian]

A recent encounter made me want to bring this back to the top for a bit with another addition.

I take the elevator down from my cliff side keep and I get aggro from a bear right away. Fine. Lets do this bear.

I’m a couple swings into the bear when I hear a familiar trumpet. A mammoth has joined the fight.

Bear and mammoth combined force me to maneuver but after I do I hear a growl. There is now a big wolf in the fight and things have gotten stupid.

I could see a mammoth becoming annoyed at two smaller things making noise nearby though it should be as likely to target the bear as a player. The wolf though? It should be content with the bloody remains of the bear I carved up.

In most cases it would be best to have a third species stay away from a fight between two others. Once the fight is over the player should be able to leave some of the defeated creature’s corpse to distract any other nearby predators.