In this video, I use some of my characters to create a huddle of characters behind a tree, so that it forces enemies to spread out around my party and blocks a fair amount of the pathfinding space available for combat.

The first enemies to arrive change targets from their initial target when they get into melee range and take up the immediate pathing space around the target that the melee units that had not arrived yet were targeting. 

For some reason, even though there is available pathing space to attack that unit, Medreth stops and becomes idle. To get him to start acting again I have to move one of my characters, which frees up some pathing space for him to be able to use his Escape ability to jump behind the party.

Had I not moved, Medreth would have stood there doing nothing.

There are at least three problems I can see here:
 

• 1) Melee units are not searching for a new target until they get within a very short range of melee targets, they will continue to target the unit that first attacked until they get within melee range of another unit. This could be attributing to the problem, and they should have a longer range for when they start looking for a new target / slightly changed conditions that makes them search for a new target.
   
• 2) Units can't detect all of the available pathing space around a unit, if a certain amount of the immediate space around the unit between the unit they are targeting and their position is blocked. Not sure why.
   
• When the above occurs, there is nothing that tells that melee unit to look for a new target, most likely because of 1) - they are not in melee range to be able to qualify for target re-acquisition.

So far I've been able to produce this issue with humanoid encounters and beetles

 

I guess Medreth is a coward. In some cases this 'mechanic' makes sense. IRL if there is a mob attacking a smaller group, they dont go in all at once. They sort of encircle the group and send in a few dudes at a time.

However, I agree a target re-evaluation should occur after a little while, if pathing is blocked. Shouldnt be that difficult to add.

Edited March 16, 201510 yr by Striped_Wolf

It's not a mechanic. Medreth just stops because the target is 'unreachable'.

 

The IE games had random small delays between movement commands, so it often looked like some enemies would stop momentarily

Yeah that was sarcasm on my part