Nonsensical Humanoid Behavior

[Sedrefilos]

I got my hands on the White March 1 & 2 at last (very good expansions, btw, especially the 2nd) and playing the game again after so long, something occured to me that I didn't notice (or didn't care for some reason?) at the first time: humanoid opponents behave like midless beasts when it comes to initiate combat.

 

What I mean: I was walking around some military encampment, trying to find a way to slip in and a lonesome guard notices me an my party of 6 high level, heavily armed adventurers. What does th he do? Charges at us in melee and, naturally, dies in seconds. And I though "what an idiotic behavior!". I mean, shouldn't he run for assistance, trying to alarm the other guards that a group of dangerous looking strangers sneaking around? Of course he should. But the game treats all opponents as "monsters". As soon as green meets red, combat to the death occurs.

 

I'd like to point this as a suggestion for the devs to consider implementing in the sequel. Humanoids should have a way to "measure" situtations. If enemy is way more powerful, maybe they should run, try calling for backup or -if there's nowere to go- have a fear debuff and a cornered buff, or somethings like that.

 

Sorry in advance if this topic has already been discussed somewhere else.

[JerekKruger]

A very simple way to implement this would be to simply have certain kith encounters "call for help", so that if you attack one it will immediately aggro several other nearby kith. Perhaps this could be combined with a timer where if you kill them before the timer runs down, they don't call for help (allowing "stealthy" approaches and perhaps giving the Rogue an extra purpose).

[Boeroer]

It's relatively easy to determine if a party is too powerful for a certain encounter. Take the average level, the quality of equipment, the average damage, the damage done, how many times knocked out, the average ACC, the defensive values, if there are casters and so on. Of course you can't determine if the player has some very weird and powerful builds, but a kith opponent also wouldn't know this. If you want to make it realistic, only examine stuff that is visible, like quality of equipment, number of foes, are there casters, perhaps how high health is (injured), fully rested (do they look worn and exhausted) abd so on. Based on that you could give them a scripting how they should behave - mayybe also based on morale, dispositions and orders they have. 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Boeroer

[Lamppost in Winter]

A very simple way to implement this would be to simply have certain kith encounters "call for help", so that if you attack one it will immediately aggro several other nearby kith. Perhaps this could be combined with a timer where if you kill them before the timer runs down, they don't call for help (allowing "stealthy" approaches and perhaps giving the Rogue an extra purpose).

 Josh Sawyer mentioned this in the latest livestream. This is actually in the game (and has happened to me several times), it apparently just didn't always work.