[ally AI]
[color:"orange"]so it seems we have similar issues there..?[/color]
Actually, party AI was never a problem for me in BD. I played a warrior / archer combo, and only set the archer to aggressive. Unlike some other games, AI controlled archers don't attack opponents outside the immediate fight when there are closer targets, and when they do attack something from a distance, it doesn't draw in a huge mob. During the first act both my characters were warriors (in the unpatched game arrows were more scarce/expensive, and most act 1 enemy were more vulnerable to crushing damage anyway), so I usually left them both selected and had them attack the same target.
In other games, as long as only one character has serious AI problems, you can simply switch to that character to control, and just have to tweak the behaviour of the others. If party AI problems are more serious, then you either have to disable it (if possible), find some workaround or babysit the other characters (which could be enough to for me to quit the game).
Before one of the Diablo II patches improved AI, the first henchman you were given was not worth the effort to keep alive, and I just played without her. The improved AI it made a huge difference, and I started reviving her when she was killed (much less than before). I never considered her a party member, though (henchmen were never intended to be), merely an extra damage bonus and ranged attack. If party members are going to be given an elaborate enough AI to act on their own (at least during combat) with little intervention, they would need a detailed background and strong interactions with other characters to make them party members rather than henchmen.
[color:"orange"]..but allow the player to MODIFY this THREAT RATE[/color]
Perhaps the game could dynamically adjust the rating based on the actual battles. That way if your equipment, skills or playing style made you more or less vulnerable against a particular type of opponent, the threat level would change from the default level-based assessment.
This would be more bookkeeping for the game (keeping track of each ally and opponents' hits and damage done for the duration of each fight), but would allow reasonable AI choices without requiring a lot of micro-managing.
[color:"orange"]you must have been playing RPG's at least as long as i have[/color]
The first RPG games I played were the Final Fantasy and Ultima games on the original Nintendo. Before that I had a Radio Shack TRS-80 (which my brothers and I got for Christmas the year it was $1000, rather than the next year, when the price dropped to not much more than $100). The closest thing to an RPG on the TRS-80 was a first person 3D dungeon crawl with line drawn graphics and text based commands. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />
[color:"orange"]i see what you are getting at where the computer starts taking over from the player, but again, my beef here is the continual mouse clicking etc.. (micro-managing)[/color]
Well I don't want to micro-manage combat, but I think having the ability to simply watch would make fights boring after awhile. Even if allies are simply doing what I would have told them to do anyway, it could make the game less immersive. I have not played a game with anything close to that detailed of an AI system, though, so it may work better in practice than I expect.
Anyway, there are probably practical restriction which will limit how complex the AI system will be. It should be good enough that there are no easy exploits for killing strong opponents (unless they are designed to be stupid, or something), fights are challenging and allies do not do dumb things. After that, there are diminishing returns on making the system more elaborate.
[color:"orange"]* FLESHED OUT COMBAT ENGINE.[/color]
I've only tried using a knockback effect in a couple of games, and found it sometimes useful, but usually annoying (draws out fights too much if triggered on all/most hits). Some enemy using this effect would be fine, though (melee characters would either have to take a lot of damage or change their approach).
I think the rest of these combat suggestion have been discussed (in various forms) in different topics here, with pretty much general support (to various degrees).
