NPC combat Feedback for development team

David Kerr shared this feedback 15 hours ago
Not Enough Votes

After watching your most recent videos showcasing the npc combat/Logic node system you have been working on, I have a few bullet points of feedback:


- TLDR: Npcs should have more logic nodes to work with that effect their aggression, tactics, survivability, etc. that are based on hidden combat level tags that lock or give access to logic nodes to promote dynamic combat difficulty without having to make enemies scale in hp and become bullet sponges.


- Npcs both friendly and hostile should have "Combat level tags" that dictate how often they fire, how accurate they are, using extra abilities or coded tasks such as flanking and rushing when the player is reloading, etc. (This will allow npcs to have a dynamic threat to them without having to turn them into bullet sponges.)

- Higher combat level tagged npcs should employ tactics such as "Always have covering fire on player at almost all times", "Rush players down when low hp if their own hp is above threshold", "Target weakest/lowest hp hostile player/npc in radius during combat", and "flee area and seek cover if allied npcs in radius are currently providing cover fire, and hp is below threshold.", Etc. (Lower combat level tagged npcs will be locked from these tactics from triggering.)

- Npcs should have classes.

- Npc class examples:

- Sniper: Higher accuracy than standard, longer time taken between shots, stays at minimum distance from player based on threshold.

- Breacher: Throws grenades at player before rushing towards them after set time. (To prevent them from blowing themselves up.) Spawns breaching charges on locked doors between them and player. (Short audible beeping countdown to give both players and npcs time/warning to move from blast radius of door.)

- Captain: Gives allied units in large radius stat boosts and access to higher tier tactic nodes than they would normally have access too. (Stat boosts and tactic node access are lost upon leaving radius or captain death.)

- Scavenger: Loot pinata.

- Standard: Standard baseline npc with limited logic nodes.

- Medic: Seek out low hp allied units in radius and inject healing on timed cooldown. Medics prioritize allies in "Fleeing state" that are currently "In cover" state. If npc is not missing head or limbs, medic has 25% chance to resurrect dead units in radius on timed cooldown, (One chance per dead allied npc.) If successful, that npc will get back up from dead state with half hp. The same npc can be resurrected multiple times until the 25% role check fails, after which they are permanently dead. (This will allow less npcs to put up bigger and longer lasting fights without bullet sponge.)


These classes and logic systems can be used for animals, ship/vehicle controlling squads, etc. Get creative with it.


Hopefully, this will help make combat last longer, be more interesting/challenging, and reduce the need to have overly animated unique/custom npcs with their own one off logic frameworks that waste development time.

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