The Chronicles of Spellborn dev diary update: mob behavior explained

When we talk about AI in an MMORPG, we can’t help but find some of the mobs in them a bit too mechanical. With that said, the developers from Spellborn NV are working hard on their upcoming The Chronicles of Spellborn to try and make the game’s AI as dynamic, yet as fun as possible for their gamers.

According to them, designing a realistic enough AI system for the mobs in the game isn’t enough. Read more about it in the full article after the jump!

When we talk about AI in an MMORPG, we can’t help but find some of the mobs in them a bit too mechanical. With that said, the developers from Spellborn NV are working hard on their upcoming The Chronicles of Spellborn to try and make the game’s AI as dynamic, yet as fun as possible for their gamers.

According to them, designing a realistic enough AI system for the mobs in the game isn’t enough. While it may be easy to step up the AI to give players a challenge, it may not necessarily give them a fun time playing the game.

Rather than a tedious challenge, the developers are trying to make the in-game mobs more dynamic by giving them patterned behaviors which adjust to standard player strategies. They cited an example on their developers’ dev diary where standard MMORPG mobs would normally go after the character which attacked them, causing them to go aggro.

A more dynamic approach to this would have mobs instead go after the weakest character in the party after going aggro, especially when the “tank” is continuously being healed by the token healer in the party.

Simple additions like this can greatly expand the game’s experience and help players think up of more tactics to work around the AI’s behavior. Here’s an excerpt taken from the developers’ diary about how they believe a “dynamic” AI behavior should work:

So, should fights be predictable? The basics, yes, to a certain level, even though it makes the situation not so super-dynamic-high-realism. It will create a better, more manageable user experience and players will be able to estimate what can happenÂ…to a certain level.

Currently, The Chronicles of Spellborn is in it’s beta testing phase and is stated to be released early next year.