Massively

I'm thinking that what might work in terms of a retreat mechanism would be to have enemies run away before you engage them if they see that you heavily outmatch them (for example if you're in a big party). These enemies might in fact run towards their allies, giving them extra protection. And if you approach this next group and you still outmatch them, that group will itself withdraw. You will eventually end up being pitted against a fairly large group, because each of the individual hostile NPCs of that group did not want to face you alone.

This could create scope for some tactics; eg cutting off or surrounding groups of enemies so that they can not withdraw to their friends and become more formidable.

It would also make the player feel powerful at higher levels; it would be satisfying seeing enemies flee from you as you approach them, quivering before your obvious awesomeness. Then when you face the big group, it would be a challenge, and also more entertaining since it's fun to take down large hordes alone (this is something AoC does quite well, since you will often come out on top of fights with large groups of NPCs).

The above are just random ideas that probably won't be in this game, but like I said in a previous post about this game, I'm really happy that these devs are putting more of a focus on AI. I think it's what is holding MMOs back from usurping single player RPGs. It's already at a stage where I find it hard to start up a single player game like Oblivion because I could be spending the time playing an MMO. If the fun of single player games (brought about in large part by AI) were brought to MMOs I would be very happy indeed.

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