The most recent developer roundtable steam from the Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen devs covers a lot of pretty big topics, including the game’s encounter design philosophy, NPC AI, and the special Disposition system.
In the stream, the devs noted that the challenge level of an encounter like the Tower of the Reckless Magician is right where the team wants it, where victory was not a given. That said, the devs also admit that the difficulty is one-dimensional and they’re working on adding a more layered sense of challenge.
The team then went on to the AI Disposition system, namely whether NPCs will see their Disposition change due to stimuli or through other factors and have multiple Dispositions. It was revealed that NPCs won’t have multiple Dispositions initially, but that will be looked into post-release. That said, some Dispositions can be triggered through events, like an NPC having a vengeful trait engage when another NPC is slain by monsters.
There was also a question about enemy populations in zones, nodding back to players camping areas to farm monsters for XP and coin. The devs are keeping this form of playstyle in mind and are designing zones and locations to try to support certain numbers of groups. That said, a later question talks about the problems with players camping an area for too long and effectively locking others out of content. While the devs remember the days when camping an area for a specific drop meant that moving equated to missing out on a chance for gear, they’re also trying to find a balance point between having iconic drops and multiple ways for players to find those goodies in order to mitigate gatekeeping.
Those were just a few of the things talked about in the stream, so if you’ve got an hour and a half to yourself, you can take in the full roundtable below.
