Too much predictability breeds contempt and boredom in MMOs, which Cryptic knows all too well. In its creation of the upcoming Magic Legends, the studio has been working on an AI director to change things up for players during missions so that no two runs will ever be the same. The goal here is to create a dynamic sense of pacing that waxes and wanes in response to a player’s journey.
“This system controls which enemies spawn, where they spawn, and when they spawn,” Cryptic explained. “Rather than being purely random, it monitors your progress and tries to create challenges that both enrich and enliven your adventures through the Multiverse. You can think of it a bit like a film director, or the dungeon master leading a tabletop game.”
The studio said that the director gets a “deck” of enemies that it can use for specific missions to be theme-appropriate. As a player goes through a mission, he or she will experience periods of building intensity (in which greater number and difficulty of monsters will appear) and relaxation (in which fewer mobs will show up). The director has rules for both states and monitors the player in order to know when to trigger either.
