There have been a couple of extremely lengthy videos released by Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, both of which are full of behind-the-scenes goodness for those followers of the developing MMORPG that love their granular details.
First, the game’s recent livestream provided a close look at how enemies will operate in combat, pointing out a variety of AI behaviors. The stream featured several fight demonstrations, with foes using abilities to interrupt player character healing spells from going off, clearing player-applied mezzes, and one showcase that featured a pair of foes utilizing skills to knock the tank player off-balance.
The idea is to make fighting a bit more tactical and ask players to be a little more attentive with what abilities to use and when, as well as to consider things like positioning. “The point here is not to completely shut down players, obviously,” said one of the devs. “This is in a state right now where it’s not interrupting every heal, but it’s something you need to be mindful of when you’re fighting.”
The second video from Pantheon has a roundtable discussion with some senior programming staff talking about — you guessed it — programming. This particular video isn’t quite as full of reveals as the combat demonstration, but it does provide some more insight into the challenges of programming for the game, particularly in relation to the Unity engine and Pantheon’s refactoring work.
