While today's content plans video was greatly appreciated, and it's exciting to speculate about the things that are coming in future updates, I think we need to have a serious discussion about the current AI in SoT. Especially since new NPCs and enemy types are going to be a significant feature of these content updates.
I have some serious concerns about the AI in this game going forward because AI continues to be a weak spot in this game. There is evidence for this in a several areas.
It seems pretty clear to me that the primary reason they are withholding additional forts from us is because the AI simply would not be able to handle the geometry placement of some of the more complex forts.
Higher level Order of Souls missions feature "artificially" buffed skeletons in an attempt scale/increase difficulty due to the fact that skeleton behavior and overall combat does not increase in complexity. It's a shame that we don't encounter more complex skeleton group/unit behavior and instead Rare has decided to utilize bullet-sponge enemies rather than deal with the underlying problem that in general Skeletons have very few branching behaviors. At forts, most skeleton combat typically devolves into "kiting" enemies to various chokepoints and swinging swords repeatedly or using cannons (used under certain scenarios especially non-standard skellies). Higher level order of souls missions are even worse and essentially revolve around picking off gun weilding enemies one by one with the pistol or eye of reach. Otherwise they essentially insta-kill you if you run into an entire group.
The biggest issue with combat is that it continues to feel cheap and grindy, instead of feeling fluid and engaging. The best way to reduce what I'm talking about here is that the limitations of the combat and the game itself are used/subverted to defeat skeletons, instead having a combat system and enemy AI that encourages players to use the tools at their disposal in clever and exciting ways. At higher levels, skeletons don't feel any more difficult than they do at the beginning of the game, rather they just increase the probability that skeletons spawn with weapons that increase the odds in their favor, whether it be increased health, more projectile weapons, or increased likelihood of special skeleton types (increased movement/combat speed especially in plant-types and shadow-type skellies).
Skeletons need more branching behavior trees to make them feel less like ghosts in Pac Man and more like something that you'd expect out of a modern title like Halo or Zelda.
I feel the same way about the animals that populate the islands. The complexity of animal behavior is essentially just limited to "scatter." Why don't animals recognize other animals and try to communicate? Why do animals run full speed to the edge of islands into the ocean and continue running.
In the Art of Sea of Thieves, there is even talk about swimming into schools of fish and watching them swim away. Instead swimming into schools of fish just reveals how hollow the life is in this game. The truth is that many of the inhabitants of the world are essentially just static animations on a perpetual loop.
I'm super grateful for today's content roadmap, and optimistic about future content updates. However, if these new updates are going to be AI heavy and introduce more enemy-types into the world of SoT, I have some serious concerns about the existing complexity and branching structure of the AI in this game.
