Movement Style
What is your enemy’s movement style? Does your enemy charge the player like an angry bull? Does he zigzag erratically to avoid taking fire? Does he make a beeline and then retreat? Does he jump from cover to cover? Does he crawl on the walls to ambush the player from above? Does he run away and never fight at all?8 Knowing your enemy’s movement styles will not only determine his attacks but also his personality.
Determine whether your enemy moves randomly or predictably. Avoid extremes and insert variety. Too random and the player might feel the enemy moves too arbitrarily. Too predictable and an enemy feels too “game-y.”
The best solution doesn’t include unpredictability. For Crash Bandicoot 2, Naughty Dog tried creating more behavioral AI with fewer simple patterns. Focus groups found them inferior. The players liked the challenge of figuring out the enemy’s patterns. On the flipside, players like unpredictability in sports games...