Idea: ff12 gambit system for behaviours

[aki-cat]

Ok, so, what if monsters had buildable gambits for behaving?

A gambit is something like:
(Condition + Target + Action)

And a monster's behaviour would be an ordered array of gambits, meaning they have priorities. The behaviour would try each action in order, until it finds one that can be executed. Otherwise it defaults to IDLE.

Like so:

1. (HP<40% + Self + Cure)
2. (___ + Nearest Player + Bolt)
3. (___ + Nearest Player + Primary)

This would execute somewhat like this: If the monster has low health, it tries to heal itself. If it's not injured enough, or if it doesn't have a cure card, it tries casting bolt to the nearest player. If there is no bolt card, it tries to attack the nearest player. If there is no visible player nothing can be so done it defaults to 'IDLE'.

"___" conditions are empty. Meaning somethings don't need conditions (or the condition is always true), and it just checks if the action is valid instead (if it can find a target, if it can find the card in its hand).

[aki-cat]

I'm not sure how to use range within this thing. In FF12, range is automatic: if the character sees a valid target, it gets within range of their action. This also means it will chase the target for as long as possible, which in FF12 sucks because they are part of your party and they can lure unwanted attention. But for monsters/enemies it should work really well.

A possible solution would be making all actions include by default a "chase until within range" action within the actual action. (casting Bolt means the actor would chase the target until it is within range before casting, by default, meaning it doesn't need to be explicited)

[Kazuo256]

Chasing until range should not be part of the action. The behavior code can inspect the gambit action's parameters for the need of targets and chase as needed.