...which turned into a "this is how i think about enemies that are not bosses" in my game In Stars and Time (which you should go and wishlist teehee đ). also my game has three types in battle and its literal Rock Paper Scissors. also also the screenshots are in Japanese because i was testing the jpn version at the time. ok you're caught up

ok so first I gotta explain how RPGMakerâs AI works.
when you assign skills to enemies, you can tell rpgmaker two things about them: 1. Conditions, aka when to do a certain skill (always? only on certain turns? only if under a certain state? only if under 50%HP?) and 2. Ratings, aka how high that skill is on the action list.
So for example, this is a Paper Tristesse (a basic enemy in the game)âs attack patterns:

Paper Tristesseâs [Paper] attack (which attacks only one target) is set to Always, so theyâll always have the possibility to do this attack. [Paper (All)] (which targets the whole party) will be activated only if Tristesseâs HP is under 50%, and [Does Something] (which actually just⌠gives a line of dialogue and nothing else) also always has the possibility to happen. BUT those Rating numbers are different- the higher the number, the more likely that skill is to be activated. So [Paper] happens pretty often, [Paper (All)] less often, and only if Tristesseâs HP is under 50%, and [Does Something] is even less likely to happen than both of those.
Paper Tristesse doesnât have a whole lot of attacks, because itâs easier for the player so they can keep track of what attacks the enemy has, and itâs easier for me. So I donât have. To figure out a whole damn complicated AI when this works great (some other enemies have very long lists of patterns but theyâre spoilers ok!!!)
(sidenote: [Does Something] is here to give a tiny bit of worldbuilding (how does the Tristesse act?) and to make the enemy skip a turn, giving the player some room to breathe and plan. So sometimes instead of attacking Tristesse goes â(Tristesse is distracted.)â and skips a turn. Iâm being so nice to players)
This simple pattern of 3 attacks is used by enemies that my producer calls âGoomba enemiesâ, which are random encounters that are supposed to be very simple and not time intensive for the player! For the demo, Tristesse enemies are Goombas, and the triplets (seen below)/Rancoeur+Amertume encounters are made to be slightly harder and ask you to think a lil bit.

(oooh whatâs the difference between those three lil ladies?????)
The way Iâm thinking about random enemies is, random enemies should all teach the player something. Basic Tristesse enemies are here to teach you about the basics of Rock Paper Scissors and have pretty low stakes (just one weak enemy to focus on! Not a lot of attacks to keep track of!), the triplets are here to teach you that HEY WHATâS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THOSE THREE SEEMINGLY IDENTICAL ENEMIES DO YOU GET WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK AT YET (itâs their hands, because they do different hand signs depending on their RPS type. did you notice), and Rancoeur+Amertume are here to teach you about enemies with different goals/patterns (Rancoeur buffs, Amertume attacks), and also that enemies can buff themselves, and also about player priorities to a certain extent- which one to focus on first??? And learning those things are useful against bosses and midbosses!
tldr: rpgmakerâs AI is pretty simple and so my enemy AI is also pretty simple but it works well so itâs perfect. for me â¨
(once again: wishlist In Stars and Time you can even play the demo right now!!!!)







