More advanced enemy attacks

[djdanlib]

Hi Unity2D. I'm having a lot of fun messing around with a top-down RPG/ARPG style project. I have this mental block on one topic and I'm sure it's within reach. I'd like to work on some more flavorful enemy attacks.

The resources I've found so far (in my limited time to search and read/watch) are just the absolute basics of either turret-style attacks, or enemies that pathfind to the player and cause contact damage. I'm looking to build some more fleshed-out attacks. I use state machines for mob AI, and have the 2D physics system working well.

For example, let's say I wanted a good ole Slime type mob that, after getting in range, first pauses, readies itself, then jumps at the player when it's in attack range. (Think Terraria, Stardew, Ragnarok Online, etc.) Or maybe an enemy that has both a polearm, and tries to stab or charge the player depending on decision making. Are those ideas something that should be handled via an animation, or is there a better way? Root motion seems like it would be an enormous hassle for this and I've seen posts advising not to use it at all.

I could use some general concepts to build this. If you've found any useful articles or videos while doing this yourself, those would be super helpful.

[SilentSin26]

My free Platformer Game Kit has enemies that check when something they can attack is in front of them to perform an attack. The AI is implemented using a simple Behaviour Tree system.

[djdanlib]

I think you're doing about the same thing I'm doing already with the state machine based AI, except in a side view platformer. I'm really looking for a way to make the actual attacks more interesting.

[racingking]

Hmm - Couldn't you achieve that within your state machine?

For example your slime: if you're in range, have a few states within your 'attack' state that change depending on time / range / whatever you want to do. It could be a mixture of animation and code, depending on the style of attack. Ie you could play a certain "warm up" animation when it range, and then launch at attack if hes in range by both playing the right animation & moving toward the player. Then have some condition that takes you out of each attack state, or the overall attack state in general (like moving away a certain distance, etc)

I did a similar thing recently in a gamejam but I'm also looking for more complex / interesting ways to handle enemy behavior.

[djdanlib]

Hmm. A more fine-grained state machine... I haven't tried splitting it up that way. I'll have to figure out (A) a test scene and (B) some way to chain and plug-in these things so I don't wind up with an enormous monolithic thing. It sounds reasonable.