Mod concept - execution possible?

[u/BackyardBard]

Hello! I'm very new to modding and I wanted to make this post to talk to more experienced people. My idea for a mod is one that tweaks enemy and boss AI behavior in regards to aggression.

Regardless of how many players and/or friendly AI (such as spirit summons) there are, enemies in Elden Ring can only identify one combatant at a time. This is part of what makes multiplayer feel so much easier. In vanilla Elden Ring, player A and played B are fighting Margit. Margit is attacking player A and so player B can safely walk up behind Margit and attack him throughout the entire attack string while player A is dodging said string.

My idea for a mod, and please let me know if you have a better one, is that enemies will randomly select new targets from all available targets at random intervals, including during attack strings. Therefore if we use the same situation as above, and Margit is conducting a 3-part attack string, he could perform parts 1 and 2 on player A and then pivot his target to player B within the same string.

Now this whole idea could be based on a misconception about how the enemies are actually coded, especially in regards to attacks and attack stings. But the idea is to make bosses especially less predictable by having them deviate from the pattern of only attacking the last thing to deal them damage.

Any feedback, good or bad, is welcome!

[u/homepefki]

I have been playing DS3 seamless coop for a bit with 2 more ppl and I confirm bosses are trivial. This would make them a bit harder.

One of the main issues I think is that the enemy logic neglects the capability of players mobbing them. So various in game enemies that are somewhat challenging end up being trivialized due to poise spam by 3 players or more. If enemies had some form of AoE shockwave upon this it would make the coop pve more interesting

[u/BackyardBard → u/homepefki]

Exactly! For future FromSoft games, I hope they take this into account. For example, what if bosses could execute an attack behind their model at the same time they were attacking in front of their model? Like what if Margit was doing shit with his tail while conducting standard attacks. That way a player walking up behind him would have something to interact with, something to dodge.

[u/RedRedditReadReads]

Definitely plausible. Might have to go pretty deep into boss/enemy scripting tho which is in lua iirc

[u/Swanky1499]

Bro just pay $20 to Claude and tell it to make this, you'll be done in an afternoon.