I was in the Burial Grounds and noticed the same thing. While attacking the mage was very smart, they'd often do it without her casting anything in their field of vision. I had to use a lot of Knockdown in hopes of maintaining my role as a tank. Maybe give the enemies a % chance of geeking the mage first, and going down if they are behind a wall of fighters.
And then she died.
Anyway, the AI feels stupid. What I think
should be happening, is when you're out in a large group travelling and werewolves are on the prowl, I would imagine they, as appropriate predators, would try and maul the weakest one first. I'll restate: if fairly unintelligent monsters are going in for a kill on initial contact, I would imagine they would go for the easiest target first. However, if you're in the middle of a battle and people are duking it out left and right with monsters, I would find it hard to believe that the monsters would take the time to switch targets. That's what strange, the switching. Even players don't do a lot of switching between targets in battle. Usually if you're one on one with someone, unless something drastic happens, you're still one on one with that person. If you're fighting someone strong and you're barely getting by, chances are you aren't going to stop and chase down the archer trying to hide in the corner, and neither would a monster or even an intelligent being.
I think the AI should be changed to be based more on the initial encounter, rather than target evaluation during the heat of the battle. In any one on one situation, targets should remain fairly static. If it's one fighter on a swarm of werewolves and a caster blows a firebrand at them, I think a switch of target is appropriate, but not if the battle is one-to-one.
Also, what about enemies fleeing? Why don't they?
Oozes: Shouldn't they
always go towards what is closest?
[edit]Also worthy of note, what about the arrogance of the enemy? A lot of monsters would like to be the alpha male and prove that they can take on the hardest target rather than the easiest. To do any less would be a bit of a shame, but then again it depends on the diabolicalness of the monster at hand. Are they willing to fight dirty? Do they fight for status?[/edit]