Will Enemy AI have to be improved at all, to deal with the changes?
Viewing post in Plans for initial public release
For the default battle system, it's basically the same battle system except you get positioning and AoE skill.
I don't think AI needs to be improved at this point. Maybe they might be smart and target characters that will result in the most damage, but that's not something I'm focusing on at this point.
Some AI changes will be needed for games with skill ranges and grid movement though, so that enemies can actually approach you to attack you.
Thats what I was referring to. Any sufficiently diverse Skill List, with melee vs. ranged Skills, will leave default AI largely helpless with any tactics.
Even with Plugins like Yanfly's Enemy AI, you'd need to add range conditions, and possibly direction determination? But woes be to anyone attempting to have Enemy Skills synergize at all. Considering each Enemy could be on totally opposite sides of the grid.
Most tactics games I've played, enemies don't really have synergy either. It's either
1. They wait if you're too far, or
2. They just start moving towards you if you're out of range
3. They just start attacking you if you're in range
Nothing too special. Enemies aren't re-grouping for better heals, or re-positioning themselves to pick off actors.
So I think for AI plugins, it'd probably be ok to just start with a simple one that let's you add conditions to each action, and if it's not met, see if the next one is available.
Pretty much all of your conditions will probably be "is any target in range" so that might be provided as a "global" action condition so you don't need to write it again and again. Then you might have a condition that prioritizes weak targets, or "highest number of targets" in the case of AOE.
And then maybe we'll figure out how to create rules that will allow enemies to synergize better. Run back if they stray too far from allies, etc.