melnorme asked: So I hear disengagement attacks in PoE have been made less punitive or something. How smart is the enemy AI about running a cost-benefit analysis on whether to take a disengagement attack or not, when selecting new targets upon being engaged?
They follow relatively simple preferences. Each creature has an instruction set (INST) that contains all of its potential actions. The individual action contains its targeting preferences and whether those preferences allow any movement, movement if not Engaged, or movement even if Engaged.
If the action doesn’t allow any movement, they will always choose among targets that can be reached from their current position. If it allows movement while not Engaged, they will try to reach a preferred target, but if they become Engaged or are already Engaged, they will re-evaluate based on the targets that are immediately accessible. If an action specifies that they can break Engagement, they will just try to go for it.
Most creatures do not have the “break Engagement” allowance for their basic melee attacks but there are exceptions (e.g. trolls, who may try to stalk people to the ends of the earth). NPCs characters like rogues or barbarians, who may be built with Disengagement defense-oriented Talents, are more likely to have those built in to their more severe attacks.