right now it seems the cleric AI doesn’t understand it has the AOE heal. it will often stand too far back while healing, and the AOE heal will not touch anyone. there are a few solutions i can see and suggest.
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you could decrease the default range healing distance to that of the radios of the AOE heal, insuring that at least the target of the ranged heal is included in the AOE.
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alternatively you could set a “preferred” distance. perhaps allowing the cleric to stand far enough back to catch archers and melee in the heal. allowing the Hearthling a bit of freedom in its decisions.
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the more complicated answer would be to include a calculation in the AI allowing it to try to include as many Hearthlings in the AOE heal as it can. i believe this will be the more work, but probably the best pay off. the AI would just need to run a check or two counting the Hearthlings in its AOE heal radius and compare that to the number of people in his squad. then its just setting a minimum number of squad members to include: more then one, quarter, or half. if the number is under, move up and recheck. continue until it meets the condition. if you go an extra step the Hearthling could try to predict a good spot to stand, just running the check in a proposed new location and moving after finding a suitable one. id allow a “give up” clause in the AI to allow for the odd bug or bad situation, which would let the AI opt out of the check until something preventing it had changed. maybe make the Hearthling use a emote of “frustration” to provide feedback to the player.
Thank you for reading my suggestion!