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Basic Trope: Computer opponents always prefer attacking the Player Character, not other AI.

  • Straight:
    • When you are playing Trope Quest, the enemy always attacks the Player Character first, not your AI-controlled squadmates.
    • There is an Enemy Civil War, but the Mooks quit fighting each other when they see you.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Despite the Player Character being one of hundreds of soldiers, the enemy always ignores everyone else and target them.
    • Your own allies target you as well, even when there's multiple armies they gotta deal with too.
    • The AI engages in a blatant and out of character Enemy Mine as paladins, vampires, and necromancers all ally against one paladin.
    • The enemies will outright aid one another as well. They'll heal each other when they're low on health, they'll rally up and back each other up when in need, etc.. Even when it doesn't make any narrative sense for them to do so.
  • Downplayed: While the enemies target both the squadmates and the PC, they spend more time attacking the PC
  • Justified:
    • Your player character is the strongest character, and therefore the biggest threat to the enemy.
    • The player is known in universe to have major Magikarp Power or is Grey Goo.
    • The player is the head of a Keystone Army, and killing them is an instant victory.
    • The player is simply just Hated by All.
  • Inverted:
    • In a multiplayer game, the players prefer attacking AI-controlled opponents instead of other players.
    • Healers and medics on the enemy's side, when controlled by the AI, will rush to heal you before they heal their teammates.
    • AI-controlled opponents will only attack you once they've defeated as many of each other as they could.
    • AI-controlled opponents who are supposed to be allied but they will wind up fighting each other far more seeking promotion than they will fighting you.
  • Subverted: The AI will always attack the Player Character first...for the first few turns. Then they will switch their focus to the Player Character's AI teammates.
  • Double Subverted:
    • ...and then go right back to focusing on the Player Character.
    • Alternatively, enemies of opposing factions actually will attack each other, but they always spawn very far away from each other, making this behavior go unseen.
  • Parodied:
    • The Player Character is much, much weaker than his AI teammates who are One Man Armies....and yet they still focus exclusively on the Player Character.
    • The AI opponents kill the Player Character, then walk over to where he or she will be resurrected and kill him/her right there on the spot, over and over, until time runs out.
    • The AI opponents wander into other games to kill the Player Character there too, regardless of how little sense it makes.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • Sometimes the AI will target the player exclusively, and sometimes they will give everyone equal preference.
    • The AI technically targets based upon roleplayed priorities. In the campaign that effectively means being ganged upon as they hate your faction the most, but adding every faction in the game to a scenario will result in every faction having two other foes who they will target first.
  • Averted:
  • Enforced:
    • The game developers made the enemy attack the player character, in order to give more of a challenge.
    • The game was made in a time that PCs didn't have the RAM needed for enemies to keep track of anything other than the player.
    • AI controlled enemies primarily targeting the player is the game developers' way of incentivising them into trying the multiplayer mode.
  • Lampshaded: "You know, it's astonishing how all these different bad guys who supposedly hate each other so much find common cause in ripping my head off!"
  • Invoked: As the One-Man Army Player Character continues tearing through the enemy forces, the Big Bad orders their minions to focus on them to the exclusion of all else.
  • Exploited: Just because they aim their attacks at the player, doesn't mean they won't hit their enemies. This means that, as long as Friendly Fireproof doesn't apply, a skilled player can make sure the foes' attacks are aimed exactly where they want it, and pull some Deadly Dodging to make them kill each other.
  • Defied: The AI attacks all opponents equally.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Implied: The stats are shown of a top player, adding the casualties and kills up will show that very few kills aren't accounted for by the PC.
  • Played For Drama: The same Big Bad is Running Both Sides, and orders both "opposing" armies to prioritize the player, the only character who genuinely threatens them.

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