Artificial Intelligence in games

[Nutmeg]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't FEAR's AI complexity just the product of the devs planning for most actions that the player might make in a given area?
Isn't it even why the game is mostly set in linear tight spaces - to make it easier for the devs to account for player's strategies?

How I understand it is that the FEAR AI is larger, not smarter. It still works on IF-THEN logic, but there's a lot more to do and things it can interact with. There's also a lot of voice lines that change depending on the environment so there's a few dozen lines that all go HE'S BEHIND THE (insert object here), which makes them appear smarter than they actually are.

yeah, so essentially FEAR's AI is not like that of games like Chaos Theory or MGS3/5 where they're "dynamic"
i.e. - in CT or MGS5 you could design 100 different maps, drop the npcs and they would automatically figure out how to interact and read that enviroment; while in FEAR you would have to program their behaviour for all those 100 maps, as their AI is far more "specific"

It's dynamic

https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013282/Three-States-and-a-Plan

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Artificial intelligence was always a myth.

The focus should have always been on clever scripting and trying to "fool" the player into thinking the AI was smart instead of trying to make the AI actually smart and end up with janky radiant shit, which is always terrible.

A smart AI would require contant updating delivered by human interaction and a dynamic feed of information.
There is a catch though: there are people out there who are smarter than you. If you want to apply this model, you have to be ready to face that fact.

You must be thinking of self learning AI, those AI that update itself permanently each game and learn from trial and error:



those are not normally suited for single player games. First it would require a insane amount of games to learn to even begin playing well and no Publisher, Company or CEO would ever accept that. There is no end goal and might break, it might eat a lot of resources/require strong CPU but i not sure. I can not think of any single player game where the AI update itself permanently.

Instead you can have a pre-programed AI that update itself temporarily in some areas, someone already mentioned F.E.A.R Three States and a plan.

 

[Vic]

I find AI creepy. Combat encounters should be on “animal” level where the behavior is obvious and logical, so I’m fine with current combat “AI” in games. A simple if/then clause with a set of abilities. Anything more is weird and creepy.

For more complex interactions I want to play against humans.

Given how easy and fun it is to play online I honestly don’t see the need to create creepy simulations of human behavior.

So when does this cross from animal into creepy? When they start doing things that you can do? When they successfully manage to encircle and pin you? Or when they bunnyhop towards you shoot you, call your mom names and teabag you?

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't FEAR's AI complexity just the product of the devs planning for most actions that the player might make in a given area?
Isn't it even why the game is mostly set in linear tight spaces - to make it easier for the devs to account for player's strategies?

How I understand it is that the FEAR AI is larger, not smarter. It still works on IF-THEN logic, but there's a lot more to do and things it can interact with. There's also a lot of voice lines that change depending on the environment so there's a few dozen lines that all go HE'S BEHIND THE (insert object here), which makes them appear smarter than they actually are.

yeah, the latter, it’s when devs make AI for the artistic/aesthetic reason of making it seem like a real person and not to create a gameplay system to provide a challenge. I don’t need my chesspieces twerk and speak to me, that’s just what I meant that AI should be functional and designed with a gameplay purpose in mind. Stuff like the promised radiant AI in oblivion is just an artistic jerkoff.

 

[Vic]

people who want advanced AI in their games really just want to play with other people but are to socially awkward to do it.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

yeah, the latter, it’s when devs make AI for the artistic/aesthetic reason of making it seem like a real person and not to create a gameplay system to provide a challenge. I don’t need my chesspieces twerk and speak to me, that’s just what I meant that AI should be functional and designed with a gameplay purpose in mind. Stuff like the promised radiant AI in oblivion is just an artistic jerkoff.

To each of their own but i strongly disagree with this, for what Oblivion was set up to be, open world immersive sim, it makes sense to have dynamic NPCs that can react to its surroundings even if in weird ways and i think Oblivion would be worse if the NPCs were just static quest givers like in Morrowind. Same with Gothic and Ultima, these games would be less immersive without the NPCs behaviors.

The real sin of Oblivion, Morowind, Gothic... all those games are in being linear despite being Open World games. You have a big world but your path through is in taking the same road as everyone else. Why do i need to do the same thing over and over again in the same order to complete the game? why can i not just kill the final boss and the game be over? where NPCs lives does not matter? where i do not need to trigger certain chain of events in order to progress?

why open world games can not be like Fallout?

(i don't think you can kill the overseer in game though, but that's just a small thing that could have been easily changed, you can kill everyone else)

 

[Vic]

for what Oblivion was set up to be, open world immersive sim,

ok bud

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

for what Oblivion was set up to be, open world immersive sim,

ok bud

Oblivion was more focused on its world, engine, AI, graphics, interaction, voice acting.. than on the RPGs elements, which was dumbed down, it was made to be immersive, sorta like Ultima VII. Bizarre that you think this is controversial, it's the most Codexian opinion on Oblivion you can have.

That does not mean that being immersive and being a RPG is a contradction though.

 

[visions]

In open world games, it's good to have an AI that react and interact with things in a way that was not planned to, take Gothic vs Morrowind as a example, i might be wrong about this because i played them long time ago but i think in Gothic i could lure strong monsters and have the guards/civilians kill them, or they would die and them i would finish the monsters with low HP and loot the dead guards. In Morrowind the guards ignore the monsters and just stand there doing nothing, but i might be wrong.

You're wrong on Morrowind, the guards in Morrowind will fight monsters if you lure the monsters to the guards.

This was a thing already in Might & Magic 7. Creatures in Might & Magic 7 are dumb as bricks and would get stuck into walls but the monsters and guards will fight each other.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

In open world games, it's good to have an AI that react and interact with things in a way that was not planned to, take Gothic vs Morrowind as a example, i might be wrong about this because i played them long time ago but i think in Gothic i could lure strong monsters and have the guards/civilians kill them, or they would die and them i would finish the monsters with low HP and loot the dead guards. In Morrowind the guards ignore the monsters and just stand there doing nothing, but i might be wrong.

You're wrong on Morrowind, the guards in Morrowind will fight monsters if you lure the monsters to the guards.

Are you sure? this video show the opposite:

Look how the guards ignore it.

 

[visions]

I just tested it in Morrowind. I lured a polar bear to the Imperial fort on Solstheim and a guard attacked it. My game is almost vanilla, only has Morrowind Code Patch 2.4 and Patch for Purists installed. I will put the screenshot in the screenshot thread and tag you there.

I quickly googled it and it seems like the guards will attack hostile animals and monsters but will not attack hostile NPC-s (like Dark Brotherhood assassins).

 

[Gerrard]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (originally titled Oblivion Lost) made a big deal about its AI before release and it turned out to be… better than in most games. It is certainly not on the level of ArmA 3 or the first F.E.A.R., but it has its own strengths. Flanking is known since at least the first Far Cry, but STALKER seems to have enemies being able to sneak on the player.

Yeah, they can sneak on the player because their footsteps are fucking inaudible even when they are right next to you.

 

[Whisper]

Underrail has good AI for enemies. Especially stealth enemies like deathstalkers. Human enemies play smart too.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The real sin of Oblivion, Morowind, Gothic... all those games are in being linear despite being Open World games. You have a big world but your path through is in taking the same road as everyone else. Why do i need to do the same thing over and over again in the same order to complete the game? why can i not just kill the final boss and the game be over?

Morrowind has a built-in backdoor means of completing the main quest, via killing Vivec to obtain Wraithguard, having Yagrum Bagarn the Last Living Dwarf repair it, and then just completing the end of the conventional main quest line involving Sunder, Keening, and the final confrontation with Dagoth Ur. It's also possible to skip Wraithguard entirely and proceed directly to the end of the conventional main quest line in Red Mountain; look up any speed run of Morrowind to view the details.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

I just tested it in Morrowind. I lured a polar bear to the Imperial fort on Solstheim and a guard attacked it. My game is almost vanilla, only has Morrowind Code Patch 2.4 and Patch for Purists installed. I will put the screenshot in the screenshot thread and tag you there.

I quickly googled it and it seems like the guards will attack hostile animals and monsters but will not attack hostile NPC-s (like Dark Brotherhood assassins).

I tried it in vanilla myself, in the starting area i lured a mudcrab and the guards did kill it.

However i got attacked by a black assassin while resting, lured it to the city, the guards did not help. So just like you said, guards do not attack human-like NPCs(Imperials, Argonians, Bretons..), in MM6 the guards will attack all types of hostile enemies, humans or not, so MM6 has better AI than Morrowind in this area.

But it could've been worse, at least they attack monsters.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

The real sin of Oblivion, Morowind, Gothic... all those games are in being linear despite being Open World games. You have a big world but your path through is in taking the same road as everyone else. Why do i need to do the same thing over and over again in the same order to complete the game? why can i not just kill the final boss and the game be over?

Morrowind has a built-in backdoor means of completing the main quest, via killing Vivec to obtain Wraithguard, having Yagrum Bagarn the Last Living Dwarf repair it, and then just completing the end of the conventional main quest line involving Sunder, Keening, and the final confrontation with Dagoth Ur. It's also possible to skip Wraithguard entirely and proceed directly to the end of the conventional main quest line in Red Mountain; look up any speed run of Morrowind to view the details.

can you complete the game even after receiving a warning that is impossible to complete the game after an important NPC died?

 

[JarlFrank]

The real sin of Oblivion, Morowind, Gothic... all those games are in being linear despite being Open World games. You have a big world but your path through is in taking the same road as everyone else. Why do i need to do the same thing over and over again in the same order to complete the game? why can i not just kill the final boss and the game be over?

Morrowind has a built-in backdoor means of completing the main quest, via killing Vivec to obtain Wraithguard, having Yagrum Bagarn the Last Living Dwarf repair it, and then just completing the end of the conventional main quest line involving Sunder, Keening, and the final confrontation with Dagoth Ur. It's also possible to skip Wraithguard entirely and proceed directly to the end of the conventional main quest line in Red Mountain; look up any speed run of Morrowind to view the details.

can you complete the game even after receiving a warning that is impossible to complete the game after an important NPC died?

You can even complete the game the normal way if that message pops up, depending on who you kill. There's a woman in the Ebonheart docks who will ship you to a secret location later in the main quest. If you kill her, you get the THREADS OF PROPHECY SEVERED message. But you can still finish the quest that involves her, it just means you have to find the obscure location yourself (possible on a replay when you remember its location).

 

[JarlFrank]

Now for strategy games like Total War (my favorite type, with big simulationist battles) I just want an AI that attempts sweeping maneuvers and commits to them. Doesn't even have to be a good AI, just a decisive AI.

Especially the older Total War titles suffer from an indecisive AI that moves troops back and forth without any real purpose to it and keeps a lot of their units just standing there - not as backup to eventually replace tired units, the AI just doesn't do anything with them.

What I'd like is an AI that makes up a battle plan and then commits to it. It can be super simple like "today I will focus on breaking the player's right flank" or "I will attempt to break through the center" and then it just does it.

I found the AI in Ultimate General: Civil War pretty good. It's still pretty easy to defeat if you know what you're doing, but at least it keeps acting rather than being passive. It defends its fortified spots while also attacking with determination (even if it's sometimes borderline suicidal). No passivity here.

 

[Mortmal]

people who want advanced AI in their games really just want to play with other people but are to socially awkward to do it.

Social anxiety is a thing but even without that it's hard to play rpg with other people, once a week at best due to travel contraints work schedules of everyone and such, and not everyone is even lucky to have a group once a week. So crpgs are a decent alternative if unsatisfying. A clever AI doing dungeon mastering and playing believable party members is a dream to me. We are not so far of that with chatgpt and novel AI , a text based version D&d like rpg in a few years sounds possible.

 

[Alienman]

We get AI in everything except gaming. At this rate, a Terminator will complain over bad AI in his Crush-All-Humans RTS.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

people who want advanced AI in their games really just want to play with other people but are to socially awkward to do it.

No
I want advanced AI because I don't like to steamroll a game with strategies even a simpleton would have no trouble coming up with
It's boring and just plain bad game design

 

[Vic]

people who want advanced AI in their games really just want to play with other people but are to socially awkward to do it.

No
I want advanced AI because I don't like to steamroll a game with strategies even a simpleton would have no trouble coming up with
It's boring and just plain bad game design

that’s why people play online against other humans. It’s not like humans are a rare commodity, why spend time and money trying to imitate them (poorly)

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Because:

1. single-player games offer experiences that multiplayer games simply cannot
2. multiplayer games for the most part only "live" a couple of years after their release
3. I like videogames and their "art", and since good AI is difficult to design yet always enchances the experience, I appreciate the devs work even more

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

that’s why people play online against other humans. It’s not like humans are a rare commodity, why spend time and money trying to imitate them (poorly)

Why spend time and money trying to make a game more challenging, immersive or replayable?

In fact a lot of devs are already doing what you want, putting no effort, i guess you like this type of stuff, not me though.

 

[dreughjiggers]

But they fixed these things, didn't they? Oblivion's Radiant AI was sometimes hilarious, but did not have major flaws, definitely was not breaking the game. It should've been a base to build upon, but instead got removed and we get banal scripts in Skyrim. Imagine if Bethesda actually improved it a bit for Skyrim and then continued to work at it for further games. Eventually it could be something unique and their games would be interesting for that aspect alone despite otherwise being boring. It would probably be better than stalker's a-life, especially since bethesda has a lot of money.

According to Todd Howard, npcs would loot dungeons in their dev build. They were only a few steps removed from a version where npcs could beat the game. The goblin staff wars made the final cut. It would have been hilarious if the player goes off into the woods for a few hours, only to come back to deserted cities, because all the npcs died invading Oblivion. Or if npcs kept killing the player, because they want that that quest-related item in his inventory.

 

[Lokiamis]

people who want advanced AI in their games really just want to play with other people but are to socially awkward to do it.

No
I want advanced AI because I don't like to steamroll a game with strategies even a simpleton would have no trouble coming up with
It's boring and just plain bad game design

that’s why people play online against other humans. It’s not like humans are a rare commodity, why spend time and money trying to imitate them (poorly)

Ignoring the fact that the OP primarily mentions single player games, metafaggotry has become much more common in multiplayer games over the years. More and more players are watching Youtube videos telling them which units and buildings to create down to the second in RTS games, they're memorizing which pixel of a cloud they need to align their crosshair on to throw flashbangs in FPSs, and I've even seen players temporarily banned from mass-reports because they chose a sub-optimal character. Coupled with the death of community servers, it's not surprising that people would rather play against bots.