Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

[Column] General: Artificial Intelligence?

13»

Comments

  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Member Posts: 4
    Originally posted by FrinkiacVII
    Originally posted by hardicon

    The real question I always wanted to ask is why you guys let Jack Emmert push Enhancement Diversification through right after a huge nerf to all powers.  That nearly killed the game and in my personal opinion was the killing blow that caused the games demise although it did take a long time for the game to bleed out.

    Wow.  The game's been dead for almost a whole year and people are STILL mad about Enhancement Diversification, which happened in like 2004.  I lived through that and I have to say, at the time as after, I didn't think it was a big deal.  It was pretty obvious at the time that people were making a mockery of the enhancement system, a la "I know, I'll put ALL damage SOs in my attacks, I'm a GENIUS."  and for there to be any reason why a person would put anything else in an attack power, they had to do something.   It had gotten ridiculous.  For what it's worth, I thought what they did was fair.   Not even "tough, but fair", just fair.  Whatever they do to tweak a game in any way, it will usually cause people to have to rebuild toons that were optimized for the last wave so as to be re-optimized for the new wave.  So what, deal with it.  It was a minor inconvenience for the sake of better overall game play. It was necessary.  What I find comical is the implication that once one has optimized a toon, they then feel they have the God-given, sacrosanct, etched-in-stone, legally-binding, non-negotiable RIGHT to that build being "teh uber" for the rest of their life, and their children's, and their children's children's.    I would have expected those same people to be just as mad when they rolled out Invention Origin Enhancements.  THAT'S causing one to have to scrap all your builds and start over, but nobody seemed to complain about that.  Why?  Because this time they weren't so much "taking all our toys away", they were making newer, shinier toys that made us want to abandon the old ones.  I guess I understand a certain amount of "how did they not see this coming" but really, companies don't have infinite time to tweak the game before they release it.  I think CoH actually had MORE play-testing than a lot of games today get before release, and if you recall, the Task Forces needed some TLC in the first month or two.  Back in 2004 people might have had higher standards, but nowadays, I don't think anyone expects a game not to have some balance issues in the first year or so.  The fact that there was as much content as they had actually impressed me.   I disagree that ED killed CoH.  Those of us who stayed generally stopped complaining about it in like 2005, and those who still complained about it were complaining about it in CoH chat channels in between "LF TF" requests and costume contests.  Inventions, which were awesome, made it largely moot anyway (and by largely moot I mean that after IOs, nobody was using SOs anymore anyway, so the original complaint about ED was no longer anything anyone cared about anymore).  One thing I found almost funny was that they managed to redo the HamiO's like RIGHT before the shutdown was announced.  It was as if the game HAD to live long enough to see that loophole closed, THEN it could die.

    ED was in 2005, right after a series of justifiably needed defense set nerfs to make pvp balance even remotely achievable in preparation for the CoV release, and right after Emmert had basically said that there were no more major nerfs incoming for those sets.

    So right off the bat it was a double whammy exponential reduction in effectiveness, and heavens help you if you had a set like FA or SR where you generally only had one type on enhancement that was useful to slot in a power. Can't diversify a monofocused power set! Defenders and Controllers were overall the least affected since a lot of their powers had diverse valid slotting options to begin with. Some sets still had lingering issues left over from that even on the final day.

    So add that in with how disingenuous the Dev statements came across PLUS how unforgivably long the period between ED and IO's was (a fucking year and a half!) , and you of course have people remembering that with more than a little bitterness. It took years for the Dev team to earn back even a modicum of trust in what they said after Emmert's shenanigans.

  • SkogSonSkogSon Member Posts: 59
    They made some very interesting leaps forward with the new hitman game. Individual artificial inteligence for npcs with learning and a situational awereness. Pretty darn cool if you ask me!

    Free to live, Free to play!

  • TwiPhoenixTwiPhoenix Aion CorrespondentMember Posts: 19

    I definitely prefer smarter enemies, to an extent.  If the A.I. forces you to think and approach each battle with caution (so long as you aren't overleveled/geared to trivialize the encounter), then that's good.  But if the A.I. is smart enough to the point of frustration, that's bad.

     

    For example, in CoX some enemies would realize that they were "being griefed" and would respond by running away.  This would have been fine if they stopped when they realized it was over, but they'd continue to run away for a freaking long time and could sometimes get as far as from one side of a mission map to the other.  They'd also run from other situations too, but I don't remember all the exact triggers.

     

    Or a non-CoX example, Borderlands 2.  The enemy is fairly intelligent and it's fun.   But at some points they're too smart.  Specifically, they'll go, take cover, and hide from you if they get you to "Fight for your life" so you can't kill one to get a second wind.  In multi, this might not be such a problem because your friend can just pick you up.  But this gets frustrating in single player when they all suddenly hide and you literally can't do anything but die.  It turns an otherwise fun mechanic into a PITA.

     

    An example a good "smart" enemy is in a game called Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.  In older versions, you could lure ranged enemies into melee by just ducking around a corner.  Now they'll try to position themselves so that they can see around that corner while keeping as much distance away from you as possible.  It makes them much trickier to lure into close combat, but it's still doable with some thought and makes for more interesting situations.  Meanwhile, the devs there mentioned they thought about having those same enemies kite the player, but didn't include it because it'd be too frustrating and, consequently, unfun.

     
  • samuel130samuel130 Member Posts: 14
    thank you mr. miller for backing city of titans, with you in the lights of missing worlds media , this project will get off and running. ohh by the way sorry for posting this here. it's the only way i can personally thank you.
  • SkogSonSkogSon Member Posts: 59
    What do you figure about diablo 3 ai? I perceive it as quite good but it might have me fooled with it being rather like the dynamics of verry different attack patterns making them varied as a group.

    Free to live, Free to play!

  • WandersWanders Member Posts: 1
    Give me an AI slider. Sometimes I am in the mood for smart, and other times I want herdable.
  • LaughingAlexLaughingAlex Member Posts: 2

    I am for smarter AI that doesn't fall for the trinity myself.  See the way I see it, predictable AI that is easy to control that falls for the trinity, and also the trinity itself,  contribute to the repetitiveness of MMORPGs and why many who hate mmorpgs stay away from them.  They see that they are repetitive, though why they are may not be readily apparent, the feel becomes repetitive.  When the AI is indeed smart enough to target the healers and ignore the heavily armored tank, then the trinity falls appart.  I'd seen a very amateur team in guild wars try to use a holy trinity setup on a bunch of veteran pvpers.  What ended up happening was the veterans ignored the almost litterally immobile tank, and concentrated on spiking down the healers.

     

    They then melted the team who really only deleyed the inevitable fall.  The tank was no threat to the veterans as he had no damage.  Now in pve mmorpg players seem to want that "lets keep them stupid so we can exploit that" mentality, because it's easy for them in reality.  It's like they want the enemy to always fall for the same thing every time.  But see that adds to the repetitiveness.

     

    You likened the holy trinity style to a puzzle and funnily enough I agree, but it's the same puzzle over and over again on top of that.  So even puzzle gamers are often not impressed, the ones who are, are those who love to much routine in their games, it's like they wanna relax, not have to think outside the box or come up with a different strategy every time.  Or they just wanna get richer and richer in the game repeating the same thing.

     

    Strategy games are often not repetitive, because you end up having to make decisions every time on the spot and come up with a new plan in many maps.

     

    Honestly in game design, I say it has to be right off the bat for the AI to be able to think for itself, rather than implemented later as well as making it halfway decent at stopping a trinity team.  It's usually best received then as at that point no one gets the opportunity to be exposed to success on repetitive "tactics".  I saw a similar issue in guild wars in that many hated the AI change to make them react to AoE, but the only reason it was received was because the devs specifically stated to make the AI slightly more like pvp.

     

    But that change was also very early in the games life.  And AoE wasn't extremely important like it was in CoX.  So i think that also contributed to that.  But when people can use repetitive "tactics", like the trinity, and are exposed to success with it for to long, they end up closing their minds and also become very apprehensive towards any new ideas.  They even get irritable at any tactic outside of that, as they become spoiled.  I notice even with myself when I play a game where I get away with stupid tactics to much for to long that I get lazy myself and my ability to play other games that require me to expect the unexpected suffers.

     

    So the game AI has to be intelligent and something that isn't overly predictable as to target tanks predictably right off the bat.  If it's more prone to target healers rather then tanks, and the gameplay generally discourages the trinity but consequently encourages other tactics, your more then likely to attract players. 

     

    But at this point I'd think that it'd be non mmorpg players playing a game that really fully broke the trinity with smart AI and flocking to it should it have advertising.  Because I get a bad feeling that many mmorpg players of today had gotten themselves spoiled because they were successful with the trinity for a long, long time.  And they don't even have any concept of an AI that dodges anything for it or even understand the concept of unpredictability or non repetitive play.  They just have played anything outside that for to long, and are trapped in a bubble that will be extremely hard to burst.

  • NildenNilden Member EpicPosts: 3,916
    Originally posted by Sephastus

    The problem in what you said was not Smart AI Vs. Dumb AI. It was a problem of TAKING AWAY something that the individual already had. And there will always be pushback to something like that.

     

    If proper MOB AI is done well from the outset, and the encounters are designed around it, it will always be better than if a dumb AI is made, and then when exploits are found, they get "adjusted". The individuals will then not feel robbed.

     

    Players enjoy challenges, whether this is caused by "smart" or "dumb" AIs. At the same time, they also want to be able to overcome said challenges in an appealing time allotment. Start with AI that is too smart from the outset, and it will push players away. Keep dumb AI into the end game, and players will fail to see a challenge and move away. Give the players a tactic, and then remove it, and your players will move away. It's all about balance, and never taking away something, but instead build around it.

    It was never about the AI it was about indirectly nerfing the burn power. The fact that this article never grasps that is pretty /facepalm.

    "You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon

    "classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon

    Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer

    Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/ 

  • NildenNilden Member EpicPosts: 3,916
    Originally posted by Ozmodan
    Good AI takes a lot of coding and lots of memory.  While today's computers are pretty robust, not sure they can yet handle good AI, besides that would take significant resources from the programming staff too.  

    Just going to go out on a limb and guess you never played a MUD with extensive MOB scripting.

    "You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon

    "classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon

    Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer

    Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/ 

Sign In or Register to comment.