Is it me or am I just getting older? Most newer games just seem like button mashers rather than requiring any real thought or planning to play. I would think AI's would have gotten better over the years but have been sorely unimpressed with the AI's of the recent total war series, Hearts of Iron III, and others. Or is it just that I'm so used to try an outhink human opponents (from my many years of wargaming) that any AI wouldn't challenge me.

What have your all's impression of the challenge of AI's in newer games?

I think it's an inevitable result of increasing sophistication in games. It's easy to write a program that makes smart decisions within simple parameters, but when the rules and variables get more complicated, it becomes much harder for an AI to evaluate them all and make good decisions.

Explains the proliferation of Multiplayer as well... And why designers are more interested in that than first-person storylines and challenges.

Or better put, it's harder for wimpy human programmers to figure-out a good AI algorithm that evaluates all the parameters intelligently.

Often times a huge number of imputs can be a major advantage for a well-thought-through AI. E.g. if there's a complicated mathmatical model to finding the optimal action, the AI can find that optimal path in a couple thousand clock-cycles.

One of the bigger factors is game-design studio's not dedicating enough programmer-hours to the AI. Since it's not a feature you can take a screenshot of to put on the box, it's not going to get as much attention from the marketing dept.

Shogun: Total War 2 has a better AI than earlier games in the franchise.

Now if only my PC didn't cry in terror when I even think about trying to run that.

Might be why computers are good at chess....it is fairly predictable. But yes there is the factor of more complicated strategy games (I'd put HOI3 in that boat) where the AI can't make a decision because of the number of inputs and options that are available. However, processors have gotten powerful enough that a more robust AI should be possible.

Also, begs the question if a scripted AI would be better in some respects than a fully autonomous one would be.

PS:I've not gotten Shogun Total WarII yet, but a friend of mine has said it suffers from the same Battlefield AI idiocy that made Napoleon and Empire total war less than challenging.

I knew I should have put my money into Artificial Stupidity Futures in the '80s...

In the past, a lot of games used to cheat: FPS bots knew exactly where you were and in a lot of strategy/tactics game, the AI just started with more resources than the human. Nowadays it's less common.
But even back then, I remember disliking RTS because the AI were just so simple to beat that they turned into auto-satisfaction games where all you had to do was spend enough time to see your unstoppable army destroy your opponent.

In some cases, playability is an issue. For some games it's easy to do an optimal AI that nobody will be able to defeat, but doing so would make the game less interesting. So you have to program an AI that will be challenging (and preferably human-like) yet not too good. And since the overall difficulty level of video game has been steadily going down for a long time (with some exceptions), AI might look like they're getting worse.

You're on to something here, IMO.

Developers can't spend months making a kick-ass AI for a FPS game, because the Xbox kids won't be able to 'win' by mashing buttons.


I mean, look what the consoles did to the Rainbow Six series.

These days games have to cater to 30+ year olds that remember when video games were brutal and utterly unforgiving and 10 year olds on an Xbox shouting profanities into the mic 24/7 and thinking they are cool for doing so.

Part of the problem is that developers have decided to focus on AI too much. Games like DOOM were challenging but not unfairly so despite having very small amounts of monster logic—primarily due to player-monster asymmetry (monsters not nimble, mostly non-hitscan weapons, encountered in massive numbers). This wasn't guaranteed to maintain an enjoyable experience (Rise of the Triad's hardest mode was simply unfair), but Unreal started a nasty trend of having opposition resemble humans more, at which point you really lose the middle ground of "difficult but able to be overcome with effort/study".

Plus, AI problems tend to be hard. One of my favourite game AI stories is about how the AI in F.E.A.R. was made to appear much smarter than it actually was—the AI would appear to flank the player, but would actually just switch between "attack" and "take cover" modes, with the flanking achieved by designing the combat areas such that iterating the "take cover" mode would naturally lead to a flanking-style movement. Similarly, the AI would yell for reinforcements while being massacred—these calls were noops, but players would tend to assume that the next batch of enemies they encountered were responding to the call.

So I suspect the problem is that game AIs are getting better.

~J

The voice clips in FEAR 3 are a little annoying.

It's kinda nifty to hear the AI opponents going "Holy shit, did you see that?" and "That's impossible!" early on in response to your uber-combat ability.

Hearing it for the ten-thousandth time, well, I shoot them faster just to get them to shut up.




-k

It was fun in Deus Ex to hear security guards in the area 51 say, a minute after an explosion "Must have been a cat" or "Probably a bum".

Yeah, they really need to aim the voice systems a lot better. More voice acting!!!

I am reminded of this.





-k

I mean it's not like a little Subotai is living in your processor or anything, but it's a VAST improvement over Medieval II.

Just give it some time. Things will get better.

So, we're making AIs by teaching them to play a game where world domination by military supremacy is a valid goal? What could possibly go wrong?

NO! Not TVTropes! Don't teach military AIs about TVTropes! THEY'LL RULE THE WORLD!!!

Rage is getting some interesting reviews on their AI. Going to have to check that out.

On that topic…

~J

Part of the problem is it's far easier to make an AI that will cheat more as the difficulty goes up rather than one that has better strategy.

The basic AI tactic, the bull rush, is effective if the computer can build units twice as fast as you and can harvest more resources than you.

That becomes more problematic in games where there is specific mechanics in place to beat out a rush or you can develop defenses against a rush quickly. At that point, massed units are basically only really good for boosting the player's score. If the AI has formidable defenses, either as emplacements or hordes of units, you can just wait until the computer makes a bad move or until their resources run out or you can get a force in position to the damage needed to knock them out of the game.

I'm not a programmer, but I wonder how difficult it would be to put a major push into a program that could analyze what the player did to win a game, then employ that strategy or defenses against it and simply build as more games were played.

As I said, most game designers take the short-cut of having the AI cheat more as the difficulty goes up. Which does present it's own tactical challenges, but bludgeoning someone to death with mobs of units only works so long or is only fun for so long when you have this great tactical framework that isnt utilized.

This is one of my basic complaints about difficulty levels in many strategy games. The higher difficulties only mean that the AI's units are given bonuses, they get more strategic resources, and might be given a better strategic position. But that still won't prevent the AI from continuing to do stupid stuff like the mongol fort trap in Medieval Total War II

That is why the next great game should be Redcoats vs. Shaka Zulu. Just have the AI use charging bull formation every time.

Better yet make it a squad level FPS. Think of how hardcore it would be to work the action on your rifle in a realistic manner while a hundred guys with spears suicide rush you.

Use dated graphics so the computer can keep track of hundreds of bodies piling up on the ground and forming obstacles.

Back in Medieval toal War (the original), there was one spot that the Mongols invaded through. I was the Byzantines, and had stacked my armies there in preparation for the MOAB. THe battle timer was off for this game. It took about 3 days realtime to resolve that battle and the corpses (especially at my defensive line) was about 6-7 deep. It was one of the most epic battles I've ever had on a PC.

We are at an interesting point in the technological world where the potential for huge advancements are present but we do not have the resources, abilities, or skills to make those advancements. Give it a few years and the AI in games will blow you out of the water, however right now AI in games is far from stupid or predictable. Alot of it depends on the way YOU play the game because any decisions the AI makes are based off of what you do.

I'd assume this thread is speaking manly of AI in strategy games? I ask because AI in RPG's has advanced significantly over the past couple years to the point where there is the potential for some very realistic behavior coming from in game characters.

Really? I haven't seen any RPG IA showing something superior to what there was in Ultima VII, but I haven't played that many recent RPGs.

I think everyone who plays Shadowrun and who's bothered by predictable AI should know about Sleep is Death Its a slice of improv, mixed with the virtual world, though maybe if you've played pen & paper RPGs with virtual desktops you'll be underwhelmed (I haven't, though I've not played SID either).

I know many would consider multi player to be completely tangental to AI, but I think this is far more deserving of gaming news hype than many other supposed AI breakthroughs (Watson on Jeopardy in particular).

There's a huge difference with PnP RPG and SID. In P&P RPG you interact directly with a GM to interact indirectly with a world. In SID you interact directly with the world to interact with the GM. You feel much more like you're on your own. It's an interesting experience.


It has little to do with AI. Something that would have been interesting would have been to have an AI learn from the games people played so that it could be able to GM game on its own. IIRC some people are working on that concept.

The AI in Deus Ex 3 sucks . .
You shoot one guy in the head, where you can't be seen but the dead body can be seen . .
Then you don't change your aiming point at all and seconds later, the next head pops under your cross hair.
Rinse and repeat untill the enemies forces are depleted . .

Video games in general are becoming easier and going for nstant gratification. Probably not least because that's been pioneered by Blizzard's WoW.

And the AI in DX3 reminds me a lot of the AI from Metal Gear Solid. So yes, the guards indeed are stupid (Example: Me and gangers are shooting it out, the gangers are on red alert. I shoot all but one, who persistently is behind a cover I have a hard time getting to. Some time passes between him taking potshots and me trying to maneuver someplace where I can pick him off, and he goes to yellow alert, leaves cover, stretches and says "He's run off, we really kicked his ass." He says amid 7 dead buddies. With me aiming at him. Yeeeeeaaaaaah.)

Are you joking? That has happened in real life. In "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young" one guy kills several North Vietnamese with headshots like that. At first he thought he missed but actually it was three guys who sequentially came and did the exact same thing and got BOOM HEADSHOT.

Realistic AI doesn't necessarily mean genius AI. In chaotic violent situations people often do less than ideal things.

Well, don't snipers move from a position after they've taken their shot?

Or am I thinking Sgt. Johnson and his Laser Eyes?

Yeah...
videogames should be designed back to the difficult level of nintendo hard

Axelay. Hard. Playthrough. Only R-Type 3 was harder.


Dedicated snipers yes, marksmen or GIs with a scope maybe not. At least back then, in the days of a conscript army.

Ah, right. Designated Marksman. My bad.

I think it is extremly unwise to confuse difficulty for quality of AI. "Nintendo hard" games weren't hard because of great AI, they were hard because - as people have mentioned - the game cheated more outrageously, or the games required increasing levels of precision on the player's part.

Some of the more egregious cheating I can think of include insta-charge moves in Street Fighter II, and in Soul Calibur (or maybe it was SCII) the computer reads your controller input and techs out of attacks, even when in positions/moves that you normally can't tech in.

AI has gotten progressively better, but it cheats less. And in earlier games, well-hidden cheating was often mistaken for intelligence.

The Computer is a cheating bastard. And you smile when you don't tell Your Friend And Mine The Comptuer that, otherwise you'll be summarily executed for treason.

Or having neither a health bar - first hit will kill (wel, usually you had three lives, so were able to 'soak' three hits) and no save function in-game. No regenerating health like in ever modern shooter out there, no shield or anything. Turn-based combat bosses that didn't pull any punch (if you want some truely outrageously frustrating boss fights, try the SNES Lufia game). Of course, the mechanics of a 3D shooter and a side-scroller are very different.


Very true for strategy games (like Civ I through III), though there, lots of cheating still is going on. But of course, well-timed cheating (or, in case of the original Mortal Kombat, blatantly obvious) is the way to go with a shoestring machine like a 16 bit console running on an Apple II equivalent chip.

Demon's Souls. Alternately, wait until October 4th for Dark Souls.

The former is actually hard in the traditional NES style. It requires memorization of patterns and levels for you to be successful, and if you die, you lose all your unspent souls (used as money AND for levelling) unless you can get back to the spot you died at and reclaim them, without dying again, and everything has respawned, and you're back at the beginning.

I love that game.

Yes...
Demon's Souls, that game is truly Nintendo Hard.

I think one of the more interesting behaviors I've noticed in strategy & electronic boardgames is that in some games, lower difficulty equates a higher frequency of the computer players making utterly bone-headed moves. Carcassone from XBLA is like this - the lower the difficulty, the more often I'll notice the computer placing tiles in a fashion that's not just a bad idea, but actively gives me an advantage. Civilization Revolutions is like that as well - although that game is of the "cheats outrageously and blatantly" variety as well.

I need to see if the John Mullins interviews for Soldier of Fortune 2 are still online or not. Basically Mullins is a Vietnam vet who was the realism consultant for SoF2. In an interview someone asked him if improved realism re AI would make games harder in the future, and Mullins said something like, "I don't see why that would make games harder, because killing people is the easiest thing in the world."

According to a few interiviews I've read the advancement of AI is going to be the next big thing in gaming as graphics seem to have pleatued somewhat.

Also one of the problems with programming for AI is that it's only budgeted a certain number of CPU cycles to do what it needs to do between frame rendering, usually between 10 - 15% with a good chuck of that dedicated to checking line of sight for the AI's, aparently the decision tree once that's determined is relatively easy to dictate

I think you could make a pretty badass role playing game if you came up with an AI that could react realistically to violence.

For what value of "realism?" Running and screaming is realistic if the person is an untrained civilian, and AI can do that already.

And many already do.

Well I was thinking more along the lines of unpredictability. Like, some people will do that, but you never know. Maybe one unpredictably tries to tackle the shooter, or something like that.

I attended a simunitions training in Henderson, NV, and in the context of that training, given the mentality of the participants, when we were doing active shooter scenarios, people tended to pile on the active shooter, even at risk of being lit up with sims. So you never know.

That's why SWAT zipties everyone. Because of unpredictability.

Some do. GTA IV, for instance, has most people cowering, screaming, and running away when a firefight breaks out -- but in certain neighborhoods, instead, an assortment of 'bangers (and/or white-color CCW-looking types) will bust out pistols and start snapping shots at you. Likewise, if fisticuffs ensue when you're walking down the street and punch someone. Some folks will run away, some will square off and start swinging, some will brawl for a few swings and then break and run...

Some games already have this sort of thing built in, inasmuch as a video game can.

That's not AI, that's just a random number generator. Roll 1d10. 1-5, NPC cowers ineffectually, retaining just enough self-possession to look for a hiding place. 6-8, NPC flees. 9, NPC goes berserk, attacking without regard for personal safety. 10, NPC is combat-trained and attacks accordingly, using terrain to own advantage, etc. Objective achieved.

Zipties are cheap, hospital time is expensive.

Gives a good reason not to start random s*** in certain parts of the city.