Is AI overrated these days?

L

Littleberu

Banned
I do think the importance of a good AI is overrated. It sucks when the game is too easy, and it sucks when the game is too hard. Like Killzone versus Ninja Gaiden.

Sometimes the AI is too good for god himself (Far Cry), or too dumb that even my little brother could beat it (Gran Turismo 3). Where do you guys think the balance is? What games had really good AI? A game is supposed to be fair, not too hard or too easy. Yeah, Halo 2 at Legendary might be frigging awesome, but is it because the ennemy is cheap or only because the challenge is really there?

Oh and start a flame war if you wish, but It just popped into my head. For me, AI has always been a very tiny part of a game, until I played Far Cry. How the fuck do these guys hit me when I'm like 1 km from them?

Well discuss.
 
No, I wouldn't use the word overrated. Overstated would be a better fit, but still isn't perfectly apt.

AI is really, truly important to a game.

Developers and publishers realize this and go on boasting about how amazing the AI in their game is. Unfortunately, almost all of their claims are overblown. Only a few developers, like Bungie, live up to their hype.
 
A game needs good AI, preferrable scalable either by the game or by user choice, also because not all of us have any interest in playing online, we need good offline AI.
 
Wario64 said:
A game needs Dynamic/lifelike AI
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Thats sounds better.


Tennis2k2 got choppy when you had the AI set to maximum dificulty. I am sure good AI requires a shit load of algorithims that eat up processing power fast.
 
Mike Works said:
No, I wouldn't use the word overrated. Overstated would be a better fit, but still isn't perfectly apt.

AI is really, truly important to a game.

Developers and publishers realize this and go on boasting about how amazing the AI in their game is. Unfortunately, almost all of their claims are overblown. Only a few developers, like Bungie, live up to their hype.
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Bungie? What have they done? Where are the bots?
 
Hard game != good AI..

Most hard games are frustrating because the number/power of opponents goes up (or even worse outright cheats) not because their level of intelligence does..
 
I don't think AI has to be 'lifelike' to be good. Just as long as they aren't...

1. Dumb as posts. You can continuously do the same thing over and over and work at 100% success rate.

2. Not cheap. eg. If you're playing a fighter, the AI should not be able to do things that are impossible to do if it was a human opponent (throwing from sweep range in MK2, I'm looking
at you!!!)

3. Space Invader AI - Preprogrammed AI that follows an obvious set path
"Sir, what are your orders?"
"DROP DOWN, INCREASE SPEED AND REVERSE DIRECTION!!!"
 
LakeEarth said:
I don't think AI has to be 'lifelike' to be good. Just as long as they aren't...

2. Not cheap. eg. If you're playing a fighter, the AI should not be able to do things that are impossible to do if it was a human opponent (throwing from sweep range in MK2, I'm looking
at you!!!)
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That's not bad, try being a fatality away from a double flawless on Noob Saibot, only for him to do that jump from the ceiling repeatedly. Still, not as bad as I've encountered in Yuke's PS2 wrestling games. (20 stone cold stunners in a row)
 
okay, so to answer your question :

bots are just one implementation of AI. A lack of bots doesn't suddenly make some dev team questionable at AI coding.

What Bungie have done : created a game with AI that puts up a good fight, that outflanks you, the pushes you back, that keeps you pinned down whilst the other units try and flush you out... it feels like you are fighting against a coordinated assault.

No other _console_ FPS has come close to giving this experience, infact, the AI in Halo 2 is beyond the AI on pretty much all the PC FPS single player games IMO.

UT bots are still the most convincing bots i've seen in terms of mimicing human players though - by quite some way too.
 
DCharlie said:
okay, so to answer your question :

bots are just one implementation of AI. A lack of bots doesn't suddenly make some dev team questionable at AI coding.

What Bungie have done : created a game with AI that puts up a good fight, that outflanks you, the pushes you back, that keeps you pinned down whilst the other units try and flush you out... it feels like you are fighting against a coordinated assault.

No other _console_ FPS has come close to giving this experience, infact, the AI in Halo 2 is beyond the AI on pretty much all the PC FPS single player games IMO.

UT bots are still the most convincing bots i've seen in terms of mimicing human players though - by quite some way too.
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exactly.
 
Halo's AI is not necessarily good as a result of its ability to kick your ass (which only applies to higher difficulties), it's good because it provides a truly fun experience for the player. The AI works very well with the gameplay mechanics and allows for you to employ those mechanics to their fullest. Fighting one on one with a single enemy can be fun in Halo, whereas that isn't usually the case in the FPS genre.

Like I said, good AI isn't just about kicking your ass.

I don't understand the constant bashing Beru throws at Halo's AI.
 
Whenever I play Halo 2 legendary the AI doesn't seem all that great. A lot of times I can just stand beyong a barrier that the AI won't pass if I need to regroup, or pick them off from there. They are tough, and the elites seem to move decently intelligently when fighting in close quarters, but other than that I haven't noticed anything special about it.
 
Ugh.

Seriously, the games that I have enjoyed the most this gen have great AI(well, aside from KOTOR I and II). Good AI is absolutely essential to a good game.

And "where are the bots?" PUHLEEZE. You're either trolling or you're dumb.
 
Raoul Duke said:
Ugh.

Seriously, the games that I have enjoyed the most this gen have great AI(well, aside from KOTOR I and II). Good AI is absolutely essential to a good game.

And "where are the bots?" PUHLEEZE. You're either trolling or you're dumb.
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I'll agree with you on the KOTOR I and II comment. As much as I loved both of them, the AI made the worst mistakes. They use the wrong force powers at the wrong time, and use the wrong feats and they chase after enemies that I am otherwise trying to avoid. Luckilly in KOTOR II, you can change their AI patterns on the fly.
 
I agree that Halo AI is some of the very best we've seen in an FPS, and Half-Life 2 weren't too bad either (unless you tried to screw with them). The combine troops did a good job of repeatedly getting past my turrets.

The most impressive Bot behavior I've seen (and dig I play very little with bots) I observed in the Xbox version of Counter Strike. My friend was playing against some bots on Dust, and he forced one to retreat back through a gate and around a corner. When my friend followed the bot through, he couldn't find him. Then he was killed fom behind and the camera showed the bot hop down off of some boxes postioned next to the gate. The bot had expected my friend to follow it, and had laid in wait.

Now, maybe this behavior was purposely coded into that map because those boxes were a frequent ambush spot in CS, I wouldn't know, but either way it really did look like something a real player would do.
 
imo good AI is huge, especially in sports games. What needs to be used more is opponents actually learning from your movements and adjusting so that you can't do the same thing over and over, and I don't just mean the AI anticipating a playcall, but e.g. if you do a certain spin move all the time in a certain position or any sort of effective move, the guy you did it to should learn and adjust more, thus forcing you to get deeper into the game and actually try different things.
 
ArcadeStickMonk said:
I agree that Halo AI is some of the very best we've seen in an FPS, and Half-Life 2 weren't too bad either (unless you tried to screw with them). The combine troops did a good job of repeatedly getting past my turrets.

The most impressive Bot behavior I've seen (and dig I play very little with bots) I observed in the Xbox version of Counter Strike. My friend was playing against some bots on Dust, and he forced one to retreat back through a gate and around a corner. When my friend followed the bot through, he couldn't find him. Then he was killed fom behind and the camera showed the bot hop down off of some boxes postioned next to the gate. The bot had expected my friend to follow it, and had laid in wait.

Now, maybe this behavior was purposely coded into that map because those boxes were a frequent ambush spot in CS, I wouldn't know, but either way it really did look like something a real player would do.
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haven't played the xbox version, but condition zero also has great bot AI. more believable than most, anyway. watch a few matches through first person view. they listen for footsteps, know the chokepoints, cover the bombsites intelligently & camp hostage rescue points.
 
Now, maybe this behavior was purposely coded into that map because those boxes were a frequent ambush spot in CS, I wouldn't know, but either way it really did look like something a real player would do.
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Truly 'good' (ie, realistic and fun) AI requires pre-defined knowledge of the map like that - a human player will work out things like ambush spots, sniping positions, etc even on their first run through a map, but until we get machine learning nailed, we have to tell the AI what the world is like, and where they can get to (although they can also percieve things like physics objects - crates and the like - and move around them, use them for cover, etc).

The most important thing in creating a good AI is to not give it too much information. Good AI is not AI that telepathically knows the exact state of the world, and can instantly react to any event within it (and instantly pop you in the head from half a mile away as soon as you look out over a rock). That's Bad AI(tm)(R)((C) 2004 Crytek). The AI shouldn't be godly, it shouldn't know where the player is unless it has them in direct view, etc. Another related thing is accuracy - they shouldn't hit with every shot, no matter the range/how the player is moving/etc (although this is one easy thing you can tweak for different difficulty levels, by making harder enemies more accurate). And if the AI is encountered in situations other than a straight one-on-one, they should take into account the number of enemy and allied forces, and make appropriate decisions.

There's a nice article/interview about the Halo/2 AI system over at HowStuffWorks, that explains how it all works, and why they made certain decisions about how the AI should react to certain things, etc.

Whenever I play Halo 2 legendary the AI doesn't seem all that great. A lot of times I can just stand beyong a barrier that the AI won't pass if I need to regroup, or pick them off from there. They are tough, and the elites seem to move decently intelligently when fighting in close quarters, but other than that I haven't noticed anything special about it.
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That was a conscious decision, i believe - the AI won't follow you indefinitely, to give you a chance to regroup, let your shield recharge, etc. It does allow you to exploit it on the harder difficulty levels, but it was designed to give less talented players a chance on the lower difficulty levels. Getting your ass kicked, and then being hunted down unmercifully is just plain Not Fun (at least, not fun in a game like Halo - i can see it being good in a survival horror game, but Halo is about kicking ass, not running away and hiding like a sissy).
 
tahrikmili said:
Hard game != good AI..

Most hard games are frustrating because the number/power of opponents goes up (or even worse outright cheats) not because their level of intelligence does..
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Man, it's kind of amazing how prevalent this is going into 2005. Way back in 1990 Wing Commander had dynamic AI routines. When you showed up at a nav point with 4 or 5 opponents, they all sort of charged in with simple maneuvers. As you whittled them down, the remaining fighters would then have increased probabilities for engaging in more complicated maneuvers to simulate pilots who were starting to fight for their lives. In other places elite fighters did also get extra shielding and so on.. but It's just pretty darn amazing how much innovation took place in the early nineties and then wasn't developed upon all that much thereafter.
 
halflife2, mgs2 and 3 and halo2 were the only games to impress me with their a.i this gen. scripted a.i is the best a.i.

i might be called crazy but i liked the a.i in doom3. it didn't try to act smart and if played on the hard difficulty, it was really challenging but never overwhelming. it's real strength was when you fought a group of different enemeis at once. it's not by any means great but it fit the game's design perfectly.
 
SantaCruZer said:
appearently Stalker will have good AI.
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I never heard a developer say that about their unreleased game before! :)

Seriously though, AI is so underrated nowadays. Play stuff like GoldenEye 2, Timesplitters 3, etc. The Ai is just so...boring. I think AI should go through a process of evolution like physics did. It would rock to have better AI in most games. Challenging, realistic and fun AI. Give the AI a purpose in a level so it's fun to look at them and they are actually moving with purpose that you can clearly see. Thats one step already!
 
Norn said:
Whenever I play Halo 2 legendary the AI doesn't seem all that great. A lot of times I can just stand beyong a barrier that the AI won't pass if I need to regroup, or pick them off from there. They are tough, and the elites seem to move decently intelligently when fighting in close quarters, but other than that I haven't noticed anything special about it.
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I don't think the AI really differs between different difficulty settings.

Legendary just throws more enemies at you, makes your shields weaker and the enemies' armor/shields tougher.
 
Stalker actually has a simulated world where the indiginous life actually have goals other than biting your face, whether or not it has intelligent combat AI im not sure but it is doing some new (for games) things.


I think littleberu is confused, Good AI in a game isnt AI that cant be beaten because it's so intelligent, thats like saying Good Sound in a game is so loud it bursts your ear drums. Good AI is just another piece of the puzzle, it should keep you immersed in the experience (Meaning enemies/allies need to move convincingly and not get stuck on things) and offer a perfect level of challenge that is not to easy or too hard.

Games are only really scratching the surface of AI at the moment, and i dont really think FPS is the best genre in which to explore the rest.
 
Ghost said:
Games are only really scratching the surface of AI at the moment, and i dont really think FPS is the best genre in which to explore the rest.
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This is true.. as most people here are console freaks they don't have much of a clue about games (read, simulations..) where AI really makes a huge difference..

Even in real time strategies it came a long way from the times when your enemy kept attacking your base from the same location with the same force periodically.

Adaptive AI should be the way to go, but nobody seems to really implement it. Pattern based opponent actions get really easy to exploit and destroys immersion/suspension of disbelief..
 
Halo 2 on "Legendary/Heroic" probably has the best AI in FPSs. It's very dynamic and every battle pans out differently. However the AI is still a bit "merciful" since it doesn't always chase you when you hide , I'm sure Bungie could have programmed it to be like that, but for gameplay's sake they didn't. Afterall each elite is as powerful as you and on legendary every elite is a real challange. On lower difficulty levels for example elites don't use the full ROF of their weapons, which makes the game much more easier. The way elites hide to recharge is extremely well done. On legendary it's possible to get on a long drawn out fight with a group of enemies.

A game which suffers from poor AI is for example Rainbow Six 3, where it borders on idiotic sometimes, where enemies don't react at all when you shoot the wall next to them. A much better AI in that game would make the game much more enjoyable.

In racing games AI is very important as well. I'm curious to see how Forza's AI will turn out to be. Anybody who raced online can tell you racing online is many more times superior to racing single player and much more exciting. If the AI can provide that sort of excitement, by making mistakes and providing a human-like challenge, that will be great.

I still think the AI in videogames(and AI in general) has a long way to go, I'm quite excited about what developers will be able to do when the CPU bottleneck is removed to a large extent. It will be more of a case of theory/development time on AI than CPU performance concerns.
 
thorns said:
In racing games AI is very important as well.
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Best AI in racing games is super simple, ala RR4/V, Daytona, Wipeout, etc. Let them get ahead of me fromt he start and give me someone to overtake the entire race until I finally reach the end and barely squeak it out.
 
MarkRyan said:
Best AI in racing games is super simple, ala RR4/V, Daytona, Wipeout, etc. Let them get ahead of me fromt he start and give me someone to overtake the entire race until I finally reach the end and barely squeak it out.
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that's fine for arcade games, but for sim racing it just doesn't cut it... I absolutely despise rubber band AI as well.
 
The first Halo AI was done better than the second in that it was just more fun to play at the hardest setting and there was mainly no cheap shot overuse.

Legendary is harder in the second one because they throw at you so much shit,make previous killed elites etc.. guns dissapear after some time to make it more difficult and make enemies aiming so much more accurate that it's not even fun to play anymore.


Although I've finished both game at the hardest setting,the second one was the cheapest of the two when they wanted to put a challenge and that in my book does not qualified as great AI.


But I'll admit that pretty much all if not all the routines are in the second game,but the way they implemented these new 'things' to make the game more difficult didn't rub me on my good side.
 
Best AI i've experienced is in Halo and Halo 2 and MGS 3 (consoles). You think you know what the enemy will do, but then they'll surprise you and do something else.

I also noticed that when the elites are running low on fire, grunts run in front of them and start firing while the elite takes cover to recharge. GOTY
 
Best AI i've experienced is on Halo and Halo 2. You think you know what the enemy will do, but then they'll surprise you and do something else.
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This the same Halo 2 that has covenant troops running endllessly into a crate or wall like they're going somewhere?

:lol

Yes, AI is overrated. I have yet to be impressed w/ any of it save for Virtua Fighter 2 and up.

Good AI is AI that remains within the boundaries of the game that the player has to. Not that cheap sh!t. Good AI observes and adapts or at least will trick you into thinking that.
 
Havent experienced that. I seen crates getting in the way of Hunters, but they usually go berzerk and smack crates out of their way
 
I've seen Brutes berzerking headfirst into crates endlessly once or twice - the trouble is, they 'know' that they can smash them aside, but the crates were caught up on the edge of some building geometry, and they don't have any routines to cope with movable-objects-that-won't-move, so they get stuck...
 
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