AI in video games: your thoughts

[gorfias]

AI in video games: your thoughts?

Until Return to Castle Wolfenstein, enemies just charged forward.

I did manage to trick a Pinky in Doom 2 back in the day. He was charging at me while a zombie soldier was behind me. I dodged but the Pinky kept running forward and ate the soldier. But, again, he just ran forward.

Then in R2CW, I was trying to kill a female Nazi. She ran behind a large wooden crate. I tried to come around the corner but as I did so, she rounded the corner away from me, changing direction as needed.


What have you encountered that impressed you as an advance in AI since that time?

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Yeah reactionary AI is generally where the steady advancements lie. I also appreciate that we’re finally seeing more uniform instances of discretionary tactics or situational responses, like when you’re stealthing about. Gone should be the days when you alert one soldier and have the whole level after you.

Also I just had this happen last night in RDR2, where I had to replay the money lending mission to get a gold rank where Arthur has to collect some debts. When you’re done you’re *supposed* to add it to the camp funds, but it’s more of a function involving honor. Anyways, after replaying I forgot about adding the latest collection and started carrying on with something else. When I rode back to camp later on, Abigail chewed me out, calling me an asshole for never donating it to the camp. She did it in kind of a hush hush way though; not announcing it to everyone, but speaking more person-to-person as an off the cuff comment in passing.

First thing I did of course, was put that money in the camp box. But the point is she reminded me in her own special way vs the game merely displaying some generic message like, “Finish donating debt collection” or something.

 

[Worgen]

The Halo series has always had a great AI, taking cover, not running around the corner into your fire, even panicking and making mistakes.

 

[BrawlMan]

Including other first-person shooters: FEAR1, Far Cry 1, and Crysis.

The Streets of Rage games have pretty good AI for their time. The AI in most of the games holds up. Though they sometimes have their dumb moments too. Vanquish has excellent AI for the robots you fight for the majority of the game. They flank, take cover, toss grenades, hop over cover, have a suicide attack when they lose half limbs. It's crazy.

 

[happyninja42]

Including other first-person shooters: FEAR1

Yeah I was actually going to cite this game, as I remember the AI for the troops being REALLY good. The part that caught my attention, was in a sequence where I'm fighting a standard squad of guys, and I'm cutting through them mercilessly, and it was down to like 2-3 guys left. And you heard the commander yell "Squad! Move In!" to which one of the guys responded "No Way!" The commander repeated the order, to which they replied "NO FUCKING WAY!" and they REFUSED to move up at me. I had to break cover first because I had demoralized them. That was some really enjoyable behavior in my opinion. They didn't just blindly come at me, but were like "Shit! This dude is a bullet timing Predator!! We gonna diiiiee!!" *hide*

 

[CriticalGaming]

Advanced AI is kind of a crazy idea to put forth into a video game. Because no matter how advanced your AI might be, the developers will always have to make the AI stupider than it should be in order to be fair to the player.

If you watch any clips of the Demon's Souls release you will see a wealth of stupid ass AI with huge exploit potential. Yet that game is still very difficult depending on how you play it. There are a few enemies in the game that feel like they know exactly how to kill the player, King Dolan is a good example. He bids his time around you, if you turtle up so does he, if you whiff he punishes, if you try to heal he charges you, because the AI knows how to kill the player. In most cases the AI simply doesn't because in most games developers want the player to have the advantage even if it might not seem like they do.

What i think people talk about when they refer to AI in games is more non-combative behavior of the AI. Things like reacting to the death of an ally nearby, reacting to grenades landing near them, environmental awareness where they'll vault over and duck behind things or try to flank the player. These things are usually what I see people being impressed by when they praise AI. Nobody ever goes, "wow this AI is so good, it learned how I was fighting it and adapted and became impossible for me to beat." because usually that's just a frustrated player.

In most games, the AI could murder you whenever it wants, but it doesn't because the developers put things in place to prevent that from happening. Button reading is a big issue present in high difficulty fighting games, (at least it used to, I dunno if it's still a thing) and most players even those who are great at fighting games hate this idea because it is impossible for a real opponent to do and it's flat out cheating.

Going back to Demon's Souls those enemies COULD jump you the moment you try and drink an estus flask, but for the most part they don't because it wouldn't be fair to the player if the AI never let them catch their breath.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Jet Force Gemini impressed me as a kid for how obnoxiously smart the ants could be. Unless you were sneaking up on them before they were alerted to you, they'd hid behind all kinds of crap and move around all the time.

 

[laggyteabag]

Another vote for Halo.

Enemies in Halo act predictably, which is often touted at the key to their success.

So if you kill an elite, lower ranked infantry like grunts and jackals might flee. In Halo 3 onward, grunts might activate 2 grenades, and charge towards the player.

If you disable a jackals's shield, or get too close to a sniper jackal it might again flee.

If you shoot at a shielded enemy at range, and it cant return fire, it will likely seek cover to recover its health.

Enemies will try their hardest to jump/dodge out of the way of bullets/grenades/oncoming vehicles.

If you stick an Elite with a plasma grenade, it will shout in anger, and then charge towards the player, to kill you in the blast.

Similarly, if you shoot off a Brute's armour in Halo 3, it might get angry, and begin to charge you, and start punching you to death.

Enemies will also use weapon emplacements to their advantage, even if they are human machineguns.

If an Elite, Flood combat form, Brute or Drone gets too close to a vehicle you are driving, they will board it and either continuously damage you, or force you out.

In Halo 4, there is an enemy type called the Watcher, which are these small flying drone things. If you throw a grenade, they will catch it mid-air, and throw it back. If you are shooting at another enemy, it will project a shield in front of it to protect it. If you kill one of the larger Knights, they will fly over to resurrect it. They can also spawn in turrets, or groups of smaller crawler enemies. These guys are fucking annoying, and problematic for the sandbox, but I can admit that they have some very interesting abilities.

The Flood pure forms in Halo 3 are really interesting too, constantly changing between its melee form, its ranged form, or its travel form, depending on what is needed at any given situation. The melee form can also spit out infection forms, and the ranged form will hunch over to protect itself, if it is being shot with a ranged weapon.

Or with allied marines, if one has a heavy weapon like a rocket launcher, if you get into a Warthog, the marine with the heaviest weapon will always get into the passenger seat, allowing an ally with a more basic weapon, to man the main gun.

Not to mention that the enemy types themselves, and the weapons they wield, just make combat way more interesting.

Halos sandbox is amazing.

 

[meiam]

I can't wait for 4x game to have good AI, tired of needing to give them massive advantages just so they can compete with the player, leading to weird situation like the AI spamming high tier unit incredibly fast but using them very poorly.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Including other first-person shooters: FEAR1

FEAR's AI was brilliant because it was simple. It had a few priorities- Flank the player, seek cover, move laterally. It was the tight level design that let it really shine and surprise the player. (It wasn't quite as good when the AI had to fight itself.)

Half-Life 2 had some excellent AI for its day. Enemies could "slice the pie", provide covering fire, exploit the environment and use grenades to force the player into the open. The chief things hampering it were the level design and the fact that Gordon Freeman was a mobile murder machine that wore glasses.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Since FPS/individual player character game AI is the order of the day, I'll talk about RTS/4X AI.

It's mostly shit with a million cheats to make up for the really questionable decisions they often make (whether strategic or tactical). There's a lot of debate about whether it's fine as it is. The games are playable/good/excellent even with a lot in between (& worse, mind you), and AI programming that can juggle the tools at its disposal as presented to it by the game's systems is generally considered to be too difficult/expensive to do, but for those who get bored by the AI's predictability, the lack of deeper contextual behaviour (or even sense in a lot of cases) is annoying.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I did manage to trick a Pinky in Doom 2 back in the day. He was charging at me while a zombie soldier was behind me. I dodged but the Pinky kept running forward and ate the soldier. But, again, he just ran forward.

Really? Played Doom2 a lot and never saw anything like that. Now, if the zombie had accidently shot the demon, the demon would forget about you and attack it, and possibly the Lost Soul attack is a swoop they are fixed on when they start (not sure), but that one is new to me.

Was playing Rainbow Six: Raven Shield, and a grenade hit the floor in front of me so I try to run out of the room to not die when it went off. Collided with a computer team member who evidently was also trying to run through the same door at the same time for the same reason, and we both died.

It's rival, SWAT4 had, not so much AI, but good scripting that sorta made it look like it, you tell them to go through a door and they stack up in certain positions, and move through in a formation, rather than just one after the other.

 

[Worgen]

Really? Played Doom2 a lot and never saw anything like that. Now, if the zombie had accidently shot the demon, the demon would forget about you and attack it, and possibly the Lost Soul attack is a swoop they are fixed on when they start (not sure), but that one is new to me.

The ai in doom is pretty intersting.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

It's pretty shit overall and developers are too lazy to improve it.

As others have mentioned in strategy games the AI literally has to cheat to put up a fight. Even in a very light strategy game like Lords of Waterdeep (a very basic worker placement game), it's basically impossible to lose to the AI if you know what you're doing.

The Souls games are basically PS1-level AI. Open world games are so popular yet the AI can't even navigate the environment in them very well. Ghost of Tsushima, the enemy pathing AI is so bad. Same with the Witcher 3. How many FPSs can you basically kill an enemy one-by-one as they open the door to the place your in one at a time? The most powerful item in a lot of stealth games is literally a bottle/brick/whatever to completely unrealistically distract guards.

It's rare that I ever notice something at least interesting in terms of AI in games. I recall Horizon Zero Dawn having the dino-bots leading their target (aka you) with range attacks. Most AI just shoots at where you're currently at making attacks super easy to avoid and that dates back to fucking Galaga at least. I recall in Arkane's Prey that mimics would not come out and reveal themselves if a there was a turret in their line of sight. Both of those things were nice to see but both are rather rudimentary to accomplish via actual programming. Where's the AI that TLOU1 promised in the reveal trailer at E3?

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

It's pretty shit overall and developers are too lazy to improve it.

As others have mentioned in strategy games the AI literally has to cheat to put up a fight. Even in a very light strategy game like Lords of Waterdeep (a very basic worker placement game), it's basically impossible to lose to the AI if you know what you're doing.

The Souls games are basically PS1-level AI. Open world games are so popular yet the AI can't even navigate the environment in them very well. Ghost of Tsushima, the enemy pathing AI is so bad. Same with the Witcher 3. How many FPSs can you basically kill an enemy one-by-one as they open the door to the place your in one at a time? The most powerful item in a lot of stealth games is literally a bottle/brick/whatever to completely unrealistically distract guards.

It's rare that I ever notice something at least interesting in terms of AI in games. I recall Horizon Zero Dawn having the dino-bots leading their target (aka you) with range attacks. Most AI just shoots at where you're currently at making attacks super easy to avoid and that dates back to fucking Galaga at least. I recall in Arkane's Prey that mimics would not come out and reveal themselves if a there was a turret in their line of sight. Both of those things were nice to see but both are rather rudimentary to accomplish via actual programming. Where's the AI that TLOU1 promised in the reveal trailer at E3?

I’ve seen the AI show those kinds of behaviors and responses scattered around the game in general, but the E3 version was also highly rehearsed and hiding a lot of slop probably from an early build specifically geared towards that sequence. It’s really easy to make it look stupid in the actual game with stuff like enemies walking right past Ellie moving around between cover, or having wonky threat responses in general. That’s why it’s almost impossible to replicate, and why people have rightly made a big deal of it.

But when it does do things well, it makes for some pretty thrilling fights on higher difficulty.

 

[CaitSeith]

Thoughts? Not really. The AI in games are designed to not be smarter than the player, so I don't give them any thought (since there is a limit on how much an AI is allowed to outsmart the player). Even since Forbidden Forest for the Commodore 64, I have seen enemies that don't just charge towards you.

 

[DJShaddycat]

OpenAI, made by a company under Elon Musk, to be the best Dota team to ever exist, is fascinating to watch play. Incredibly smart, and isn't just a bot that players the game pitch perfect (Ala, instant reaction timing). They really are playing Dota, and doing it well.

 

[SckizoBoy]

They really are playing Dota, and doing it well.

I'm assuming you mean "in a human manner" (though quite what that means in the context of DotA, I haven't the faintest idea)? My point of reference for such AI is chess, where engine lines are a matter of study and game analysis usually highlights where optimised lines, while they would be winning moves, can and often do look inherently unnatural to humans/for humans to play.

I feel this sort of AI which, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't actually need that much processing power(?), can be applied for this sort of game that is PvP driven. Single player campaigns kind of need dumb AI so it doesn't turn into an exercise in absolute frustration.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I’ve seen the AI show those kinds of behaviors and responses scattered around the game in general, but the E3 version was also highly rehearsed and hiding a lot of slop probably from an early build specifically geared towards that sequence. It’s really easy to make it look stupid in the actual game with stuff like enemies walking right past Ellie moving around between cover, or having wonky threat responses in general. That’s why it’s almost impossible to replicate, and why people have rightly made a big deal of it.

But when it does do things well, it makes for some pretty thrilling fights on higher difficulty.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

He cherry picked and exploited a lot with some heavy editing though. If the AI were really like that during normal play we could’ve walked though Survivor literally without risk of dying. Matthewmatosis has a far more balanced critique (about 6:20 in if time stamp doesn’t work yet). He also echoes one of my biggest complaints about story-driven games typically still being a detriment to the gameplay, and vice versa. It’s a lofty goal that is still very much being iterated upon.


Although still not nearly amazing, I think they improved on some things regarding AI in the sequel too, thankfully.