Most annoying AI in a game

[Octorok]

Don't forget about Dead Rising survivors.

I once saw 2 of them get stuck by continually walking into each other in a wide open space. They were face to face and both trying to walk forward. Neither tried turning. They stayed that way until I finally hit one. They also have no qualms about shooting you when a zombie is near you. I've also seen them run right into a horde of zombies when there was a clear path around them.

Fallout 3 AI seemed decent to me. I had a couple followers and they actually had pretty good aim. They'd even spot an enemy before I did at times. However, I haven't dealt with it much. Perhaps I just got very lucky.

DON'T MAKE ME REMEMBER THOSE SURVIVORS!!!

Bastards. I loved the injured ones, or the scared or old because you can lead them. But I'd normally carve a path for them, fetch them, then bring them back through the path. Except they never seemed to care about my ideas, they just fucked off and did their own thing.

Let's see...

Favourite Dead Rising Survivor Tricks Include -

Just sitting down and crying.
Running at zombies with open arms.
Shooting Frank West.
Shooting each other.
Running in front of you when you're killing zombies with a sledge hammer.
Taking on Cultists by themselves.
Just drifting off behind you vaguely, not bothering to keep up.
Stopping for no reason.
Traveling off on their own paths after dropping their weapons.
Being utter fuckheads even after you've rescued them.

Only two or three competent Survivors in the whole game, although messing with them in photos is hilarious. Things like getting an upskirt on the old fat woman is labeled as "Horror".

I once hid those Survivors from the Cinema, after the Cult Fight, and just went to town with my mini-chainsaws. I destroyed every zombie and Cultist left. When I got back, one fucking zombie had killed them all, and not one of them had used the weapons I gave them.

 

[camokkid]

mercenaries 2

I want my reward for playing that game for 3 hours straight without reaching down my throat and pulling out my liver

 

[irishstormtrooper]

Everyone in Mercenaries 2. I'm surprised they can even go ten seconds without shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Octorok]

I've experienced some bad AI in the GTA games. Especially when you have to escort a wounded buddy... oh gods. They just like to hurt themselves (Roman falling down stairs to his death) or walk into enemy gunfire.

Happened to me. I saved him

Spoiler: Not really spoilers, but I like to be careful

from the top of that big warehouse, and after half and hour of killing about a million mobsters

he just goes through his "you saved me" routine, then marched purposefully off the gantry about a hundred feet up.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Also in L4D2, the AI is quite happy to stand next to you picking their noses while a Hunter rips your nuts off and eats them. The second the fucking thing kills me due to their stupidity THEN the kill the fucking thing.

The problem with the AI in those two games, from the players perspective, is you're sat there, the NPC looks the other way, walks backwards towards you, looks at you, then melees the hunter. They almost never shot the thing which I find bizarre.
The problem from the programmers perspective is that they can't have them instantly pivot and headshot the thing, it would be too easy. They have to compensate for human thinking time and for the greater AI accuracy to create a comprimise that would make having AI teammates equivalent to having human teammates. Needs tweaking.

And Ninety Nine Nights. It remains my stock answer for any question with "worst" and "game" in it.

 

[Evil Tim]

Sorry, I've got a black and white perception on this. It's either an intelligence that is artificial, or its a load of code.

Well yes, but effectively the intelligence of many lower life forms is also a load of code; input / reaction sets without any meaningful thought behind them. You're right that we've never made a thinking AI, but if you define intelligence like that it would likely mean the majority of living creatures [like, for example, all arthropods] don't have it either.

Plus, comparing videogame AI to the intellect of a insect helps explain why they sometimes have problems with repeatedly walking headfirst into doors and walls.

 

[FalloutJack]

Sorry, I've got a black and white perception on this. It's either an intelligence that is artificial, or its a load of code.

Well yes, but effectively the intelligence of many lower life forms is also a load of code; input / reaction sets without any meaningful thought behind them. You're right that we've never made a thinking AI, but if you define intelligence like that it would likely mean the majority of living creatures [like, for example, all arthropods] don't have it either.

Plus, comparing videogame AI to the intellect of a insect helps explain why they sometimes have problems with repeatedly walking headfirst into doors and walls.

Aw, c'mon. Now you're giving the insects a bad name. They gots instincts. Nothing in your game-world has that. Otherwise, what up with the walls, dude? Why're you running that way, soldier? And...how'd you even GET IN HERE, Dogmeat? (Long story.)

 

[GotMurf]

EASILY L4D2.

The AI got near infinetly worse, and I don't know HOW they managed that.

Fuckin' agreed.

Damn you, Coach. Damn you to hell.

 

[Scorch_Phoenix]

The AI in resident evil outbreak and Re: Outbreak File 2. Those stupid ass teammates make it so hard to win sometimes on any difficulty above normal.

 

[Evil Tim]

Aw, c'mon. Now you're giving the insects a bad name. They gots instincts. Nothing in your game-world has that.

Actually, it's exactly what they have. Game AI is a series of programmed responses to inputs; instincts are programmed responses to stimuli. A fly sees the swat coming and reacts in a set way, a grenade lands within X distance of an enemy and they react in a set pattern.

What would seperate a 'thinking' AI from such things would be that it's behaviour was not rooted entirely in ironclad instinctive responses to particular situations.

Otherwise, what up with the walls, dude? Why're you running that way, soldier?

Moths will fly into a lamp until they melt because they have no idea why they're flying towards the moon to begin with; it's an instinctive behaviour with no actual thought as we would understand it. In the same way, a game AI will end up doing strange things if the physics, clipping etc allow it; it doesn't know it's supposed to be acting within confines that aren't there, so just carries on following the set of rules laid down for it no matter how stupid the results.

 

[rhyno435]

The squad in SWAT 4. Seriously, these guys have no initiative and will only follow your orders. If you want them to set up around a room, they will take the shortest possible rout, which often involves entering said room and getting cut to ribbons. It's insane and very annoying

"You're in my way sir."

I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE SOUL!!

OT:

This sound familiar?

"Look at me I'm dancin', I'm dancin'!"

 

[FalloutJack]

-Ka-Snip-

I'm gonna just throw that whole complex dissertation aside with the point that man does not have the power to create real instincts. It's a fuzzy interpretation of the real thing. And as we are not perfect, neither are the creations, which is why the programs glitch badly in universe-breaking ways and animals are simply stupid sometimes.

 

[rapidoud]

But Intelligence indicates an ability to learn.

Insects can learn.

Sheva cannot.

 

[Tdc2182]

Let me see if I can find it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSzuW5uCSig

Im not exactly sure how the AI was in this game, but i alway get a good chuckle.

 

[Xanadeas]

L4D2 seems to be pretty bad... I remember when I was in the mall level and I got ahead of the bots on single player... Not very far mind you, just a little ways. I got nailed by a charger which promptly pounded me into the ground. The AI decided they'd rather run around in circles killing the regular infected. I literally sat there for about 20-30 seconds as they ran around going "WHEEEEEEEEE ZOMBIES!". To be frank I rage quit and went to go do something else.

 

[Evil Tim]

And as we are not perfect, neither are the creations, which is why the programs glitch badly in universe-breaking ways and animals are simply stupid sometimes.

Well, not really; it's that a rigid program can't withstand a change of the rules it treats as immutable. Taking our example of a moth again, the moth's 'program' operates under the assumption that flying towards the brightest thing in the sky will benefit it. When the brightest thing in the sky is a hot lamp, the program doesn't change, and so the moth ends up killing itself.

Now, in a game the assumptions the programmers made about the world when they created the AI's responses can be rendered incorrect by any number of errors in the enviroment or physics; the AI will continue to act according to the original assumptions even though they are now false. For example, it might have a set animation to get into near a set type of terrian to be 'in cover.' If some terrian exists that is flagged as cover despite being the wrong shape, it will believe itself to be in cover simply due to that animation succeeding, even though it might actually be totally visible.

An instinct is simply a rule that in situation X, you will have reaction A. The situation and reaction might be very complex, but the underlying concept is the same as the basic situational AI scripting we've had in games for a very long time indeed. We might not have an AI that actually thinks about what it does for a long time, but the majority of life on Earth is no smarter than what we currently have.

 

[TBR]

But Intelligence indicates an ability to learn.

Insects can learn.

Sheva cannot.

If by learning, you mean the capacity to react differently to similar situations based on past experiences, then yes, we've already achieved that. Heck, we had that happening with the last generations of console game. Double Heck, we had that in racing games!

Unfortunately, this style of learning is still an 'old' form of artificial intelligence; unlocking information, skills and strategies based on events, rather than interpolating results. Basically, it's like the AI going to school; you know the exact circumstances and the exact reactions and results. Everything is planned out, and it cannot adjust to what isn't planned out for it. TRUE intelligence is the ability to comprehend and use the results gained through a more 'random' environment.


So while we have made bots that can gain 'intelligence' faster than a bug, I will agree that Sheva brings the GLOBAL IQ AVERAGE down a few dozen points. Or rather, she/it would, but she/it doesn't get counted.

 

[RatRace123]

HEY, LOOK, LISTEN.

As for actual "helpful" AI, I'd have to your marine buddies in Halo, or any of those types of games really.

 

[the_dancy_vagrant]

What AI has annoyed you the most in a game?
I would say the NPCs in Oblivion, especially when you have to work with them on quests. They flat out murder any chance you have at being stealthy.

/thread, really. You can't get much dumber than Oblivion.

Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl had astoundingly obnoxious AI issues. I mean, Oblivion they were just kind of dumb (ie running into traps, alerting bad guys, etc), but in Stalker you could literally be gunned down for no apparent reason by people that 'liked' you. Then load your game and find that you're their best bud ever. Then run into them again some time later and have them gun you down on sight.

Those who've played it know what I'm talking about - you walk up to an NPC that shows up as a green dot on your HUD with your gun holstered only to have him pull out a gun and brutally murder you. Or better still, load your game and suddenly find that for some reason all of the bandits - who are supposed to be hostile to everyone they see - won't attack you. Until suddenly the game realizes its mistake and they DO attack you.

That game requires entirely too much use of F6 and F9.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Bigger Snip-

That argument almost sounds like it's agreeing with me. And a moth's instincts aren't in failure because of lamps. That is clearly a human error, the error of introducing a foreign light into the mix. Adaptation's gonna take a while to get around that one, but it'll do so eventually. For, as this guy says...

But Intelligence indicates an ability to learn.

Insects can learn.

Sheva cannot.

...games wreck the learning curve. They just can't think outside the box.