Why the stupid AI?

[Arkhangelsk]

I wonder, what were Ubisoft doing when they should have made the friendly AI? I played Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and the friendly AI is so stupid, so utterly retarded, that they're probably gonna die from friendly fire - from me. On one level, we were supposed to rappel down from a rooftop. We (I) killed the snipers and rappelled down to the level below, and I failed the mission twice here for:
A) When we got down, one of them died, cause he didn't know that when enemies aim at you with snipers, you're supposed to take cover. Instead he took his assault rifle, stood up and being as visible and shoot able as someone carrying a sign saying: "Hitler was right! Bring it on, bitches!", and shooting against someone 300 metres away, so then he got headshot.
B) Same thing happened, except that he was just seriously injured, and apparently my two soldiers had a fight over who should wear the last pair of banana hammocks, cause the other soldier won't heal him unless I tell him to. I know that they're supposed to follow strict orders, but surely they should be able to see someone's skull leaking, and at least think he should give a hand, instead of picking his nose.

Now why is it this way? Why are most AI this pathetic?

 

[uncle-ellis]

Because devs have crappy AI.

 

[scotth266]

Friendly AI is hard to program. Too useful, and it babies you. Too useless, and the player abandons it. Too stupid, and it causes the player to fail.

 

[Bibliomancer]

It's tough to make completely realistic AI. The AI seems stupid compared to a real person, but compared to game AI a few years ago, it is quite advanced. The computing power to make human-style AI just isn't here yet.

 

[beddo]

I wonder, what were Ubisoft doing when they should have made the friendly AI? I played Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and the friendly AI is so stupid, so utterly retarded, that they're probably gonna die from friendly fire - from me. On one level, we were supposed to rappel down from a rooftop. We (I) killed the snipers and rappelled down to the level below, and I failed the mission twice here for:
A) When we got down, one of them died, cause he didn't know that when enemies aim at you with snipers, you're supposed to take cover. Instead he took his assault rifle, stood up and being as visible and shoot able as someone carrying a sign saying: "Hitler was right! Bring it on, bitches!", and shooting against someone 300 metres away, so then he got headshot.
B) Same thing happened, except that he was just seriously injured, and apparently my two soldiers had a fight over who should wear the last pair of banana hammocks, cause the other soldier won't heal him unless I tell him to. I know that they're supposed to follow strict orders, but surely they should be able to see someone's skull leaking, and at least think he should give a hand, instead of picking his nose.

Now why is it this way? Why are most AI this pathetic?

It's made like this on purpose, if they made ally AI too good there wouldn't be too much for you to do. The SAS on COD4 tread this line where they can sometimes do a bit too much.

 

[beddo]

Too smart and the player will think its stupid because its acught up doing itts own thing rather tahn blindly following the player and throwing a few ill placed grenades.

Worst AI is in Battlefield Bad Company.

It is pretty bad, I wouldn't say it's the worst.

 

[willard3]

Too smart and the player will think its stupid because its acught up doing itts own thing rather tahn blindly following the player and throwing a few ill placed grenades.

Worst AI is in Battlefield Bad Company.

It is pretty bad, I wouldn't say it's the worst.

It's at least funny from time to time. But the friendly AI NEVER gets shot at or does much in the way of shooting back. At least they're not usually actively running in front of your line of fire.

 

[JokerGrin]

It's pretty irritating, but I just accept bad AI as a given. I'd be incredible worried if AI got to a point where it could actually think like a human. Hello Skynet!

 

[Next Chewbacca]

Well, if there was anything that movies have taught us it's that you can't make AI too smart or it will become self aware and eventually enslave all mankind.

 

[commiepunk]

Too smart and the player will think its stupid because its acught up doing itts own thing rather tahn blindly following the player and throwing a few ill placed grenades.

Worst AI is in Battlefield Bad Company.

I still think it's possible to reach that medium. It's been done, more than once. Honestly, I think bad A.I. is the product of laziness. Sometimes both. In Saints Row 2, the A.I. was ridiculously inconsistent, some followers were complete morons, and some super soldiers. I'm not sure why, but I liked it. And, despite the heavy use of scripted events, I loved Alyx in Half-Life 2. She was useful enough not to be annoying, but requiring assistance often enough not to make the player feel useless.

 

[A Raging Emo]

bad A.I is the product of laziness, but good A.I makes the player feel stupid. They do not want the player to feel stupid, as the player may not buy games from the company again.

 

[Flying Dagger]

because by the time you check out the AI, they have already got your money.

 

[keptsimple]

Most friendly AI is pretty bad. And I don't think I've ever played a game where I haven't seen the AI do at least a few stupid things.

I'm not an expert, but my guess is that the problem has something to do with the fact that games have become so complex in recent years: large, multilevel maps; cover systems; varied weapons; and so forth. The AI hasn't caught up.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

It's tough to make completely realistic AI. The AI seems stupid compared to a real person, but compared to game AI a few years ago, it is quite advanced. The computing power to make human-style AI just isn't here yet.

If its stupid, then its already human.

 

[CriticallyAcclaimed]

Well, if AI was as good as you want it to be, it would essentially play the game for you. Then what's the point? I suppose they could counter-balance that by killing off friendly characters, but then you're left with only yourself...equivalent to being stuck with crap AI. That, and AI is probably hard to create.

 

[thiosk]

because AI is not actually AI.

there is no I in it.

The computer that can produce actual AI does not exist yet. All it can do is attempt to fool you-- and since friendly AI is not trying to shoot you, and you feel the repercussions of its actions, it is way more annoying. If it infuriates you that much, only play deathmatches online.

Case in point: Empire total war. While the "ai" performs better (usually) than its Rome counterpart, I crush it on every level without even doing the "run my general back and forth behind the canon" exploit.

 

[pha kin su pah]

Too smart, too easy.
Too dumb, too hard.
Too useless, why bother.

add into the equation of, peoples personal choice of how they wish the situation to act out, and you've got some crazy mess to fix, because well, everybody thinks they are smart, yet try and persuade the next person how you are right and they are wrong.

 

[szaleniec1000]

Helpful friendly AI doesn't necessarily make the game too easy. They can just make the enemies stronger, more numerous and/or give them better AI to compensate.

 

[Ancientgamer]

Because making good AI is really hard. Think about how many basic commands and postulates you'd have to lay out just to have the AI do something simple, starting from scratch?

The programmers at naughty dog once said "It's much easier to program three types of bad AI, copy it 20 times, and throw mooks at the player than to just make one unit with genuinely good AI."

 

[Sevre]

Very few people work hard on their AI, Quake Wars:Enemy Territory was one that gave a lot of time into developing its bots AI.