Your A.I. Failure Stories.

[The Wykydtron]

Oh yeah... Brink. The AI is so bad if it's not your team not helping you at all it's the enemy team just wrecking your face repeatedly. Or both!

Oh and final boss AI in basically all fighting games is usually broken... I don't care what you say that Green Jelly ***** in DoA4 is the cheapest thing that could ever be made. Since that game has a parry system (any attack you see coming can get reversed) it's just the AI deciding to be lenient and letting you win one for once.

Galactus in UMVC3 is the most tolerable final boss in any fighting game i've played. He's actually easy as hell. You have Ammy on your team and it's a sure win, cuz he can't hit you up in the top corner of the screen.

Oh but good luck getting to the final boss on Very Hard. The AI is looking at your buttons, it doesn't like what you're doing with them.

Speaking of UMVC3 anyone get Dark Wesker'd lately? It hasn't happened to me for at least a few weeks then boom seven Dark Wesker "comebacks" in a row. Can Capcom pull a Mega Man and make a complete charade of his character SFXT style? That'd be great...

Oh and from what i've seen of the custom game League of Legends AI it's really overpowered at times. They get items at fixed points of the game rather than actually worrying about gold gain. You get underpowered mid to late game and you're gonna get owned.

But who plays that offline unless the servers are down or you're farming IP? Oh maybe if you're avoiding Ragers that'd be a good reason ^.^

 

[RJ 17]

Kat from Halo Reach had a tendency to drive the Warthog (military vehicle) off the cliff while I was acting as gunner on a mission.

I was going to bring her up as well. Her driving skills are sooooooooooooo crappy I actually started to think that they specifically made her like that as a joke to the stereotype about women drivers. Because yeah...the deadliest thing to a player is when Kat is behind the wheel of a vehicle.

 

[MtnGamer]

I have a couple stories that I can't recall. But I'll mention the ones that stand out to me the most.

Not sure if this counts (cause it wasn't as much stupid AI as it was AI making a equally bad decision from what was available) but in the first Halo, I threw a grenade towards an elite on the edge of a platform. Instead of talking the grenade like a man, he proceeded to roll off the side of the platform and fall to his death.

In SWAT4....I don't need to elaborate, the game is fun, but watch any video on youtube and you will find some very incompetent SWAT officers. "You're in my spot sir."

Kat from Halo Reach had a tendency to drive the Warthog (military vehicle) off the cliff while I was acting as gunner on a mission.

Halo and driving, a story of hilarity and tragedy.

Halo 1 - they AI can't drive, only use the mounted guns.
Halo 2 - at last they can drive!.............around in circles and go nowhere
Halo 3 - they can drive at the enemy at least....let's hope they take the hint when you run out of rockets.

LovelyMixture, the AI driving in Halo was definitely something to remember. However, at least in my playthroughs, I seem to remember having less trouble with AI driving in Halo 1 than with later games. I started playing the series with Halo 3, then worked backwards to Halo 2 then Halo 1. What I noticed with the ally AI in general is that the more simple their options of engagement were, the more useful they were.

For example, in Halo 1 UNSC choices were shoot the enemy if close, shoot and move towards the enemy if further away. This simplicity led the UNSC AI to kill more opponents in my playthroughs. As the Halo series progressed, especially in Halo Reach, the friendly AI were given options to dodge and hunker down, leading to fewer kills. They would prolong the fight by being defensive, take more damage, and be less useful. In short, I think as a game developer tries to do more with friendly AI, the less useful they become.

 

[Lt. Rocky]

This goes waaay back to sometime in 2004-2005ish, and the game that provided the wonderful experience was none other than Grand Theft Auto III. Heh, remember that game in it's glory time?

Anyway, In Grand Theft Auto III, as well as Vice City and San Andreas, whenever you had the wanted level above one star, the AI was designed to constanty chase you. It wasn't like in GTA IV where you had the option of outrunning them and eventually getting away by avoiding contact with them. No matter where you'd go, there would always be a police vehicle of some kind pursuing you until either you or it was destroyed. If the player was within a certain range and not in a car, or in a car and not moving at a feasible velocity, the AI would have the occupants exit the police car and attempt to apprehend you, either through their sticks and goofy voice overs, or by simply shooting you. If the player was not in the proper range, regardless of the player being in a vehicle or not, they would instead continue to speed after player in their vehicles until the right distance was met, circling around obstacles if unable to reach the player through normal means.

Well, unfortunately for them, I had been attempting to get away from them in my sweet-ass red Ferrari Testarossa, and made a wrong turn towards one of the bridges that connected the main islands of Liberty City. Remember how at the start of the game you're restricted to only the first island as the bridge was blown up? That knowledge sorta skipped my mind for a bit, and I wound up shouting a curse that likely inspired the Tourettes Guy as I found myself speeding towards a massive gap in a blown-up bridge. Hitting the brakes, I ended with the front two fires dangling over the ledge as I tried to get out of the car, but in that awkward transition where you can't control the character until he exits the vehicle entirely, a police cruiser nudged my car foward enough that it started to fall off the ledge. When the transition ended I found myself fall down with it, but unlike my Ferrari, which was now relaxing in the back end of a fishing boat, by sheer luck I had instead fallen on the very edge of a steel girder protruding twistedly from the wreckage of the bridge.

The distance between the ledge I had been throw off of and the girder I had fallen on was great enough that the crucial range parametre the AI seeked in order to exit their cars could not be met. Instead they took to the AI script of scooting around until they could find a probable vector to get to me and pull up to meet the distance requirement. Unfortunately for them again, there was no legit way to get to me, as the place I was in was probably not a spot the game was ever expecting a player to be.

So what were they doing to try and get to me?

They were driving off the ledge of the bridge...

You know how in Mercenaries 2 you can blow up a bridge, and the AI will still proceed to drive over the bridge as if nothing had happened, only to plummet down into the sea below? Well, imagine that, only instead of casually driving off the ledge, they're gun booting it off as if trying to drive off a ramp Dukes-of-Hazard style, and they're all police cars. I just stood there and watched as groups of police cars would jolt off the bridge one after another in pairs of two, sometimes three, and zip into the ocean below. The officiers inside would exit their cars and try to navigate towards me, some getting as far as turning around to face my general direction in that breif moment while they're in midair above water, before plopping into fish domain and eventually drowning. A cold, dead silence would then follow for a few seconds, as the bodies of the police floated in the water, only for it to break into another moment of hilarity as another group of police cars rinsed and repeated the exact process their fallen comrades attempted. They wouldn't even start their sirens until the very moment they started falling into the sea, almost like either the cops were trying to impress me, or as if the cars themselves were screaming as they fell to their demise.

By the fifteen minute mark the ocean was littered with cars and dead cops, when suddenly the wanted level flashed to indicate the level was changing. Four stars? I was the apparent blame for all the deaths of these professional law enforcers, and soon enlonged black-and-white SWAT trucks were flinging themselves off the bridge as a result of my horrid doings. One ran off the ledge so fast it slammed into the other side of the bridge and did a septuple backflip into the water. Apparently they didn't include swimming lessons as a part of the training courses for the law enforcement in Liberty City. That, or they were all so stuffed with donuts and unprecedented determination that they couldn't get their strokes right. By the twenty minute point the framerate was actually starting to drop. There were so many floating cars and dead bodies that not even the game could withstand it all at optimal strength.

Think it gets worse? It does. Apparently the mayor/governer/whatever of Liberty City (Who I like to imagine was Rick Perry in a stupid hat and a thick cowboy accent, flanked on all sides by bloated money bags) took to putting on his serious face and called in the FBI, and even the army. Black FBI ranger trucks and stocky M1A1's soon joined the party, and I would watch as tanks pile drived into the growing mass of sunken vehicles, detonating them all upon contact. Yeah, remember how tanks would make vehicles explode by just touching them?

The horror. The hilarious horror.

 

[saintdane05]

Rock Raiders. Just, Rock Raiders.

Your guys will stop halfway though orders to pick up a rock. Or shovel dirt. Sometimes, they just stop. They don't even walk around, they just stop in mid order and stand there. And they NEVER pick up!

Or how about the time where the game said I could not have a guy enter a vehicle. No reason why, it just said that it "couldn't enter vehicle."

 

[DustyDrB]

In The Saboteur, there's a part where you need to escape from a ton of Nazi's in one of their own trucks. It's a unwieldy, lumbering vehicle that isn't fun to drive. You drive for five minutes and then meet up with your allies who have set up an ambush. There's a woman with you this whole time, and she cannot die during this section. The problem is her AI became suicidal at the ambush site. Instead of fighting behind the cover that has been set up just for this battle, she rushes straight at the Nazis and dies within seconds of us getting out of the truck.

I had to repeat this section at least a dozen times, just because of her. I even tried to park the truck flush against a wall on the passenger side so she couldn't get out, but she just used the driver's side door. I eventually just said screw it and lost my motivation to play the game again. I sold it a week or two later.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Anyone who's played starcraft brood war will know of the horrendous AI and pathing, mainly on the workers. They are so ridiculously stupid. It's just infuriating trying to get them to do anything. Sending 2 workers to the same mineral patch will more often then not just result in one of them farting around watching the other guys work. They were the laziest motherfuckers ever

 

[DustyDrB]

If you ask me the DE:HR AI is pretty stupid because they give up looking for you after like a minute.

If I just found my friend laying on the floor dead with a bullet in the back of his head I sure as well wouldn't just shrug my shoulders and continue on my normal patrol.

That's true. If they couldn't improve the AI, they should have had them call in additional guards whenever you're caught once. It would at least add some consequence to being spotted. Though they'd have to call in reinforcements right as they're alert mode ends so as not to punish players who take a more aggressive and lethal play style.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

snip

I don't know if you played the original Halo 1 or the anniversary edition, but what I meant was that in the original Halo 1 was that the they literally COULD NOT drive for you (as in the Warthog, I'm reading now that they could drive Ghosts but nothing else), they couldn't even get into the driver's seat, you were forced to drive everywhere.

I figure they changed this in anniversary edition, but I wouldn't know. I actually don't know anything about the games after Halo 3. But you have an interesting theory there.

 

[TheKaduflyerSystem]

Going a WAY back to X-COM Apocalypse
An entire squad of Antropods armed with Devastators and Brainsucker launchers turn tail and flee from my one agent with dual disruptors (real-time) and rush into the corridor PLASTERED with corpses and the rest of my agents at the other end.
On the downside, in turn based, with a brainsucker making a beeline for my carefully proned-out agent, (who is immune to brainsucking due to being prone) react to this brainsucker charging him by standing up and firing his lawpistol, not the launcher in his other hand. INSTANTLY brainsucked.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to play more X-COM for 48 hours straight!

 

[Deadyawn]

Gotta love bethesda engine games huh? It's especially funny when its with mirelurks or lakelurks. Despite being amphibious they are completely unable to do anything more than glare at you while in the water, just like anything else. Pretty damn funny.

 

[deidara]

Trying to play RE5 by myself. Just awful. And I really noticed the difference when I finally played it with a friend. (Albeit on a different console.)

 

[Save us.A7X]

Recently I started a new Skyrim character, wanted to try a different play style, etc. Everything was going as normal, got lead up to the executioners block. Alduin shows up...and decides he doesn't want to land and kill everyone, he'd rather fly around Helgen. At this point you'd think the executioner would just get the job done but instead he just stands there axe in hand waiting for Alduin to save you.

 

[Joccaren]

Eh, the stupidest AI action I've ever played against was any AI in Sins of a Solar Empire. Great game, that AI though...

It would be raping my home planet, destroying my fleet and about to win the game. I send one siege frigate that would take half an hour to destroy one of the AI's planets, let alone all 20 of them. The AI's entire fleet turns around, leaves my planet and goes to fight that 1 siege frigate. Basically, losing against the AI just do this over and over again to keep it away from your planets, then hit it once you've hit max pop or W/E. Kinda made searching for actual tactics kinda pointless once I discovered this.

 

[Realitycrash]

Eh, I got too many to tell, but here is a few: Brayko-bossfight in Alpha Protocol. Jumps off the scene and starts chasing me with his knife, except he stops and stares into a wall, allowing me to pump three clips (insane health on Hard) of rifle-slugs right into his head. It took close to three minutes, and he never once moved.

In Total War (LOVE the series, but the AI is batcrap crazy), if you hide some heavy cavalery in nearby woods or behind a cliff, and the majority of your units at the other end of the map, the AI will always go for the largest mass of units, without sending any scouts to check for ambushes.
The AI will then either do A; Charge his General first, right into your waiting mass of spearmen/heavy infantry/General and support tropps, thus effectively commiting suicide, or even worse B: Marching the General behind his troops in perfect formation. Now this doesn't sound so bad, but wait, it is. You see, the AI response-time is so horrid that if you let the entire mass of enenmy soldiers pass your ambush point, you can then charge your hidden Cav right at the General, and kill him, without the enemy noticing!
You will be able to overwhelm the General and kill him before the rear-guard even turns their head. And sometimes, even when they do react, the General will never, ever flee into the mass of his army, but instead wait for them to come and run to him. I.e, he's dead before that happens.

 

[Rayne870]

Dom has a tendancy to charge and then melee General RAAM in Gears of War, this is not productive when trying to solo play Insanity difficulty. I had to get my fiance (whom is terrible at shooters) to control Dom and hold him in cover while I did ALL of the work.

 

[Lunatic High]

New Vegas huh its occured to me that I've never actually beaten the game... came really close stopped right around the time I left the gamorah casino and tried to get all my named and custom weapons back off of Boone only to find they'd vanished in to the ether

Had funny AI moment on that one too. I teamed my self up with Rex and Cass and we were treking across the wastes to Old Lady Gibsons to get Rex a brain (Survival Mode I hadn't realized how redundant it was then) When suddenly Rex fucks off to the left, I knew he would attack enemies on his own before hand, so I followed him, and followed him, and then followed him some more, for like 5 minutes at least and lost sight of him as he rounded some rocks at the base of a mountain, so of course I follow him and run headlong into a full grown Deathclaw which was ingoring Rex's attacks entirely and ran straight past me to rape Cass. Bout 4 hits later and Cass is dead, so I turn to flee and 3 more young DeathClaws had gang beat Rex to death and were rushing towards me, so I immediatly pounded back my turbos and buffouts and ran droping bottle cap mines frag mines what ever i could as I zig zagged the hell away as fast as I could killed two of the young ones while still taking a hit or two those things just don't fuckin following you I was nearing around the Camp Mcarrenish area and fled into some ruins, with exactly 1 dash of health, to heal as quick as I could when a Fiend appeared outta nowhere and finished me off with a pool cue.

One of the more annoying AI's is the friendly AI in Operation Racoon City where allies would just run straight down a hallway full of trip mines.