Examples of good partner A.I.?

[scorptatious]

So I've been playing Kingdom Hearts 1.5 lately, and I've come to remember how awesome Donald and Goofy were in battles.

Yes, a lot of the time, they are K.O.'d, (especially Donald, but he's a mage, so that's kinda to be expected.) But when they aren't down, they often seem to come through for me. Donald would heal me in a pinch, and Goofy with his large amount of health takes a lot of punishment. Plus he has an ability that has him give up MP so others could have it.

Finally, thanks to the options to set how often they would do certain things, such as casting spells, using items, ect., I find that they don't end up wasting items too much.

I'm sure other people may have had different experiences with them, but I've always found them helpful. Even if they do end up being little more than support characters by the end of the game.

So how about you guys? What games have you played that had some pretty useful partner A.I.?

CAPTCHA: Getting the Job Done

Pretty appropriate phrase there Captcha. Props to you.

 

[FangStiltzskin]

Persona 3 used an AI partner system... I thought they did their jobs well enough... until boss fights that is. Ugh.

A better example would be most Tales games. The AI partners are really, really helpful. Very reliable, even when I'm in a pinch I can simply hold out and they'll eventually turn the tides (or at least get everyone revived). To this day I have not once complained about the party AI in Tales.

Otherwise... that's all I got.

 

[Evonisia]

The Left4Dead games have decent AI, capable of choosing different weapons (different characters have different preferences), they heal you and hand you pills, they'll follow you onto objectives and run when you run as opposed to shooting at everything. There are other things but I can't really think right now.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The Left4Dead games have decent AI, capable of choosing different weapons (different characters have different preferences), they heal you and hand you pills, they'll follow you onto objectives and run when you run as opposed to shooting at everything. There are other things but I can't really think right now.

No, they really don't.

I can't even count the number of times AI teammates in Left 4 Dead have stood RIGHT NEXT TO ME and done nothing while I was getting mauled by a hunter.

The Left 4 Dead teammate AI is passable, but it's far from "good."

 

[skywolfblue]

As far as allies go, the only game that really comes to mind is Gears of War 3.

They're still far from perfect, they have some moments where they'll be in the wrong place or fail to revive you even though you're dead at their feet.

But for the most part, they are very very eager to revive. There were a lot of times when I was playing co-op, where the AI would quite often revive my brother or I before we could get over there and pick each other up. I almost quit trying to revive because the AI would almost always beat me to it. So that impressed me a little.

Also, as per usual they'll actually do the other half of the co-op stuff when you're singleplayering, like raising gates and stuff. It's not much, but it's a welcome step forwards over games who's partner AI does practically nothing.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

A better example would be most Tales games. The AI partners are really, really helpful. Very reliable, even when I'm in a pinch I can simply hold out and they'll eventually turn the tides (or at least get everyone revived). To this day I have not once complained about the party AI in Tales.

This is almost exactly what my answer was going to be. Tales titles have pretty solid AI, often capable of tackling most random battles without direct input from me.

The AI in White Knight Chronicles is pretty solid, where healing is concerned. The AI always seems to be a better healer than I am. Their combat AI is abhorrent, though. They can't seem to figure out they should use slash attacks against a slash weak enemy, instead opting to use thrust or smash. Same situation with thrust or smash weak enemies. Nor can they seem to figure out which elemental magics they should or should not be using.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Go back a generation or two and play Republic Commando for good AI teammates. They're not bullet sponges, and they will take cover if they are getting too badly injured. Plus, they take the heat off of you, which is necessary when it's four guys versus the entire Droid Army.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Go back a generation or two and play Republic Commando for good AI teammates. They're not bullet sponges, and they will take cover if they are getting too badly injured. Plus, they take the heat off of you, which is necessary when it's four guys versus the entire Droid Army.

Very true, plus the fact that you could order them around to make the best of their abilities. They weren't useless and not too OP either. Never seen partner AI like it.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

BIoshock Infinite: Elizabeth was awesome as a partner, I?ve lost count of the number of times she saved my ass by throwing me a gun/salts/heath when I really needed it. She never gets in the way and I don?t have to worry about her when the bullets start to fly and she?s good at pointing out things that could be missed. In the end I know it?s just good scripting but they really did a good job of making her seem like a real person.

Obligatory Half Life 2 mention: Alex Vance nuff said really. Go play the game if you are one of the like three people on the planet who have never played Half Life and you?ll see what I mean.

Honourable mention has to go to the gambit system from Final Fantasy XII and the Paradigm Shifts in XIII.

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

BIoshock Infinite: Elizabeth was awesome as a partner, I?ve lost count of the number of times she saved my ass by throwing me a gun/salts/heath when I really needed it. She never gets in the way and I don?t have to worry about her when the bullets start to fly and she?s good at pointing out things that could be missed. In the end I know it?s just good scripting but they really did a good job of making her seem like a real person.

I agree that Elizabeth was a good partner, but they kind of cheated in terms of how the AI reacts to her. That is, they didn't. The game says "Don't worry, Elizabeth can take care of herself" but that just means that enemies inexplicably didn't attack her or even seem to notice her even though she did not do a very good job of hiding herself. Sure, it might be preferable to having to babysit a partner, but its kind of hard to praise the devs for taking the easy way out. Same thing with the Last of Us. Both still great games though.

I'm gonna make an unpopular choice and say Yorda from ICO is my favorite AI partner. Now she did her fair share of stupid things, but the gameplay was so perfectly designed that it didn't really matter. Because Ico could not be killed, the entire game was intentionally focused around protecting Yorda. What annoys me most with AI partners is trying to take care of them while dealing with your own shit. In ICO, its all about Yorda, so it balances the gameplay out and makes it really unique and interesting. So no, Yorda doesn't exactly save you in battle, but I think she's a really well designed gameplay feature.

 

[MrSuperman]

The guys in the Conflict series were usually good. Took orders and didn't get in the way too much, or become cannon fodder. The one exception was Franklin the doctor in Conflict: Desert Storm, but it's only one mission and he wasn't exactly SAS trained.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

snipity snip

I agree that Elizabeth was a good partner, but they kind of cheated in terms of how the AI reacts to her. That is, they didn't. The game says "Don't worry, Elizabeth can take care of herself" but that just means that enemies inexplicably didn't attack her or even seem to notice her even though she did not do a very good job of hiding herself. Sure, it might be preferable to having to babysit a partner, but its kind of hard to praise the devs for taking the easy way out. Same thing with the Last of Us. Both still great games though.

...

Yeah that's very true, I think being locked up in that tower for most of her life caused her to no understand the concept of line of sight and that hiding does not mean ruining around in front of the people trying to shoot your ass. Well thats how i rationalize it anyway lol

 

[not_you]

The guys in the Conflict series were usually good.

/agree

The partners on Global Storm were pretty damn good... I mean, the assault-class guy used too much ammo when you told him to go loud... but that's what he's supposed to do... he's the one who gives suppressive fire....

As for any other AI partners.... I suppose I could point to any RTS game, but enemy and friendly AI is the same, essentially...

So, I can't really think of any game that fits it... Although when I played Brothers in Arms (Earned in Blood... I think... can't remember subtitle...) the AI worked fairly well... at least they took cover when I told them too...

 

[Rylee Fox]

This is sort of cheating, but your party in Final Fantasy 12. I've never encountered better ally AI before in any game. Though this is only because the game lets you program the AI yourself. They always did what I wanted, when I wanted them to and I wouldn't have to take control of the character for them to do it.

I also agree with the above comments that Kingdom Hearts has pretty decent partner AI and Persona 3's wasn't that bad either. Most of the time they would actually do what I would do in a given situation.

 

[shrekfan246]

Go back a generation or two and play Republic Commando for good AI teammates. They're not bullet sponges,

The enemies, on the other hand...

I replayed it recently, and was instantly reminded of how much I hated the Geonosians and how much more useful the little melee dagger was than the actual trooper rifle.

This is sort of cheating, but your party in Final Fantasy 12. I've never encountered better ally AI before in any game. Though this is only because the game lets you program the AI yourself. They always did what I wanted, when I wanted them to and I wouldn't have to take control of the character for them to do it.

I dunno if I'd say it's cheating. That kind of adaptable AI is rarely seen in party-driven games (at least, to my knowledge), and I honestly think it was better implemented for a console than the system Dragon Age: Origins used (which was fine on PC, but pretty much balls on consoles). The one major problem I have with Final Fantasy XII is the lack of physical abilities. Most of the Technicks are gimmicky at best, and otherwise unless you're building up mages, you're spending a lot of combat time just swinging sticks and blades upside monsters' heads.

Anyway, all of mine have been taken already. So that's cool.

 

[Excelsior789]

I've always thought that whether or not a partner A.I. is good is based on 2 things:
1) It knows how to stay out of your way
2) It doesn't require you to babysit it
The best examples I can think of are Alyx Vance from HL2 and Elizabeth from Bioshock: Infinite

 

[Mikejames]

Off the top of my head, I don't remember having any issues with Alyx Vance. She had some great supporting moments.

Persona 3 used an AI partner system... I thought they did their jobs well enough... until boss fights that is. Ugh.

I was hating some of them pretty early on.
"Mitsuru I need a heal. No? OK..."

Getting charmed into fully healing the final boss after a solid hour of chipping away at him was just the last straw.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

insert obligatory Alyx Vance compliment

I have yet to meet a better (in terms of combat at least) NPC better than Alyx Vance. The characters of Dragon Age: Origins come close but that's only because you could alter the scripts that dictate combat and weren't really AI.

 

[mechalynx]

Guild Wars. While the henchmen were good, once the heroes were introduced, Irarely had to micromanage again and only for certain bosses/large mobs in hard mode.

Ogden and Dunkoro kept me up and running at all times and Xandra turned any and every Ranger in my party into a AoE beast.