My bro was telling me about a bit of research that was done into making a an A.I. which could edit its programming to adapt to players. Unfortunately the AI kept "choosing" to delete itself so nothing ever came of it. Interesting idea though...
The Escapist Presents: Escapist Report: AI Innovation
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Perhaps it was trying to commit suicide?Jimmy_shredshot said:
On topic, never thought I'd see the day when there came a serious show on The Escapist. That said, great show.
or sabotaging itself from the future?!Headless Zombie said:
Why keep on fighting when your soul purpose is to lose?
I always thought that the enemy group AI in Metal Gear Solid 2 was an almost hideously important branch of game-AI development, which went absolutely nowhere. I play games now where the soldiers don't feel as intelligent as they did in that game.
They walked prescribed routes...unless they heard a noise, or saw something suspicious. They checked in on one another every few minutes; if one fell, and was reported absent, others went to check on him. If they couldn't find him, they conducted a search. If they found him unconscious, they woke him up; if he saw you knock him out, they conducted an alerted search; if he didn't, they took a suspicious look around. If you shot out their radios, they were cut off from the network of communication; they ran for help, rather than engage. They covered around objects, and attacked from multiple angles and sides in unison. If you took enough of them out, they would stop actively advancing and start lobbing grenades from behind cover.
I'm not saying the AI was anythign astounding (especially not when compared to actual military squad procedures), but I feel like it was such a quantum leap forward in that department...and...just...went nowhere.
Gears of War monsters shoot at you until you shoot them to death. And then it's over.
They walked prescribed routes...unless they heard a noise, or saw something suspicious. They checked in on one another every few minutes; if one fell, and was reported absent, others went to check on him. If they couldn't find him, they conducted a search. If they found him unconscious, they woke him up; if he saw you knock him out, they conducted an alerted search; if he didn't, they took a suspicious look around. If you shot out their radios, they were cut off from the network of communication; they ran for help, rather than engage. They covered around objects, and attacked from multiple angles and sides in unison. If you took enough of them out, they would stop actively advancing and start lobbing grenades from behind cover.
I'm not saying the AI was anythign astounding (especially not when compared to actual military squad procedures), but I feel like it was such a quantum leap forward in that department...and...just...went nowhere.
Gears of War monsters shoot at you until you shoot them to death. And then it's over.
Great point. It reminds me of other moments in gaming where I felt like congratulating the enemy on having more though than just approaching the player like a zombie with ranged weapon in hand:teknoarcanist said:
- Half-Life: The first time the soldiers spotted me, they talked to each other and seemed like they tried to flank me. Even more amazing at that time was when I tossed a grenade, they ran from it. This was a huge step up from my experiences with Doom and Duke Nukem 3D.
- No One Lives Forever 2: The enemies use of objects in a room and the way they would search for the player's character. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the enemies actually appear to live in the place they were, rather than just waiting for the player.
- Unreal Tournament: Tweaking custom bots to mimic play styles was a lot of fun for me.
- XCOM UFO Defense: Stands out because I could swear that aliens would rather lay in wait to ambush my soldiers than charge through a door after I would ambush them.
Good AI, even if only slightly improved on from previous games, makes for a great game. Many games I consider classic in some way stand out not because of their graphics but the challenge presented by the enemy did not appear to be scripted and repetitive.
this actually had very little to do with A.I. The central thesis seems to be that AI has been crowded out by graphics in competition for processor cycles. This is a silly idea, since the biggest obstacle to A.I. in games isn't hardware but programmer attention and ability.
Why didn't you interview an actual A.I. researcher? Game A.I., as it stands now, is only tangentially related to traditional A.I. research. On top of that, you spend a lot of time discussing things like interfaces and procedurally generated content, which has almost NOTHING to do with A.I. whatsoever. I was expecting to see something on the potential applications of existing A.I. technology in gaming; i have to say i'm disappointed.
Why didn't you interview an actual A.I. researcher? Game A.I., as it stands now, is only tangentially related to traditional A.I. research. On top of that, you spend a lot of time discussing things like interfaces and procedurally generated content, which has almost NOTHING to do with A.I. whatsoever. I was expecting to see something on the potential applications of existing A.I. technology in gaming; i have to say i'm disappointed.
Actually I've wondered how to grow a story for a character as opposed to writing one in a game. Take AI elements from different game genres. Take a game like Fallout or Oblivion, create factions with a system of enemies coded in, give the faction AI a goal and reactions to player action. Put in an observation system so you don't have telepathic groups.
The world shapes itself based on the events put in motion by the factions and the player. A cause and consequence system with the AI moving forward and there being no real set ending for the game. In one game, Faction A might be able to get an upperhand. In another A and B are taken out by C. Obviously the player would be able to affect events by having his own reactions to what is going on.
Each faction could have its own moral code. Perhaps Faction A doesn't kill women or children and takes over a village after X number of defenders die, graciously accepting surrender. Meanwhile Faction B loots villages, only kills a few, and then leaves to be able to come back and fleece them again. Then Faction C has no qualms about putting anybody to the sword that raises a hand against them. And so on.
Then the player can make a choice based off his own ethos or play the factions off each other. Possible even do enough acts to become a force unto himself and gather followers.
Instead of a quest system, a chronicle system that details your bigger exploits as well as some of your more daring side adventures. There would be special things in the game that also affect the outcome without being directly tied to a faction. Perhaps an enemy such as a Rogue Bot or Giant Dragon keeps one area in constant dispute because none of the factions can beat it.
Just one of my thoughts on a story that grows to a climax or some sort of endings without it being in stone from the beginning or simply one of 2 options of morality.
The world shapes itself based on the events put in motion by the factions and the player. A cause and consequence system with the AI moving forward and there being no real set ending for the game. In one game, Faction A might be able to get an upperhand. In another A and B are taken out by C. Obviously the player would be able to affect events by having his own reactions to what is going on.
Each faction could have its own moral code. Perhaps Faction A doesn't kill women or children and takes over a village after X number of defenders die, graciously accepting surrender. Meanwhile Faction B loots villages, only kills a few, and then leaves to be able to come back and fleece them again. Then Faction C has no qualms about putting anybody to the sword that raises a hand against them. And so on.
Then the player can make a choice based off his own ethos or play the factions off each other. Possible even do enough acts to become a force unto himself and gather followers.
Instead of a quest system, a chronicle system that details your bigger exploits as well as some of your more daring side adventures. There would be special things in the game that also affect the outcome without being directly tied to a faction. Perhaps an enemy such as a Rogue Bot or Giant Dragon keeps one area in constant dispute because none of the factions can beat it.
Just one of my thoughts on a story that grows to a climax or some sort of endings without it being in stone from the beginning or simply one of 2 options of morality.
I noticed the crap AI when was playing RA3 today. Great game but when built about a defence with towers and what not the ai showed how stupid it really was. On the hardest difficulty level, they started sending troops one at a time towards my towers but they didn't attack them, they were just trying to fulfill some unknown goal or move somewhere. You'd think AI would have advanced at least enough so they don't sacrifice units for no reason.
I fully agree with the statement above. I was under an NDA for the game I was working on at the time of the interview and couldn't elaborate on what we specifically were doing on the AI side. Currently in games 80% of AI is perception, meaning that regardless of backend complexity it's what the player sees that is taken as AI.CaptainCrunch said:
Uncharted is a good example of poor or simplistic AI that is accepted because there's enough quality animation variance to be perceived as good. In Ghost Recon we had 3 tiers of AI that the player would never know was active. It was Team->Platoon->Company and other military games follow suit. The problem in a shooter is that the player never sees that top level actions unlike that of an RTS where the troop movement is evident. One team would engage the player and another team would flank. Often the player perception was that we cheated and spawned in AI behind the player.
The key in my opinion is believable AI from the players perspective. L4D for instance has great zombies because they run and look like zombies not because there's some great zombie AI running them. Halflife 2 had great AI with all the ambient characters and the facial animation and response system. Like I mentioned in the interview, the AI is dependent on the embedded metadata in a level to have a toolkit of actions. The metadata can be static (nav mesh, cover or object data... etc) or dynamic (destructible environments, player created content... etc) but it has to be perceived as believable and not get stuck in crappy state loops. We've all seen it in games where AI X gets stuck running into a wall or just repeats the same action loop... and it breaks the whole immersion. As gamers we let a lot of little things slide if the core experience is fun. Unfortunately I'm still under and NDA and can't go into some of the cool shiznit that we're doing.
There's others side of learning algorithms and concepts of neural networks and other data based on the players actions (again dynamic metadata) that I feel people overly complicate. Simple things like having a history of where enemies were killed and having subsequent enemies avoid that area (shoot a guy and the dude next to him runs to the same spot .. wax and repeat). A lot of work goes into making a game and often AI is left to the end by the virtue that the layer of scripting and data for the AI to use in a level is often reliant on the level being in a final state. I think we'll see a number of improvements though AI is not an easy thing to get metrics on since it's the player's perception rather than the elegance of the code behind it.
Sorry for the long post but if you made it this far what current games do you think have the best AI and why?
thanks,
Patrick Sebring
Yes, R. Michael Young, game graphics have been such a burden on the CPU all this time... Oh wait, no, actually games have been offloading this task onto a seperate processor(s) since the mid-ninties. And people wonder why industry doesn't take (university) games academia seriously?
As far as I'm concerned, AI innovation in games has been slow because:
1. You could invest huge amounts of time improving the AI, and plenty idiots would hardly notice the difference (ie, some of the console tards on this very forum who thought Far Cry 2 had impressive AI). This isn't a problem for graphical improvements (the ooh shiny factor).
2. The rise of high speed internet/multiplayer gaming has meant that most players looking for (relatively) intelligent competition can just play against real opponents, reducing demand for better AI (a bit).
As far as I'm concerned, AI innovation in games has been slow because:
1. You could invest huge amounts of time improving the AI, and plenty idiots would hardly notice the difference (ie, some of the console tards on this very forum who thought Far Cry 2 had impressive AI). This isn't a problem for graphical improvements (the ooh shiny factor).
2. The rise of high speed internet/multiplayer gaming has meant that most players looking for (relatively) intelligent competition can just play against real opponents, reducing demand for better AI (a bit).
With some games where AI is really important, like civ or galciv, you'd think the designers had no clue about the game mechanics at all when they made the AI.
Really basic stuff like specializing cities/planets and protecting transports with combat units is usually missing.
You always end up with drooling opponents having massive discounts before it gets challenging.
Really basic stuff like specializing cities/planets and protecting transports with combat units is usually missing.
You always end up with drooling opponents having massive discounts before it gets challenging.
"People are seeing that there are other things that sell games besides graphics"
It's taken people how long to figure this out? Seriously? I swear to god I raged when I heard that.
End users have been custom scripting AI for games with less than spectacular graphics (Warhammer 40k Dawn of War, DotA), so it's not that we aren't "capable", it's just that too many people are buying games solely because of the amount of bloom and global illumination rather than the story or actual design elements.
If your main goal is to look at pretty pictures with some level of interactivity, get Nintendo to make some QTE games for you, or just go watch a freaking movie with a controller in your hand.
Otherwise, tell them (with your wallets) that games with deep story lines and intelligent enemies are what will sell more and hopefully we'll see more.
It's taken people how long to figure this out? Seriously? I swear to god I raged when I heard that.
End users have been custom scripting AI for games with less than spectacular graphics (Warhammer 40k Dawn of War, DotA), so it's not that we aren't "capable", it's just that too many people are buying games solely because of the amount of bloom and global illumination rather than the story or actual design elements.
If your main goal is to look at pretty pictures with some level of interactivity, get Nintendo to make some QTE games for you, or just go watch a freaking movie with a controller in your hand.
Otherwise, tell them (with your wallets) that games with deep story lines and intelligent enemies are what will sell more and hopefully we'll see more.
I agree in full. Not a word a lie.josh797 said:
Better explained there. I really can't build on these points, everything of value has been said. Jeez, it's usually me spewing all the hate-bile on this website, but now it seems I have a few apprentices. Remember boys and girls, appreciate nothing, even if it's given for free! Could this site please stick to games critiquing, and stop the pseudo-intellectual look at games development? Want that? Go to www.gamesutra.comcobra_ky said:
This is an interesting direction for AI that might prove to be very fruitful for gaming. It's almost like it's remaking a Game Master (GM) in video games that can quickly change how NPCs work "on the fly", like a typical D&D game.
In other ways, this also reminds me a lot of how some brilliantly made roguelike games work. Maybe I'm wrong about this as I haven't and (for some reason) never got "Dwarf Fortress" to work here, but from what I read I was impressed with how unique of a world it can craft.
Some interesting thoughts here and something I would really like to see in video games more.
In other ways, this also reminds me a lot of how some brilliantly made roguelike games work. Maybe I'm wrong about this as I haven't and (for some reason) never got "Dwarf Fortress" to work here, but from what I read I was impressed with how unique of a world it can craft.
Some interesting thoughts here and something I would really like to see in video games more.
Dwarf Fortress has really great ambitions and the developer plans to eventually make it into a full-on randomly generated fantasy world simulator on the level of Beastmaster rather than the depth of Lord of the Rings (and might actually be able to do it with his business plan,) but it is mostly noticeable at this point for the number of deep systems which have been modeled and tied together in it.Voltano said:
But more on topic, AI really didn't seem to be a huge focus of the article, despite the name. That's partially because there's not really a lot to report: 20 years ago the best we had was enemies pacing back and forth (maybe moving towards the player if they were smart), now we have enemies choosing which preset area to take cover behind to shoot the enemy. The development has mostly gone towards either enemies flanking you while shooting or smarter build orders in RTSes.
But that's where the efforts yield the most results, I suppose. Attempts to make socially competent AI is laughable, if you've seen The Sims or Fable. They do well enough in the games' deeply limited context, but only that. It's a measure of how hard the problem is, not of their competence.
There is not just stupid enemies, but stupid teammates too. I find these a hundred times more annoying than stupid enemy. the worst examples of thins is when everybody has to reach the end and they get stuck on a low wall. but even the better ones seem to have no interest at all at supporting you.