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Old 20th April 2012, 08:20 PM   #213
rocketdodger
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Originally Posted by epepke View Post
You're right. It doesn't mean that's the AI doesn't get more and more advanced each time.

It doesn't mean that it does get more and more advanced each time. If you want to support the idea that it does, I'm all ears.
I am one of the people programming it ! Of course it gets more advanced! Just maybe not in ways you would want, but that is out of my control. In games about combat, that is what gets the brunt of the work. And most players don't even notice, unfortunately.

I spent about a month getting the "green despoiled" character in Wolfenstein to make use of splash damage. He scans the environment around a target and evaluates whether there are any spots nearby where the explosion from his fireballs would at least cause damage, and it works really well. You can be crouching behind cover and he will aim at the wall behind you. You can be hiding behind a corner and he will aim at the ground he can see. You can be running along in a hallway and he will shoot through windows where he can, leading your movement. You can be ducking on a rooftop and he will shoot up at objects above and behind you -- anything he can see that will work. Basically, exactly as a good human player would.

He keeps track of how and when he has hurt you, so it is literally impossible to cheese him. If you are hiding in a corner, and he just can't get at you from where he is, he will try something else, like moving to another spot. And if that doesn't work, he actually runs away and waits for *you* to make the next move. On the other hand if he has been doing well, he keeps on doing the same thing.

But do any players notice all this? I don't think so. They just switch to a strong weapon and kill him as fast as they can, rather than dancing with him like I intended. Oh well. But -- he is still very smart, and a far better combatant than any AI in any game prior. Thus, game AI definitely is improving.

EDIT -- I just noticed that this is the guy in my avatar, lolz.

Originally Posted by epepke View Post
Now, funny thing is that I myself was thinking about GTA 4. I actually don't find the AI impressive, and it doesn't seem that open-ended to me. Some of the old fantasy RPGs on the Apple II seemed to me more open-ended and in many ways smarter.
Well you have to evaluate it in terms of the areas that the devs put work into. In the case of GTA, that is obviously violence and general mayhem.

If you experiment with harassing the AI, they have some pretty deep animation and behavior. You can shoot or injure them in any part of their body and they react appropriately. When you are in combat they gang up on you and flank you really well. If you bump into them repeatedly they fight with you. If you carjack them they fight with you, trying to pull you out of their car. And when you do that, you can repeatedly stop and go, dragging them as they hold onto the door ( admittedly not smart, but deep at least ).

I could reference Skyrim as well, which has pretty good open ended AI.

And what you need to remember is that all this AI is going on while competing with CPU cycles in a measly 3 core chip against the graphics, streaming, physics, and everything else. In games like GTA4 and Skyrim, it is literally a marvel of engineering to see what comes out of those old xbox 360s. If we could devote nearly the whole CPU to a single AI it would be pretty amazing results I think.

Last edited by rocketdodger; 20th April 2012 at 08:23 PM.
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