Can an A.I. be too good to ruin fun?

Watched this video recently and thought it raised some good points, i.e. the A.I. dont always has to be overly smart but must fit into the game design.

Recently I realized that a "too good" of an A.I. can actually ruin the fun in a game. Been playing Dishonored 2 recently and sure, the A.I. reacts unpredictably to every little thing you do and their cones of vision are all over the place but seriously, the times I had to reload an old save because of some enemy decided to act unpredictably made the game just not fun to me. I spent more time on loading screens than actually playing the damn game... inb4gitgud

anyway, this is the video:

What do you think?

1. gitgud. ;) Dishonored 2's AI was pretty easy to decipher from my experience with the game.

2. Yes absolutely. I remember my lecturer specifically saying video games have intentionally 'stupified' AI. Technically speaking, AI could be designed to point directly at the player's head and shoot a-la aim bots or wall hacks. These are AI algorithms too. What we aim to do is make believable AI that are designed around the game (like Mark Brown mentions). Sometimes you want tactical AI that react in a believable, smart manner to replicate that of the soldiers they are emulating while other times you want less competent AI.

In terms of AI being too good, yeah definitely. There needs to be some clear flags and telegraphing so that the player can actually play against the AI. It's situational of course. Sometimes you need those GOAP and Behavior trees and other times an FSM approach is perfectly acceptable depending entirely on the game and intent of your enemy design.

Super Mario and other platformers really don't need clever AI at all, while more complex titles will need AI that isn't really good at the game but AI with goal oriented behavior that serves to preserve themselves, outwit the player but maintain the counter-play so the player isn't frustrated or overwhelmed.

It most certainly can be. The player has to have some chance of being able to win for a game to be enjoyable.

I must be really bad at the game then cause I cant figure out what they'll be doing next

@Vatusus: Oh I'm sure if you tried again you'd get it for sure! :)

@Vatusus You've been diagnosed with a severe case of chronic scrubiness the only remedy is

Also not to be an ass but Vatusus sounds like French "Va Tu Suces" which means "Go away you suck" lol.

toukiden kiwami bored me cuz my AI teamates did everything for me, i could just stay completly still, grab popcorn and watch them as they teared any enemy to shreds lol

Depends on the design of the game. Your complaint is more along the lines that you wanted a more consistent experience. Old games followed that pattern allowing for speed runs and whatnot. Games with more dynamic AI that react differently each play through can't be speed run as well and doesn't have that consistent experience.

In my opinion, the best AI is the stuff that feels the most "human". AI that has personality. Halo's AI is a great example of this, especially in Halo 1 and 2. Each alien race has a different personality. Not only do they react dynamically to events (ensuring no two playthroughs are ever identical, something that was pretty new in 2001 for FPSs), they also feel a bit more like beings who have a sense of self preservation. I like the dynamic between the Grunts and the Elites. How killing an Elite causes the Grunts to scatter and most Grunts will run away in the face of danger rather than press the attack. Higher difficulties makes the AI more aggressive, makes the player take more damage, and makes the enemies more bullet spongey.

Compare that AI to what we found in the early CoD games. Unless it was a scripted event. That AI would spawn, move to its position, and sit there until you killed it. This AI played better for the style of game, since the linear levels had you attacking entrenched fortifications almost constantly, but each playthrough is nearly identical. The AI there are basically just accuracy settings. Higher difficulty ramps up their accuracy. They don't move more or try to outwit you. You just take more damage and they are more accurate.

AI in games like Total War and and Civilization also need to have personalities and can simply be too good. Strategy game AI in games like Starcraft can simply out click you and thus outpace your performance. That AI doesn't feel authentic, but does have a place if you're trying to train your APM. With Total War and Civ, the AI could simply be too thorough with its army and nation building. Not leaving any weaknesses or making any mistakes along the way. They too basically outplay you in an unrealistic fashion.

To make those games fun, the range of difficulty needs to change how well the AI plays as well as gives them personality. In Total War, the personality is defined by the faction while in StarCraft it can vary from game-to-game to simulate playing different players. I know in Supreme Commander and Rise of Nations you can choose between both difficulties and AI behavior to mix up the game.

It really comes down to the style of game you're making though. Mario games don't need sophisticated AI. Simple AI on looping waypoints is exactly what that kind of game requires as the difficulty comes down to the level design, not the enemy AI. For FPSs its a complete mixed bag as to what you want to do. DOOM's AI was clever as each type of baddie had a specific attack. None of them were overly intelligent, but they gave the designers tools to mix and match for the various scenarios presenting the player with a unique challenge in each level. Crysis, on the other hand, benefited from dynamic path finding and slightly more intelligent AI as they would have to actively hunt you.

All of these things need to be considered. If AI is too good, then the game won't be any fun. AI can make a game feel cheap and take the excitement out of it by simply beating the player too quickly. If AI is too stupid, the player isn't challenged enough. If the AI's personality doesn't fit the intended game, the gameplay may never quite mesh right. Imagine Crysis with CoD's AI or Total War with a pure APM focused AI? They would be awful experiences.

There is good AI and then there is the annoying two elements devs put in the game to make it harder, the damage-sponge and the aimbot. The only game I have played (and I've played a lot of games) that actually upped the difficulty properly was the original F.E.A.R. That game has amazing AI.

Every other game when you increase the difficulty turns the enemies into tanks that can take so much damage but they typically just sit there like they would on Easy or Normal and they can aimbot you a lot better obviously. This is the wrong way to increase the difficulty but not many games since F.E.A.R. seem to have figured that out.

You say that cuz you haven't played it as such, super mario with good ai in a 3d mario game would be super cool actually and better.

@Vatusus: I like games where you have very good ai but you have superpowers, if you're just normal guy in a game and you get swarmed by a dozen enemies , it's only normal they have to gimp the ai.

However, as a player you can't really die, if they would make the ai like humans, which don't want do die, it could be more interesting, since you could be taking more risks.

Ai that's stupid by game design and/or technical problems always put me off. So maybe I should try that dishonored 2 after all, I didn't like the first one...

Never experienced a game where the AI was 'too good'. The AI is most games is terrible thats why I dont like SP games. Especially in most RTS games the AI in games like CoH and Civilization is notoriously terrible.

'Good' AI to me isnt just countering your every move automatically, perfect aim or 1 shot mechanics.

The lack of good AI is one of my biggest gripes about games and people like to clown 'teh cloudz' but games like Titanfall 1 and Forza actually do have good AI because of it.

AI in games can't be actual human like because not one person would be said game, unless there were MUCH less enemies.

Yes, or more specifically too quick to punish something cam absolutely be a problem. It's all part of difficulty balance. Stealth games are often built around easier line of sight stuff, because you need to give players room to experiment n use their tools. When they can spot you in seconds, that brand of stealth becomes a bit more limited. It becomes more of a chain where you are looking for specific weak links on each retry, versus an organic space with a lot of options (ala the best stealth levels in Thief 2, Metal Gear Solid 3 n 5, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Hitman Blood Money n Hitman 2016, aka the best stealth games).

That and fundamentally AI is a lot of parlor tricks. Fear's AI benefits from its closed off spaces, and environments that specifically has things in place for the enemies to react to. That's what makes the combat feel dynamic, in the same context Isolation keeps the Alien attached to you by the hip, because it allows them to have those large stretches without a save spot in place. Otherwise it would be very easy to just throw a noise maker one way, and run the **** the other way and get away with it. That would be more practical AI behavior, how they got to you would feel contrived if you were judging it in on its plausibility.

It all depends on what the game is going for and how it works. RE4 and its ilk, being stand n shoot type games, the AI runs up n then slows down, because that's built to work with the limitation on the player. It might look silly, but making them more active n quick to attack would be at odds with how the systems in that game work, it's also why professional exists so they can go ham with less wind up time. It's like anything else, it's why action games with more exaggerated animations, happen to be much better action games than ones going for "realism" or whatever the ****.

One inherently lends itself better to a game.

Game AI just needs to have interesting behavior or attack options. Vanquish for instance will never be mistaken for FEAR's AI, but each of the machines have a variety of different attack options, and all of them, will go for the suicide bomb route if they know you are low on health as opposed to waiting to get into a downed state to trigger that attack. It's actually cool as ****.

git gud.

Well, I tend to fricken reload saves all the time in stealth games as well as in almost every strategy game especially XCOM.

So I guess I just suck.

Depends the situations , the genre and what impact has to the player to tell if something has good AI or not. By saying GOOD doesnt means to be human like , it means to be built in a way that will fit to games overall design and give to the player the experience game itself supposed will give.

Re4 for example has fitting AI yet its as stupid as it gets and in many occassions laughable. Not joking , was laughing while i was playing . And when you playing a Horror game , the last thing you should feel .. is the urge to smile or laugh about something every few minutes.

Design wise based on your gameplay options , GREAT ! You got a guy that isnt able to move while aiming or strafe , you got the "zombie" that is clever enough to do alot of different more complex AI oriented things like talking , communicate , wear stuff , hold sheilds and chainsaws , aiming , chasing , strafing , open , doors etc so it running towards you when you cant move , full speed , to give the pseudo impression of CHASE which is a very clever thing design wise and it worked on me ... for few minutes that is , then when is next to you , shuts down that much and slow down its reactions so much that feels like worse than an original zombie from original series.

Then youre like , ok buddy , youre not that dangerous as a first thought , gtfo stupid! What are you looking at , move !! hahaha! Literally , im joking ! Design wise , was the ideal but to me as a fan of horror games ...a joke ! Big joke!

So to me , great AI needs to fit to what you want the player to experience aside ofc its overall design which is as vital because then youll end up with a broken game. We can talk all day how RE4 AI approach is great and how the design is superb , blablabla .. but was AI ideal for players to feel horror and shit their pants left and right since that was its genre and thats what supposed itll do , to begin with ? Did AI help on that front ?

Video game AI has come a long way , to me it doesnt matter if its top notch or just serves a more generic purpose as long as the game im playing gives me what supposed to.Plenty of games did in the past and plenty still giving me without having the best possible AI .

Pretty sure save scumming in those games is an intended strategy for the most part lol.

Yea.

Hitman 1 for instance.No one sees me but just because I walk slightly loads of people are engaging on me.

AI is a misnomer imo.

What you're talking about would be the equivalent of a real human hacking or exploiting; that's not intelligence, that's cheating, faking, lying. As a result, I don't view that as intelligence be it human or programming. Having a computer-controlled enemy be more difficult simply because he can see you from 2 km away and shoot you in the head within 1 millisecond is not challenging in a rewarding sense, it is just frustrating.

There is yet to be genuinely challenging AI in a game, except for maybe a handful of titles. AI that improvises according to what you are building in your base in a strategy game, or AI that is, well...creative? They generally just follow a "If A, then B" kind of thing (forgot what it's called) so if I go and hide in a game, 99% of the time I can bet the AI will A.) stay on alert for x amount of time, B.) search for y amount of time after x amount of time expires, and C.) return to default mode after y amount of time expires. They don't crawl in the vent after me, or throw a grenade in the pile of boxes where I might be hiding, or any number of things.

All of that is asking waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much of programmers, though, I imagine we are not at that point, because that's close to actual AI we talk/see about in movies that often ends the world, right?

Honestly, only AI I've been impressed by was the enemies in No One Lives Forever, and that's because they took cover, and the xenomorph in Alien: Isolation.

*is it a hardware thing? Or a software thing? Because with all these 18 core processors n shit coming out, I have to imagine we can power some really awesome, ummmm, logics? Idunno what you want to call them lol.

@putaspongeon: I dunno man. Mario is mostly about making jumps with dem physics. The AI is just there to complement the level design. It's not meant to be the main attraction or core challenge.

Yes, Ai can be too good that it's a bad thing. If you don't agree with that statement then try playing against the computer on chess.com on impossible difficulty and see if you can beat it, ever.

I mean that's really just an excuse, other games do well on everything pretty much.

Imagine being lured into traps, ai that does more than just randomly charge, bosses that resist to some degree your attacks against their obvious weaknesses, etc etc.

don't know about good AI, but bad AI for sure, in COD games for instance my friendly AI stands out in the opening shooting like crazy and kills nothing, nobody shoots back at them either, and the friendly sometimes pushing me out of cover too, meanwhile all the enemy AIs have their sights on me and only me, pinning me down in cover and taking damage if my foot so much slips out of cover, then they start spamming me with grenades

what I hate in poorly designed stealth games is how the enemies can seemingly always see you, even through dense foliage, Far Cry 2 was a good example of this, though I like the game in other respects, the AI is atrocious, they did a much better job with stealth in further games being a more important part of the gameplay mechanics so stuff like that was more accounted for

Dishonored is all about quicksaving quickloading on my stealth playthrough to get that perfect situation.

With loading times being 2 seconds it doesn't really bother me.

If you don't like that just go all lethal in your powers and skills.

@putaspongeon: I think that would be putting too much emphasis on action in a platform game. Remember that 3D Mario games give you plenty of space, clever AI would be wasted as it would be far too easy to avoid them since most players just tank through levels as fast as they can (unless they are decidedly looking for stars). In the more linear levels, the intent of enemies it to keep pace, act as launch pads or make the geometry of level design that more tricky to navigate. They're essentially pitfall modifiers in this context.

Only if it's too good in the sense that it makes it feel like an unfair game, IMO. If it's properly balanced, a good AI will more than likely make the game shine.

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@Wasdie Thanks again for the very nice and informative posts of yours. Always enjoy reading them. Never leave GS forums, please.

And to answer the topic: Yes, AI can definitely be too good to be fun.

well i expect stealth games AI to be good.

Well of course. For example, imagine trying to stealth in real-life through a heavily guarded facility. You wouldn't last 5 seconds. You gotta make it fun somehow.

I've never seen good AI. I've seen AI that cheats to win, almost every strategy game made has cheating AI because it is too dumb to play by the same rules as the player.

Then you have the scripted AI, where AI is preset to do one for a few things in a particular area based on what the player does, again not particularly good.

The best type of AI I've seen is in old games like UFO where the AI doesn't cheat and decides to do stuff based on what type of unit they are and their randomised stats, sometimes they are cowards, sometimes they are arseholes who wipe out your squad with well placed grenade, sometimes they take themselves out because they are shit. It's interesting what you are going to see next.

I don't know why more devs don;t do it that way, you can mask bad AI with some randomisation.

Define good.

MGSV has a very good AI.

But most people online say it's bad because HURR DURR THEY CANT SEE ME LYING ON THE GROUND HAHA XD THEIR FUKING STUPED XD.

Making an AI that is an unstoppable wall of death is piss-easy.

Making an AI that dynamically reacts to player behaviour in a variety of ways and is fun to play around with is an actual challenge.

No it wouldn't, you'd still have specific ways to kill them like how you kill ghosts in 64 and hopping on gombas and stuff, it's literally something that is excused because of nostalgia but it's a progress that should have been mad years ago.

@putaspongeon: No I don't agree with you. That argument isn't very good at all. :P

The enemies in Mario games don't serve to be purposeful challenges in themselves. They are there as complimentary challenges to the level design. Nostalgia plays no part in it. It can't because the design of 3D Mario games vastly changed after Super Mario Sunshine in 2002 where levels became even more linear and enemies were given even less space to actually move around. They basically play the role of keeping the player on their toes. (Which makes in a game about movement and jumping)

They don't need to do anything other than chase you, or stay completely idle in some cases. Can you give me an example where some STRIPS, GOAP AI or an expanded set of behaviors to the FSM approach would actually benefit an existing 3D Mario level? Because really Mario being more of a platformer than an action platformer would not benefit from having AI to instigate the action paradigm in this composite game series that has more used action as a means of solving platforming problems. NOT action for solving action gaming problems. That's not what Mario or other action platformer titles that are similar are about. Same goes for Sonic titles too.

I suggest watching this video to come to terms what is actually core to the challenge behind Mario games, or even doing some research on action platformers, their level design and delicate enemy placements. For a comprehensive understanding of 2D Mario games (particularly Super Mario World), I recommend reading this essay. (namely page 8)

Yes, you can absolutely have AI's that are so good that they ruin most human's enjoyment in the game. Of course creating such an AI can be difficult if not (under current circumstances impossible).

There are some easy examples though. AI's with super human aiming in shooters tend to ruin the fun. A high end AI in chess (backed by appropriate hardware) would be very un-fun to the vast majority of chess players out there. On a more basic level, there's a lot of hack and slash games that would stop being fun if the AI was smart enough to use its advantages:

- Don't exposing that glowing weak spot to the player holding the rocket launcher

- Stop charging headlong at that melee equipped super warrior, stay back and let the whittle him down at range...

- Or one of the classics, don't Stop looking for the intruder 2 minutes after you fund your soldier buddy killed at his post.

Even with what is normally very basic AI, we are constantly seeing situations where the AI is specifically designed to be dump in order to make the game more fun.

AI being too good? Nope. I have literally never come across AI that is too good, which is to say AI which acts realistic enough to match a human player, I have however come across AI which simply cheats, which I do not like. No, it's not that a game is too hard, it is just that the developers decided to make a certain aspect of the AI as a cheat.

However, my biggest issue is stupid AI, especially when I have to play with them on my team (here's looking at you Meryl from Twin Snakes lol)