Jake

Idle Thumbs 161: The Eyes of Luigi

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The thing about moving intelligently in corridor like spaces is that there is in fact a way to do that.  One guy shoots suppressing fire while the other advances forward, then they switch.  It's basic military tactic that works extremely well, which is probably the exact reason it doesn't happen a lot in games.  I imagine that because it can be so effective, it's less fun for the player to feel trapped and outsmarted by the AI.  Games love to tout their intelligent AI, but I think that a truly intelligent AI would actually frustrate most players, especially if they just want to shoot a thousand dudes.

 

The problem with that is covering fire doesn't do much to enemies in most of these games, and players don't tend to care a whole lot either. Some of the Tom Clancy games that offered 1-3 bullet kills (player or AI) helped some, but the modern FPS has you being able to eat so many bullets before you keel over that a little covering fire ain't no thing.

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The problem with that is covering fire doesn't do much to enemies in most of these games, and players don't tend to care a whole lot either. Some of the Tom Clancy games that offered 1-3 bullet kills (player or AI) helped some, but the modern FPS has you being able to eat so many bullets before you keel over that a little covering fire ain't no thing.

 

That's very true and also a reason I think that things like giving AI the ability to flank is also not particularly useful.  In a lot of games where the enemy will flank me, the end result is usually that I get hit a few times, turn to whoever shot me, kill them, then turn back the way I was facing and continue to mow down his buddies.  In order to make flanking an effective tactic, you have to make the player more fragile, which also means that any number of other tactics will work too, including a ton of guys standing still and shooting.  I don't really think that AI is the problem, I think that trying to figure out how to make the AI's actions meaningful is the problem, because even if they have intelligence it's often useless when the mechanics of the game override everything.

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Two games I can think of that have used some alternative tactics well for firefights include Xcom: EU and the Star Wars: Galaxies.  SWG is pretty vague to me as to whether the enemy AI used it much or not, but PCs along the Carbine tree got a variety of tools like Suppression that could limit enemy movement, limit the abilities they could use and affect their accuracy.  X:EU also featured stuff like suppression, which could be deadly in the enemy's hands at Classic difficulty.  Of course X:EU has the advantage of being turn based, but enemies would suppress you, destroy cover, flank you, seek high ground, and pull back to lure you into a trap or poor defensive position.  It was hard to see that stuff on Normal difficulty, as you often overpowered enemies before they had a chance to use those options.  I think enemies in Mass Effect 3 would do stuff like that as well, where one enemy would focus fire on your position, as another moved to flank you.  But it was another situation where you were typically so much tougher than the enemy AI, that it didn't matter and you could still easily kill them. 

 

I have no idea how difficult it would be to translate the turn based tactics that X:EU used into real-time tactics for a shooter, but it certainly seems like it should be possible.  Of course, Classic difficulty Xcom is also punishing against mistakes.  Leave one soldier uncovered for a single round with enemies present, and that is very likely a dead soldier.  As SAM noted, player fragility has to go hand-in-hand with good AI to make it work. 

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This is maybe the first instance of a company using social media bullshit that seems totally validated to me.

 

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The thing that makes me scratch my head is when people start talking about new processing power being used for 'better AI'. That seems like a design problem you could solve today, not a tech problem that we're waiting on better hardware for.

 

Great show!

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Good AI decision making takes CPU cycles. Optimization helps, but there's certainly a hardware limitation as well. I used to play a lot of the Stardock games, and the head guy over there was an AI programmer. All of the turn-based strategy games they make have different levels of AI difficulty, and I loved playing against (and usually losing too) the full "unshackled" AI. However, the time between turns was something like four times as long as the normal difficulty.

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The thing about moving intelligently in corridor like spaces is that there is in fact a way to do that.  One guy shoots suppressing fire while the other advances forward, then they switch.  It's basic military tactic that works extremely well, which is probably the exact reason it doesn't happen a lot in games.  I imagine that because it can be so effective, it's less fun for the player to feel trapped and outsmarted by the AI.  Games love to tout their intelligent AI, but I think that a truly intelligent AI would actually frustrate most players, especially if they just want to shoot a thousand dudes.

The thing is, i swear i've seen this behavior in FEAR's AI. It doesn't make the game any harder though, the player character can too easily tank through damage. (Part of why i think the game is worth playing on hard to force a more measured play style.)

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The thing is, i swear i've seen this behavior in FEAR's AI. It doesn't make the game any harder though, the player character can too easily tank through damage. (Part of why i think the game is worth playing on hard to force a more measured play style.)

 

That could be.  I've never played FEAR so I have no idea what the AI is like, but in my general experience this is not a common tactic.

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That could be.  I've never played FEAR so I have no idea what the AI is like, but in my general experience this is not a common tactic.

 

In my memory, if there were enough enemies in a given area, one would fire constantly at your position to keep you from seeing the rest as they moved around. I don't think they'd really try to close, except for the shotgun guys, because the player's avatar got immensely more lethal the closer it was to an enemy, but it was cool to have your hearing and sight blocked by fire for a little while and then have half the enemies in new positions.

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i think it was one of the first games to have dudes flush you out with grenades too maybe? my memory is a bit fuzzy

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The first half-life was the first game i remember doing that.

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I don't remember enemies in HL1 throwing grenades at you as a reaction to you being in cover. I definitely remember them running around to get you.

 

But they definitely reacted to your grenades.

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But they definitely reacted to your grenades.

 

Yeah, I can hear them shouting, "Grenade!" in my head. I don't remember their response to the player in cover beyond attempts to flank, though.

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I've done a run through Half-Life within the last year and i'm certain i remember them spamming out grenades when they lose line of sight with you, mainly if they don't have a direct path to allow chase.

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That could be.  I've never played FEAR so I have no idea what the AI is like, but in my general experience this is not a common tactic.

You should absolutely play fear, it may be a bit on the ugly side but it's probably the most 'next gen' experience in terms of shooter AI that you'll be having anytime soon.

Considering the games nearly a decade old that's a bit on the damning side.

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You should absolutely play fear, it may be a bit on the ugly side but it's probably the most 'next gen' experience in terms of shooter AI that you'll be having anytime soon.

Considering the games nearly a decade old that's a bit on the damning side.

 

As someone who's also never played FEAR and is thinking about it, would I have to go into the experience ready to forgive some clunky things that modern games have ironed out/abandoned from their designs?

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"I guess I'll chop em up and make em into legs." - Nick Breckon

 

Nick's ability to end up in these bizarre situation in video games continues to astonish me. 

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Nick's ability to end up in these bizarre situation in video games continues to astonish me. 

 

My favourite thing about that story was how quickly Nick descended into his tribal state.

 

"No I didn't want to kill that guy! ...well I guess I have to kill the other two and chop them up then."

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As someone who's also never played FEAR and is thinking about it, would I have to go into the experience ready to forgive some clunky things that modern games have ironed out/abandoned from their designs?

All you need to know is that you can do a sweet jump kick.

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Mirror's Edge had the sweetest of jump kicks but no one ever used it 'cause they were busy complaining about having to shoot guns.

 

Anyway jump kicks are the greatest. Guess I should play FEAR too.

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