Video Game AI

[KoolHndLuke]

 I was thinking about this while playing FO4(again) when I noticed my followers head tracking me and other npcs, commenting on certain actions, choosing a decent defensive position to fire at an enemy from, interacting with the environment and so on. I began to wonder how advanced AI in gaming has become. Is it that much better than a decade or two ago? So I found this article to see.... and what it outlines is interesting.

 

 I'm guessing that most games use the basic FSM AI design or algorithm for npcs and enemies- at least it seems that way. But, what if enemies in games like FO4 used the MCST AI to make npcs and enemies "think" and be much more unpredictable and have them be able to learn and adapt? My guess is that average home computer or console processors maybe can't handle that many calculations for that many different npcs in at any one given time while also processing everything else in the scant time is has between each frame. But, then I thought "What if only certain npcs used the more advanced "learning" AI?"- Like followers with varying levels of experience and skill that "learn" that hiding behind an un-exploded car in FO4 is a bad idea or not to step in front of the pc while they are aiming. Boss enemies could be truly "clever" by using environment or weather to their advantage or knowing the strengths and weaknesses of specific kinds of attacks or realizing when they have injured you and press their attack.

 

I mean think of what it could mean to start a game and the levels of npcs and enemies mean so much more than just buffed stats and better armor and weapons? Your level 2 or something and still haven't figured out much and you run into some enemies that are a bit higher leveled than you with adaptive AI. Throw in some variables there and it has the makings of being very interesting and unique in every encounter to say the least. What if enemies could "track" you across multiple cells? Or set up ambushes for you later in the game? I'm envisioning a truly "dynamic" world-space where almost anything can happen at any time.

 

It's really just brain farting on my part. But, I do find the possibilities of more advanced AI in games to be very exciting to experience (and probably very difficult to implement for developers). What are the some of the games that you have played that seemed to have better overall AI?

[EMayhem]

F.e.a.r had a rly good AI so far I know.

Far Cry 2 was a-okay so far.

And I think the xcom ai was good too.

[27X]

FEAR's AI is actually butt stupid (procedurally speaking)but is super focused on providing a compelling target to shoot, which is why people generally go nuts over it, it's just an iteration of Aliens Vs Predator 2's AI. What makes it work is how the team combined both kinematics and sound. AI tells you what they're doing, and makes it sound like they are coordinating, which they aren't. They just appear to be by the gambitting they use, and saying things like they're a team trying to get you, and then matching the animations and voice over perfectly with that. Pretty clever.

 

The gold standard is still Halo's, as the AI is actually aware of things by a sight cones and b then goes across a sliding array on state machine of response to pick. Is the stimulus friendly, neutral or enemy, does the AI perceive the enemy as weak or strong, does the AI have lots of friends or are they alone, are they injured or not, does the AI have trait pre-conditions:  Sanghaeli are mostly fearless, but will evade and be cautious around lethal enemies, grunt are cowardly unless in very large groups or led by strong allies, brutes are utterly fearless and will attack ANY enemy regardless of strength or size. The ultimate extension of this type is the AI in Alien: Isolation, where once the Alien "learns" a thing, that thing becomes permanently unlocked, and the AI continues to unlock behaviors and responses and then combine them actively by differing ratios until they can pretty much fuck you up no matter what weapons you have unless you have unlimited ammo as a cheat, up to and including breaking all light sources ahead of you and then waiting for you run out of ammo before pouncing on you and smashing your face in, or waiting in a vent completely motionless until you walk by a half hour later from another level portal and ripping your face off.

 

For most games, AI really hasn't even caught up to Halo, much less improved upon it, though things like xcom 2 and stellaris are stepping in new direction using "emergent" AI where the AI "learns" over time by piecing action and reaction fragments together into strategies and tactics, and starting to use the most effective ones repeatedly.

[Guest]

Having complex procedures to give to NPCs some sort of intelligence has a serious computation problem.

First it cannot take too much computer power or too much time.

Second, it cannot change immediately and continuously what the NPC is doing, or it will not like at all "humanoid".

 

Most games real-time, use "computation paths". So the NPC normally is only doing a standard set of action without thinking, and in some cases (player spotted, for example) switch to a different computation model.

 

Turn based games can use a best thinking approach. And guess what, they use the same class algorithms that are used for example to play chess.

 

Massively populated games (thousand of "NPCs" at the same time), use super-simple computation schemes, ofthen based on sub-cases analysis. (In this case you will see that most of the NPCs will act like clones of each other.)

[Reginald_001]

8 hours ago, KoolHndLuke said:

 I was thinking about this while playing FO4(again) when I noticed my followers head tracking me and other npcs, commenting on certain actions, choosing a decent defensive position to fire at an enemy from, interacting with the environment and so on. I began to wonder how advanced AI in gaming has become. Is it that much better than a decade or two ago? So I found this article to see.... and what it outlines is interesting.

 

 I'm guessing that most games use the basic FSM AI design or algorithm for npcs and enemies- at least it seems that way. But, what if enemies in games like FO4 used the MCST AI to make npcs and enemies "think" and be much more unpredictable and have them be able to learn and adapt? My guess is that average home computer or console processors maybe can't handle that many calculations for that many different npcs in at any one given time while also processing everything else in the scant time is has between each frame. But, then I thought "What if only certain npcs used the more advanced "learning" AI?"- Like followers with varying levels of experience and skill that "learn" that hiding behind an un-exploded car in FO4 is a bad idea or not to step in front of the pc while they are aiming. Boss enemies could be truly "clever" by using environment or weather to their advantage or knowing the strengths and weaknesses of specific kinds of attacks or realizing when they have injured you and press their attack.

 

I mean think of what it could mean to start a game and the levels of npcs and enemies mean so much more than just buffed stats and better armor and weapons? Your level 2 or something and still haven't figured out much and you run into some enemies that are a bit higher leveled than you with adaptive AI. Throw in some variables there and it has the makings of being very interesting and unique in every encounter to say the least. What if enemies could "track" you across multiple cells? Or set up ambushes for you later in the game? I'm envisioning a truly "dynamic" world-space where almost anything can happen at any time.

 

It's really just brain farting on my part. But, I do find the possibilities of more advanced AI in games to be very exciting to experience (and probably very difficult to implement for developers). What are the some of the games that you have played that seemed to have better overall AI?

It's not that things are not possible, anything is possible in terms of programming. Even predictive AI, advanced combat systems and analysis systems that learn from the player, etc..etc.. the problem is computational power. (As other posters have noted above as well).

 

What I predict will happen is one of two things from most likely to least likely:

 

- Game developers will start developing with cloud platforms as game engine.

In this--the most likely--scenario, game and video processing will completely move to the game distributor cloud based hardware. You will literally play on their cloud based platform and on their hardware. Your PC or gaming console will literally just be a terminal, optimized for streaming games. Modding will exist purely cloud based, much like Steam's workshop does. You are severely limited to what you can mod or change in the game. As the game will literally be running off the distributors servers. You pay for use, each month, just like current cloud services. This will give developers the option for far greater quality control (only one platform to develop on) than currently the case with hundreds of different hardware configurations available. It will also give them the option of using cloud based AI and game engines, that can offer far greater computational power than any personal hardware platform can.

 

'Netflix like' services will popup, Netflix gaming, Amazon gaming, MS Gaming (which will bomb out as usual), Steam/Valve will win this round as they are far ahead of this game.. So you'll need to pay a base amount for becoming member of Steam or Amazon etc.. then pay extra for AA games.

 

I expect ISP's will JUMP into this by offering 'game enabled' internet accounts, baseless promises of QOS enabled internet lines... etc..etc..

 

- PC gaming will get more focus and will eventually receive a 'gaming card' to replace the current video hardware. This card not only picks up video processing, but also physics, AI and whatnot, giving developers much more power and hardware accelerated gaming instructions. Even though this scenario is my preferred scenario, it will not happen. As everything is moving into the cloud, period.
 

[Tyrant99]

I don't see any reason why Neural Networks can't eventually break in.

 

Once that happens, the AI will be incredible.

 

 

[TanookiTamaTachi]

I think you're leaving out the most important consideration here - the ai's primary purpose is to be a fun target to shoot at. As a game dev, if you want combat to be fun, the last thing you want is for your ai to play good, as that would quickly result in distinctly un-fun scenarios.

If you actually trained a modern, reinforcement-learning based ai to efficiently and effectively control the npcs in a game such as fallout, it would either discover an exploit that allows it to kill the player risk-free, or decide it doesn't stand a chance, run for the hills, and turn the game into one of hide-and-seek.

[KoolHndLuke]

1 hour ago, TanookiTamaTachi said:

I think you're leaving out the most important consideration here - the ai's primary purpose is to be a fun target to shoot at. As a game dev, if you want combat to be fun, the last thing you want is for your ai to play good, as that would quickly result in distinctly un-fun scenarios.

If you actually trained a modern, reinforcement-learning based ai to efficiently and effectively control the npcs in a game such as fallout, it would either discover an exploit that allows it to kill the player risk-free, or decide it doesn't stand a chance, run for the hills, and turn the game into one of hide-and-seek.

True. Like finding a concealed position and sniping you or laying clever traps that would be difficult to detect. Obviously, there would need to be adjustments to "thinking" AI so that the player would have a better chance to succeed. Most people would be frustrated with enemies that, for instance, run away and hide to "heal" themselves and come at you again later or walking out in the open and getting your head blown off from nowhere. That's what makes it really tricky. For something like that to work at all, I think the focus of the game would need to expand away from the player character so that you are just another "Joe" or "Jane" in the gaming world.

 

I seem to notice little improvements on AI all the time. But, these are all more diverse behaviors and the like- finite in their use and application. Would it be so hard to come up with a system where they get better at something without just adjusting some numbers? Like instead of an AI that calculates 80,000 moves, what about a "dumb" version that only has to calculate 8,000 or less? Sort of a very simple "learning" AI that could be easier for computers to process. Remember the game mentioned in the article where you "taught" your pet? Something like that.

[Tyrant99]

1 hour ago, TanookiTamaTachi said:

I think you're leaving out the most important consideration here - the ai's primary purpose is to be a fun target to shoot at. As a game dev, if you want combat to be fun, the last thing you want is for your ai to play good, as that would quickly result in distinctly un-fun scenarios.

If you actually trained a modern, reinforcement-learning based ai to efficiently and effectively control the npcs in a game such as fallout, it would either discover an exploit that allows it to kill the player risk-free, or decide it doesn't stand a chance, run for the hills, and turn the game into one of hide-and-seek.

I think the goal would be to get the AI to play at a level that is dynamically suited to the Player. So it would be able to detect the Players skill level and then automatically modify its own behavior to suit. So you could make it challenging / exciting for any Player without it ever being impossible.

 

And of course, once the Player's skill level improves, the challenge of the AI will ramp up to match. So an ideal AI IMO would constantly tune itself to an ideal range for each Player. Imagine a combat system that never gets boring...