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Has Artificial Intelligence in RPGs Stopped Evolving?

Has RPG AI stopped evolving?


  • Total voters
    63

Ebonsword

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2008
Messages
2,326
The recent article about Sawyer and "evolving" RPGs got me thinking: When was the last time I played an RPG where the AI felt like it was doing something new?

After pondering this a while, I think it might be Baldur's Gate 2, which had some pretty decent scripting in its mage battles.


So, a game that came out 18 years ago is the last major evolution in RPG AI? If true, that's pretty sad. No wonder so many new RPGs feel like rehashes of older games.


What do you my fellow Codexers think? Has RPG AI stopped evolving? If so, when did it happen?
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I think this can be overstated. The D:OS AI is probably on par with whatever the vanilla IE games did. Too bad we didn't get to see it before they dumbed it down.

BG2 had the type of spells that made it easy for the AI to show off. If devs get to keep making isometric RPGs, you'll probably see more impressive AI behavior soon.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,184
Location
Bjørgvin
No idea if AI had evolved in recent years, but then I haven't played any new games the last 7-8 years.
The bots in Unreal and the Baldur's Gate SCS spell casters is still the best AI I've seen in computer games.

Chess computers show that computers should be able to handle things on a tactical level.
The big problem is AI on a strategic level. The best I've seen there is the old Master of Orion.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Chess computers show that computers should be able to handle things on a tactical level.
The big problem is AI on a strategic level. The best I've seen there is the old Master of Orion.

In computer games the majority of players prefers an entertaining AI over a purely competitive AI tough.
 

wyes gull

Savant
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
424
(500 hours in paint later...)

eOgqFqG.jpg
 

Lurker47

Savant
Joined
Jul 30, 2017
Messages
721
Location
Texas
I can probably list the amount of turn-based games that had AI with actual strategies on my hand.
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
What is there to evolve, really? Honest question.

We're talking about a genre where the "AI" basically stays sleeping until the player comes into sighting range and then wake up! to serve as a wiki post moving in circles on screen, or attack you through some shallow combat system where it's supposed to die anyway. And when it doesn't die, the intended player move by the game is reloading and try again. I don't see what such a formula could ask of AIs.

Does any of the recent CRPGs (Divinity, Tiranny, PoE, etc) changed the basic formula in some way?
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
If the AI becomes too good,it could become annoying. A competent AI is good enough for me. The problem is that recent AI is beneath the competent,DOS2 for example have abysmal AI. Recently i watched Battletech video and the AI in it was pretty stupid. Instead of shooting the crippled mech at point black,it decided to shoot the most armoured one at long distance.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
AI — — doesn't purchase games.
Pretty much. It's not just RPGs, as the decline can be seen in other genres as well, from shooters to strategy games. Sports games are probably the only case where there's consistent improvement to be found, no matter how minor it is.

What is there to evolve, really? Honest question.

We're talking about a genre where the "AI" basically stays sleeping until the player comes into sighting range and then wake up! to serve as a wiki post moving in circles on screen, or attack you through some shallow combat system where it's supposed to die anyway. And when it doesn't die, the intended player move by the game is reloading and try again. I don't see what such a formula could ask of AIs.
On the contrary, I think RPGs would benefit more from a good AI than most other genres. Combat becomes a hell of a lot more entertaining if the AI is capable of making smart decisions, doing some teamwork, choosing the right targets and spells, using different formations and maneuvers, coming up with ways of countering your tactics,, and so on. One of the reasons most RPGs have shallow combat is the AI's inability to do anything interesting, just repeating the same basic tactics over and over again and only being able to challenge the player through sheer numbers. What happens outside combat can be even more glaring — you can rob every shopkeeper blind and murder every NPC one by one in bright daylight, and no guard in a million years will be able to figure it out unless by some accident they happen to catch you red-handed, after which the entire town instantly knows what you've done and comes at you with pitchforks.

I think it'd be dishonest to say there's been no evolution at all during the last few years. There's probably lots of minor stuff that you simply don't notice or think about at all when playing, and RPGs tend to cover such a wide array of different mechanics that making an AI look smart is incredibly hard and resource-consuming. There's combat that involves large groups of people with possibly hundreds of different abilities, there's stealth, there are reputation and crime systems, there's running around town naked and shitfaced drunk just to see how people react... Still, I think it's somewhat telling that Ultima V had stuff like NPC schedules thirty years ago, and most games today still don't.
 

Visbhume

Prophet
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Messages
984
What about AI outside of combat? "Social intelligence", so to speak. Attempts like Radiant AI were amusing failures and we should restrain our expectations. And yet, there should be some room for progress up from reputation values and scripted interactions (which are better than nothing).

I have no idea what it should look like, though. Deep learning doesn't seem well suited to the task. Perhaps something based in dynamic epistemic logic could work better?
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
What about AI outside of combat? "Social intelligence", so to speak. Attempts like Radiant AI were amusing failures and we should restrain our expectations. And yet, there should be some room for progress up from reputation values and scripted interactions (which are better than nothing).

I have no idea what it should look like, though. Deep learning doesn't seem well suited to the task. Perhaps something based in dynamic epistemic logic could work better?
cnet4.cbsistatic.comalexa-gif-9eeaf135fa0077ecd59a9255c8157b487c6a23a1.gif

We already have this shit,hand crafted dialogue is the best option. No need for procedural generation in dialogue.
 

gaussgunner

Arcane
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
6,151
Location
ХУДШИЕ США
Still, I think it's somewhat telling that Ultima V had stuff like NPC schedules thirty years ago, and most games today still don't.
That's a lot of work for something most players won't appreciate. Especially if the result is just having to spend twice as much time tracking down NPCs to complete fedex quests. Unless the quest compass points to the NPC's current location.

If the AI becomes too good,it could become annoying. A competent AI is good enough for me. The problem is that recent AI is beneath the competent,DOS2 for example have abysmal AI. Recently i watched Battletech video and the AI in it was pretty stupid. Instead of shooting the crippled mech at point black,it decided to shoot the most armoured one at long distance.
Yeah, RPG combat is largely governed by stats, so the AI only needs to make them count for something, like a methodical human player would. It's not that hard. Nothing like human intelligence, just pathfinding and cost-benefit calculations. Favor bold moves over irritating mole-like behavior. Throw in some random crazy moves for variety.

HBS had competent AI in Shadowrun. I'm guessing that Battletech has a new engine, and the new AI system hasn't been a high priority.
 

Visbhume

Prophet
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Messages
984
We already have this shit,hand crafted dialogue is the best option. No need for procedural generation in dialogue.

Even if dialogue were still largely hand-crafted (probably a good idea) that would still leave room for AI in determining behaviour. Imagine for example a cowardly NPC that may refuse to follow orders that he deems too dangerous.

The we-can-do-it-now case is to hard-code the behaviour for concrete encounters. One can imagine a more general system in which the NPC tried to evaluate the orders according to some criteria: number of opponents, current health level, things like that.

Of couse, hard-coding the behaviour has the advantage that it can fit the story beats and rail-road you into more dramatically satisfying moments.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
If the AI becomes too good,it could become annoying. A competent AI is good enough for me. The problem is that recent AI is beneath the competent,DOS2 for example have abysmal AI. Recently i watched Battletech video and the AI in it was pretty stupid. Instead of shooting the crippled mech at point black,it decided to shoot the most armoured one at long distance.
Yeah, RPG combat is largely governed by stats, so the AI only needs to make them count for something, like a methodical human player would. It's not that hard. Nothing like human intelligence, just pathfinding and cost-benefit calculations. Favor bold moves over irritating mole-like behavior. Throw in some random crazy moves for variety.

HBS had competent AI in Shadowrun. I'm guessing that Battletech has a new engine, and the new AI system hasn't been a high priority.
Or it could be tied to difficulty and the youtube cockroach could have been on easy. I don't know how good it is,it could be really good for all i know. We will see in a few days.

Possible smart but not much fun thing for an AI could be the focus fire.

We already have this shit,hand crafted dialogue is the best option. No need for procedural generation in dialogue.

Even if dialogue were still largely hand-crafted (probably a good idea) that would still leave room for AI in determining behaviour. Imagine for example a cowardly NPC that may refuse to follow orders that he deems too dangerous.

The we-can-do-it-now case is to hard-code the behaviour for concrete encounters. One can imagine a more general system in which the NPC tried to evaluate the orders according to some criteria: number of opponents, current health level, things like that.

Of couse, hard-coding the behaviour has the advantage that it can fit the story beats and rail-road you into more dramatically satisfying moments.
NPC non-responsiveness will be total shit. Companions disobeying orders mid battle will be terrible and it will just make you play solo.
 
Repressed Homosexual
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
17,867
Location
Ottawa, Can.
People in the mainstream media keep saying that "AI will once rule the world and destroy all jobs", but we gamers know it is all fake, it is all hype. The only reason it is popular is because it catches attention, is incredibly vague, and sounds like an inevitable paradigm. It's all an excuse by Google, Facebook, Tesla and co to placate their investors who demand results and not fruitless investment. After the bullshit that was "3D printing" (wonder why we aren't hearing about that anymore?), and "self-driving cars" (it sure is working great in preventing crashes right?), "AI" is the new tech buzzword.

We still have strategy games where the AI, after 40 years of progress, is still unable to behave in any way that isn't absurd or comical. Sure, AI can become great on a very, very, very limited environment, in which the only way it is competent is because it can memorize almost all possible moves, but as soon as it gets a tiny bit more complex than that, it always falls flat on its face.

I said it for a long time: AI is only ever as smart as the programmer writing it.

And what are the greatest programmers of our times working on? Surely some grandiose project to make the world a better place, right? Bullshit, they're making new dog filters for Snapchat!
 

wyes gull

Savant
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
424
NPC non-responsiveness will be total shit. Companions disobeying orders mid battle will be terrible and it will just make you play solo.
Not true. Dead State companions had random panic attacks (usually after getting hit or swarmed) and they were still an asset. As a pack mule, at the very least. And it helps when careful management can prevent this, partially if not completely.
 

T. Reich

Arcane
Joined
Apr 15, 2013
Messages
2,714
Location
not even close
There's never been a demand for a good AI among gamers.
Competent AI? Sure, but it's not that hard to pull off, and the trend of lowering overall game difficulty places even less emphasis on that.
Coding a "strong" AI takes a good deal of expertise, effort and resources, and it has never been a selling point for any game.
If it doesn't add value, there's no point to invest into it.
And, if people want an actual challenge, a really strong intelligence to play against, there's multiplayer.
That means that the demand for people who could code a "strong" AI in gaming industry is very low, so these people will happily seek a more gainful employment elsewhere.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Bitch please~ In the current amateur novel writer communities we are FAPPING to the idea of AI evolving.

For one thing, you can have AI direct behavior in online games that involve massive number of players (ie massive number of factors).

Or choose competently between the set of strategies that was defined beforehand.

We are :bounce: about that.

Fuck Matrix. Their writers are abysmally moored in the past anyway.

MMORPG is where AI will shine.
 

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