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Enemy AI

MushinMushin Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
in General Discussion
So I'm really hoping that there actually is an AI system that give pve enemies some character. For example, dragons dogma, monster hunter, dark souls. The reason these games were so fun and challenging was that the enemies were actually challenging at times frustrating. Also, I hope the enemy dots don't make it to the final build. Showing enemy dots is such a dumb feature of mmos.

Comments

  • StreetCornerPoetStreetCornerPoet Member, Alpha Two
    I wouldn't expect much from general enemy AI, most of the games you are talking about are single player or in the case of Monster Hunter its basically boss fights without worrying about trash mobs and other MMO stuff like grinding mobs and quest mobs.

    When you are talking about areas that are going to have a ton of people running around hunting stuff, even if the generic mob AI was decent it would die before you could appreciate it anyway and there is no reason to take up resources for a wolf or generic goblin to have AI.

    That being said, I do hope at least instance group content has decent boss AI and maybe some open world special monsters especially in the open world dungeon and raid areas, just wouldn't expect the common trash to be developed.
  • MushinMushin Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited May 2019
    I just don't want a wolf to stand there and take hits. Make it act like a wolf and move around, if it's a pack circle and surround. I was watching some black desert videos and the player is doing all this cool stuff but the enemies just stand there getting hit. Also why would enemies hit once every 5 seconds and just start walking towards the player just to get hit more.
  • Rem_Rem_ Member
    I'd like for the PvE to be meaningful. Just beating up nearly mindless monsters and bosses isn't fun at all. I'm hoping that their ai will be good, I really don't think that's the hardest part in games anymore. As long as they get it right it should be good, hecc maybe even overtuned. I would rather have it be too hard than too easy though to be honest, but I wouldn't worry about the AI too much.
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  • VolgaireVolgaire Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I actually prefer if players died in PVE, in most games a person dying in PVE against normal mobs at his own or slightly higher level must be a total moron.
  • Wandering MistWandering Mist Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Dark Souls monster AI really wasn't anything special. What made it hard was the fact that you could get comboed down in 2-3 hits if you weren't careful, but that had nothing to do with the AI.

    The only game I've played that had "smart" AI was in the original Guildwars. In that game, instead of the traditional threat system, enemy mobs used a priority system that gave them the illusion of intelligence. The AI would actively focus players with low max health and armour values within a certain range (i.e. healers and cloth-wearing casters). It meant that if you played a caster and you stood too close to the mobs, you would die very very quickly.

    Of course, this system meant there was no "holy trinity" as such. Since there was no threat generation mechanic, "tanks" had to body-block and CC the mobs to stop them from destroying the casters in the back. I honestly really liked this system as it punished players for poor positioning. Unfortunately I've never seen such a system used in any other game.


    As for boss AI, back in the day a lot of WoW players complained that the boss AI was stupid. "why doesn't the boss go after the healers?" they said. Jeff Kaplan (the current Vice President of Blizzard and former Lead Designer for WoW) replied to this in a raid panel, basically saying that yes, they could make the boss ignore the tanks completely and 1-shot the healers, but that would ruin the point of the raid encounter. Killing players is very easy, but making a boss that challenges players while still being able to kill it is very hard.

    You can see the full panel here. It's actually really interesting as it explains the design decisions in Vanilla WoW:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Falm0H7VEiQ
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  • MorashtakMorashtak Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I dearly hope there are no loot pinatas but unless IS comes up with an AI that learns and adapts then slightly less dumber loot pinatas are the best I am expecting.

    Also hoping that IS surprises me.
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  • CrazySquiggleCrazySquiggle Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited May 2019
    @GrimHarlequin Nailed it on the head. Nobody should be expecting anything out of the random mobs. Bosses will most likely be the only ones with complicated AI programs. Too much stress on the server and you no longer have a game to play kiddos :wink: The most complicated AI system we will get is maybe what Tera has for general mobs and BAMs. Anymore than that and you run a high chance of crashing even the best servers.

    EDIT: If you need a reference then go youtube a Tera raid and watch the lagfest commence.
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