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How Smart should the AI be?
Wandering Mist
Moderator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The topic of how smart enemy mobs should be is always interesting to discuss. If the AI are too stupid the game becomes boring, but make them too smart and the game becomes too frustrating to bother with. Anyone who has played WoW knows how annoying it is to fight Murlocs, mostly because they are much smarter than most other enemies. When you attack them they call allies to help, when they are on low health they run away from you, and healing-capable Murlocs will heal their allies. These are traits you don't find in most other WoW mobs.
Along with this we need to consider what kinds of abilities to give the enemy mobs. Should they have CC or healing abilities? I believe if you are going to add such abilities into the game you should also give players ways to counter them. If the enemy mobs have CC you should be able to avoid it in some way. If the enemy mobs have a healing ability there should be a way to interrupt it.
So, how smart do you want the enemy AI to be? What traits do you want them to show while fighting?
Along with this we need to consider what kinds of abilities to give the enemy mobs. Should they have CC or healing abilities? I believe if you are going to add such abilities into the game you should also give players ways to counter them. If the enemy mobs have CC you should be able to avoid it in some way. If the enemy mobs have a healing ability there should be a way to interrupt it.
So, how smart do you want the enemy AI to be? What traits do you want them to show while fighting?
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The hardest way: have adaptive AI for all kinds of mobs 👀 test 50 types of mobs in the horde mode or A1 and they would be the base for all the mobs we will have in the MMORPG. + special dungeon/raid boss AIs
The hard way: Program/code 20 types of mobs and all other similar mobs of one type would act in the same way. + special dungeon/raid boss AI
The easy way: Only have adaptive AI for specific kinds of mobs such as those in dungeons and raids. Others will be done through programming (perhaps for 10 types of mobs)
The etarded way: Just increase the stats of mobs + no/very little use of AI and only for raid bosses
CC breaks and interrupts are normal for pvp, I don't think they should become dead abilities in pve.
They shouldn’t all follow the same behavior just with different colors of attacks.
I think what makes the Murlocs in WoW so frustrating and jarring is that they are the only mobs that act the way they do. If all mobs acted the same way (or even just the majority of them) it wouldn't be so bad because players become more used to it. It's not even so much that they are harder to fight, they just require a different approach to deal with. It's like those annoying stealth levels that get put into fps games. You spend most of the game running and gunning and then are suddenly told to be sneaky and patient.
I was wondering when someone would bring up threat systems. In my opinion it's impossible to have truly smart AI whilst also having a tank-heal-dps trinity class system. This was actually brought up and discussed way back in 2005 at Blizzcon (video linked below if you are interested):
As said in the video, killing players is very easy. All the devs would have to do is program the boss to immediately target and kill the healers first. After all, a smart boss would totally do that. But then nobody would be able to kill the boss and the devs WANT us to kill the boss. Challenge us sure, but ultimately they want us to win.
There is only one game I can think of that had truly smart AI when it comes to targeting and that was the original GuildWars. In that game there was no threat, no taunts, no "tanking". Instead, mobs picked targets based on a list of criteria, usually targeting low health and low armoured targets first. This completed change the dynamics of the fights as frontline characters focused more on CC and bodyblocking enemies, whilst the casters had to be very careful about their positioning to stay safe. Of course, you can't have a system like this with a traditional holy trinity class structure.
And if we got rogues like let's have the 8 class.
I'm following a game where they go on it and look good for now.
But can't see for now the problem we could encounter this way .
I want brain dead summons, give them WoW hunter pet intelligence and we are gucci.
look at the AI in total war now that is brain dead
I dont want mobs to stop chasing you and return to their post. It makes zones extremely easy to adventure in, and so the whole meaning is lost. Back in the 2000s, players were careful not to aggro more mobs than they could kill.
Today ppl run through mobs without fear of dying, to get from point A to B.
There has to be some challenge
I think that they should find a middle ground between following and not following.
Make them stop following if you have not damaged them in any way, and let them chase if you HAVE damaged them.
What I liked about classic WoW was there seemed to be a set of rules that NPCs followed. Shield bearers shield bashed most of the time. Archers could net and run. Dagger wielders would backstab targets that had their backs exposed. Humanoid NPCs would attempt to run while near death, giving an excuse to snare them. Some animals wouldn't swim, even though they had the animations for doing so. These things don't seem that heavy to implement when it comes to resources.
A simple snare on some mobs is all it takes to stop this kind of thing.
In terms of mob AI, I'd like to see some differentation between animal behavior and intelligent behavior, between mobs that are by themselves and those that are in groups, between mobs that are in their home and out of it and between leaders (named and boss mobs), and followers (base population).
The UI need not specifically be used to increase difficulty - that is a byproduct. The idea is to make the content as a whole more interesting and varied.
There are other levers that can be used if the UI proves too hard.
I'll have to go back and play some wow because i thought that behavior is what some other humanoid mobs exhibited but that is beside the point.
I disagree with the premise that all mobs should function the same, especially in a MMO. The behavior murlocs show in wow doesn't come across as weird to me. I don't find it out of place that little fish people run away when they are starting to get beat, try to get friends, and heal up their friends. If anything, that's great for several reasons. It makes the mobs seem more then mindless punching bags and teaches players good habits like pulling mobs a way from others and focusing down healers when present.
You have given examples of mobs and behaviors you don't like, maybe it would help me understand your point of view if you gave examples of things you do like. It seems like you want to limit mobs to little more then mindless zombies that only have the goal of getting into range and attacking you. Not saying we can't have simple mobs like that in the game but i don't think every mob should be that simple.
There were quite a few mobs that ran away on low health, but none that showed the level of teamwork and coordination that the Murlocs did. Mobs showing higher levels of intelligence and coordination are fine but it needs to be more common than what we see in WoW. In the original Guildwars, groups of mobs acted like this all the time, helping each other, defending and healing each other, coordinating their attacks, etc. This was fine because it was like this from the very beginning of the game so players got used to it and expected it. By contrast, there are relatively few packs of Murlocs in WoW so players aren't used to fighting them. It happens so rarely that the players never really get a chance to practice the different tactics.
What I say applies to all types of games, not just mmorpgs. If you suddenly change the rules of engagement and AI behaviour, players are going to freak out and become frustrated by it. I'm sure most people get very frustrated by that one stealth level that always appears in fps games. Why? Because for that one level you have to completely change your gameplay from running&gunning to being patient and sneaky.
I agree with you though that there should be different behaviour patterns for different types of mobs. I wouldn't expect forest creatures to show the same amount of teamwork and coordination as humanoid mobs do. I would actually love to see smarter AI in the creatures I'm fighting, forcing me to use my entire toolkit. After all, what's the point in giving me an interrupt or CC ability if I never need to use it? But if you are going to do that it needs to be done regularly, not every so often from a single mob type.
your weakness discuses me
It disgusted you so much you forgot how to spell the word :P
Sure taught 11 year old self not to mess with the AI again
You try typing by poking at a keyboard with chopsticks and see how many typos you have.
I want to see a variety of levels of intellect. Animals shouldn't just attack based on predator/prey, most animals would rather avoid conflict that could injure them, and only attack when threatened or when protecting their young. If a predator is actively hunting you, it should avoid charging at your face and instead stalk you (even using stealth skills) and attack from behind.
Goblins and other smaller weaker mobs should be drastically scaled down in individual strength, but absolutely swarm you. As in if you injure one with an arrow, it shouts and calls all it's buddies to arms. Those buddies might raise further alarms in the area and the rest of the armed goblins would be at increased levels of alertness and ready to attack in mass if the first wave fails to kill you.
Up to humanoid levels, PvE encounters should depend more on individual power, using archetypes and ranging their abilities based on their level (but not secondary archetypes and augments, heroes have to be heroic somehow after all). They should be hard encounters because of organization. Healers, tanks, and DPS all working together to keep you locked in conflict just as you would operate in.
A thing that's always annoyed me about PvE encounters was the conveniently small and tight aggro ranges. You could vary those ranges based on the encounter you want to develop. Goblins being highly aggressive or defensive around their territory would attack you as soon as they see you. Humanoids and animals might prefer to avoid you or only attack you if you approach whatever operation they're running and looking to defend.
If each PvE encounter requires some level of understanding to defeat it quickly, that would actually be awesome. If I can treat goblin hunting exactly the same as bandit hunting, what's the point of having two different creature types to begin with? Save yourself the animation time and just make bandits the only thing we ever encounter. PvE should be a lot more diverse then it has been. And yes, that means making it way more challenging than people are use to. I should feel a strong need to find a group to level with rather then try to run out and solo everything. Social interaction is what makes MMOs MMOs after all.
But if there was option to have advanced bots and monsters then that would be great way to cater to people that like those things. Somthing like Ironman mode or having Irionman toon. Really would recommend different mode like Apoc mode. (Apocalyptic Mode) Just not for every body think somehting like this would be easy to implement. I know what the iron man challenge is in wow not suggestion that exact challenge. Thinking Intrepid could come up with an Apoc Mode that would be fun and challenging for players that like those type of things definitely not for every body.
But in general would like AI difficulty set to moderate with option to do more difficult content. Mainly for phsycological reasons. When you do difficult content puts you under pressure and not every one likes those type of settings. At moderately difficulty in general people will be having fun with out having the game be too easy.
To put in terms of pvp rated pvp at higher rating is like zero tolerance for mistakes. If you do make a mistake then as soon as match ends people will be asking why
Like why did you not make that interupt. and so on.
While non rated pvp content were you can try different set ups and tactics well not so much pressure more relaxed so more fun.
Both are FUN for me just different type of fun. So like in easy content a good player would just be mowing over everything having fun. Medium diffuculty content still killing things but have to be more care ful. Hard mode well have to be careful or you will die.
All three them are fun just high pressure no mistakes type of content not for every body all the time.
Pesonally I like difficult content and I am a pvper but sometimes my mind just wants to relax a bit and have no pressure fun. So recommend moderate difficulty for AI and if persons wnats to be challenged they can go and get that challenge by seeking out different content in pve and pvp.
Really forcing one difficulty rating on the entire players base is a design mistake in my opinion. Mainly because person may wnat to do easy content vs hard content just because they feel like it nothing to do with skill. Plus Game should cater to players of different skill levels.
But maybe you are refering to the fact that in some games AI for entire game is really basic and difficulty is dtermined by how much damage and hit points they have.
Personally I liked the AI in X-com Ufo enemy Unknown. You could pretty much figure out what they were going to do but sometimes they pulled a fast one or really smart move so you had to pay attention. So lets say they did not do anything unusual or smart for one game then you basically got lucky. So really it is not the difficulty it is that the AI is not static and repetative. But Jeff said there were coding issues with super smart AI. In MMO there are hundreds of mobs and monsters soo...
But I did present a post were we could at least get random actions from mobs just for variety that required little coding.
Things like that i'd appreciate the hell out of.
Some spawns have algorithms / timers as well. Not exactly sure how Unreal does this but you combine 10,000 players on one map/server + spawns that are entirely dependent on those PCs and you have one crazy zoo.