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AI Bosses
rodzor
Member, Braver of Worlds, Alpha One
I wonder if it is possible with today's technology to create a boss that we could teach to fight players using a set set of skills/basic rules. If so we could battle the boss in testing phases to train it, save snapshots at certain "skill levels" and decide on which ones to implement into the game. Would be cooler fights than having a set script you could just look up online.
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It just would introduce a lot of chaos into the game. A lot of time when AI using convolutional neural networks(CNN) or other types of advanced AI, the results can be unpredictable. The AI might come up with an efficient way to break the game and kill players in ways that are just not fun for the players.
If you look at places where more advanced AI has been applied to gaming the results are normally insane. Star Craft and MOBA bots that are undefeatable to the worlds most skilled players. Speed running bots that preform glitches that humans could never pull off. The challenge would be constantly dialing it back to keep it so that humans could play on the AIs level.
You could create more advanced AI with traditional script based AI, maybe bosses that use procedures to pick the right challenge responses to the skill level and gear level it has seen in the raid that is attacking the AI.
This just give the DEVs less control over what the player experiences.
Personally I am a fan of procedurally generated content and interesting AI, but for most games I think it just ends up being some extra stuff that is out of the scope of what DEVs are trying to accomplish. Still I expect to see some interesting AI come out of MOBAs, Souls-likes, and rogue-likes. At some point. Maybe after some non-MMORPG games use more advanced AI successfully we will se it used in MMORPGs.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I agree it would get to that unbeatable level eventually, but the devs should have ways to cut off the learning process at any given moment I would think. So they could let it learn until they reach a level of difficulty that is acceptable for whatever level the boss is, or how important they want the fight to be. That should be something they could tune in testing.
I agree with your last statement, it seems like it could be implemented more in the future, after other games refine the process for MMOs.
I just imagine some like never-ending dungeon/tower for super endgame content, where each procedural generated floor has an increased AI level/higher level drops etc that would be amazing.
The game has a AI "manager" that accounts for many many things. One example would be calculating abundance of looted/gathered items that are for sale in different regions of the game and adjusting prices accordingly.
When the dev's have spoke of dungeons, they mentioned that depending on (many factors) the raid party kills the first boss, the rest of the dungeon gets harder. (the manager adds in a blackboard for bosses) that unlock different mechanics and other challenges.
this was discussed in the Phone interview with Asmongold, which can be found on YouTube, I timestamped and linked below. Full answer is about 5 minutes long. Start at 14:20. More detail at 16:00
Yeah, I was talking about mostly about more advanced forms of AI that could be used to govern boss behaviors. Something like "Open AI" did in DOTA or "Deep mind" for Star Craft. I brought it up because OP used the words "is possible with today's technology", which triggered me to want to focus on what is different about todays AI technology compared to the past.
I remember watching that interview live and being skeptical of the implementation of the "manager", but liking the overall idea. I still think that it would be something that they could find is difficult to balance. If the manager makes a mistake and the fight is too easy for one group it is giving away loot, while another group might find the fight to be impossible. In which case the fight is wasting the groups time. I am assuming both groups are equally capable in this hypothetical.
I do want to see stuff like this, I just am skeptical that MMORPGs are going to be the test bed for more advanced boss AI systems. I think MMOs went down the path of heavily scripted boss for the extra control it gives developers in telling a story with a fight. Which is why I think it is generally out of the scope of what MMORPG DEVs want to accomplish with bosses.
I will say that if a MMORPG was to pull these more dynamic AI boss systems. A game like Ashes where instanced raids are not the focus of the game and the players make the story, should be the perfect MMORPG test bed for this sort of stuff. I just worry that inconsistently and the difficulty in testing these systems could be bad for the game in the long run. Still I would love to see it.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
It's complicated, but it would be nice.