How Smart should the AI be?

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?

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consultant

Wandering Mist wrote: »

consultant wrote: »

AI should be smart enough to keep game interesting and enough to make the player pay attention and still have the game be fun.

Agreed. Unfortunately that is easier said than done.

Well this gets done in lots of other games so not exactly impossible. Raid bosses have better AI than most mobs. Really do not know why they cannot copy and paste AI and plug in abilities. Just in MMOs for the most part we get the dumbest possible AI literally could not get any dummer. Wish they would turn up the AI even if it is just a little bit.

Noaani

consultant wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

consultant wrote: »

AI should be smart enough to keep game interesting and enough to make the player pay attention and still have the game be fun.

Agreed. Unfortunately that is easier said than done.

Well this gets done in lots of other games so not exactly impossible. Raid bosses have better AI than most mobs. Really do not know why they cannot copy and paste AI and plug in abilities. Just in MMOs for the most part we get the dumbest possible AI literally could not get any dummer. Wish they would turn up the AI even if it is just a little bit.

Raid mobs don't have AI, they have scripts.

Very different things.

Wandering Mist

@consultant

"Raid mobs have better AI than most mobs."

Do they? I don't know what raid bosses you've been fighting but the majority of the ones I've seen are in some ways stupider than the basic mobs. They have more mechanics and abilities, but they aren't smarter. As @noaani said, raid bosses usually follow scripts, which is the complete opposite of AI. They don't react (proactively or otherwise) to what the players are doing.

Most raiding teams rely on this predictability when it comes to raid bosses. Once a raid team has pulled a boss dozens of times they become so familiar with how the boss works that they can accurately depict how the fight will play out. In the case of Mythic raids in WoW, it gets to the point where the players know to the second what is going to happen and when. This is crucial because of how tight the margins are that you need to have your major cooldowns available at exactly the right moment in order to make the most use out of them. Any less than that and you won't kill the boss.

Is this a good thing? I know some people don't like it, but keep in mind that if you made the fights less predictable by making the bosses smarter, you would need to make the mechanics of the fight easier to deal with. If that were to happen it would change the entire mindset needed for the fights, from executing a set plan perfectly, to reacting appropriately to an ever-changing fight.

Atama

I like scripted boss fights. It lets a group strategize and rehearse. If we had adaptive fights where the boss adjusts to what you’re doing then everyone would have to improvise, and that’s not much better than running a PUG.

HumblePuffin

I’m really hoping it’s a pretty damn smart AI. I would love to see intelligent creatures with AI that lets them decide whether it’ll be smarter to fight or flee. AI that will try to LoS you, or go to gather more nearby enemies.

I would really love animals that are actually territorial and if they see you will start moving towards you until they decide to attack you. Maybe not straight up aggro on to you from huge distances, but just something where they acknowledge your presence and let you know “if you get any closer I’m gonna mess your day up”.

Maybe even mobs in an area come across the corpse or another enemy you killed in the area and go on a bit more heightened alert. I feel like I’m starting to get into metal gear solid levels of enemies, but still it’s always bothered me a bit when I killed someone 5 feet away from an enemy and they just pretend like they couldn’t see me murdering their friend.

I know for dungeons you almost need a bit of a reprieve to eat/drink, and it would be a giant pain if aggroing one mob started a chain reaction that caused the whole dungeon to eventually be aggrod, but I would love to see them strike a balance between “I can murder you friend right next to you and you don’t even realize it” and “one enemy saw me and now the entire dungeon is coming after me.

*Also I’m sure our pets AI will be mostly based off of enemy AI, so I hope it’s pretty damn smart cause I’m tired of my pets being a derpy mess in most MMOs.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

I like scripted boss fights. It lets a group strategize and rehearse. If we had adaptive fights where the boss adjusts to what you’re doing then everyone would have to improvise, and that’s not much better than running a PUG.

For sure.

Well scripted encounters are - so far - the most interesting and challenging PvE content game developers have managed to come up with in any genre of content.

At their best, they are developers handing players a puzzle to work out using the tools player characters have been given to use.

consultant

Well maybe the raid bosses seem so stupid is because you expect them to be smarter than the average bear but just as stupid as average bear. I get what you are saying though.

ferretstalker

I don't necessarily want harder AI, but more varied AI is something desirable. Different enemy types have different movesets, prioritize different attacks, and require differing tactics to take down easier. Maybe giant spiders lay down aoe fields of slowing webs so they can run in, strike, and retreat to wear players down, but a fire spell could burn the webs away and allow melee players to close the gap. Standing still and just fighting back will still win you the day 9/10 times, but countering their unique abilities makes fighting them easier and more interactive/immersive.

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