Doing party AI right.

[Odarbi]

One of my major loves about the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale games was having different AI scripts available to customize how each character was controlled by the computer, but also with how those scripts would suspend for a period or adapt if the player told that character to do something. Many of the newer games, such as Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2, did not seem have that same level of AI.

 

I won't lie. I'm not super huge on having to micromanage or give orders to my party members every round in combat, but I do like being able to tell my party members to do something from time to time, and have them do it before going back to to their AI. I want to be able to have my party prioritize a target until that target is dead. I found a lot of the time in Neverwinter Nights 2 that the AI would be trying to change targets every 2 or 3 rounds, despite me actually telling them to attack someone.

 

I guess my point here is: Please make sure to do party AI right. Have AI in the game to take over when the player isn't directly telling the party what to do, but allow player commands to trump out AI commands. Whether AI is done using a script system such as what was used in Baldurs Gate in the past, with a user defined priority system where they can use dropdown boxes to set up something like "When <ally HP> is <below> <50%>, use <skill>", or some entirely new system to determine how the AI should react in a given situation, frustrating Party AI can definitely ruin a game for someone like me.

 

Please take the time to do party AI correctly.

[Labadal]

I'd like to see detailed options for party members. Something like gambits used in Final Fantasy XII. Have the option to turn them on/off at will. This basically means that you can decide what AI controlled characters are doing in battle.

[oldmanpaco]

i'd like to be able to build scripts like you can in the IE games.

[japol]

Yes,this is very important.By creating an A.I. capable of lifting it's own weight at least, will make your companions all the more believable.

It will make you feel like you are a member of the party fulfilling it's role and not some god manipulating and babysitting your puppets.

A.I. should be a priority for the game in my opinion and i think that customizable scripts is the way to go.

[Delterius]

It will make you feel like you are a member of the party fulfilling it's role and not some god manipulating and babysitting your puppets.

 

That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.

 

Ideally, the game's design won't let AI to take over your party members and do everything efficiently. To delegate some actions efficiently might be important, nonetheless.

[Solivagant]

Related to AI:

In NWN2 there were some problems, I don't remember a decent "solo mode", so a lot of times you ended up putting everyone in the right place and then accidentally everyone followed your controller character and there went your careful party positioning.

[Shadenuat]

That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.

For turn-based maybe. But with RTwP an AI with at least moderate awareness is a good thing to have, or you'll end up playing in the "P" part forever.

[Delterius]

That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.

For turn-based maybe. But with RTwP an AI with at least moderate awareness is a good thing to have, or you'll end up playing in the "P" part forever.

 

I meant that 'making you feel like you're a member of a part, as opposed to controling the entire party' isn't a priority for party based games. I actually am fine with moderate AI awareness.

 

And, yes, I do believe that the pause function should be used multiple times in a good encounter. That's (real-time party coordination) the whole point of RTwP, wether its well implemented or not.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Delterius

[Astanas]

I think this is something Dragon Age did right.

[Alweth]

The Gambit system from FFXII was atrocious and the similar system from Dragon Age 2 wasn't much better. A well documented script system in a well known scripting language would be great. If you're going to imitate Dragon Age 2, though, at least give us a decent system with conditionals, logical operators, and a full range of useful information.

[Labadal]

The Gambit system from FFXII was atrocious and the similar system from Dragon Age 2 wasn't much better. A well documented script system in a well known scripting language would be great. If you're going to imitate Dragon Age 2, though, at least give us a decent system with conditionals, logical operators, and a full range of useful information.

 

How was it atrocious? It worked perfectly fine and the AI controlled party members did exactly what the gambits were meant to do. What can be improved from that system is to have more options, but to say the gambit system was atrocious boggles my mind.

[alanschu]

That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.

For turn-based maybe. But with RTwP an AI with at least moderate awareness is a good thing to have, or you'll end up playing in the "P" part forever.

 

This isn't how people played the IE games? I hated dealing with the scripts myself.

[Lucas]

Hopefully they'll get it right, even though I already know I'm going to exclusively use a "puppet mode" if available (I like to micro-manage)

[Semper]

whatever you do, don't forget to implement the button to disable the companion ai. i like to control them manually - while we're at it: chained control orders are a MUST!

[Wombat]

With IE, what bugged me was that, if I order magic users to use ranged, they try to near the enemy since their weapons tend to be short-ranged. The problem with this is that it breaks the formation and letting them near the enemies (while they are as weak as flowers). Wasn't there an option to keep the formation just letting them shoot what entered their ranges?

 

BTW, I'd like to have detailed script commands, too.

[Skirge01]

For party artificial intelligence (keyword*), there has always been something which annoyed the living hell out of me:

 

When someone uses a potion or spell which will covers a larger area, such as oil of fiery burning or Agannazar's Scorcher, can we please have the NPCs be smart enough to not walk into the area of impact. I don't expect the NPCs to suddenly scatter like rodents because I was stupid enough to throw the potion into the middle of the fight, right where Minsc was going berserk on some poor sod with his sword with Khalid by his side. However, it was unbelievably annoying when Imoen was firing bolts at someone while standing behind my mage who was casting spells and she then decides to walk directly into the flamethrower and just about kills herself, especially when there was another route she could've taken to get back in the fray.

 

*Since you can't search for "AI" in the forum, finding this thread was somewhat difficult. Searching for "party ai" in just the subject didn't work too well, either. But, I managed to stumble on this thread anyhow.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Skirge01

[Sensuki]

http://www.reddit.co...tware_engineer/

 

Enter the pathfinder.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Sensuki

[kirottu]

That's certainly not a priority for party-based games.

For turn-based maybe. But with RTwP an AI with at least moderate awareness is a good thing to have, or you'll end up playing in the "P" part forever.

 

This isn't how people played the IE games? I hated dealing with the scripts myself.

 

Controlling every character in party based RPG is like playing six hands of poker by yourself against yourself. Or at least that's how it felt for me.

 

When I play RPG I want to play with one character, my character.