Player Character AI Scripting

[Zombra]

So tell me about the plans for AI scripts I can set for my party members.  I ran a forum search and didn't find anything.

 

I really enjoyed the specific, conditional behaviors I could set in Dragon Age: Origins (though I disliked that they were limited by character leadership skills).  I also like the old IE type combat 'personalities' such as Aggressive Wizard or Cautious Fighter.

 

What types of things will we see in PoE?

 

Thanks!  Z

[JDizzle420]

This is something I've been trying to find information on for a long time now, and I've come up empty. I would love to see something like what we had in Dragon Age. I preferred the scrips in Dragon age to the ones in the IE games. I've recently been replaying BG2, and I feel like they were much more limited.

[Zombra]

Thanks for the reply JD.  It seems that no one has any information on this topic.  Where are all the gurus?  

[Lephys]

The scripts in Dragon Age, minus the arbitrary quantity limitation, would be cool. That, and there were many useful conditions/actions that were absent. DA2 had a bit more, but the whole system was still a wee bit lacking.

 

I do like the idea of setting what you want people to do and under what circumstances a lot better than the typical AI options we get (Aggressive, Defensive, Support, etc.)

[Sensuki]

Thanks for the reply JD.  It seems that no one has any information on this topic.  Where are all the gurus?  

 

I did ask some questions about AI in my upcoming Codex Interview. One of the questions was answered but it was not on this topic. So yeah we don't know anything about it yet.

 

Regardless I've never used these so 

[Endrosz]

Arguably the worst part of DA:O were the player AI scripts, completely useless. And that comes from someone who had done years of AI scripting on strategy games. Anyone who relied on those must have played on Baby Steps difficulty, where it doesn't really matter what you do, so you don't notice the low efficiency. On the plus side, since the feature was useless, it freed up skill points as there was no need to invest in the related skill (I do agree that tying AI functionality to a skill was a really weird, bad-ish design decision). -- I take back what I said a bit, the memories come back in more detail: I did use the 'cast healing on party member/use potion on self IF lower than 50% health" trigger. But nothing offensive, those always ended in wild, wacky disasters (at least I got some laughs out of them).

 

Out of the BG/IE scripts, I use only basic ranged and basic melee so that I don't have target manually when the battle is already going my way and there is no need for micromanagement any more. That is more out of laziness/comfort than a real need for AI decisions replacing my own.

 

I wouldn't want Obsidian to heavily invest in replacing something with AI that is:

- best left to a human brain

- the meat and bones of tactical combat, something I enjoy doing immensely

 

An "auto-attack with equipped weapon if target dies" functionality is all that's necessary for comfort reasons, so that party members don't stand idle if their target dies and you don't pay attention to them.

[Ztirual]

An "auto-attack with equipped weapon if target dies" functionality is all that's necessary for comfort reasons, so that party members don't stand idle if their target dies and you don't pay attention to them.

 

That really does seem to be the only use of AI scripts, that has an actual use any way; it is after all a tactical game. I tried using the more 'advanced' third party AI scripts for BG, but it felt a bit messy as you lose control over tactical decisions - Characters going and doing things contrary to what you meant for them to do simply added difficulty rather than ease. The hotkey scripts was a fine addition though, made it easy to switch weapons and quickly toggle the 'auto-attack,' so I mostly used those since I didn't want the computer to do the job for me. So that could be something, hotkey scripts, but then again, I don't know if hotkeys are already assigned in PoE in that way?

[DCParry]

Arguably the worst part of DA:O were the player AI scripts, completely useless. And that comes from someone who had done years of AI scripting on strategy games. Anyone who relied on those must have played on Baby Steps difficulty, where it doesn't really matter what you do, so you don't notice the low efficiency. On the plus side, since the feature was useless, it freed up skill points as there was no need to invest in the related skill (I do agree that tying AI functionality to a skill was a really weird, bad-ish design decision). -- I take back what I said a bit, the memories come back in more detail: I did use the 'cast healing on party member/use potion on self IF lower than 50% health" trigger. But nothing offensive, those always ended in wild, wacky disasters (at least I got some laughs out of them).

 

 

 

Shrug, maybe you other thought the process? I have done multiple nightmare throughs and I found the tactics were more than sufficient for the most part (with the unlock extra slots mod). The single target spells with effects that resulted in combos on my mages were great tactic programmes, as well as things like knockdowns on mobs attacking mage/healer/rogue characters. Now, of course you wouldn't set a ton of AOE spells and let the AI decide to slaughter your own party.

 

With all the legitimate issues that one might bring up about the DA series, this seems a bit weird. 

[Zombra]

Arguably the worst part of DA:O were the player AI scripts, completely useless. And that comes from someone who had done years of AI scripting on strategy games. Anyone who relied on those must have played on Baby Steps difficulty, where it doesn't really matter what you do, so you don't notice the low efficiency.

 

I played on Normal difficulty.  If that makes me a lightweight, so be it.

 

And, no, I didn't "rely" on scripts.  I didn't stick my hands in my pockets during combat and assume that they would win every fight brilliantly.  I used them as they were intended: to reduce necessary input for actions I wanted to take anyway.  Normally, making my wizard run away from melee takes at least two mouse clicks.  If I can reduce it to zero mouse clicks, that's good interface design.

 

Regardless, for some folks, gaming is not about 100% efficiency.  Obviously human decision is going to be smarter and more efficient than anything automated.  For some of us, a certain level of automation is simply more fun than total micromanagement, especially in a RTwP environment with lots of moving parts.

 

I don't expect "heavy investment" to take away from other development, but I do expect at least a few simple scripts like we saw in the IE games.  After all, PoE does have AI programming in place already.

 

If they do want to go whole hog and give us highly specific programmable scripts, I would definitely use them and combat would become much more fun for me.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Zombra

[Aslinng]

Arguably the worst part of DA:O were the player AI scripts, completely useless. And that comes from someone who had done years of AI scripting on strategy games. Anyone who relied on those must have played on Baby Steps difficulty, where it doesn't really matter what you do, so you don't notice the low efficiency. On the plus side, since the feature was useless, it freed up skill points as there was no need to invest in the related skill (I do agree that tying AI functionality to a skill was a really weird, bad-ish design decision). -- I take back what I said a bit, the memories come back in more detail: I did use the 'cast healing on party member/use potion on self IF lower than 50% health" trigger. But nothing offensive, those always ended in wild, wacky disasters (at least I got some laughs out of them).

 

Out of the BG/IE scripts, I use only basic ranged and basic melee so that I don't have target manually when the battle is already going my way and there is no need for micromanagement any more. That is more out of laziness/comfort than a real need for AI decisions replacing my own.

 

I wouldn't want Obsidian to heavily invest in replacing something with AI that is:

- best left to a human brain

- the meat and bones of tactical combat, something I enjoy doing immensely

 

An "auto-attack with equipped weapon if target dies" functionality is all that's necessary for comfort reasons, so that party members don't stand idle if their target dies and you don't pay attention to them.

You didn't tried DAO mod, did you ?

There's one wich is pretty well made maybe too well made...

DA 2 tried to get inspired by but didn't do the same good job.

 

Anyway, AI scripts is cool for trash mobs but they shouldn't let you auto battle elites or bosses fights.

Thoses fights should require player action because of their complexity such is the case in Baldur's gate 1 and 2.

No matter wich AI I tried, they can't help you in BG serie.

The AI mod for DAO was so good that I could watch AI autobattle bosses, lol (no offense, after my 4th playthrough I enjoyed this mod to let me take a break and focus more on other things that I enjoyed about the game).

[Lephys]

Yeah, basically, AI should cover your peeps not-dying simply because they were standing around picking their noses.

 

It shouldn't win any battles for you, but it might help you not stupidly lose some. 8P

 

"That rabbit bit Steve to death, simply because he wasn't doing anything at all after he expertly executed that troll! >_<"

Edited August 5, 2014 by Lephys