Character AI, why different from BG/DA?

[HippoJ]

 

The "I'd go watch a movie" argument presented several times here is lazy and shortsighted.  For starters, setting up AI can be a game in and of itself, one clearly a decent percent of people here enjoy.  It's also a standard feature (and dare I say assumption) for party-based RPGs to have some semblance of AI in place.  Lastly, controlling your PC and setting up AI for companions is not aking to doing nothing. 

 

None of this is to say the game "has to have" AI, and I played the entire game through before White March perfectly happily with no AI.  It seems clear that some people do enjoy that option for a competent AI system and that Obsidian felt at least bare bones AI scripts were worth the time. 

It's not necessarily short sided. This is merely reflective of different peoples' preferences for how to play these games. It might seem short sided to you, but to another it might be one of the most important details about the game.

 

In my many years of playing RTwP CRPGs (since the initial release of Baldur's Gate) I have never used party AI, and I don't use it for Pillars either.

 

That said, I can agree that coming up with a really good AI set up can be enjoyable. For Dragon Age Origins, which to me is a completely different kind of game, I spent hours perfecting my party AI, and I only directly controlled all of my companions during the most challenging battles. But that's for Dragon Age. My Infinity Engine fix calls for different medications....

 

 

Oh, I didn't mean that it was shortsighted to want to play without any AI set up (that's a preference thing and actually the most 'precise' way to control every action, ability and spell in combat). 

 

The shortsightedness to me is claiming that using AI is equivalent to watching a movie.  You still have agency and input with an AI system in place.

[Brimsurfer]

 

 

Honestly, it's beyond me to understand why anyone would even want to let the computer control your party's actions when you can do it yourself.  Completely beyond me.   If I wanted to watch someone else control the actions of characters on screen, I'd watch a movie. 

 

Because its awesome to see your characters intelligently moving / manoeuvring around the battlefield, and you know that you made it happen by setting a particular combination of strategies. Its not like a movie at all. It imparts an enormous sense of accomplishment and fulfilment to the user / player.....it makes you think about countering enemy moves in advance and prepare yourself for upcoming battles in unique ways, it also allows the game to offer players more difficult and challenging encounters (as it provide devs more room and options to play with) and allows the players to have an excellent tool to better manage these intelligently designed superior challenges. 

 

Can't imagine why anyone would consider current AI setting options sufficient for this kind of game, most of the settings are dumb and make you waste your spells / abilities in one way or another. One should never do anything half-ass, either give us a comprehensive AI strategy setting system, or don't do it all. I normally keep the AI settings turned off at all times, i even forgot that it exists, its simply that bad.

 

Not sure why its so 'completely beyond you'? There must be a lot that goes beyond you, I am guessing...

 

 

Thats funny Brimsurfer, for someone who has like 4 threads running where you refuse to change your opinion about something and repeat the same arguments over and over to rile up the other members, I assumed you were our resident forum user for whom things are completely beyond understanding.

 

As for the AI, I think pathfinding could have been resolved better, but I dont really need a beefy AI. I agree that Dragon Age's AI system was FUN to play with, but I ultimately exercise to much control to care if such a system is implemented again. Thanks for the reminder of that AI system, I kinda miss it, might visit Dragon Age again.

 

 

If DA:O was your only and best experience with such an AI system then I don't know what to say to you.........

 

P.S. First paragraph of your post is misguided and has absolutely nothing to do with the topic.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Brimsurfer

[EtherGun]

Before they release a new product, you know what they should do first?

They need to create a more advanced AI to replace the rudimentary AI of PoE. I think they forgot this aspect of Baldur's Gate 2, heck, in BG2 you can even program your own AI scripts for your characters. That's the level of effort Black Isle invested in the creation of the Infinity Engine's creature AI. Obsidian seemed to have lost sight or ignored or failed to notice the beauty beneath the outdated graphics of the Infinity Engine.

Tyranny? Now that I've seen PoE myself, I finally saw that it's AI quality is very lacking, and this is what I will emphasize in my rants in the future about the PoE engine, so that the developers might be guided to what a real AI should look like, not like an amateur "oh, go straight for the priest character, even though this creature is a dog and don't know how to discern job classes". How the ♥♥♥♥ did that skuldr monster know which one of my characters is a priest when all of them are wearing heavy armor and auto attacking, it's like monsters in this game have sixth sense or something.

That's because the AI in this game is using shortcuts, an AI cheat, a hack job of an AI.

Sorry Obsidian, I'm not a retarded fanboy. I tell what's wrong, so your game would improve, so more people will love it, SO YOU WILL HAVE MORE MONEY.

[EtherGun]

Also, please update the pathfinding system of the game. As seen here, it's becoming too often that characters get tangled up in a pathing node.

Epileptic Eder?

[Abel]

Honestly, it's beyond me to understand why anyone would even want to let the computer control your party's actions when you can do it yourself.  Completely beyond me.   If I wanted to watch someone else control the actions of characters on screen, I'd watch a movie. 

 

Yeah. It was totally beyond my understanding as well. Like Marceror, i never, ever used party AI in any RPG (i disabled the AI in Dragon Age Origin quite early too). I always try it for a bit, and i never found it usefull, in any game. AI just mess up everything i try to do. I really hate it.

 

Now... Maybe there are people that are way more talented with AI than i am. Because some people explained it quite well, i kind of understand now, the feeling of accomplishment when everything goes as planned in a battle, thanks to a well handled brainstorming beforehand, tuning the AI behavior. But to me, it looks like having an actual AI that could provide enough options to allow this would require... well, thousands of hours of work.

 

Pillars is not a triple A game. I, now, can understand the pleasure some people here have while playing hard difficulty with a strategy based on AI, foreboding anything that could happen and then, seeing everything going according to plan. But i don't think an AI that could alow this kind of gamplay is possible for such a low budget game. Hence, i'm wondering: is there actually any need for such a debate, unless Pillars 2 have 50 millions dollars budget?

[corrado33]

 

Honestly, it's beyond me to understand why anyone would even want to let the computer control your party's actions when you can do it yourself.  Completely beyond me.   If I wanted to watch someone else control the actions of characters on screen, I'd watch a movie. 

 

Yeah. It was totally beyond my understanding as well. Like Marceror, i never, ever used party AI in any RPG (i disabled the AI in Dragon Age Origin quite early too). I always try it for a bit, and i never found it usefull, in any game. AI just mess up everything i try to do. I really hate it.

 

Now... Maybe there are people that are way more talented with AI than i am. Because some people explained it quite well, i kind of understand now, the feeling of accomplishment when everything goes as planned in a battle, thanks to a well handled brainstorming beforehand, tuning the AI behavior. But to me, it looks like having an actual AI that could provide enough options to allow this would require... well, thousands of hours of work.

 

Pillars is not a triple A game. I, now, can understand the pleasure some people here have while playing hard difficulty with a strategy based on AI, foreboding anything that could happen and then, seeing everything going according to plan. But i don't think an AI that could alow this kind of gamplay is possible for such a low budget game. Hence, i'm wondering: is there actually any need for such a debate, unless Pillars 2 have 50 millions dollars budget?

 

 

I don't think it'd take much development to do. I'm not looking for a 1 button "Look my character casts everything perfectly now." I'm looking for a "manual" AI. One that's programmed by me! The game already knows when something happens. It knows when characters are dazed, it knows when a party member drops below x% of health. The type of AI some of us on here are vying for is the type that allows us to use those statuses to make characters do other things. We want the template to be able to program our own AI, not a fully fledged single button AI system that makes characters play themselves. 

[wanderon]

@corrado:

 

This AI you are describing in no way even begins to resemble any AI from the IE games - you are actually asking for an AI that when implemented by the player does in fact allow any character you have "programmed" to play by him/her self.

 

There were some player made scripts for BG that attempted to do a robust AI for spell casting  and some general AI options that led to a reasonably competent "auto-attack" and yes I do think such an AI as you are describing would be a large scale project to implement in a cohesive manner for each and every build you may wish to play. And yes I also would prefer the devs spend those resources on improving something other than party AI.

[redneckdevil]

IMHO the party AI is to me fine the way it is. It's something to help on trash but for serious stuff still requires you to manage each and every party.

It does the job while at the same doesn't make them "hands off".

 

Edit-and I do mean hands off. For the most part with DA:O, u could set up the AI so that u didn't have to hardly ever manage characters.

Edited March 28, 2016 by redneckdevil

[ojaiike]

IMO ai is pointless for everyone but monks, and that only lasts until they get past using only torments reach and swift strikes spammed over and over