AI/Bots and Ideas

[Trackmaniack]

So I can sum up your post as pretty much saying "you're stupid and wrong, my way is the right way," but since there are some points worth addressing here, I'll treat your post the same way you did mine; coherently and fairly maturely.

After this paragraph, I'm having trouble believing that you worked with any sort of AI system at all and I'm not even sure where I should begin correcting you.

I may not need correcting, Naimis...except on the spelling of your name previous, and I do apologize for this.

I'm saying you believe this, and you're wrong. which is something you admit to. You seriously think, seriously, seriously seriously think that the AI is in any way a replacement for players. This is wrong. It's a supplement for the map maker. AI can be used in a multitude of ways. They can range from being extraordinarily complex (like AI teammates, AI adversaries) or being incredibly simple (nothing more complex than "see player, kill player). Honestly I'm not sure what you think of when you see the word "AI". They're not replacements for humans. Even AI in strictly-verses multiplayer games is just there to curb boredom or act as a pacifier.

Because that's what I was led to believe. Between you, Unit, and the few others that wanted AI in SM, I was under the (apparently incorrect) assumption that the AI was going to be a fully functional side-by-side to a human player, so that one could code singleplayer campaigns. When I see the word "AI" I see Artificial Intelligence, which boils down to strings of code that program behaviors in an artificial being not controlled by the player. These behaviors can range from how often they blink their eyes in a given time period to how a zombie (since everyone seems to be on about zombie-mod) reacts to a player entering their field of vision.

No, I don't think anyone said that. They just suggested the tools for mapmakers to implement bots.

Again, if no one truly said this, then I apologize for assuming...however, I was not led to believe this.

That's why you give the tools for AI to be successful over to the map makers. I don't think anyone was ever suggesting anything different.

I'll concede this to you...makes sense, but then see my later points to why this becomes complicated.

FLOPS has nothing to do with anything when regarding AI. AI is usually made using dynamically generated coordinates and waypoints based on zones and pathing. I don't know where this even came from and has nothing to do with the conversation at hand.

I don't exactly get how you think that FloPS have nothing to do with AI...FloPS are the number of calculations the computer can do per second, which translates up into the number of lines of code it can read per cycle, which then translates up into how fast an AI character can "read" its code of behaviors and then respond accordingly. The more complex the code, the more adaptable the AI, but then the longer it takes to read and react. Still in the millisecond time given the fast nature of our computers, but it becomes notable to the human brain.

And there you go assuming AI has to meet your specific designation.

This is hardly -my- designation...I'm merely taking general points from what works in other games.

Irrelevant. Should be up to the Mapmaker what kind of AI he wants in his map and how hard it is.

Fair enough. I'll give you that. But even in TM there were medal-levels...kinda like difficulty levels if you think about it.

Okay, I can agree. It shouldn't be hard to make different AI types. Or at least give people the tools to modify or add on to those types.

I'm glad we can agree on something.

Irrelevant. Depends on the type of AI. Zombies aren't going to communicate. Soldiers are going to communicate and will likely do so in a way that will not involve any visible communication.

Everything communicates, Naimis. I'm not talking about real world communication like through a headset to a squadmate, I'm talking coded communication within the CPU from AI to AI. Everything communicates--heck, the rocks communicate with your player's foot so it can display a collision (read; contact) animation when it gets within contact range.

Again, depends on the map maker. A novice map maker will likely have problems making AI that seems smooth and natural.

Then possibly the AI should only serve as testing purposes, as have been discussed previous.

This is so incredibly wrong that I'm not even sure what universe it came from. ALL shooters, even most non-shooter games, have an editor of some sort. It is how the heavy work of games are made. It just so happens that the editor is never released to the general public because it would require heavy hacking to make any additions functional anyway.

Then you and I differ on what is called an "editor". What you call an editor, I would call an in-house program.

You just proved my point. Give the users the ability to script AI functions and place AI waypoints and objectives and the problem solves itself. No one is expecting AI and bots that are 100% functional on warped and ill-defined. This way, the AI bots work under all circumstances granted the map designer planned for it.

An AI that can be run by simple waypoints and objectives would require massive coding on the dev end to be functional. Just look up "black box game code" and "white box game code" and you'll see what I mean.

Because this game has the potential to not be another generic commercial shooter. This appeals to me.
Too many designers now feel that adding bullets and guns to an unworkable, hardly playable system is what makes a AAA game. Nadeo understands that user-created content is the core of many highly successful workable systems. If an FPS comes out that is based on user-created content with a workable editor, I want to be all over that because it sounds awesome.

I'll give that to you. But, conversely, there are some players (me) that would like to play as a modern-war, or even WWII era soldier with the Nadeo flair. I'm not saying that's all I play, but considering I don't like large amounts of blood and gore, I tend to stay away from what you would define as a "unique" shooter, such as FEAR or Bioshock. Therefore, I hope they don't restrict the editor to be merely something we haven't seen before. I'm going to be as giddy about it as you are, believe me, but I also like some realism. Just like in TM. All those cars are based off of real models--you don't see anything like in Minority report or I, Robot, some weird car that's still got four "wheels", but that's it...there's a sense of realism there. Just like I'm hoping we see here.

This isn't directed at me, but I want to point out that you don't know that. At all.

And where did you get your source on this one? Did you get ESP when I wasn't looking?

Then not everyone should be making maps that have AI in them.
You're acting as if making AI is some dark and shadowy art that few understand. But it's not. There were systems for making dynamic user-specified AI in an editor back in the Warcraft 2 days. If Nadeo just gives us basic AI actions and maybe some templates, maps with AI integrated in them will come out and be great. End of story.

Again, this comes back to the clarification that you and Unit were unclear as to what purpose you wanted the AI to serve. If it's merely going to serve as a testbed before you put your map online with multiplayer functionality, then your ideas will be top-rate, and I'll stand behind you 100%. But, if you want the AI functionality to be challenging enough for a single player campaign, then I feel I must bring up these points that I have mentioned previously.

Your experience with MULTIPLAYER games sure is a testament of how much you know about AI in video games.

*blinks* And what exactly does that mean? You're assuming I've never played a singleplayer game in my life, I would fathom?

[Unit2209]

(I am using my Itouch for this post teehee)

We want AI that will not be used for testing. We can use PVP game for you and include AI for us.
So why not use AI, they do not need to be mixed.
If AI is in this game then you do not need to worry. Multiplayer will always be the main part of this video game and it always will be. We just want to add a little extra.

So now that your multiplayer is not on the chopping block I ask you this.
Why not.

[Naimisrepus]

Well, we seem to be in agreement on most of my major points, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to jump in on the conversation if the original topic was about player-like bots. And I am sorry if it seems like I am being condescending. And for that I apologize.

But still a few things:

FloPS are the number of calculations the computer can do per second, which translates up into the number of lines of code it can read per cycle, which then translates up into how fast an AI character can "read" its code of behaviors and then respond accordingly. The more complex the code, the more adaptable the AI, but then the longer it takes to read and react. Still in the millisecond time given the fast nature of our computers, but it becomes notable to the human brain.

I may start saying things you already know, so forgive me if I am:

FLOPS stands for floating point operations per second. It's a measurement of how fast a computer can crunch very large or very small numbers that are formatted in floating point notation. Usually for the purposes of the mathematical and the scientific degree. When measuring processor or code optimization speed, if you want to look at the most basic level, would be best done in CPI or as a measurement of code optimization than saying "X can do Y FLOPS so X is better". Especially when dealing on the concept of a video game. Which doesn't comparatively use that many floating point operations. For a video game, when dealing with dynamic in-game events, it comes down more to code optimization and how well the programmer makes objects like trees and structures for their given purpose and goes about eliminating bottlenecks. For an AI pathing scheme that is dynamic, it would actually depend on how well the program is able to do things like traverse trees and calculate how far an object is from a planar surface. Which boils down to programmer experience and not how many 'flops' it takes up. A computer can have an awful FLOPS rating but is spectacular at traversing trees and would probably be able to quickly make dynamic AI because of it. I can go more in-depth on this if you want me to but after checking wikipedia actually has a pretty good article on the matter

I'm talking coded communication within the CPU from AI to AI.

Most popular game engines solved this problem long ago with the concept of a controller and a pawn. Controllers are the brains, and pawns are the actual objects in the world that are responding to what the controller tells them. If you picture the game as its own operating system, a controller is like a process and a pawn is like an object within that process. As you can imagine, when you have lots of AI, the 'process list' of this game quickly fills up and becomes unwieldy. But if you just have one process that handles all AI that behaves the same or perhaps is in the same general area or has to interact with other NPCs often, suddenly, you only need one or two of these controllers to control an entire legion of AI players. It was a revolutionary idea when it initially appeared in game engines, it meant that the scripts and objects governing an NPC didn't have to engage in any sort of cross-communication with any other scripts or objects just so they could work together. Because a single controller can control lots of pawns and only has to communicate with itself. And I think if map makers were given access to some of the basics of the AI design, they could make some pretty interesting map design concepts.

Then possibly the AI should only serve as testing purposes, as have been discussed previous.

I'm sure many people will use it only for testing, but well-coded AI in the right hands can be so much more than just a testing tool. Which is my point.

An AI that can be run by simple waypoints and objectives would require massive coding on the dev end to be functional.

A good AI would need:
Movement: a nodegraph provided by the mapmaker as well as a navigation mesh to maneuver around other objects (that are not part of the nodegraph, which usually means it only has to pay attention to everything in a 5 foot radius around it so it can move around other AI or players)
Fighting: A way to recognize a target or the partial of a target, and a way to designate if anything is obstructing their line of sight or fire.
Intelligence: Said nodegraph would also require that the map maker designates points of interest such as sniping locations, places where the AI can safely jump from one point on the nodegraph to another, and areas that are designated as "Blindspots", or places that the AI would need to pay special attention to or places that the AI would need to recognize as special.

It's tough, but most of the work setting up the AI is done by the mapmaker. It's hardly an impossible task that few can accomplish.

But, if you want the AI functionality to be challenging enough for a single player campaign, then I feel I must bring up these points that I have mentioned previously.

I don't see really using it in a singleplayer campaign (at least one in the general sense of what we are use to as a singleplayer experience), but it would be a great supplement to the tools that we already have for the mania editor. Letting us spawn custom objects, custom AI, and controlling them all on the fly. The multiplayer community would have a field day with such functionality. Co-op maps, onslaught maps, maybe controllable team-mates to augment players and armies, maybe even different types of game modes in which we can't even fathom how they would work now..

*blinks* And what exactly does that mean? You're assuming I've never played a singleplayer game in my life, I would fathom?

Yeah I didn't quite think that one through, my apologies.

[Trackmaniack]

I'll use an analogy: Manual-transmission vehicles vs. automatic transmission vehicles--this is an analogy for black-box vs. white-box code. Manual transmissions are relatively simple to build from a manufacturing standpoint, because the control is transferred to the driver, and it is assumed that a driver knows how to shift properly in order to not strip the gears. I don't, so I'd quickly ruin a stick vehicle. However, automatic transmissions are much more difficult (relatively) to build, because the manufacturer must program control of the clutch, shifting, and gear changes, all into a computer, where the computer then would handle what the driver would in a stick shift vehicle.

AI coding is much the same way...you could program it like a manual transmission, give control to the end users. But then you run the risk of novice users who don't know what they're doing making broken, or at least odd bots. If you go the other route--make Nadeo program the main chunk of it so as to give users an easy enough time of it that anyone could make bots for the maps, you give them a gargantuan task, that, while accomplishable, would delay the game greatly.

I'm not saying the game shouldn't have AI, I'm asking why it should. Why's it necessary at all? Other than for map-testing purposes. That I can see. But once again, you're saying you need a singleplayer campaign, and I'm just not seeing it.
That's the post I was writing as you posted, Naimis...in response to Unit. You can read it if you like, but in light of your latest post, I'm all in favor of calling this whole thing moot and moving on. You've shown me a lot, I'd like to think I've made some good points, and we've talked this whole thing to death. Basically what I think we're both getting at is that we want a good game and we don't want to break the game or Nadeo in the process...

[Unit2209]

We have given enough information for the devs to come here and make their choice. I am just happy the heat level is down in this forum and that we understand each other.

[Knutselmaaster]

lol!
As if the devs will make the choice out of the ideas you posted here.
They surely read the suggestions, but they're working on this game since a very long time, and probably have it all planned already, maybe even finished that part of the game.
Maybe they will make some adjustments here and there when they see a good idea in here, but i don't think they will change the way they made it radically because of the opinion of a few people here.

[Unit2209]

Well it is the suggestions forum. And who are you to tell me this. (Heat level rising)

[Knutselmaaster]

All suggestions are very welcome ofcourse, that is what this forum is for.
But if you had posted a suggestion almost a year ago, when the forum opened, there would have been more chance that it would be implemented as now.
And if you want to know who i am telling you this, call me common sense

And take this present, to cool down again:

[Unit2209]

(Eats ice cream. Cools down)

[.Seki13]

It's an Ice cream rainbow all the way accross the sky oh my gawd *cries*