3 ms·

Bad AI often winds up panned in a game's review scores, which have an impact on sales. For instance, bad pathfinding in an RTS game can make the game almost un

Bad AI often winds up panned in a game's review scores, which have an impact on sales. For instance, bad pathfinding in an RTS game can make the game almost unplayable. Halo is just about legendary at this point for teammate AI that is worse than worthless [1]. Any one of these things can destroy immersion at a critical point. AI is to video games as IT is to a modern enterprise. If it's doing its job, nobody notices, but if it's bad, it sticks out like a sore thumb. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdbg8h3d3uM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdbg8h3d3uM

organsnyder 10y ago
Or, if it does its job really well, it gets accused of cheating. My former company had a backgammon game with a really good AI. We constantly got accused of cheating, even though the dice-roll algorithm was identical (it didn't have a parameter to specify who the roll was for). What people missed is that a good backgammon player will position themselves to benefit from a wider set of possible dice outcomes.
- alasdair_ 10y ago
  I was under the impression that backgammon was a solved game (i.e. there is a known optimal move for every possible position), can I ask why you used an AI instead?
  - JimmyAustin 10y ago
    Probably because an AI that always plays optimally wouldn't be very fun to play against.
- emiliobumachar 10y ago
  Cannot find it right now, but I saw a video of Civilization 's Sid Meier saying that about Civ's playtests.
squeaky-clean 10y ago
> Bad AI often winds up panned in a game's review scores, which have an impact on sales. This is what I said though. A game's failures can be blamed on bad AI. But once you reach the point of okay AI, you stop hearing about it. There's very little reason to put in whatever effort is required to make your AI great, because the only people who will take notice are hardcore players who put in tons of hours. And that's nice and all, but the game costs $60 whether you play it for 10 hours or 100. So why spend millions on a feature that's hard to make a trailer for, and is only noticeable to your most hardcore fans?

organsnyder 10y ago

Or, if it does its job really well, it gets accused of cheating. My former company had a backgammon game with a really good AI. We constantly got accused of cheating, even though the dice-roll algorithm was identical (it didn't have a parameter to specify who the roll was for). What people missed is that a good backgammon player will position themselves to benefit from a wider set of possible dice outcomes.

alasdair_ 10y ago
I was under the impression that backgammon was a solved game (i.e. there is a known optimal move for every possible position), can I ask why you used an AI instead?
- JimmyAustin 10y ago
  Probably because an AI that always plays optimally wouldn't be very fun to play against.
emiliobumachar 10y ago
Cannot find it right now, but I saw a video of Civilization 's Sid Meier saying that about Civ's playtests.

squeaky-clean 10y ago

> Bad AI often winds up panned in a game's review scores, which have an impact on sales. This is what I said though. A game's failures can be blamed on bad AI. But once you reach the point of okay AI, you stop hearing about it. There's very little reason to put in whatever effort is required to make your AI great, because the only people who will take notice are hardcore players who put in tons of hours. And that's nice and all, but the game costs $60 whether you play it for 10 hours or 100. So why spend millions on a feature that's hard to make a trailer for, and is only noticeable to your most hardcore fans?