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>You don't really need a complex AI directing the hordes of enemies you want to defeat; you just want the illusion of battling enemies and emerging the victor,

>You don't really need a complex AI directing the hordes of enemies you want to defeat; you just want the illusion of battling enemies and emerging the victor, and how the game accomplishes this is not that relevant... Yes, and the current game AIs are completely and utterly incompetent at it. AI in video games only provides a challenge when the mechanics of the game are challenging or the AI is cheating. >Do we really need something more complex (and expensive!) when killing zombies in L4D? Not in L4D, because you don't play the game to kill zombies. You play the game to play with other people. If L4D didn't have coop then the game would likely not have gained popularity. You're right that players want a challenge that they can overcome, but current AI in video games does not offer that. The AI always ends up being so weak that play against the AI cannot be the focus of the game. The focus has to be in mechanical play, puzzles, story, atmosphere, multiplayer or something else. The only way AI keeps up is with inhuman mechanical play or cheating. Neither feels fun to play against, because the counter to it is to figure out how to exploit the AI, after which the game becomes more or less trivial.

the_af 7y ago
> Yes, and the current game AIs are completely and utterly incompetent at it. AI in video games only provides a challenge when the mechanics of the game are challenging or the AI is cheating. I wouldn't say "incompetent", but yes, the mechanics of the game must be challenging and/or (often) the AI must cheat. I'm saying this is enough most of the time; there's really no incentive to build a better AI for videogames because (my hypothesis) most gamers don't care. The illusion of challenge is enough, most of the time. The goal of videogames is to entertain, not to really challenge (again, with the exception of tournaments and competitive gamers, who are a niche within a niche). You mentioned Heroes of Might & Magic in another comment. I played the heck out of HoMM2, some of (I think) HoMM3 and got bored with the rest. But I wasn't bored with the AI; I got bored because it was the same formula again and again. The genre itself soon felt like a tired formula. Note that the "AI" -- cheating or not -- of HoMM felt horribly difficult to me. I lost battles more often than I won; the only trick that reliably worked was to start the fight with a lot more troops than the computer enemy, and that's not much of a trick! Not a lot of places to learn effective tactics back then either, maybe the hellpit that was GameFAQs?

the_af 7y ago

> Yes, and the current game AIs are completely and utterly incompetent at it. AI in video games only provides a challenge when the mechanics of the game are challenging or the AI is cheating. I wouldn't say "incompetent", but yes, the mechanics of the game must be challenging and/or (often) the AI must cheat. I'm saying this is enough most of the time; there's really no incentive to build a better AI for videogames because (my hypothesis) most gamers don't care. The illusion of challenge is enough, most of the time. The goal of videogames is to entertain, not to really challenge (again, with the exception of tournaments and competitive gamers, who are a niche within a niche). You mentioned Heroes of Might & Magic in another comment. I played the heck out of HoMM2, some of (I think) HoMM3 and got bored with the rest. But I wasn't bored with the AI; I got bored because it was the same formula again and again. The genre itself soon felt like a tired formula. Note that the "AI" -- cheating or not -- of HoMM felt horribly difficult to me. I lost battles more often than I won; the only trick that reliably worked was to start the fight with a lot more troops than the computer enemy, and that's not much of a trick! Not a lot of places to learn effective tactics back then either, maybe the hellpit that was GameFAQs?