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Alphastar also didn't play with the same limitations that a human has. Even after removing its ability to see the entire map and finally forcing it to scroll ar

Alphastar also didn't play with the same limitations that a human has. Even after removing its ability to see the entire map and finally forcing it to scroll around, alphastar never misclicks (so its APM==EPM) and can still blast nearly unlimited APM for short bursts as long as its "average APM" over an x-second period matched human's APM. I believe Alphastar would generate more interesting strategies if we limited alphastar to a bit below human APM and forced it to emulate USB K+M to click (instead of using an API, which it currently does) and adding a progressively increasing random fuzzing layer against its inputs so that as it clicks faster the precision/accuracy goes down. By "interesting strategies" I mean strategies that humans could learn to adopt. Currently its main strategy is "perfectly juggle stalkers" which is a neat party trick, but that particular strategy is about as interesting to me as 2011-era SC AI[0]. Obviously how it arrived at that strategy is quite interesting, but the style of play is not relevant to humans, and may in fact even get beaten by hardcoded AI's. I'm also very curious what Alphastar could come up with if it were truly unsupervised learning. AIUI, the first many rounds of training were supervised based on high level human replays -- so it would have gotten stuck in a local minima near what has already been invented by humans. This may be relevant if Microsoft reboots Blizzard's IP. I would love to have an alphastar in SC3 to play against off-line, or have as a teammate, archon mode, etc. I think all RTS' are kind of "archon mode with AI teammate" already. The AI currently handles unit pathing, selection of units to attack, etc. With an alphastar powering the internal AI instead, more tactics/micro can be offloaded to AI and allow humans to focus more on strategy. That seems like it would be super cool. Examples: "Here AI, I made two drop ships of marines. Take these to the main base and find an optimal place to drop them. If you encounter strong resistance or lots of static defense, just leave and come back home" "Here AI, use these two drop ships of marines to distract while I use the main army to push the left flank. Take them into the main, natural, or 4th base -- goal is to keep them alive for as long as possible. Focus on critical infrastructure/workers where possible but mostly just keep them alive and moving around to distract the opponent." 0: Automaton 2000 AI perfectly controls 50-supply zerglings (2.5k mineral) vs. 60-supply (3k mineral, 2.5k gas) siege tanks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs

dwohnitmok 5y ago
> Alphastar also didn't play with the same limitations that a human has. Even after removing its ability to see the entire map and finally forcing it to scroll around, alphastar never misclicks (so its APM==EPM) and can still blast nearly unlimited APM for short bursts as long as its "average APM" over an x-second period matched human's APM. > I believe Alphastar would generate more interesting strategies if we limited alphastar to a bit below human APM... No Alphastar definitely had misclicks, and it had a maximum cap on APM regardless of average that was far lower than the max burst of APM (or even EPM) of top players. When I have the time I can go dig up some games where Alphastar definitely has misclicks, and I believe the Deep Mind team has said before that it will misclick. Its APM limits are already lower than pros both on average and in bursts (and are reflected in its play, Alphastar will often mis-micro units in larger, more frantic battles such as allowing disruptor shots to destroy its own units, but it will never make the same mistake with much smaller numbers of units). > Currently its main strategy is "perfectly juggle stalkers" Definitely not. That was its strategy in its early iterations against MaNa and is no longer feasible with the stricter limitations in place. Its Protoss strategy is significantly more advanced than that now (see its impressive series of games against Serral with an amazing comeback here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jELuQ6XEtEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jELuQ6XEtEc and a powerful defense against multi-pronged aggression here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6qmPNyKRGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6qmPNyKRGw) (and of course by "now" I mean when Deep Mind took it off the ladder). Both of these involve an eclectic mix of units with Alphastar effectively using each type of unit and varying it in response to what Serral puts out and its own resource constraints. A lot of commentators have difficulty distinguishing Alphastar from humans when the former plays as Protoss (its Terran and Zerg play is weaker and often more mechanical). > I mean strategies that humans could learn to adopt. My main takeaways from watching Alphastar were "pros undervalue static defense and often have a less than optimal number of workers (where Alphastar's seeming overproduction of workers lets it shrug off aggressive harassment)," but I don't know if those have picked up in the meta.
- pretendscholar 5y ago
  Why is it far worse with Terran and Zerg?

dwohnitmok 5y ago

> Alphastar also didn't play with the same limitations that a human has. Even after removing its ability to see the entire map and finally forcing it to scroll around, alphastar never misclicks (so its APM==EPM) and can still blast nearly unlimited APM for short bursts as long as its "average APM" over an x-second period matched human's APM. > I believe Alphastar would generate more interesting strategies if we limited alphastar to a bit below human APM... No Alphastar definitely had misclicks, and it had a maximum cap on APM regardless of average that was far lower than the max burst of APM (or even EPM) of top players. When I have the time I can go dig up some games where Alphastar definitely has misclicks, and I believe the Deep Mind team has said before that it will misclick. Its APM limits are already lower than pros both on average and in bursts (and are reflected in its play, Alphastar will often mis-micro units in larger, more frantic battles such as allowing disruptor shots to destroy its own units, but it will never make the same mistake with much smaller numbers of units). > Currently its main strategy is "perfectly juggle stalkers" Definitely not. That was its strategy in its early iterations against MaNa and is no longer feasible with the stricter limitations in place. Its Protoss strategy is significantly more advanced than that now (see its impressive series of games against Serral with an amazing comeback here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jELuQ6XEtEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jELuQ6XEtEc and a powerful defense against multi-pronged aggression here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6qmPNyKRGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6qmPNyKRGw) (and of course by "now" I mean when Deep Mind took it off the ladder). Both of these involve an eclectic mix of units with Alphastar effectively using each type of unit and varying it in response to what Serral puts out and its own resource constraints. A lot of commentators have difficulty distinguishing Alphastar from humans when the former plays as Protoss (its Terran and Zerg play is weaker and often more mechanical). > I mean strategies that humans could learn to adopt. My main takeaways from watching Alphastar were "pros undervalue static defense and often have a less than optimal number of workers (where Alphastar's seeming overproduction of workers lets it shrug off aggressive harassment)," but I don't know if those have picked up in the meta.

pretendscholar 5y ago
Why is it far worse with Terran and Zerg?