Adaptive AI in Games - Does it Really Work?

qasimodo asks: "I was recently reading a preview of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and then I came across this article at GameSpot saying Pandora Tomorrow will feature adaptive AI which 'will adjust itself to players' skill level'. I remember (and is also mentioned in the PT article) Max Payne also featured this, but I never noticed it. I guess that's the best way to know if it works, since it adapts to your gaming skills, but does it really work? Have you noticed it? Do you have proof of it?"

Comments

Re:No.

[Dreadlord]

it wasn't really adaptive, simply when you die too many times, the difficulty level is reduced, which includes the accuracy of the enemies, their damage, and your damage, many games have similar features, Warcraft III comes to mind, the only difference is that Max Payne does it automatically, no big deal.

Adaptive AI and it's drawbacks

[TheRoachMan]

After reading that little snippet on gamespot, I've got the feeling that the game will be 'letting you win'. It states that if it takes you 20 tries to do something, the game will lower it's standards for you. Why did finishing Splinter Cell make me feel good? Because it makes me feel I've accomplished something. I've mastered the game, no matter how difficult the timing was, no matter how pixel-perfect I had to aim to kill that guy, no matter how hard it was to master. Unless they (Ubisoft) implement this Adaptive AI perfectly and unnoticeable (and I hope they will), I'm going to feel as if no matter how bad I play, or how crummy my timing is, I'm still going to master the game. Adaptive AI could really take the challenge out of any game.

However

[Joe the Lesser]

What's the main reason players get disinterested in a game? Because they come across a level that they can't beat, and they get sick of the same ol' stuff over and over again.

If less people are buying these games, because they just aren't the master that you apparently are and would rather not get halfway through the game only to quit in frustration, it hurts the company so this move makes sense.

However, to satiate you, they should add an option to set the AI on the hardest possible skill level.

problem with AI and difficulty

[*weasel]

the catch 22 is: make the game too easy, and players will complain. make the game too tough, and players will complain.

personally, i don't think a 'difficulty' slider should come into affect with AI. The AI should always -try- to behave the same way.

Whether you intend for them to be tacticians, civilians, or just mindless grunts. on 'Easy' or 'Difficult' a bad guy should still know he should take cover, call for backup, etc.

The 'difficulty' should come into play when deciding their accuracy, movement speed, 'scoring' (penalties for shooting hostages, raizing conquested territory, etc). It could also come into play in deciding the scarcity of resources. on Easy, there should be extra resources for the hero, and less for the enemy.

Adaptive -AI- is the wrong approach. Adaptive -difficult- is still a good idea though. but don't make enemies dumber; just make them slower, more inaccurate, fewer in number - don't give them as many grenades and leave more health packs around.

oh, and i also don't appreciate the 'difficulty' sliders that just scale the damage you receive up and down. that is an awfully 'cheap' hack imo.

Re:problem with AI and difficulty

[nick_davison]

Whether you intend for them to be tacticians, civilians, or just mindless grunts. on 'Easy' or 'Difficult' a bad guy should still know he should take cover, call for backup, etc.

I'd disagree:

A typical civilian is liable to run scared, shoot while running, empty their clip desperately, that kind of thing.

A regular soldier is liable to call for cover, move to a braced position or whatever for shooting, but still make some dumb mistakes.

A truly elite solider, the target is probably never going to know they and their squad were there until they are lying dead on the ground. They'll plan tactics in advance, have them well practiced and executed silently. They'll be better at scanning for targets, they'll be better at moving silently through the best areas of cover. When they do move, they'll be covered by an already well placed squadmate. Their communications will be as much via silent gestures as noisy radios.

Within that spectrum (and me not knowing much about elite forces), there's a huge range of variables for a given enemy. That security guard could be nothing more than a civilian in a uniform on easy difficulty yet an ex special forces soldier on high difficulty. They're still both "just a security guard" yet there's a huge range of differences in how their AI might act.

Ghost Recon has my all time favorite example of that. On the first mission, if you go around to the north of the valley, there's a slope that troops come down.

I'd played it once on easy. I managed to clear them all with just a single sniper and good reactions. As soon as they started getting shot, they just tried charging, firing wildly, hitting nothing.

On elite, the sniper died almost as soon as he gave away his position as half a dozen guys found cover, found him, lined their shots, then took him down.

Next I took a squad of three guys, including a light MG. I found some bushes near the bottom of the hill. I waited for them to come in to the open, then opened up. Quickly they dropped to the ground. Then they started moving in pairs back in to cover behind a boulder, the others providing supressing fire. As they kept the range between them and I, they were much harder to take down and I got maybe two of the six before they were safe. Now it became a case of do I have to clear them out or will they come after me? They answered that for me and came after me. Yet even then, they maintained great covering fire, from braced pairs who were taking advantage of the accuracy, moving from cover to cover.

In both cases, they were just about as accurate as before (they just used more accurate firing positions) and could take just as much damage (Ghost Recon is great for accurately handling how much mess a single bullet causes). It was entirely down to their use of tactics that they went from being a group of idiots to mop up to scarily hard adversaries.

Granted, those were skill settings, not an adaptive AI system. Still, that's what differing AI levels should be like. I can't stand games that differ difficulty by making shots do more or less damage, by simply upping numbers of enemies, by suddenly making enemies perfect shots while they still move in exactly the same way they always did.