Link to original post: [drupal=890]As gaming progresses, is AI getting worse?[/drupal]
I suppose that sounds like a dumb question. AI obviously isn't getting worse, the CPU controlled characters in any game now have more complex coding, and are obviously far better at adapting to a huge multitude of situations right? I also believe, however, that with increased complexity and intelligence comes a basic stupidity. Either that or developpers are purposely making the CPUs easier to deal with these days.
Arguments that people have given me are that as I've grown older, my gaming ability has improved. Maybe slightly, but I still believe CPUs are just plain silly these days, or trying to give us an easy ride. Of course, CPUs in Smash games have never been the toughest to beat after you've become half decent, but I have noticed declines in their intelligence from 64 through to Brawl, although there wasn't really a great drop between 64 to Melee, but Melee to Brawl was quite noticeable.
I messed around with the CPUs, doing different things to see how they'd react, and noticed that the Melee CPUs would act far more appropriately and carefully than Brawl ones.
One example would be running close to a CPU and shielding. Within a split second of shielding too long, a Melee CPU instantly went for the grab, whereas a Brawl CPU just continued throwing attacks at it until it broke. You'd think a game released 7 years after its predecessor would have more intelligent CPUs, but apparently not.
The thing that inspired me to write this though was when I was mucking around with Yoshi in Melee, and full hopping and dairing into Ganondorf the lulz. After doing it about 3 times, Ganondorf reacted with his upB **** attack, and so in my curiosity I did it again several times, with him continuing to react in the same fashion. Then I started baiting him and not actually going in for the attack, but punishing him for his upB misses. After several successful baits, he stopped. I then tried this in Brawl... and it was an epic failure on the part of the CPU. No matter how many times I did the same maneuver, he'd try to full hop and aerial me, despite it never working.
Now the intelligence of Smash CPUs is somewhat a non issue, since we never play them as practice anyway. Many games, however, are 1-player games, and thus may require challenging AI (depending on the genre) to be a deep gaming experience. Unfortunately, having owned all three Halo games, this does not seem to be the case. I find the first Halo to be the most challenging and rewarding of the trilogy, with Halo 3 having intelligent on the surface, yet fundamentally stupid AI.
Maybe it's because developers are now so focused on making AI and games look flashy on the surface, that they forget that their CPUs need for example, to shoot at me, rather than have a pointless conversation with another AI over a cigarette, and take **** breaks every 10 minutes as that's 10 game hours or whatever. No offence game developer, but I'd rather your CPU was able to shoot straight than take a **** and smoke a cigarette.
Maybe they're making them more stupid on purpose, I don't know, but I don't like the direction gaming's going in. There used to be a phrase called "Nintendo Hard", to describe games, games actually used to be difficult for crying out loud. It took me more weeks to complete Super Mario Land than Sunshine and Galaxy combined. It took me more days of effort to get the Pendants of Power in A Link to the Past, than complete the whole of Twilight Princess. Even now, it will take me longer to get through all of A Link to the Past then Twilight Princess, because I may, God forbid, actually die even once, something that hasn't really happened to me in a videogame for a while.
Bring back basic function, not flashy face value functions. I want to be shot at, beaten down, whatever, I want a challenge again.
Thanks For Reading This Rant!
~Teran17~
I suppose that sounds like a dumb question. AI obviously isn't getting worse, the CPU controlled characters in any game now have more complex coding, and are obviously far better at adapting to a huge multitude of situations right? I also believe, however, that with increased complexity and intelligence comes a basic stupidity. Either that or developpers are purposely making the CPUs easier to deal with these days.
Arguments that people have given me are that as I've grown older, my gaming ability has improved. Maybe slightly, but I still believe CPUs are just plain silly these days, or trying to give us an easy ride. Of course, CPUs in Smash games have never been the toughest to beat after you've become half decent, but I have noticed declines in their intelligence from 64 through to Brawl, although there wasn't really a great drop between 64 to Melee, but Melee to Brawl was quite noticeable.
I messed around with the CPUs, doing different things to see how they'd react, and noticed that the Melee CPUs would act far more appropriately and carefully than Brawl ones.
One example would be running close to a CPU and shielding. Within a split second of shielding too long, a Melee CPU instantly went for the grab, whereas a Brawl CPU just continued throwing attacks at it until it broke. You'd think a game released 7 years after its predecessor would have more intelligent CPUs, but apparently not.
The thing that inspired me to write this though was when I was mucking around with Yoshi in Melee, and full hopping and dairing into Ganondorf the lulz. After doing it about 3 times, Ganondorf reacted with his upB **** attack, and so in my curiosity I did it again several times, with him continuing to react in the same fashion. Then I started baiting him and not actually going in for the attack, but punishing him for his upB misses. After several successful baits, he stopped. I then tried this in Brawl... and it was an epic failure on the part of the CPU. No matter how many times I did the same maneuver, he'd try to full hop and aerial me, despite it never working.
Now the intelligence of Smash CPUs is somewhat a non issue, since we never play them as practice anyway. Many games, however, are 1-player games, and thus may require challenging AI (depending on the genre) to be a deep gaming experience. Unfortunately, having owned all three Halo games, this does not seem to be the case. I find the first Halo to be the most challenging and rewarding of the trilogy, with Halo 3 having intelligent on the surface, yet fundamentally stupid AI.
Maybe it's because developers are now so focused on making AI and games look flashy on the surface, that they forget that their CPUs need for example, to shoot at me, rather than have a pointless conversation with another AI over a cigarette, and take **** breaks every 10 minutes as that's 10 game hours or whatever. No offence game developer, but I'd rather your CPU was able to shoot straight than take a **** and smoke a cigarette.
Maybe they're making them more stupid on purpose, I don't know, but I don't like the direction gaming's going in. There used to be a phrase called "Nintendo Hard", to describe games, games actually used to be difficult for crying out loud. It took me more weeks to complete Super Mario Land than Sunshine and Galaxy combined. It took me more days of effort to get the Pendants of Power in A Link to the Past, than complete the whole of Twilight Princess. Even now, it will take me longer to get through all of A Link to the Past then Twilight Princess, because I may, God forbid, actually die even once, something that hasn't really happened to me in a videogame for a while.
Bring back basic function, not flashy face value functions. I want to be shot at, beaten down, whatever, I want a challenge again.
Thanks For Reading This Rant!
~Teran17~
