Real Expectations with your Amiibo & How we should really view them instead

[JayWon]

Before Smash 4 was released, Nintendo hyped us up with new characters and other cool miscellaneous things like the 50-facts extravaganza, and among all the exciting things were the curious Amiibo buddies. If you noticed Nintendo has been very... general about its capabilities but this hasn't stopped some of us from passionately experimenting, dreaming, and envisioning (jokingly) skynet, and etc. I majored in Cognitive Science and I just want to set some realistic expectations on Nintendo's implementation of its artificial intelligence this iteration of Smash on the Wii U.

But first, let me share with you my experience with my Pikachu amiibo. Pikachu has a lot of cool/"creative" edge guarding options with thunder that Level 9 bots never do. Also from the ledge Pikachu has the options to fall and quick attack back in or skull bash back in; Pikachu also has a grab release kill set up; Pikachu can full hop, neutral-b and run ahead of its thunder jolt and do a punishable move as the thunder jolt behind him will defend Pikachu from a shield grab. My Amiibo never learned any of these techniques up and I wasn't surprised.

It's the year 2014, the field of artificial intelligence is just now starting to bloom, and from my experience in playing against the much more sophisticated bots (than melee, brawl, and the 3DS), I feel Nintendo's AI development team was neither behind nor ahead of its time. With the limited research and technology, the level of where the AI is at on the Wii U is honestly more than acceptable; it's top quality, it's tough but it's great! Perhaps, if Nintendo partnered up with IBM and worked years in advance, the Amiibo's this time might have had "true learning." But just take into consideration, this is, after all, their first attempt with the idea of Amiibo. I'm pretty confident the next iteration of Smash within the next decade will have a much improved AI with a more sophisticated learning capabilities; so much improved, in fact, Nintendo would be more specific on the highlights of its learning capabilities with much more proud confidence, compared to now where Nintendo was relatively discreet and ambiguous, and our current experiences with the Amiibo's have been fueled by... confirmation biases.

Just some thought!

Edit: Please note when I am talking about the AI it's referring to the CPU bots as well as the amiibo

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Just for clarification, please don't see me as a negative, criticizing, party pooper who goes out of his way to suck out the fun. I don't feel like I was cheated or ripped off from buying my amiibo or anything. I like how having a physical figure accomplishes the feeling of something personal regardless of how advanced the learning algorithm is. I still passionately root for my Pikachu to win all the time, but I know objectively my unique "nurture" is nowhere near as big of a factor of what it will become anyways.

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Why the **** is there so much ****ing equipment Sakurai?!?
And after some thought, I've decided to just feed it equipment and make my buddy as OP as humanly possible. It really really then feels more unique now.

I see absolutely no tournament/competitive potential with Amiibos and I just simply see Amiibos as fun thing to enjoy and I just want my amiibo to win all the time and wreck all my friends and their Amiibos. Yeah... I think this is the most optimal way for me to maximize how much fun this little amiibo can bring me!

Just some thoughts! Hope they helped!

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Link: My Experience in teaching my 9 year old sister how to play Sm4sh.

 

[erico9001]

What are your opinions about the ways that amiibo learn? I'm seeing evidence that they have programmed in a form of classical conditioning.

For instance - a DK amiibo was trained to fight in 1v1 circumstances. However, when put in an 8 player smash for several hours, the DK amiibo learned to use it's down B quite frequently. The reason for this is it probably used the down B once while in the mode and this lead to multiple enemies being damaged at the same time, or in other words the behavior was rewarded. It then brought this learned skill into 1v1 matches even though it is a bad technique to use there. While it was doing the 8 player smash, it was not fighting other DK's, so there's no chance it would have learned this from observing another DK doing it.

The other way they seem to learn is pure observation. For instance, I pocketed my Villager amiibo's gyroid and then sent it back at him with my own gyroid following. It's sort of a "double gyroid technique." After a short period of time, my amiibo did the same thing.

I don't think they directly learn from whether our actions have success though. I think they need to try out the action themselves and then have it meet with success before continuing to do it for themselves.

I also think there is some sort of baseline for what the amiibos learn that is similar to the CPU of the amiibo's character. This is sort of like their nature and what I was describing earlier would be nurture. I think nature may have more of an influence on the amiibo's behavior than people think.

Anyways, would this sort of learning be impressive from what you're saying?

 

[JayWon]

What are your opinions about the ways that amiibo learn? I'm seeing evidence that they have programmed in a form of classical conditioning.

For instance - a DK amiibo was trained to fight in 1v1 circumstances. However, when put in an 8 player smash for several hours, the DK amiibo learned to use it's down B quite frequently. The reason for this is it probably used the down B once while in the mode and this lead to multiple enemies being damaged at the same time, or in other words the behavior was rewarded. It then brought this learned skill into 1v1 matches even though it is a bad technique to use there. While it was doing the 8 player smash, it was not fighting other DK's, so there's no chance it would have learned this from observing another DK doing it.

The other way they seem to learn is pure observation. For instance, I pocketed my Villager amiibo's gyroid and then sent it back at him with my own gyroid following. It's sort of a "double gyroid technique." After a short period of time, my amiibo did the same thing.

I don't think they directly learn from whether our actions have success though. I think they need to try out the action themselves and then have it meet with success before continuing to do it for themselves.

I also think there is some sort of baseline for what the amiibos learn that is similar to the CPU of the amiibo's character. This is sort of like their nature and what I was describing earlier would be nurture. I think nature may have more of an influence on the amiibo's behavior than people think.

Anyways, would this sort of learning be impressive from what you're saying?

Well.. Impressive is a very subjective word but strictly as just my opinion, though I am very impressed with the overall AI cpu of the game, I am not impressed by the "learning" algorithm whatsoever. I have not done extensive testing/restarting with training Amiibos, but from my own personal experience from training my Pikachu/villager amiibo once, it seems that the amiibo just eventually becomes its nature level 9 self regardless of any "nurture".

I repeatedly overdone and highly focused on the "advance" Pikachu techniques mentioned above when "training" my amiibo.. Meanwhile my amiibo did its own thing and kept trying to attack as it leveled up to a standard CPU pikachu. My amiibo does not resemble my playstyle at all. I am highly aggressive with constant quick attack pressures and I am aware of connecting my combos at different percentages... While my amiibo's "combos" are practically elementary. In other words, saying my amiibo learned from me seems like a stretch... Because it still couldn't emulate any of the moves a standard CPU doesn't do; it essentially is leveling up to become the inevitable standard Pikachu AI with marginal deviations.

I haven't put much time on observing my amiibo other than a 1v1.

But overall it's becoming very clear, the "learning" people are witnessing have all been fairly inconsistent and hard to pinpoint. Praising the "learning" aspect of Amiibo and saying the differences are significant is just a tough sell.

Just for clarification, please don't see me as a negative, criticizing, party pooper who goes out of his way to suck out the fun. I don't feel like I was cheated or ripped off from buying my amiibo or anything. I like how having a physical figure accomplishes the feeling of something personal regardless of how advanced the learning algorithm is. I still passionately root for my Pikachu to win all the time, but I know objectively my unique "nurture" is nowhere near as big of a factor of what it will become anyways.

And after some thought, I've decided to just feed it equipment and make my buddy as OP as humanly possible. It really really then feels more unique now.

I see no tournament potential with Amiibos and I just simply see Amiibos as fun thing to enjoy and I just want my amiibo to win all the time and wreck all my friends and their Amiibos. Yeah... I think this is the most optimal way for me to maximize how much fun this little amiibo can bring me!

Just some thoughts! Hope they helped!

 

[erico9001]

Hmm well my Villager amiibo consistently beats out lv 9 CPU Villagers - usually by at least over 1 stock (in fact, it just won with 3 stocks left, lol). However, my Link amiibo is about the same skill level as the lv 9 CPU. You say your Villager is really no better than the lv 9 CPU, so I'm interested in what we did different.

Based on what you said about training Pikachu, did you focus primarily on trying to teach it advanced techniques? I mostly focused on the fundamentals of using umbrellas, jabs, bowling balls off of platforms and edges, hitting standing opponents with the slingshot, juggling with up smash, and chopping trees off of the edge. It is good at all of these except for the chopping trees off the edge. I believe it did not learn to chop trees off of the edge because there are too many steps involved - or in other words it is too advanced for it to learn. While it did get used to setting up saplings on the edge, it rarely translated this into also growing the tree and then chopping it off the edge. I think it would rather attempt to hit the opponent with bowling balls because that is simpler and involves less steps.

 

[Gidy]

I believe that amiibo will bring many different uses for certain people.

 

[micstar615]

Just a question regarding amiibo, are they better for training than computers? I don't feel computers are good training partners since they have such humanly impossible quick reflexes due to the fact that they read your button inputs, obviously a human is incapable of doing this so I feel training with a computer is not only frustrating but not really helping me get better. Are amiibos better? I read that they simply "learn" from battles they have, so if they fought against a human player constantly would they fight like a human player, or would they still read inputs like regular AI?

 

[erico9001]

Just a question regarding amiibo, are they better for training than computers? I don't feel computers are good training partners since they have such humanly impossible quick reflexes due to the fact that they read your button inputs, obviously a human is incapable of doing this so I feel training with a computer is not only frustrating but not really helping me get better. Are amiibos better? I read that they simply "learn" from battles they have, so if they fought against a human player constantly would they fight like a human player, or would they still read inputs like regular AI?

I can't give a solid answer to this, but I believe that the amiibos have a sort of baseline in which they follow and deviate from - one that is similar to the CPUs. This is based on things like observing my Link using hookshot to grab onto the ledge when I never did that. I had used the hookshot in the air to attack the opponent, but never did I use it on the ledge. Also, amiibos will behave similarly to computers in ways. In a stage like Paulutena's Temple, in 8 player smashes, both 8 amiibos and 8 CPUs will cluster at the bottom right side of the stage for some reason.

As for if they have more human like reflexes, my Villager amiibo actually seems to react more quickly and more often to attacks than the level 9 CPU. I guess this would mean it's a worse training partner for what you're looking for. To me, this makes it a better training partner, but I guess that means we are just looking to train different things.

I don't know if it's possible to create a less responsive amiibo. I mean it: no clue. Maybe I can see about it tomorrow.

 

[micstar615]

I can't give a solid answer to this, but I believe that the amiibos have a sort of baseline in which they follow and deviate from - one that is similar to the CPUs. This is based on things like observing my Link using hookshot to grab onto the ledge when I never did that. I had used the hookshot in the air to attack the opponent, but never did I use it on the ledge. Also, amiibos will behave similarly to computers in ways. In a stage like Paulutena's Temple, in 8 player smashes, both 8 amiibos and 8 CPUs will cluster at the bottom right side of the stage for some reason.

As for if they have more human like reflexes, my Villager amiibo actually seems to react more quickly and more often to attacks than the level 9 CPU. I guess this would mean it's a worse training partner for what you're looking for. To me, this makes it a better training partner, but I guess that means we are just looking to train different things.

I don't know if it's possible to create a less responsive amiibo. I mean it: no clue. Maybe I can see about it tomorrow.

I see, thanks for the response! Maybe I should just try and get better vs level 9 CPUs first then -.-

 

[Semopo]

Played a few rounds with the link amiibo (lvl 50, born and raised in west-philadelph Final Destination) from a friend who likes to do nasty combos with Link, his main. His amiibo learned to do bombdrop-fastfalling combos, camps like a codsniper and whatnotelse.
I, for one, think they'll learn enough stuff in the future

 

[8-Bit Brawler]

how should one choose their amiibo?

i mean, i am thinking i will main Link, does that mean i need to buy a link Amiibo so it trains him betteR? or if i use a Mario Amiibo, will that be fine too.

I am a noob to SSB in general, this amiibo business is compounding my sense of hopelessness!

 

[yogo540]

Amiibo attempt to simulate a good fighting style. They aren't able create a good fighting style.

They just copy what they see works, and then execute with computer accuracy.