200 plus AI on screen - Halo Reach

[_mevildan]

Hisiru said:

_mevildan said:
@Hisiru

After reading through the posts on this thread, I must say that you have been posting a wonderful collection of nonsense.

These are your comments that made me chuckle:
"Enemies =/= AI"
"We are talking about AI (something smart)."
"Something more realistic."
"High numbers =/= Good AI."
"We are talking about 200 SMART enemies at once"
"Stupid characters with pre-programed actions (attack you/walk)"
"In Halo the enemies are always moving and searching for some kind of wall, so they will be protected by the wall, in this case they are really trying to survive AND attack you at the same time"
"enemies in Halo are always trying to survive and move (something that you can do from any distance)."
"That video IS the Elite mode lol. And the flaw is clearly there."
"trying to survive and give you more trouble."

You use these words like "smart", "good", "more", "really trying", "survive" etc etc to try and say that this Halo AI is some other worldy kind of AI, not just simple reactions by dumb bots. I am afraid I must tell you that Halo AI is not unlike the AI of most games.

AI programming in the video game world (especially FPSs) is very much smoke and mirrors. The developers have to try and make characters appear to be as clever as they can, but as simply as possible. And they have succeeded to make very impressive examples of the years. In terms of action games, F.E.A.R, Half-Life, Halo, Killzone 2 come to mind (oh but I know you don't agree with at least one of those in my list).

Another annoying thing you keep going on about is about characters hiding and trying to kill you etc. These kind of actions are just one small part of AI. You keep bashing Heavenly Sword saying those enemies are stupid and that AI is hardly any achievement etc. What about the fact that they have to traverse the 3d environment they are in, while still not walking into each other (collision avoidance with that many NPCs in a 3d environment is quite a feat). Those enemies all have to check on each other's AI states too, even if that is just walk and attack as you say (which I can assure you it isn't). Dude, you don't know what you are talking about. I am a programmer. I have written AI systems before. I am guessing you haven't.

And you keep harping on about these flaws in Killzone's AI. Of course it has flaws. EVERY game AI does. Because as I mentioned above, there are no "SMART enemies" or characters without "pre-programmed actions". It's all very much state driven. The good AI implementations (like Halo for example) just do a very good job at the smoke and mirrors.

If you actually played through Killzone (instead of posting links to videos showing how shit the AI is), you would probably be impressed. The flanking and hiding of the helghast is very impressive. The way they search for cover, blindfire, grenade you to death if you try and hide from them etc. It's top stuff. For every one video showing it's hideous flaws, I am sure I could make 10 showing it's finer moments. Picking out flaws like that is the equivalent of the tactic of quote mining.

So there you go. Make of that what you will.

"Enemies =/= AI"

Wait, isn't the number of enemies different from the term "AI"?

It is. But just "Enemies != AI" sounds like AI and enemies are not the same deal.

"We are talking about AI (something smart)."

Have a good read, because AI is something that will interact with the environment, it is something "smart" (it doesn't have a real brain, of course, but it works the way it should work in the game), I believe you are interpreting the word "smart" in the wrong way

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

See my comments below.

"Something more realistic."

Again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

See my comments below

"High numbers =/= Good AI."

Isn't high number of enemies different from good AI?

It is different. Given the context of the the thread topic, I found it kind of ironic.

"We are talking about 200 SMART enemies at once"

Yes, because the enemies in Halo ARE smart. And if they are talking about 200 smart enemies at once with good AI I think it's impossible for a console.

Again, you can't just toss around these words like SMART and GOOD. This is not an explanation of why the AI is better or impossible on a console.

"Stupid characters with pre-programed actions (attack you/walk)"

And that's what you have in Heavenly Sword, nothing complex, but what I wanted to say here is that Heavenly Sword simple forms of interaction.

What made me LOL here is that other than pre-programmed, what would you expect? The AI responses of characters are always pre-programmed to some degree. I haven't heard of self-modifying code being used in FPS NPCs yet.

"In Halo the enemies are always moving and searching for some kind of wall, so they will be protected by the wall, in this case they are really trying to survive AND attack you at the same time"

What's wrong in this phrase? Halo has more efficient AI and that's why I said that we can't compare both AIs (Heavenly Sword and Halo).

Trying to survive and attack you. I could have used this same sentence to describe the AI of every FPS since Quake 2. Yet again "Halo has more effecient AI". Explain this please. Without a look at the code, there is no way to tell this.

"enemies in Halo are always trying to survive and move (something that you can do from any distance)."

Again, what's wrong with this phrase?

Something that you can do from any distance = LOL. What are you going on about here? Area of revelance? Idle state's on distance AIs? I won't bother to get more in that.

"That video IS the Elite mode lol. And the flaw is clearly there."

And it's the elite mode, I explained why. People are comparing the AI in Halo and KZ, but you won't see that kind of flaw in Halo.

Based on your previous descriptions of AI and why some is AI is better than others, I don't know how to convince you otherwise.

"trying to survive and give you more trouble."

What's wrong again? They are always moving and trying to "survive" against you, even if it's part of the AI.

"Give you more trouble". MORE MORE MORE. Same old same old. Doesn't explain a thing.

-EDIT-

Also, I am not the person who posted the video of Killzone 2 or the person who started talking about the other games. Looks like you aren't even reading the entire thread, that's why you are interpreting some of my words in the wrong way.

Firstly, my apologies for the comment about posting videos. I saw the links in your replies and didn't look carefully enough to see you hadn't posted them. But you were harping on about the flaw in the AI like it was a dealbreaker, which it isn't.

Your wiki links on AI... did you miss the part in my post where I said I have programmed AI systems before? I have studied AI at university. I have written software that has 3d characters moving in a 3d world, with their own AI. What I am trying to get at is you are offering no quantifcations of what makes Halo's AI somehow different and better from Killzone's (actually I agree it is better though). My problem is just with your explanations and wording. You are clearly passionate about the subject, which is cool. I am just chuckling at your explanations, which really don't explain any thing.

Let's be friends shall we? I don't want to derail this thread anymore.

Halo AI is excellent. 200 Halo-style AI enemies is impressive.
Heavenly sword is impressive in it's own way.
Killzone 2 has generally impressive AI as well.

I hope we can agree.