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| sundin13 said: I think that is largely a different thing. What you are talking about is invisibly tweaking variables based on how the player is doing (tweaking variables being the exact thing the OP is complaining about). What the OP is talking about is having enemy intelligence change based on selected difficulty. Dynamic Difficulty Assistance is stupid and I hate it. Changing AI would be a good improvement, but it takes a lot of resources to get right. |
It's more of a problem that games have to cater to the male power fantasy. Intelligent enemies sound fun, but not everyone likes multiplayer. People want a single player campaign where they can feel superior to the AI and mow down a thousand enemies or more in a play through.
Even hard games like souls games work because it's all set in stone. Enemy attack patterns, positions, always the same. Suppose they actually had some intelligence and outsmarted the player at every turn, who would still play the game... It's not hard to make AI that can beat the player every time. The hard part is making the player feel good about his actions without being to obvious in holding back. Basically the roll of a good DM. Yet there is also the ego part, I beat the game on hard would become meaningless with self adjusting difficulty / AI. Heck see the resistance to an easier mode on souls games, even though those games are nothing but rote learning. NG+just ramps up the hit points, still same patterns, same positions, all there for the male power fantasy.
It would be nice if games would analyze the 'fun' level players are having with different sections of the game. I was hopeful something like that was going to happen when Kinect 2.0 was supposed to read player's emotions while playing. Bored, tone down on those sections or spice them up. Frustrated with failure over and over, lower the difficulty / provide assistance. Quickened pulse, more or those sections, increase the difficulty. Yet without any feedback, there is no way to know if a player is engaged in doing the same thing over and over (trying to beat a difficult section) or getting utterly frustrated and ready to delete the game. It's just as frustrating when you almost get it, then the game decides to make it easier...
