Remember seeing a dev saying it is almost the opposite, since the computer know where you are at all time and can pinpoint whatever at any time, AI for gaming is actually dumbing the adversary enough for players to be able to defeat it at a given choice of difficulty.

But to truly emulate human behavior chosing what type is appropriate for each difficulty is almost impossible.

This reminds me of the final boss in Unreal Tournament 2004. The final fight of the tournament is a 1vs1 against the champion, and the AI there cheats like a bastard: he is faster than you, more precise than you, his hits make more damage than yours, he has more health than you, he ALWAYS knows where you are (even though he usually follows a circular pattern around the map)... In a regular match, the player has the odds way stacked against him, especially in the harder difficulties.

However, there is one very simple way to beat him: kill him once (or at least get a kill over him) and then hide outside and under some part of the map. The AI, for some reason, has NO IDEA how to reach you there, and thus he just goes in circles around the map, so you just wait until the timer runs out, and you win.

If the AI is going to cheat, I may as well cheat back. XD

Competent ai is hard to program. Unfair or too clever ai doesn't make for a good gaming experience and the same goes if its too dumb. I'd imagine devs trying strike a good middle ground for normal difficulty and leave it be. The worse ones are ones that track you through walls and basically everywhere in the map. And those that dodge and cheese your special moves with frightening accuracy. Then you have ranged enemies that have laser focused aim no matter the distance - seriously why do games have this. And enemies that come at you like fodder with no fear of death.

The one thing I do want now we have vastly better CPU's in the new consoles.. is more varied and more personalized Ai. NPC and enemies with independent emotions that can act on their own accord and realistically reacting to the players actions, just as they would in real life. The one immersion breaker for me is stopping in front of NPC's and doing their thing and getting no reaction. Zilch. No adjusted movement, physically or verbally to place you by the in world by the NPC. And in lets say a shooting game, enemies death charge at you with no fear or death. I'd want NPC/enemies to behave differently depending on a players actions, environment and situation instead of following simple scripted reactions and movements we get in a lot of games.

The "death charge" thing is the same to me as an enemy that pops out of cover to the exact same position on an exact schedule, essentially just waiting for you to kill him.  Stupid.

Anyway, I agree with all of that.   I think it's ridiculous that you'll often get no sort of acknowledgment whatsoever from an NPC, even ones that are core to the game. Like "hey Mr. Blacksmith,  I know you're busy working. But I am standing here, literally touching you, and you are still just beating away on that anvil.   Haven't even asked me to move, given me a dirty look, or anything."  That needs to change ASAP. 

Probably a combination of several factors:

• Most players don't seem to mind bad AI.
• Good AI can be frustrating to play against.
• In some games, level design doesn't really leave much room for good AI.
• Good AI can be expensive to create. Combined with the previous points, investing in AI might not seem like a very lucrative choice to some.
  • This is especially true for strategy games.

The bots in Unreal Tournament were always a joy to play against.

AI has gone backwards in favor of kill count. Older games had far fewer enemies to plow through. They could be a lot smarter, for example Half-Life and Fear without overwhelming the player. Nowadays most enemies are just cannon fodder to make the player feel good. Halo Infinite is no different. It throws a lot of enemies at you, most just run straight at you or do the predictable pop out of cover the same way over and over. They don't coordinate attacks, don't provide cover fire, don't even follow you when you pick a spot to recharge your shield. All because if they did, you wouldn't stand a chance on your own against many.

Racing games used to have better AI as well. There were only few tracks and you needed to earn unlocking the next track. It wasn't easy. Nowadays you have a lot of tracks, usually all available right from the start or open world. Single player races are just there for your power fantasy, go from last to first every time. There are no tactics, no feigning moves, no defensive driving. They all drive the same with various degrees of rubber banding. The opponents in early NFS and Burnout games had a lot more variety in race styles than the modern drivatards we have now.

Maybe it is just to get people to play online. That's where the money is.

True I get its for playability and gameplay reasons but its kinda silly when all enemies do the same thing. Its a bit like in movies where the bad guys make target practices of themselves and run out in the open lol.

And idd, I mean surely it couldn't be too hard to program some dialogue etc to detect when a player is too close proximity to them. Or push the player back or something after a certain amount of time. But yeah, the whole Ai is dumb thing reared its ugly head to me was when playing the Matrix tech demo (I know I know its a tech demo). Where you could have the most amazing graphics, physics, sound etc but when you roam around a sandbox/open world and still have dumb npc's who don't react in any semblance to real people its kinda kills the immersion - for me anyway.

Because in real life, one guy doesn't storm an enemy base and successfully fight off 200 enemy soldiers, regardless of how skilled he is. In real life, such a scenario would not be fun in the least. Real life blows. Predictable enemies are much more fun.

Whose footprints are these!?

What was that noise?

!

Talking about Ghost of Tsushima, if you attack a group they will politely wait their turn to attack you like in most melee based games. None seem to care that you're dispatching them one by one and will gladly add to the pile of corpses right in front of their nose when luring them into your trap. Dumb AI is for the player.

First you need to vastly reduce the number of enemies before you can make them smarter. Yet gamers find it more fun to mow through entire crowds instead of having long tactical fights against a few smart enemies. Thus the enemies need to be dumb as rocks, and the higher the kill count, the dumber they have to be. Every game is a wave shooter nowadays.

In Half life and Fear you were worried when getting set up against 3 enemies. (Oh crap, where did number 3 go, is he behind me...)
Nowadays you kill a dozen or more in 30 seconds.

Heck, Tlou2 even has an option to turn off enemy flanking or enemies grabbing your allies to make combat easier. It's for accessibility so I guess its all right.

What I miss currently in Halo Infinite is that they don't bother anymore to shoot where you will be when strafing, jumping, grappling. I'm pretty sure they did in previous Halos or maybe it was a different game series. If you didn't randomize your strafing you would get hit every time, strafe or jump right into a grenade toss or hail of bullets. But that would take the 'fun' out of it.

AI is reversely tied to enemy count. Yet even when you get a one on one fight with a boss, they still can't be smart. They need to be predictable, doing the same patterns over and over again while absorbing a ton of hits. I guess it's not fun to have a boss that anticipates your moves, hides and keeps dodging your attacks. You feel better at yourself when you can shout at the screen, look at this bullet sponge, still can't stop me!

If the AI was smart, you would be dying as often as in multiplayer online. Or rather a lot more often since it will be all against you. Imagine how fun it is when everyone on the multiplayer server works together to kill one person, over and over and over.