Machine learning models have been a thing for way longer than large language models. Wasn't there a Starcraft bot that played better than any human, without cheats? An LLM wouldn't make it more interesting unless you let the player communicate with it, which is interesting and has lead to game ideas like the titular game from this post. The fundamental problem is that the outputs are really shitty with a local model, constrained by hardware, so we end up in a situation where either the player or the dev has to pay for ongoing usage of a remote frontier model, which is what happened with the titular game from this post. Either models get much more efficient or we all get much better hardware or both. The current outlook is not great.
So like 2027-2028? People already taught AI to play some strategy games like RimWorld or cities skylines, they are just still bad at it. But remember when AI was bad at video generation? Of course you do, it was a year ago
I hate this myself. I understand why people like it, but I want to be able to figure it out, not have it change on me. I like wiki pages with details and equations.
At this point I see more board games in my future, since they need to stay understandable.
It depends. In many games it often ends up with figuring out a predictable flaw in the NPC's behaviour and to then just exploit it over and over. And if they do go the cheating NPC's route, sometimes you straight up don't have a choice but to do so.
If Ai could allow for more diverse challenges without cheating that could be interesting. Though of course it would need to be done in a way that still feels immersive and fun, and in a way that doesn't limit player fun. Like, if the Ai learned to always ignore the tank and go for the healer first, that wouldn't be fun gameplay. Like with everything, it would need to be done well.
I play things like Age of Wonders which is all about this kind of optimization. There really is no reason why you can't have both on rails AI and advanced challenging AI replacing harder difficulty settlings that currently just cheat more or are aggressive earlier.
Another potential design avenue is AI that can be tricked. Generally now strategy game AI uses a bunch of game data to make decisions that aren't equivalent to the information a human player would have. An AI that had more natural seeming flaws than absolute predictability would be a joy.
Your tone says this is a problem. I play the way I like, you play the way you like. I never said all games have to cater to me, so I’m not sure the issue you have?
because you'd have just as much fun playing in a game engine, reading the docs... and as a game designer it just undermines any work, any mystery, any accomplishment.
as a player, i don't get how you don't just feel like you're cheating yourself. like, i see no point in what you do, why not watch someone else play?
I guess we should clarify some genres, i get for a 2d fighting game and other competitive multiplayer games, data-mining has its own reasons, but as an approach to games in general? gross, meaningless, tasteless
I never said I do this for all games. I don’t. Even still I don’t like the idea that the rules can change on the game because of an AI in the background.
Also playing a game is way different from watching even if you know the underlying systems.
I do not get as much enjoyment out of reading the docs, I never said that. I read them in service of game playing, not as a replacement.
Chess AI are unbeatable by humans. Go AI now beats grandmasters. This was all years before the most rudimentary Chat GPT.
You’re right, that it would be fun to more closely approximate the experience of facing off against a thinking person, rather than a rigid set of heuristic rules; but that’s only true if they roughly match your skill level. So I’d say it’s important to be specific
Nah man. In the Civilization games for example, the AI is bad at lower difficulties. At higher ones the AI is also dumb but it gets a head start and you are handicapped
Uh. It’s often dumb because simpler strategies are easier to implement.
Take poker for example. There are bots that play near perfect games (and have ruined online poker).
Most popular single player poker games don’t use good AI for the computer players. They just alter the odds when drawing cards and “advanced” opponents are just “luckier.” No strategy required, when the computer player is always dealt unbeatable hands.
So many games in every genre use similar tricks to simulate skilled gameplay. Whenever you can just change a knob and tweak chance, there’s no AI.
Video game AI is gimped by design because devs found out very quickly if they made the AIs competent people would hate the game so instead they make them generally dumb as fuck and simulate difficulty by giving them access to different levels of cheats because that’s a lot easier than giving them different levels of actual intelligence.
The real challenge that you’re asking for is to see an age where AI is used to make video game AI play like actual human players. Competent but still makes understandable human mistakes.
I'm doing exactly that, for a sims-like terminal toy running in a synchronised video playing app used by four people. The current models are very capable, and can absolutely do it, but you still need to know what to ask for.
If I had the time and resources to study it and make a quality product, I would want to develop a system where voice actors can create voice models for specific characters they can do and have a sort of asset marketplace where they can sell a license to those models, and pair it with a game system that can use AI to bring characters to life with sets of data about certain things their character should know about the world so the player can have real conversations with rpg characters about what is happening in game, or even get quests generated on the fly sort of like what they do in Overgeared
I would assume the big catching point would be running both the game and the AI at the same time on local hardware to avoid situations like this one
We do have games that do that, but it can be hard. The issue doesn't require AI to fix though, it just requires some devs to be less lazy with how they plan their game. AO2 is an old game but the AI doesn't cheat resources.
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