I don’t expect to see highly sophisticated AI in games (at least adversarial, battle-it-out games) because there is no point. Games have to be fun which means that the goal of the AI is to gracefully lose to the human player after making him exert some effort.
I’m not sure about that. A common complaint about these kinds of games is that the AI’s blatantly cheat, especially on higher difficulty levels. I could very well see a market for an AI that could give the human a challenge without cheating.
I’m not sure about that. A common complaint about these kinds of games is that the AI’s blatantly cheat, especially on higher difficulty levels. I could very well see a market for an AI that could give the human a challenge without cheating.
Several years ago, Backgammon AI was at the point where it could absolutely demolish humans without cheating. My impression is that people hated it, and even if they rolled the dice for the AI and input the results themselves they were pretty sure that it had to be cheating somehow.
May have been a vocal minority. You get some people incorrectly complaining about AI cheating in any game that utilizes randomness (Civilization and the new XCOMs are two examples I know of); usually this leads to somebody running a series of tests or decompiling the source code to show people that no, the die rolls are actually fair or (as is commonly the case) actually actively biased in the human player’s favor.
This never stops some people from complaining nonetheless, but a lot of others find the evidence convincing enough and just chalk it up to their own biases (and are less likely to suspect cheating when they play the next game that has random elements).
Right, I meant that Civ doesn’t cheat when it comes to die rolls—e.g. if it displays a 75% chance for the player to win a battle, then the probability really is at least 75%.
That’s why I said “AI that could give the human a challenge” not “AI that would demolish a human”. Better yet, have the game difficulty setting actually control the intelligence of the AI, rather than how much the AI cheats.
What that complaint usually means is “The AI is too hard, I would like easier wins”.
That may be true in some cases, but in many other cases the AI really does cheat, and it cheats because it’s not smart enough to offer a challenge to good players without cheating.
That may be true in some cases, but in many other cases the AI really does cheat
My answer did not imply that the AI doesn’t cheat :-/
The interesting questions here involve the perception of fairness and the illusion of competing with a more-or-less equal in single-player games. When people say the AI cheats they mean that it’s not bound by the rules applied to the human player, but why should it be? Consider MMORGs—do mobs cheat, e.g. by using abilities that the player does not have? Do raid bosses cheat by having a gazillion HP, gaining temporary invulnerability, spawning adds, and generally being a nuisance?
In MMORPGS, the game and setting are usually asymmetrical by design—there’s no assumption that the human knight should have an equal amount of hit points as the ancient dragon, and it would actually violate the logic of the setting if that were the case.
The games where people do complain about AI cheating tend to put the enemies in a more symmetrical role—e.g. in something like Civilization or Starcraft, the game designers work to actively maintain an illusion that the AI players are basically just like human players and operating under the same rules.
If you break that illusion too blatantly, players will be reasonably annoyed, because they feel like the game is telling them one thing when the truth is actually different.
This may even have in-game ramifications: e.g. if I’m playing against a human opponent in a multiplayer match, I might want to keep my units hidden from him so that he doesn’t know what I’m up to, but this is pointless against an AI opponent that sees the entire map all the time. (IIRC, in the original Red Alert, the Soviet player could construct buildings that recreated the shroud of war in areas that the enemy had already explored—and which were totally useless in single player, since the AI was never subject to the shroud of war!) In that case it’s not just the player feeling cheated, it actively screws up the player’s idea of what exactly would be a good idea against the AI.
I’m not sure about that. A common complaint about these kinds of games is that the AI’s blatantly cheat, especially on higher difficulty levels. I could very well see a market for an AI that could give the human a challenge without cheating.
Several years ago, Backgammon AI was at the point where it could absolutely demolish humans without cheating. My impression is that people hated it, and even if they rolled the dice for the AI and input the results themselves they were pretty sure that it had to be cheating somehow.
May have been a vocal minority. You get some people incorrectly complaining about AI cheating in any game that utilizes randomness (Civilization and the new XCOMs are two examples I know of); usually this leads to somebody running a series of tests or decompiling the source code to show people that no, the die rolls are actually fair or (as is commonly the case) actually actively biased in the human player’s favor.
This never stops some people from complaining nonetheless, but a lot of others find the evidence convincing enough and just chalk it up to their own biases (and are less likely to suspect cheating when they play the next game that has random elements).
The Civ 5 AI does cheat insofar as it doesn’t have to deal with the fog of war, IIRC.
The XCOM AI seems to cheat because they’ve don’t report the actual probability.
Not just that, especially on higher difficulty levels.
Right, I meant that Civ doesn’t cheat when it comes to die rolls—e.g. if it displays a 75% chance for the player to win a battle, then the probability really is at least 75%.
It does cheat in a number of other ways.
That’s why I said “AI that could give the human a challenge” not “AI that would demolish a human”. Better yet, have the game difficulty setting actually control the intelligence of the AI, rather than how much the AI cheats.
What that complaint usually means is “The AI is too hard, I would like easier wins”.
And you think the game industry is blind and does not see that market?
That may be true in some cases, but in many other cases the AI really does cheat, and it cheats because it’s not smart enough to offer a challenge to good players without cheating.
My answer did not imply that the AI doesn’t cheat :-/
The interesting questions here involve the perception of fairness and the illusion of competing with a more-or-less equal in single-player games. When people say the AI cheats they mean that it’s not bound by the rules applied to the human player, but why should it be? Consider MMORGs—do mobs cheat, e.g. by using abilities that the player does not have? Do raid bosses cheat by having a gazillion HP, gaining temporary invulnerability, spawning adds, and generally being a nuisance?
In MMORPGS, the game and setting are usually asymmetrical by design—there’s no assumption that the human knight should have an equal amount of hit points as the ancient dragon, and it would actually violate the logic of the setting if that were the case.
The games where people do complain about AI cheating tend to put the enemies in a more symmetrical role—e.g. in something like Civilization or Starcraft, the game designers work to actively maintain an illusion that the AI players are basically just like human players and operating under the same rules.
If you break that illusion too blatantly, players will be reasonably annoyed, because they feel like the game is telling them one thing when the truth is actually different.
This may even have in-game ramifications: e.g. if I’m playing against a human opponent in a multiplayer match, I might want to keep my units hidden from him so that he doesn’t know what I’m up to, but this is pointless against an AI opponent that sees the entire map all the time. (IIRC, in the original Red Alert, the Soviet player could construct buildings that recreated the shroud of war in areas that the enemy had already explored—and which were totally useless in single player, since the AI was never subject to the shroud of war!) In that case it’s not just the player feeling cheated, it actively screws up the player’s idea of what exactly would be a good idea against the AI.