[MUD-Dev] FEAR Animat style AI for Quake 2

[Freeman]

>From Ted L. Chen

> It lacks learning, and reaks of hard-coding if-then statements.
> But in most cases, it gives the semblance of high-level
> intelligence and isn't as prone to generating really really weird
> conditionals (unless of course your AI programmer has had one too
> many beers).

There's a danger here, I think is being overlooked: What if you
succeed?  So, great, now your AI is as able as a real human being.
Fighting an orc isn't like fighting an orc any more, it's just like
fighting a player who is pretending to be an orc.

In my experience, players don't even like it when AI is given the
ability to determine that a given battle is a lost cause, that the
AI ought to just run away.  They like the AI to be a bit stupid.

If that leads to repetitive gameplay, then AI can exhibit a variety
of behaviors from one mob to the next.  So fighting an orc isn't the
same as fighting a goblin, but neither are especially difficult to
defeat once the player has them figured out.

I think maybe it's a better approach to implement a variety of
simple - even somewhat stupid - behaviors, combined with a variety
of special-abilities, resistances and weaknesses: The skittish
creatures, the aggressive creatures, the social creatures, the
scouts, the assassins, the healers, the nukers, the big boss monster
who is invulnerable until he lowers his shields to blast you, the
ones that use poison weapons, the ones immune to magic, the ones
allergic to iron, etc.

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