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

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: Freeman, Jeff [mailto:jfreeman at soe.sony.com] 

> 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.

Surely that's more because the game dynamics of chasing down a
fleeing opponent are a pain in the butt. If it was fun, I'm sure
people wouldn't mind, but in the current graphical games its not
popular because :

  - In most of these games opponents are singlehandedly strong
  enough to fight a whole group of 6 people, so if its running away
  and attracts several friends to assist it, it could have serious
  ramifications to a group that hasn't recovered from the first
  battle.

  - It takes improbably long to kill a fleeing opponent. If someone
  is walking away with their back to you, it shouldn't take very
  long to drop them.

  - This may be EQ specific, but when this monster behaviour was
  adjusted, it ruined a very popular play style (kiting). There was
  outcry, and it was adjusted back.

Which is why I contend that its not smart AI that players dislike,
but bad gameplay. The kind of AI players hate are aberations like
monsters summoning the player to their feet because the path finding
is too poor for the monster to get to the player. Surely a smarter
AI would choose to do one of the following if it couldn't hit
someone who was damaging it:

  A) retreat.

  B) use a ranged weapon.

There's plenty of room for growth in AI behaviour in these
games. Especially if its tied in with a re-evaluation of the
mechanic of 1 mob to many players. Graphics cards are more powerful
these days, surely it deserves a second look?

Dan

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