[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Kill Smarter...Not Harder (Player vs. Monster)

[John Buehler]

Louis d'Ambra writes:

> On 10/14/06, Nicholas Koranda <nkk at eml.cc> wrote:
> > The problem is that
> > the scale that is used to gauge the difficulty of monsters is in there
> > damage and hit points, not their skills, movements, abilities, etc..  So
> > a dragon is only more difficult than a rat since a rat bites you for 1HP
> > and a dragon swats you with its tail for 1,000 HP.  A dragon is really
> > not more difficult because it hides in the shadows, or flies out the way
> > of your flame arrows, or blocks a sword swing with its claw, it just can
> > take a beating a whole lot longer.
>
> When it comes to PvP, no AI will ever match the interest of playing
> with or against real human  players, no matter how bright it is. When
> it comes to MMOs, the reasons for not implemeting a somewhat
> intelligent AI seems pretty clear to me : it's technically not
> possible, it would take too much server ressources (or maybe it would
> simply cost way too much).

If you change "no AI will ever match" to "no AI in existence matches", I'll
agree with this.  Academically, however, there is a critical difference
between software opponents and human opponents: the software opponents exist
to entertain you.  The human opponents are only interested in their own
entertainment, usually meaning your defeat.  It is this notion that
underlies my disinterest in worlds dominated by player actions.

> The most elegant alternative I see to make a very interesting
> challenge from a very dumb AI lies in one concept : critters
> interactions. So basically you arrange your critters in a zone in such
> a way that taken individualy, they are weak, but when together, they
> could lash out deadly combos.

Here's another alternative for you: dovetail human control with software AI.
If AI can only handle simple directives, then having human beings handle the
higher order decision-making.  I use the phrase "NPC Wranglers" to cover the
notion; gamemasters whose sole job is to give instructions to NPCs to get
them to do things.  This can happen either in advance or in real time.

Wrangling is well above the level of control that players exercise over
their characters today.  Players micromanage their characters in an effort
to give the player a sense of immersion or co-identity with the character.
On the other hand, wranglers push buttons that tell 20 orcs to attack the
flank of the player character "army".  The AI handles how those 20 orcs will
work together to solve that basic problem.  Wranglers also push buttons that
tell a thief to steal a certain something from the silversmith's shop.  The
AI not only handles the thief's pursuit of that goal, but it handles the
basic reactions of various characters impacted by the theft.  Reactions such
as originating requests for help.  A quest is born.

The main goal of the wranglers is to ensure that the NPCs do things that are
entertaining.  If the entertainment of the moment is a battle, then one or
more wranglers will be telling the bad guy NPCs where to attack, when to
attack and with what weapons.  If the players are well-equipped to fight a
few large opponents, then that's what the wranglers throw at them.  If the
players are well-equipped to fight man-sized opponents, then the wranglers
oblige.  If the players want a challenge, then the wranglers can throw all
sorts of strange things at them, flanking them, hitting them with both melee
and ranged simultaneously, toss in some magic, etc.  How the players
"request" such things is something to work out.  It might be implicit in
their behavior or location, or they might literally call out for a certain
type of encounter.

JB