Has there ever been an A.I. smart enough to avoid the players line of fire?

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
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Serious question. Any time from DOS 1 to Windows 10. Any console. Real time, not turn based.
Cuz if there is, I've never seen it.

Got to thinking about this whilst playing Fallout 4 today. Every shooter and real time RPG I can remember playing always has idiots running back and forth right where I'm shooting. Even in games where they can use cover, they still pop up at the worst time and run straight into bullets, both allied and opposed.

In multiplayer games I normally see humans try to avoid this, except for noobies and they learn pretty darn fast. Even if they arent smart enough to communicate with their team mates, they know better than to run in front of a fire fight.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,198
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There is enough of material in this subject for months-worth of typing and debating.

But - ultimately - and to make it short, the right answer to your question in the title is: No. (it's way more complex than just "no", but yeah, it comes down to that).

* If you feel like reading more... well there's a bit more on that below, but feel free to be content with the answer just being No *

A more comprehensible way to put it other than just say "no" would be to say that there's been no A.I. coders out there who 'dared' making their A.I. "smart enough". Because in A.I. coding, from what I've often read, the 'toughest' part isn't the coding language, but it is to "dumb down" the A.I. enough so that it doesn't murder you with light-speed decision-making and laser-perfect aim-bot headshot you the moment one pixel from your head's hitbox shows up in its line of sight. If the coders don't do the "dumbing down" part, A.I. would essentially not even have to avoid you, per se, because you'd be dead already. The real topic really is about the coders themselves and their apparent incapacity through their coding knowledge and/or their actual will to do so in coding A.I. that acts intelligently ("believably human"-like, making decisions and doing actions that are 'plausible' if it was a real person) while keeping a certain balance for pure game-play purposes. In short, the A.I. NEEDS to be somewhat stupid for most gamers, otherwise no one would play video games. Now, of course, this is an exaggerated statement. But it's the gist of the idea. If freakin' Goombas were to form group tactics against Mario no one would have ever beaten World 1-1 back in 1985 and the franchise wouldn't have lasted a single year. That's also why demons and zombie soldiers in DOOM back in the 90s weren't coded to aim-bot with perfect precision, and instead the difficulty settings mostly increased numbers and spawn points to compensate. I could also mention, for example, how in the first Halo game the "Elite" Covenants are significantly better-coded than the "Grunts", and that's fine (because it 'fits' with their respective context in the lore, their species and their actual chain of command in that universe; the Elite are... well, elite troopers and are intelligent, while the Grunts are easily afraid, pretty dumb but can overwhelm you with higher numbers to compensate). There's many examples like that out there that do actually make sense (that in itself could be its own subject: the distinction of A.I. coding for specific types of enemies in games where it makes sense to code enemies differently than one another).

As I mentioned, the subject is complex. There's a lot to consider with it comes to the actual goal of the game. Taking my DOOM example above, zombies cannot and should not 'normally' be intelligent, so of course their A.I. is designed as such, so there's design decisions that goes along with the actual type of game you're making, and what 'x' enemies' should do versus 'y' enemies later on in other levels, et cetera. To use your Fallout 4 example, now in that game there's A.I. for a good bunch of different situations, conditions and enemy types (giant cockroach, or Follower, or wasteland bandit, or A.I. for a scripted scene... there's a lot to consider), but when it comes down to the shooting part (Combat A.I., specifically) then it's definitely not the best example out there.

But let's pretend a moment that in Fallout 4 basically all the bandits in the Wasteland would actually be very intelligent. They would use cover and NOT pop-up their head every 7 seconds to make sure you could head-shot them. Let's say they would actually use the environment to enter buildings (if present in the vicinity) and go up the 2nd floor, or even up on the roof to have the high ground advantage (which would have been done intentionally as part of their A.I. system) and take out a weapon that they had on them that works better at long range (a sniper rifle, shot from the roof tops; again would be part of their A.I.) and doing all that while maybe communicating their decisions to nearby bandits while telling the others to flank you on ground level, while the others recieveing the order respond to their leader and as they do you'd actually see them flanking you, maybe even crouching their way to you carefully (even if it was just to mimic their "knowledge" that their footsteps sounds might reveal their positions to you). Let's say that most A.I. (at least when it comes to human character A.Is, because from this point on we could start talking about "alien" character A.Is in other types of games, "mutants" or other types of creatures A.Is, and so on) in Fallout 4 and in most games this decade (at least) would have A.I. like that. Would it be fun? I suppose that's the ultimate question. It would be fun to see A.I. act intelligently (especially in group), but how much of it would actually be balanced? At that point, what would be YOUR chances as the gamer here? The A.I. must have "their chance", sure. Now, they don't have to always just stand there and basically walk towards you as you proceed to make multiple bullet holes in their skull (as it is today and as it has been for the better parts of the past 25 years of video gaming history). So the real problem comes down to how "intelligently" is the A.I. being coded, and how much of that whole A.I. system are the coders willing to 'dumb it down' to balance it.

Now it is THAT whole 'streamlining' process of "A.I. intelligence VS end result balance for gameplay" that has been the issue for a solid 90% of all existing video games with enemies in them, since two decades or so. I DO understand of course why A.I. could not have possibly been 'too intelligent' (and really didn't NEED to be) anyway in old school gaming (first few generations, basically) until around the 32-bit years finally arrived. However, starting at a certain point (around 3D-acclerated PC gaming, PS1 / Saturn / 3DO years) there's an unmistakable pattern in A.I. "progression" up until this very day. The pattern usually consists of increasing A.I. aiming (or aiming 'speed'), the Health of enemies and the damage (or "DPS") done to YOU from them on increased difficulty levels of almost every games there is. There's an extremely low number of games where increasing difficulty levels will actually result in BETTER overall A.I. in decision making, movement (taking cover, staying in cover longer, etc), group A.I. decision making and so on. The 'pattern' I speak of for A.I. is present to this day, most developers are going in with a very simplified, straightforward methodology to give the 'impression' of increased challenge through simply increasing your enemies HP, and damage (instead of making the A.I. progressively better overall). I can already think of that game that probably nobody ever heard of, heck I'm not even sure if I'll get its name right, it's something along the lines of The Legend of the Princess' Wild Breath, or something like that. Anyway, in that game there's a "Game+" mode, and instead of making most enemies more intelligent all it does is increase spawn points, change some enemy types around, and add HP Regeneration to all enemies in the game just like that, magic stuff. Taking a wonderful game I myself do love as an example here: Borderlands 2... well I absolutely adore that game, but the Ultimate Vault Hunter mode (difficulty setting #3) is a very good way to take your gamers for complete idiots and show how little effort went into creating something fresh and new with their artificial intelligence. All the difficulty does is force you into one specific gameplay mechanic to Slag opponents first, along with giving enemies HP Regeneration, there it is again... now THAT is the pattern I'm talking about.

So anyway, I could keep on going with this. It's a complex subject, but I'll repeat my main point again to conclude: No.
 
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maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
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Will computer games ever be able to simulate AI eyesight, and the need to actually see/hear enemies to shoot them? That is, you usually can't verify a target without looking directly at it, which is part of the delay for humans, but is not usually an obstacle for current AI as they just turn the corner and aimbot you.
 

DeathReborn

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 2005
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Skyrim is a bit silly in that a follower will actively get in the path of your arrows/magic and the enemies can dodge while looking the other way. I don't think any AI is yet competent enough to reliably avoid line of fire, friendly or otherwise.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Agreed with @Zenoth no. Even the most vaunted of AI's (to which I've heard F.E.A.R and HL1/2 referenced, and to which I disagree) it's fairly 'garbage' in implementation. Even a most rudimentary usage of the surrounding terrain/infrastructure usually confuses the utter crap out of AI pathing and causes them to do stupid stuff like run back and forth or throw grenades at boxes (which promptly fall to their own feet).

AI is terrible, the best that AI designers seem to be able to perform is rudimentary path-finding, scripted sequences (box-jumpers, i'm looking at you), and artificial capability via perfect aim.
 

IronWing

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Jul 20, 2001
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Will computer games ever be able to simulate AI eyesight, and the need to actually see/hear enemies to shoot them? That is, you usually can't verify a target without looking directly at it, which is part of the delay for humans, but is not usually an obstacle for current AI as they just turn the corner and aimbot you.
Wolf 3D had a system for requiring the soldiers to "hear" you based on a floor type scheme. If an enemy soldier was standing on the same floor type as you, it would respond to your gun fire, no matter where you and it were on the level. This allowed designers to have far off enemies run toward the action. Conversely, an enemy could be right in front of you with its back turned and if it was on a different floor type it would be oblivious to your actions.

Wolf 3D and Dishonored both had overt systems for the enemy "seeing" you. Wolf's was very primitive with a fixed viewport in front of the enemy. In Dishonored, the viewport moved with the position of an enemy's head.
 

BSim500

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Jun 5, 2013
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Will computer games ever be able to simulate AI eyesight, and the need to actually see/hear enemies to shoot them? That is, you usually can't verify a target without looking directly at it, which is part of the delay for humans, but is not usually an obstacle for current AI as they just turn the corner and aimbot you.
Exactly like a human? Probably not. It can be faked well enough with a delay that mimics typical human identification time. One of my personal favorite game engines of all time though is The Dark Engine (Thief 1-2) that was specifically written with audio physics playing a much larger part in detection than visuals, ie, accurately 3D modelled audio propagation could change whether enemies could hear you depending on objects between you and them occlusion / or distance diffracting the sound vs simple binary hard cutoffs. Enemies have several "states" of awareness for both visual and hearing (relaxed, unsure, active searching, combat, etc) which worked well. It also had a visibility gem with 11 different levels of visibility, and depending on lighting conditions, some of the borderline visible ones would trigger a "thought I saw... something..." comment from an enemy who would then lean forward and do a short 2-3s search that would either result in "OK, there's definitely something there" more cautious state (though still below combat) or "Nothing there now..." and a return to relaxed state.

This accuracy of placement, enemy response to sound, combined with stuff like Aureal 3D / EAX with HTRF (Dolby Headphone stuff) sounds highly impressive and faked the process of "seeing / hearing" target identification well enough for a 20 year old game. Plug in your headphones and watch this vid (uses HTRF tech like "Dolby Headphone" so it simply won't work with speakers).

Stuff to look out for in the vid:-

First 30s = Audio accuracy (eg, firing an arrow into the wall above you, or the box into the pond just below, then quickly looking right and the impact sounds as if it's coming not just left but actually above / below you). Or the 360 turn near the flies on the corpse.

2:10-2:45 = The quiet "groans" of the zombie become moderately more "alert" as you pass under the light when it's facing you at a distance and your visibility meter increases temporarily (because it "sees" something well enough to increase its alert state from 1/4 to 2/4), then it returns to a more subtle level as you pass out of sight. Then the booby trapped skull that explodes behind you. And at 4:00 the tempo of the zombies groans increases as it becomes becomes fully hostile and aware.

5:40-6:10 - The alert states of the guards change as they hear you make the tiniest step on the metal plate (from footsteps on softer wood being below their threshold of hearing) followed by a whistle at 6m that's more echoey in a factory room with metal surfaces than earlier one at 5m in a more open room.

8:00 - After the pursuit as you head into a sewer, the alarm sound comes from not where the alarm is, but the direction of the passageway you passed though, and the further you go, the more the higher frequencies become more muffled faster than lower ones (vs a simple binary hard on/off cutoff after a certain distance).

If a 20 year old game can pull this off on a sub-1GHz single-core CPU, then the capability is certainly there for modern high-quality audio AI. But as we saw with the "Thief" 4 (2014) sequel, even after 16 years of "progress" and a newer engine, you can take something a 90's game did really well, and dumb it down to borderline retarded levels (light gem states reduced from 11 to only 3, complex audio physics scrapped and replaced with a laughably broken mess) out of sheer laziness / cheap & nasty franchise "cash in", and The Casual Audience (tm) will accept significantly worse gameplay purely on the back of "sparkly bits"...
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Exactly like a human? Probably not. It can be faked well enough with a delay that mimics typical human identification time. One of my personal favorite game engines of all time though is The Dark Engine (Thief 1-2) that was specifically written with audio physics playing a much larger part in detection than visuals, ie, accurately 3D modelled audio propagation could change whether enemies could hear you depending on objects between you and them occlusion / or distance diffracting the sound vs simple binary hard cutoffs. Enemies have several "states" of awareness for both visual and hearing (relaxed, unsure, active searching, combat, etc) which worked well. It also had a visibility gem with 11 different levels of visibility, and depending on lighting conditions, some of the borderline visible ones would trigger a "thought I saw... something..." comment from an enemy who would then lean forward and do a short 2-3s search that would either result in "OK, there's definitely something there" more cautious state (though still below combat) or "Nothing there now..." and a return to relaxed state.

This accuracy of placement, enemy response to sound, combined with stuff like Aureal 3D / EAX with HTRF (Dolby Headphone stuff) sounds highly impressive and faked the process of "seeing / hearing" target identification well enough for a 20 year old game. Plug in your headphones and watch this vid (uses HTRF tech like "Dolby Headphone" so it simply won't work with speakers).

Stuff to look out for in the vid:-

First 30s = Audio accuracy (eg, firing an arrow into the wall above you, or the box into the pond just below, then quickly looking right and the impact sounds as if it's coming not just left but actually above / below you). Or the 360 turn near the flies on the corpse.

2:10-2:45 = The quiet "groans" of the zombie become moderately more "alert" as you pass under the light when it's facing you at a distance and your visibility meter increases temporarily (because it "sees" something well enough to increase its alert state from 1/4 to 2/4), then it returns to a more subtle level as you pass out of sight. Then the booby trapped skull that explodes behind you. And at 4:00 the tempo of the zombies groans increases as it becomes becomes fully hostile and aware.

5:40-6:10 - The alert states of the guards change as they hear you make the tiniest step on the metal plate (from footsteps on softer wood being below their threshold of hearing) followed by a whistle at 6m that's more echoey in a factory room with metal surfaces than earlier one at 5m in a more open room.

8:00 - After the pursuit as you head into a sewer, the alarm sound comes from not where the alarm is, but the direction of the passageway you passed though, and the further you go, the more the higher frequencies become more muffled faster than lower ones (vs a simple binary hard on/off cutoff after a certain distance).

If a 20 year old game can pull this off on a sub-1GHz single-core CPU, then the capability is certainly there for modern high-quality audio AI. But as we saw with the "Thief" 4 (2014) sequel, even after 16 years of "progress" and a newer engine, you can take something a 90's game did really well, and dumb it down to borderline retarded levels (light gem states reduced from 11 to only 3, complex audio physics scrapped and replaced with a laughably broken mess) out of sheer laziness / cheap & nasty franchise "cash in", and The Casual Audience (tm) will accept significantly worse gameplay purely on the back of "sparkly bits"...
Great post, Thief 1/2 are among my all-time favorite games, and it's been a tough slog finding ones as immersive as these. The AI was pretty fantastic in those, insomuch as what the AI could do at the time. With very few exceptions, it acted convincingly when it came to observations of light/sound, and general situational awareness.

System Shock 2 used the same engine, but unfortunately most of that game was hallways and a fair percentage of high-light environments. It was a great game mind you, just didn't get a chance to show off the AI's situational awareness as much as T1/2.
 
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