I think static content is more the problem with MMOs than the AI. Looking at things from outside the box, do you really want an AI that, for example, stops using frost abilities because you have frost protection? Didn't you just nullify all the work I put into protecting myself?

There's a fine balance between challenge and just being downright mean. There needs to be a feeling of reward for a player who does things right and can utterly dominate a situation because of it. Certainly they will learn the magic method of defeating a boss to where it becomes trivial, but I think that's part of the Static content problem and not a problem with the AI itself.

Personally my problem with Dungeon Crawls in MMOs is the "Trickle" problem. You walk into a base and see monsters around you standing and having a conversation, you really don't feel like you just infiltrated an enemy stronghold where everyone would be on alert. I think there needs to be more dynamics on that front to bring immersion.

I think static content is more the problem with MMOs than the AI. Looking at things from outside the box, do you really want an AI that, for example, stops using frost abilities because you have frost protection? Didn't you just nullify all the work I put into protecting myself?

If they don't cast the frost spell because you have frost protection, then it is doing its job. If that is the primary attack of the enemy, then you are winning because of the fact that you protected yourself.

There's a fine balance between challenge and just being downright mean. There needs to be a feeling of reward for a player who does things right and can utterly dominate a situation because of it. Certainly they will learn the magic method of defeating a boss to where it becomes trivial, but I think that's part of the Static content problem and not a problem with the AI itself.

I'm not talking about being mean, I'm talking about making the AI more intelligent. Why do the players need to dominate a situation? For me once a boss is trivial to kill it becomes boring shortly after. What I'm attempting to find out is if there's a way to make it possible for the strategies to be more dynamic. Think about battlegrounds when you're fighting against other players, there are multiple strategies that can win. Players try out different strategies and when they find one that works they continue with that. If at some point the opposing team effectively counters their strategy they begin searching for a new one again. AI in raid encounters use 1 strategy once players find out how to counter it they post it online in a video everyone reads it and spends a few weeks practicing and then the boss is on farm status. There doesn't have to be a "Magic Method" of defeating a boss you've just been brainwashed into thinking that's how it should be.

Personally my problem with Dungeon Crawls in MMOs is the "Trickle" problem. You walk into a base and see monsters around you standing and having a conversation, you really don't feel like you just infiltrated an enemy stronghold where everyone would be on alert. I think there needs to be more dynamics on that front to bring immersion.

I agree with this. I think its funny how if you're 51 meters away from the NPC he does nothing and suddenly at 50 meters you become a threat... Shouldn't it be obvious that if you're accompanied by 20 other players that you're obviously going to attack? Maybe if you're alone the NPC isn't threatened as much.

I think its funny how if you're 51 meters away from the NPC he does nothing and suddenly at 50 meters you become a threat... Shouldn't it be obvious that if you're accompanied by 20 other players that you're obviously going to attack? Maybe if you're alone the NPC isn't threatened as much.

If the NPC only has two states - Idle or Attack - the transition will always be abrupt.

[quote name='bwight' timestamp='1351178124' post='4993816']
I think its funny how if you're 51 meters away from the NPC he does nothing and suddenly at 50 meters you become a threat... Shouldn't it be obvious that if you're accompanied by 20 other players that you're obviously going to attack? Maybe if you're alone the NPC isn't threatened as much.

If the NPC only has two states - Idle or Attack - the transition will always be abrupt.
[/quote]

He's not talking about the transition, but rather the use of an arbitrary trigger point such as "x distance". (Again, this is something that I've covered repeatedly in my lectures.) If a trigger does not reasonably map over onto one that we would use as people (e.g. arbitrary distance), then it seems "wrong" to us. OTOH, if you use something that people use (e.g. LOS), then we feel more comfortable with it. It seems "normal". In fact, the more "normal" that AI behavior is, the less we notice it because it is "doing what it is supposed to do."

I'm not talking about being mean, I'm talking about making the AI more intelligent. Why do the players need to dominate a situation? For me once a boss is trivial to kill it becomes boring shortly after. What I'm attempting to find out is if there's a way to make it possible for the strategies to be more dynamic. Think about battlegrounds when you're fighting against other players, there are multiple strategies that can win. Players try out different strategies and when they find one that works they continue with that. If at some point the opposing team effectively counters their strategy they begin searching for a new one again. AI in raid encounters use 1 strategy once players find out how to counter it they post it online in a video everyone reads it and spends a few weeks practicing and then the boss is on farm status. There doesn't have to be a "Magic Method" of defeating a boss you've just been brainwashed into thinking that's how it should be.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The thing that makes for Sid's "series of interesting decisions" is if the opponent (human or AI) is making interesting decisions as well. It is the combinatorial explosion of this potential state space that makes things engaging rather than "read the script; play your part."

I would let the boss be aware of why this one person (the tank, the one who is taking most/all of the damage) doesn't die and why is everyone back to full health after a powerful attack? It's that healer, let's focus on killing that! No heals means players going down, results in victorious boss!

In this specific case, the whole structure on which the game is based is destroyed by a boss that only figured out that there is someone healing, making it very hard, near to impossible, to down this boss. So in this example it's not feasible to let the boss be aware of the roles.

This could be easily implemented with the current wow-style of raid mechanics.
The boss could go through a phase, for say 20 seconds, where he looks around for healers, instantly killing anyone who sets off a heal.
With a comment like "Wait a minute, whats going on here..." "AHA!! A HEALER!!"

Obviously this is not what u intended, but my point is if ur going to challenge the Tank-Healer-DPS(Support) paradigm u need to do it carefully and overtly or u need to recreate the way the game is played.

I think its perfectly reasonable to remove the Tank-Healer-DPS but personally i'm a pretty big fan of it. I think the healers and dps can remain unaffected. What ruins the whole AI is that the tanks have Taunts and other abilities that artificially add agro for nothing. Please, someone tell me why the boss should be attacking the tank, its not logically at all. The tanks should be trying to protect healers and create barriers and slow down bosses so people can run away. Their job is to protect healers and DPS but not necessarily by taking damage even though that could come into play a little.

An intercept ability is a good example, the boss attacks healer 1 and the tank realizes they're gunning for him so they attempt to intercept the damage by placing themselves between the boss and healers.

I could not agree more, and this should be possible.

Most of the current ways things are done in MMOs are to overcome obstacles involving latency. Your ideas on positioning (intercepting attackers, physically blocking attacks, etc...) are of course good ideas, but they tend to fall apart in a simulation where oft-times large latency is present, which is pretty much every MMO.

This argument is outdated, the MMO Darkfall did this very well, free-target magic spells and arrows that can be dodged or avoided, with massive amount of players on the screen at the same time. (youtube) Tera Online has a hybrid free-target and targetable spells and abilities.
Graphically these games could not be more different, Tera looks beautiful and Darkfall looks like a PS2 game, and therein lies the challange. Most MMOs fade players out at a certain range, so while u can see a large valley in front of u, u have no idea whether there are players or mobs there as they wont exist on ur client till u get much closer.

Darkfall avoided this, and so did the MMO Tabula Rasa, which allowed players to play more or less like a shooter. My point is that as as soon as the player can aim for himself, and not rely on TAB targeting, he will start to challenge the range of his attacks to get a better advantage.

This is a challenge for the Engine, obviously, and one so far completly overlooked by most Triple A MMO studios unfortunately.

But think of the possibilities, to actively dodge spells, or block them with shields or even weapons is just the beginning.
What if a spell hits another spell? Ice vs Fire, Lightning vs Acid? What if clashing these powers together caused random explosions, or in high end cases could even summon elementals or planar beings, rendering the fabric of reality asunder with their power etc..

The mind boggles at the random possibilities in PVP or vs Raid Bosses under such mechanics.

But more to the point, look at what Tera Online did with boss fights, every attack follows the animation, so most of them can be dodged by looking at where the boss is targeting. The Secret World did a hybrid version of this where, under some attacks, they will paint the target area in front of the mob giving the player a warning to get out of the way. (only for some attacks though).

At this point the Tank could be designed around a Snare ability, ensuring the boss cannot move fast enough to catch the healers or DPS casters and would be forced to focus on the tank be default, whereas the tank would have to keep agro only agains the other Melee DPS, or perhaps do away with agro all together by putting the onerous all on the DPSers.

Or, now that i think about it, use an ability from the Warhammer MMO where some tanks could share the damage of their assisted target, this ability could be applied to an AOE around the tank for instance.

-Exo

[quote name='RevenantBob' timestamp='1351009742' post='4993134']
There's a fine balance between challenge and just being downright mean. There needs to be a feeling of reward for a player who does things right and can utterly dominate a situation because of it. Certainly they will learn the magic method of defeating a boss to where it becomes trivial, but I think that's part of the Static content problem and not a problem with the AI itself.

I'm not talking about being mean, I'm talking about making the AI more intelligent. Why do the players need to dominate a situation? For me once a boss is trivial to kill it becomes boring shortly after. What I'm attempting to find out is if there's a way to make it possible for the strategies to be more dynamic. Think about battlegrounds when you're fighting against other players, there are multiple strategies that can win. Players try out different strategies and when they find one that works they continue with that. If at some point the opposing team effectively counters their strategy they begin searching for a new one again. AI in raid encounters use 1 strategy once players find out how to counter it they post it online in a video everyone reads it and spends a few weeks practicing and then the boss is on farm status. There doesn't have to be a "Magic Method" of defeating a boss you've just been brainwashed into thinking that's how it should be.

Personally my problem with Dungeon Crawls in MMOs is the "Trickle" problem. You walk into a base and see monsters around you standing and having a conversation, you really don't feel like you just infiltrated an enemy stronghold where everyone would be on alert. I think there needs to be more dynamics on that front to bring immersion.

I agree with this. I think its funny how if you're 51 meters away from the NPC he does nothing and suddenly at 50 meters you become a threat... Shouldn't it be obvious that if you're accompanied by 20 other players that you're obviously going to attack? Maybe if you're alone the NPC isn't threatened as much.
[/quote]


I too have been disappointed by how feeble the game situations have become in MMORPGs

The problem is with the shooting gallery arrangement that most MMORPGs have where they have to offer thousands of kills easily found (I call it the minefield of monsters). It makes it easy for the company scripters with their trigger area activate and then charge at player 30 feet away - very little AI processing needed and keeps the 14 year old mentalities happy thinking theyve achieved something because of their easy kill count.

Ive seen a tactic of a enemy NPC to run back and get reinforcements (forcing you to kill it quick before it does) but only in a few places.
If they did something like that all over or a much larger activation radius (Im apalled at how small the radius has gotten - now 20 feet away in many cases in one game) then the player would have to deal with alot more enemies simultaneously than the level content is usually balanced for (fight 1 ok, fight 2 a challenge, fight 3 and die pretty quick).

A Raid can be (have been) better choreographed and cut out interference by uninvolved players, but they largely work with similar scripting relying on simple initial placement to appear smart and then some special logic of when to apply special attacks (or to have add spawns thrown in at certain times)

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The whole game style would have to be rebuilt to make most of the map have 'raid like' situation (an improved raid-like...) and more :

The combat would largely have to somehow be instanced so that griefer players cant interfere (and you know they will if allowed)

Respawns would be eliminated within the battle (stupid that the companies still have them pop in right next to you when a simple programmed check could stop that) I never did figure out why they think if you are having difficult slow time fighing that they should punish you by respawning enemies youve already killed.

Combat would have 'frontage' (front side rear) that effects tactics and bodies block movement
-- getting on their weak side as a tactic
-- using player movements (or actions/abilities)to block enemy movements
-- allowing a real front line and behind areas for the appropriate classes
-- maneuverbility and movement suddenly has a real effect in combat

Player needs additional actions to use in the tactics to counter the enemies 'smarter' actions
and the enemies of couse have a wider range of actions (and the more complex AI to do ALL this stuff)

Change the encounters so that the baddies are in fewer concentrated areas (no pointlesss illogical minefields) or huge bodycounts
- enemies often are in groups (you have to be careful to avoid or get then a few at a time)
- they communicate cooperatively so you have to counter that (they do calling for reinforcements)
- Enemies do real patrols to keep them moving instead of being murder mannekins
- they can utilize (via the game mechanics) defensive positions/factors (which is were all that magic crap comes in to nullify)

You get alot more experience (and the difficulty to justify it) from fewer baddies (Ive almost killed more orcs in LOTRO than there were in all the movies just by myself - and that includes the armies...) and more interesting mini battles (even just 1 on 1 fights)

Different foes use different tactics/abilities and you would progressively learn them as you progress in the game -- the boss over there uses something different then you may have to go back several times to figure out ways of countering it and have many alternatives (and not just the action of one class as the 'key')

Battles/combat need more outcomes than "you killed it or it killed you" if players are to be able to 'go back to try again' frequently.

Cooperation between players is good (more interesting) but its largely not practical these days for much of the game - so the players characters have to be more general in abilities (the classic divided team roles cant work any more except if they are amplified for real group 'raids' within the new changes)

Because of move and countermove variations the same situation will likely play differently each time - with more 'thinking on your feet' to counter the situations than the rediculous raid situations where players know exactly what to do at every scripted step that runs like clockwork.

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Unfortunately to control the NPC baddies now they have to do AI logic about 1000 times more complicated than the feeble scripting they do now.
Every special case of special abilities/different actions (for players and NPCs) adds more code (ontop of customizing types of enemies to their type specific tactics)

Similarly much more complex game mechanics for combat and movement and interactions with terrain (all still having to work within the latency issue) has to be coded (and all the debugging/balancing that goes with it)

Can most players handle this kind of more realistic combat ? - is it too intense, too easy to mess up? No big body-counts? Not enough certainty?

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Unfortunately the hardest thing of all will be breaking players out of their largely mindless mode of playing they have had pushed on them to get them to accept a better game.

The whole game style would have to be rebuilt to make most of the map have 'raid like' situation (an improved raid-like...) and more

Exactly. Again this brings me back to Tabula Rasa, an MMO Hybrid-shooter. (that unfortunatly had to shut its server down after breaking the most important rule of MMOs for over 6 months, no endgame). But the game was based entirely on LOS as opposed to aggro range, forcing players to constantly look for cover and try to bottleneck as much as possible. The games design made this possible from the ground up, AOE dmg and AOE healing was easy and spammable, making players completely overpowered in most MMOs, but allowed the game designers to set up combat with swarms of mobs at the same time it all more or less evened out.

TR never did have raids or even bosses in their dungeons, a massive oversight in my eyes, but I remain convinced it was a superior way to treat an MMO.

-Exo

I talked about this at the GDC 2012 AI Summit. Suffice it to say this is a combination of design problems and technical challenges. The slides are available for free here but the talk itself goes into much more detail.

I'd be happy to rehash the high-level content of the talk for anyone interested :-)

AI in raid encounters use 1 strategy once players find out how to counter it they post it online in a video everyone reads it and spends a few weeks practicing and then the boss is on farm status. There doesn't have to be a "Magic Method" of defeating a boss you've just been brainwashed into thinking that's how it should be.

To point out the obvious, the primary goal of a player who watches YouTube videos to find the "Magic Method" to defeat a boss and to farm it, is not a dynamic, challenging experience. They may want to experience the whole game in a short time period, to prove they can excel at something, or to generate money on eBay. Even back in the early console days, many games came with cheat codes, and it was up to the player whether to use them. Whatever best entertains each player.