Was AI better in old games?

[joea]

Well? :hmm:

[flintlock]

I feel this is much too generalized a question.

The strength of a game's AI is title specific, and depends on the complexity of the title and the skill and talent of the AI designers and programmers. Some old titles had a strong AI, many didn't. The same is true of today's contemporary titles. Unless you're comparing apples to apples, your question is akin to inquiring whether or not the horsepower was better in older cars.

In answer to your question: Yes. No. Well, it depends.

--

[joea]

Humphs, ok was AI better in the old WWII subsims, let's compare Silent Service and Silent Hunter I vs. SH2 and DC vs. SH3 and 4?

[hoagiedriver]

I can't remember the AI from Silent Service II good enough to compare, but todays games load a lot faster than that one did!

I swear it took 5 minutes to load.

That sucked.

[Sailor Steve]

I don't remember the AI from Silent Service and SS2 (it's been a long, long, long time) but I remember other disappointments with those games; still loved them, though.

The AI in Aces of the Deep was nice, with escorts ranging from stupid to scary.

Silent Hunter's escorts were a bit too good, but its worst flaw was that if you were submerged and had escaped the escorts, going to a higher time compression too soon would make them hear you and come right back to the attack. Very odd.

[Rilder]

I suppose its kinda relative, in older games theres less for the AI to do, and such its probably less to code its tactics, and as we get further in the future more stuff has to be programed, so if you take an AI coder and have him recode an older games AI, he might be able spend the same time coding an AI with more tactics and such, and have him code a newer game were theres alot more an NPC or whatever does and he might just get basic functions and such to work.


Though I admit I haven't played alot of Pre-2000 games.

[Lagger123987]

Old games suck except for silent hunter and aces of the deep.

[ReallyDedPoet]

I suppose its kinda relative, in older games theres less for the AI to do,

This :roll:, with time the complexities have increased.

RDP

[desertisland]

Something about AI.

I forgot the term, but programmers are using it to describe the attempt the reproduce realistic human behavior, as oppose to creating a formidable opponent.

I actually prefer this sort of computer opponents over a super-strong AI. Opponents like these can be bluffed by feints or resort to erratic -- sometimes effective -- reactions when under pressure.

[stabiz]

I dont think the AI was better before, its just that that part of the industry has improved the least.

[Biggles]

Old games suck except for silent hunter and aces of the deep.

oh please...don't give me any of that!

Total Annihilation!
Empire Earth!
Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1 and 2)
Medieval: Total War

Some ol' games.....TA is the best RTS this far, since it's so fast paced, brain dead and totaly enjoyable!

[fatty]

Really AI has stayed about the same. I have yet to play a game where my computer opponent will analyze and predict my moves. and effectively counter them. The only exception is the Chessmaster series.

[GlobalExplorer]

I dont think so, but I think developers used to invest much more time into balancing and fine tuning the AI / gameplay which gave the player the feeling that the AI was just right because the level of difficulty was just right. Technically, the huge advances in CPU speed and AI algorithms should rule out any possibility that the AI nowadays could be worse than 10 years ago.

Generally my impression is that most new games nowadays come with pretty amazing engines (including AI) but completely lacking the last stage - balancing - which takes a surpisingly large amout of time - but is just absolutely crucial to the general experience.

[FAdmiral]

Another thing I have not seen discussed here is the text-file variation
in most new games now. This influences the AI to a great degree.
Older games did not have this feature. You got the AI that came with the
game, period. Now the modders can make text changes and give the AI
different parameters. Like in SH4, you can adjust how the AI ships &
planes view the players sub and how they react to it....

JIM

[bradclark1]

Generally my impression is that most new games nowadays come with pretty amazing engines (including AI) but completely lacking the last stage - balancing - which takes a surpisingly large amout of time - but is just absolutely crucial to the general experience.
There you go! That hit the nail on the head.

[PeriscopeDepth]

I think when graphics were more primitive, developers put much more effort into AI than they do now.

PD

[nikimcbee]

I think when graphics were more primitive, developers put much more effort into AI than they do now.

PD

My thoughts excatly. It seems like today's AI is either too smart or too dumb. But back when I was playin Silent Service, SHI, I wasn't as sensitive to AI. The first bad AI I noticed was SH2.

[PeriscopeDepth]

AI wasn't really better then. It just wasn't flat out broken. It was convincing and well tested.

PD

[GlobalExplorer]

AI wasn't really better then. It just wasn't flat out broken. It was convincing and well tested.

PD

Yes, thats what I meant, too. It's less a question of cpu power / algorithms, but of software quality / testing time.

[ausraider]

AI wasn't really better then. It just wasn't flat out broken. It was convincing and well tested.

PD

Yep, I third that.

Its got more commercial now, IMO.
So they're firing the titles out as quickly as possible - and with the internet now being the late coders refuge - they can release them without perfect testing - relying on the now traditional promise of a STBR downloadable patch.

Also, they are only PC Games-Sims, but I think AI in combat is relatively simple.
You stand and fight, you run for cover, you investigate a search pattern in the area of a particular trigger.
I wouldn't expect targets to behave very differently in real life.
The element of surprise can make your target look pretty stupid.
If it looks like the AI is blazing 100% on all 5 or 6 senses - we would be complaining that it is unrealistically too hard - as it usually is on the HARD setting.

The number crunching is really going to be down to animating behaviour and graphic-sound co-ordination with those animations and damage models as they get ever more detailed, supposedly.

What I really wonder at - when I get that ole 'Games ain't what they used to be.' feeling is the seemingly heavy reliance on older texture heavy graphics formats.
Its a great selling point that the game requires 1GB of RAM and a 250MB card recommended.
But in some instances - all they have to do is ante up the resolution in the textures.But it doesn't make for better graphics really...
A kind of Corporate graphics feel has crept in to newer games generally, and this I suppose is due to the graphics card explosion a few years ago.
I believe Graphics are designed now for the card as opposed to the machine, something that pre-graphics card conventions were free of.
If you go back to the days of Sub-Wars 2015 or Quake I, graphics cards weren't an issue and the effort was on algorithms and programming - so more incentive for new ways to do things graphically.
But a particular example in the early graphics card days is Unreal or Hidden and Dangerous.
H&D still looks and feels impressive to me.
And then of course Half Life set a new standard - but overall game enjoyment is of course alot more to do with than just graphics, which is why those games Sub-Wars 2015 - H&D - Half-Life stand out IMO.
However, Far Cry showed how good things could be with better gear or how 'bad' things could 'git' with better AI (hehe).:nope:

IMO graphics innovation in general is bottle-necked, with the way things have gone commercially visavi the now booming graphic card industry.

Just my amateur opinion.

Ausraider.

PS:
I know this is an AI thread - but my graphics comments are in respect to what we really mean nowadays regarding AI - that is modelling natural behaviour, which can only really be reflected graphically.
The first time you see the icy breath of a Tango through your Walther sniper sight in Rogue Spear, and then see him light up a smoke, are memorable momments.
But you don't give a damn what he does once the shootin' starts, as long as he goes down!

Regarding heavy platform sims - like Sub Command etc. I can't really say what the AI is doing there. Is it simply trigger this - trigger that -trigger the other thing, or are there other more complex combat AI routines programmed in?
EG: The enemy platforms are limited to the Equipment they have on board and have to perform their search and aquire reactions in respect of that equipment - ie. search routines for the periscope - radar - sonar at different angles and functioning exactly as the player would use his within the game. At random times etc.
Then one could see the 'Unseen' AI getting fairly complex.

[GlobalExplorer]

You might want o have a look at OOlite - the freelance effort to create a new Elite - it shows that with a good use of state machines even a single programmer can make games with good AI.

Ausraider, concerning your comments about graphics, i should note that I dont understand why I should believe that game logic / AI is left out nowadays because it is hard. I actually think that doing graphics is much harder. While I personally could certainly improve most graphic intense games with much better game logic, and without overworking myself, I found that making programs with 3D graphics is tedious - I spend way too much time with try and error (mostly to check how something looks) - until in the end I could puke when I look at my program, because I cant stand it anymore.

So I am not sure if I understand the loathness to write good AI/game logic, maybe they just hire the wrong people, or maybe they are really telling them that making a game deep is "bad".

[FAdmiral]

I spoke to John Tiller a few years back about creating an AI that would
nearly be like a human. He said that it would probably take around 10 years to program and it would be a monster in size. I think gaming devs are moving in
that direction but it won't happen overnight...

JIM

[GlobalExplorer]

I spoke to John Tiller a few years back about creating an AI that would
nearly be like a human. He said that it would probably take around 10 years to program and it would be a monster in size. I think gaming devs are moving in
that direction but it won't happen overnight...

JIM

If you want human like AI - it will probably be cheapest to hire some guy from China who plays the AI at night.

[fatty]

I suppose "human" is a bit subjective though... I know some pretty damned stupid humans who play games much worse than modern AI :D

[FAdmiral]

That must be the Chinese guy that GlobalExplorer was talking about....

JIM

[Heibges]

You can really see this in sports games. Some have gotten better some have gotten worse.

In Baseball there is not thinking. Videogame baseball AI has been awesome since 1992. From like 2000 to 2003, there were some crappy baseball games, but that is another story. I play MVP Baseball 2005 by EA.

In Basketball there is quite a bit of thinking. Video basketball has been awesome since 1995. Again, they had some real problems with PS2/XBOX, but I think that is because the emphasis on the regular game has changed to dunking, and the games tried to match that.

In Hockey there is quite a bit of thinking. Like basketball, the AI has been good since 1995. Unfortunately, Hockey is a 2nd Tier Sport, and less money goes into developing these games than probably the other three big sports.

In Football there is a lot of thinking and reads. Video football AI has been good since 1996. Universally, slant patterns have given the AI problems, but even this has gotten better.

[Boris]

Those comments about humans as AI just gave me a thought... why not have a game where all AI elements are played by humans. I'm not talking MMO or anything, but a singleplayer experience, where all the normal enemies within the course of the game are human controlled. The incentive for the enemies would be to piss the player off as much as possible by making it hard for him to succeed by killing him over and over again. But the player can load a save and spawn back at a point. When enemies are killed, they respawn as a new enemy.

[TLAM Strike]

Last week in DW (LWAMI) I saw a Krivak FF respond to a TLAM I fired with one of his own torpedoes, deploy his Ka-27, track my @$$ (which was running away) on his Towed Array (or maybe it was the Gresha that was tracking me) and vector his Ka-27 in for a kill using two fish dropped in 1.5nm abeam of me. So lets see a Double (or triple) team of my ownship with a text book kill. The AI may not be fantastic but damn it can be good some days. :yep:

[Heibges]

Those comments about humans as AI just gave me a thought... why not have a game where all AI elements are played by humans. I'm not talking MMO or anything, but a singleplayer experience, where all the normal enemies within the course of the game are human controlled. The incentive for the enemies would be to piss the player off as much as possible by making it hard for him to succeed by killing him over and over again. But the player can load a save and spawn back at a point. When enemies are killed, they respawn as a new enemy.

This is exactly why folks like online MP games. For instance:

1. The Battlefield series.
2. All Sports games.
3. Wolfenstein Enemy Territory with its Rube Goldberg-like missions.
4. Counterstrike/SOCOM for their real world gameplay.
5. Online flight simulators (ILS, Aces Hight, WOV etc etc etc)
6. Player vs Player mode in MMO's.