Cant have AI thats as smart as Players, while also keeping Powerful Lore figures as the NPC. Gamepla

MMOExposed · July 2011

I been doing some thinking on the topic of how a More Advanced AI for NPC would effect gameplay in most MMORPG.

I come to realize that in this situation, that NPC were as smart as a hardcore PvPer, this new advance AI would have a much greater effect on NPC that are much more powerful than their trash mob counterparts. This is when compared to Mobs and Powerful NPC from Trinity mechanics.

A Powerful Raid Boss, with Hardcore PvP skilled AI, would be nearly impossible to beat, because with their unique abilities, and massive damage, they could easily blow off healers in the group, then take out tanks and melee dps. and blast down ranged dps with long distant one shotted attacks,

Since the AI is so advanced, their is no way to control these kind of powerful mobs.

The only way NPC can have this level of AI and still be playable is if all these NPC where on a power level that was close to that of a Player group.

In a game like WoW for example, fighting Raggy with Advanced AI, would be nearly impossible due to his massive power level compared to player group. No form of Control would work for a Advanced AI power house like this that can 1 shot anybody he chooses.

But in a game like Guild Wars, which has the Boss NPC on a power level closer to that of the combined group, its much more easier to apply advanced AI.

To sum it up. Seems like a big trade off. You can have Weaker NPC with Advanced AI, or Powerful NPC with Weaker AI.

Homitu · July 2011

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post is besides just brainstorming outloud and looking for feedback?

Anyway, everything you said was fairly obvious, even if stated in such a round-about way. There are only so many ways you can balance a PvE encounter.

You can boost the enemy's health to near infinity, making the encounter an endurance race against your mana pools.
You can add an enrage timer, making the encounter a DPS race.
You can make the boss hit like a truck, thereby requiring strategic use of kiting, damage reduction cooldowns, or healing cooldowns.
You can add a bunch of environmental effects into the mix.
You can give the boss a variety of abilities, each of which vary in effect and power. To increase difficulty these abilities can be used randomly.
You can program the boss to have random aggro drops and make him untauntable. This would cause the boss to occasionally chase some of the most threatening damage dealers or healers.

There are other options as well, but you get the point. Obviously developers can program a PvE boss to be invincible if they wanted. It's not necessarily a matter of having better AI. They can program creatures to do anything. They can hike any one of these variables way up on the difficulty scale to make the encounter impossible. But that, of course, is no fun. The challenge of developing a fun, rewarding PvE encounter is to balance these variables so that the encounter feels extremely difficult, perhaps requiring dozens of attempts before eventually beating it. Then, when your group finally beats it, it should feel rewarding. If it's too hard or too easy, it won't feel rewarding. If the difficulty was just right, but what made it so was too cheesy (Ie. giving the boss 15 billion health, making the fight a 2 hour long repetative endurance/concentration battle), it also won't feel rewarding. The fight has to be balanced using all of these factors to make it feel interesting and rewarding.

Castillle · July 2011

Why would you want npcs as smart as hardcore pvpers? Make it more like casual or mid skilled pvpers and we can talk! Lol

Shizaxxx · July 2011

It has been done before - In wow.

I believe the dungeon was called ToC? (Don't remember tho), and was in Burning Crusade on those islands that came at some point.

You had to kill 5 enemies - all classes could be present (warlock, mage, priest, hunter, mage, etc.)

They used cc, healing, manaburn, pets and such. It was a reaally hard encounter on heroic, but always a new, different fight, and that was refreshing.

MMOExposed · July 2011

Originally posted by Homitu
I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post is besides just brainstorming outloud and looking for feedback?

Anyway, everything you said was fairly obvious, even if stated in such a round-about way. There are only so many ways you can balance a PvE encounter.

You can boost the enemy's health to near infinity, making the encounter an endurance race against your mana pools.

You can add an enrage timer, making the encounter a DPS race.

You can make the boss hit like a truck, thereby requiring strategic use of kiting, damage reduction cooldowns, or healing cooldowns.

You can add a bunch of environmental effects into the mix.

You can give the boss a variety of abilities, each of which vary in effect and power. To increase difficulty these abilities can be used randomly.

You can program the boss to have random aggro drops and make him untauntable. This would cause the boss to occasionally chase some of the most threatening damage dealers or healers.

There are other options as well, but you get the point. Obviously developers can program a PvE boss to be invincible if they wanted. It's not necessarily a matter of having better AI. They can program creatures to do anything. They can hike any one of these variables way up on the difficulty scale to make the encounter impossible. But that, of course, is no fun. The challenge of developing a fun, rewarding PvE encounter is to balance these variables so that the encounter feels extremely difficult, perhaps requiring dozens of attempts before eventually beating it. Then, when your group finally beats it, it should feel rewarding. If it's too hard or too easy, it won't feel rewarding. If the difficulty was just right, but what made it so was too cheesy (Ie. giving the boss 15 billion health, making the fight a 2 hour long repetative endurance/concentration battle), it also won't feel rewarding. The fight has to be balanced using all of these factors to make it feel interesting and rewarding.

What I want to know is, How do I balance a Powerful NPC boss, with the AI of a Player..

Creslin321 · July 2011

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Homitu

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post is besides just brainstorming outloud and looking for feedback?

Anyway, everything you said was fairly obvious, even if stated in such a round-about way. There are only so many ways you can balance a PvE encounter.

You can boost the enemy's health to near infinity, making the encounter an endurance race against your mana pools.

You can add an enrage timer, making the encounter a DPS race.

You can make the boss hit like a truck, thereby requiring strategic use of kiting, damage reduction cooldowns, or healing cooldowns.

You can add a bunch of environmental effects into the mix.

You can give the boss a variety of abilities, each of which vary in effect and power. To increase difficulty these abilities can be used randomly.

You can program the boss to have random aggro drops and make him untauntable. This would cause the boss to occasionally chase some of the most threatening damage dealers or healers.

There are other options as well, but you get the point. Obviously developers can program a PvE boss to be invincible if they wanted. It's not necessarily a matter of having better AI. They can program creatures to do anything. They can hike any one of these variables way up on the difficulty scale to make the encounter impossible. But that, of course, is no fun. The challenge of developing a fun, rewarding PvE encounter is to balance these variables so that the encounter feels extremely difficult, perhaps requiring dozens of attempts before eventually beating it. Then, when your group finally beats it, it should feel rewarding. If it's too hard or too easy, it won't feel rewarding. If the difficulty was just right, but what made it so was too cheesy (Ie. giving the boss 15 billion health, making the fight a 2 hour long repetative endurance/concentration battle), it also won't feel rewarding. The fight has to be balanced using all of these factors to make it feel interesting and rewarding.

What I want to know is, How do I balance a Powerful NPC boss, with the AI of a Player..

You make the boss have the same stats of a player so it's a fair fight. This is basically what Homitu was saying.

Typical MMORPG mobs have horribly predictable AI so they are balanced by making their raw stats much higher than that of the player. As you make the mob "smarter" you need to decrease its raw stats so that the fight remains challenging but not impossible.

MMOExposed · July 2011

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Homitu

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post is besides just brainstorming outloud and looking for feedback?

Anyway, everything you said was fairly obvious, even if stated in such a round-about way. There are only so many ways you can balance a PvE encounter.

You can boost the enemy's health to near infinity, making the encounter an endurance race against your mana pools.

You can add an enrage timer, making the encounter a DPS race.

You can make the boss hit like a truck, thereby requiring strategic use of kiting, damage reduction cooldowns, or healing cooldowns.

You can add a bunch of environmental effects into the mix.

You can give the boss a variety of abilities, each of which vary in effect and power. To increase difficulty these abilities can be used randomly.

You can program the boss to have random aggro drops and make him untauntable. This would cause the boss to occasionally chase some of the most threatening damage dealers or healers.

There are other options as well, but you get the point. Obviously developers can program a PvE boss to be invincible if they wanted. It's not necessarily a matter of having better AI. They can program creatures to do anything. They can hike any one of these variables way up on the difficulty scale to make the encounter impossible. But that, of course, is no fun. The challenge of developing a fun, rewarding PvE encounter is to balance these variables so that the encounter feels extremely difficult, perhaps requiring dozens of attempts before eventually beating it. Then, when your group finally beats it, it should feel rewarding. If it's too hard or too easy, it won't feel rewarding. If the difficulty was just right, but what made it so was too cheesy (Ie. giving the boss 15 billion health, making the fight a 2 hour long repetative endurance/concentration battle), it also won't feel rewarding. The fight has to be balanced using all of these factors to make it feel interesting and rewarding.

What I want to know is, How do I balance a Powerful NPC boss, with the AI of a Player..

You make the boss have the same stats of a player so it's a fair fight. This is basically what Homitu was saying.

Typical MMORPG mobs have horribly predictable AI so they are balanced by making their raw stats much higher than that of the player. As you make the mob "smarter" you need to decrease its raw stats so that the fight remains challenging but not impossible.

But that seems like a Immersion breaker. Why would a powerful lore character be equal in power to a player?

Creslin321 · July 2011

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Homitu

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post is besides just brainstorming outloud and looking for feedback?

Anyway, everything you said was fairly obvious, even if stated in such a round-about way. There are only so many ways you can balance a PvE encounter.

You can boost the enemy's health to near infinity, making the encounter an endurance race against your mana pools.

You can add an enrage timer, making the encounter a DPS race.

You can make the boss hit like a truck, thereby requiring strategic use of kiting, damage reduction cooldowns, or healing cooldowns.

You can add a bunch of environmental effects into the mix.

You can give the boss a variety of abilities, each of which vary in effect and power. To increase difficulty these abilities can be used randomly.

You can program the boss to have random aggro drops and make him untauntable. This would cause the boss to occasionally chase some of the most threatening damage dealers or healers.

There are other options as well, but you get the point. Obviously developers can program a PvE boss to be invincible if they wanted. It's not necessarily a matter of having better AI. They can program creatures to do anything. They can hike any one of these variables way up on the difficulty scale to make the encounter impossible. But that, of course, is no fun. The challenge of developing a fun, rewarding PvE encounter is to balance these variables so that the encounter feels extremely difficult, perhaps requiring dozens of attempts before eventually beating it. Then, when your group finally beats it, it should feel rewarding. If it's too hard or too easy, it won't feel rewarding. If the difficulty was just right, but what made it so was too cheesy (Ie. giving the boss 15 billion health, making the fight a 2 hour long repetative endurance/concentration battle), it also won't feel rewarding. The fight has to be balanced using all of these factors to make it feel interesting and rewarding.

What I want to know is, How do I balance a Powerful NPC boss, with the AI of a Player..

You make the boss have the same stats of a player so it's a fair fight. This is basically what Homitu was saying.

Typical MMORPG mobs have horribly predictable AI so they are balanced by making their raw stats much higher than that of the player. As you make the mob "smarter" you need to decrease its raw stats so that the fight remains challenging but not impossible.

But that seems like a Immersion breaker. Why would a powerful lore character be equal in power to a player?

Ahhh now I see what you were getting at. On the same token, why would powerful lore creatures be dumb as a rock and not realize they have to attack the healer ?

Anyway, if it's a powerful lore creature, I'm presuming that you need a group to take it down. If this is the case, then you can make the creature stronger. Basically just keep increasing its strength until it offers the group a good challenge. I would say playtesting would be the way to go here. Just make a guess, pit a group against it, and see what happens.

In the end, the creature will be much stronger than a single player, so it should meet the "powerful lore" qualifications.

Smikis · July 2011

what is this? anyone saying they can program ai to lvl of human player is talking bullshit, and wouldnt be in video games

there isnt any real ai in any mmorpg that i expierenced, and there is reason for that.. it doesnt fit the gameplay

you want that big ass dragon to do that firebreath every 30s , or maybe ever 5% or whateva other reason, or the second he calculates that tank will die by it ?

i mean making third option is quite easy , or you want that big dragon go for healers instead? use his abilities when it generates kills and so forth?

Thats not how current mmorpgs works, and as i said anyone claiming to be able to make ai controled character beat human being is ignorant bastard with no way of backing that up, ai is hardest to program thing and there is no real Artificial inteliggence created, yet you claim someone did that in video game.. get real

Castillle · July 2011

You answered it yourself.

Powerful NPC with weak ai vs Weaker npc vs good AI.

Whats the entire battle comprised of?

1v1? 2v1? 5vs1? 20vs5?

For 1vs1 you make it as good as a not so skilled player with the basic knowledge of the game then increase the npcs statistics by a little bit depending on how hard you want it.

Do you want the npcs to have the same exact moveset as the players? Playtest it and think about how good your playerbase is.

If you already have a ton of testers just find the mode skill, compare it to the mean, then create difficulty settings based on the mode, mode averaged with the mean, then the mean, then finally if theres a huge difference between the highest skilled and the lowest skilled, create one set of difficulty setting for lowest skilled averaged with the mode.

If this specific MMO will use gearbased combat ALONG with the actual content then theres no way you can have people getting too strong. As such, you will need to balance out the actual statistics of the several powerful npcs you have. Is the powerful npc so strong that you have to use the "pwnd by the plot" method used just about everywhere, then fine. Use plot methods such as distracting the d00d until someone pushes a boulder to crush him.

Is it a giant dragon? Fight it with dragon poison in the air so it will start out hard and will get easier as people run around trying to survive.

If the powerful npc isnt godlike but still extremely strong, AND you want a fairer fight, get more ppl in there.

You can even use the aggro system with a small RNG to keep things fresh and exciting and so that other people can distract and stuff.

Games like WoW can get away with uber mega enemies because theres a giant meat shield and a bunch of people healing them without fear of getting wtfownd. If you make the ai more realistic there, people will die. FAST.

Now if you add some plot thing where the powerful npc will be weakened or lured to a trap, then not only will the ai will have to be tweaked, but the actual way damage and how people die will have to be altered. Currently, anything other than a tank will tend to get 1 shotted by a boss. So thatll have to be changed quite a bit.

All in all, it would either have to be winning by plot mechanics (such as reinforcements coming or his ally backstabbing and suddenly helping you) or bring moar people as cannon fodder depending on how much stronger it is.

So all in all it depends. How powerful is this npc lore-wise?

Smikis -

Making realistic ai for an mmorpg is pretty easy o.o why? because its eyes, ears, and knowledge are already there in game. All they need to do is tweak the aggro system and bam you have ai that acts like players in pvp. Why dont they do it? It will make servers more expensive because it will do more calculations per npc pawn.

SuprGamerX · July 2011

Heh , now isn't that a thought? Bosses who are smarter then the players , I'm guessing in a small party of 3 to 5 tops it would be ok , but more then that? The NPC would just spam AoE skills until everyone d/c. Then people will bitch / whine that the boss disconnects everyone , if people would stop living in the stone age and ditch their P2 200 MMX , we could have some smarter and more challenging AI's. But again , a game needs to produce money and to produce money we're stuck with Devs that will accomodate everyone.

Also in the past some DEVS have made AI's alot smarter , and the end result was a dead game (Hint : Titan Quest).

Since people suck and can't walk a straight line without getting owned , we're stuck with pretty lame AI's.

Thank God for solo games !

Newfr · July 2011

Well, point is people who like PvE don't want that "advanced AI". PvE must be an epic fight against some huge boss with nasty abilities and lots of hp. If you make him smart enouch he will burst dps your healers and that it. Will be that interesting? No. If you make him weak it will be like PvP match with bots. Do PvE players want that? No.

So i really don't see any point about that "advanced AI" in MMOs. Because it will ruin all the fun for PvE players and PvP players simply don't need it (why you want to emulate PvP in MMOs). Just to show that computer can play better? Well, that already known: computer can target faster, be more accurate, multitask a lot, don't get bored or tired and it beat best human player in chess already

DJJazzy · July 2011

Originally posted by Shizaxxx
It has been done before - In wow.

I believe the dungeon was called ToC? (Don't remember tho), and was in Burning Crusade on those islands that came at some point.

You had to kill 5 enemies - all classes could be present (warlock, mage, priest, hunter, mage, etc.)

They used cc, healing, manaburn, pets and such. It was a reaally hard encounter on heroic, but always a new, different fight, and that was refreshing.

Interesting that you brought that up. That particular fight was the most fun encounter I've had out of all the dungeon encounters in WoW. There were a lot of complaints about it though. I think the QQ stopped the designers from making similar encounters, which is a shame.

As far as NPC AI, they should take a page out of the Halo franchise. It had some of the best enemy AI I've seen in a game.

AccountDeleted12341 · July 2011

Originally posted by Newfr
Well, point is people who like PvE don't want that "advanced AI". PvE must be an epic fight against some huge boss with nasty abilities and lots of hp. If you make him smart enouch he will burst dps your healers and that it. Will be that interesting? No. If you make him weak it will be like PvP match with bots. Do PvE players want that? No.

So i really don't see any point about that "advanced AI" in MMOs. Because it will ruin all the fun for PvE players and PvP players simply don't need it (why you want to emulate PvP in MMOs). Just to show that computer can play better? Well, that already known: computer can target faster, be more accurate, multitask a lot, don't get bored or tired and it beat best human player in chess already

Not even close...

Computer A.I. is so pathetic and poorly done, it is a joke in almost every video game there is.

In most video games, the only reason it gets "hard" is because 99% of the time the developers allow the AI to cheat.

I know of absolutely no A.I. that can best a player in any game. Target faster? Absolutely. Multi-task? Definitely. Beat and best a human player? Not even.

There is a very big reason that FPS games are almost entirely PvP in multiplayer, and that NPC AI (Bots) are a joke to any serious FPS player. There is a very sad reason most RTS games have horrid AI with increasing difficulty merely causing the A.I. to cheat by getting extra (or no need for) resources.

If there were to ever be such an A.I. that it could beat players without cheating and perform identical to a player in PvP-- whether it be FPS (which means a complete mimic of player gameplay), RTS (adjusting strategy based on players, counters, as well as a scaling difficulty), or MMO (an intelligent A.I.)

Why do you think they give "tougher" Bosses more HP? Because that's the only way to do it: to let them cheat.

Letting the A.I. cheat is the only way lazy developers increase difficulty. It's very sad, but when the customers don't demand intelligent A.I. to the extent that they demand the latest graphics, companies won't be spending millions of dollars trying to improve upon the A.I.

After all, if they did improve upon it then that might mean being successful, and no MMORPG company wants that! They want a WoW-clone and as much safety as possible.

tinuelle · July 2011

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I been doing some thinking on the topic of how a More Advanced AI for NPC would effect gameplay in most MMORPG.

Good AI = Lots of dying by players = A hell'o'alot'o griefing = Dumbed down AI = What the people want!

Just to give one examples of wha ta good AI would do:

"Run if you realize the player is to powerful even before the fight, that is avoid combat."

Which is probably the smart thing to do since players usually wack the shit outta npc's. On the other hand having npcs running all over wherever you go, often means you are probably in deep shit when something doesnt run.......

But most players dont consider getting wacked a good representation of a good AI, it generally only leads to whining about unbalanced mobs, useless developers etc......

Axehilt · July 2011

Originally posted by MMOExposed
But that seems like a Immersion breaker. Why would a powerful lore character be equal in power to a player?

Why wouldn't they?

The top fighter pilot ace of WW2 apparently shot down 352 enemy craft. His planes didn't have 32 million hitpoints.

Smart AI is still generally a bad idea, but for completely different reasons. The "combat puzzle" of modern Stupid AI is tough to beat. There's a list of reasons it's good at providing players with enjoyable gameplay.

I'm not sure I feel smart AI could *never* work in an MMORPG. It's just going to be tough to beat the list of ways Stupid AI works well.

MMOExposed · July 2011

Originally posted by Disatisfied9
{mod edit}

well thats because I had an idea, and wanted to see peoples views of it before hand since I noticed this issue recently in the OP.

AccountDeleted12341 · July 2011

I don't even see what there is to discuss. Advanced, intelligent A.I. in a MMORPG wouldn't be a problem.

If it were intelligent in any way, there would be different types. Undead wouldn't act identical to Goblins or Humans. They'd react differently, given the circumstance.

If you want A.I. to be realistic, you make it varied with some randomness. If you don't want every mob to range from retarded to genius, then you make "Boss" mobs smarter than normal (unless they are stupid).

There isn't a problem because if the A.I. is intelligent, then it will have different levels of difficulty.

The most advanced, intelligent A.I. in the world would be easy to beat just as much as hard to beat. Where is the problem in this?

It sounds like you guys are not discussing intelligent or advanced A.I.

Instead, you are discussing the negatives of having cheating A.I.

Not A.I. which has a random delay in a range relative to what humans might have. Not A.I. that makes mistakes on purpose occassionally or which varies from stupid to genius or has multiple types of strategies and character builds.

Nope, you all somehow think "Advanced A.I." means min-max A.I. which already knows who the weakest healer is, burst DPS that healer (assuming that is possible, especially given your Boss' superior statistics for whatever reason you think that is a requirement) and then knock out the remaining healers one by one before targetting the next weakest with burst dps that cannot be healed.

Not a REAL intelligent advanced A.I. which makes a dumb Ogre boss a dumb Ogre A.I. or an A.I. advanced enough to give a difference between Undead (Mindless, and thus fearless) and Humanoid (Fearful) or even Cowardly Ratlings or Goblins (Extra Fearful) or the notorious Silver Slime from Dragon Warrior (99% run chance and tons of HP, but huge reward if killed.)

AccountDeleted12341 · July 2011

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by MMOExposed
But that seems like a Immersion breaker. Why would a powerful lore character be equal in power to a player?

Why wouldn't they?

The top fighter pilot ace of WW2 apparently shot down 352 enemy craft. His planes didn't have 32 million hitpoints.

Smart AI is still generally a bad idea, but for completely different reasons. The "combat puzzle" of modern Stupid AI is tough to beat. There's a list of reasons it's good at providing players with enjoyable gameplay.

I'm not sure I feel smart AI could *never* work in an MMORPG. It's just going to be tough to beat the list of ways Stupid AI works well.

Because characters in video game Lore are capable of taking on entire armies by themselves.

WW2 pilots did not.

It wasn't The Red Baron (Solo) vs 300+ enemies all at one moment. If that were the case, he would need 32 million hp.

Instead, it was The Red Baron + Allies vs Enemies, in small skirmishes. Over time, the number defeated increased with every battle.

Unless you want every battle to be small, having an epic hero be as epic as Gaming Lore tends to make them far more powerful than the typical player.

Of course, level is retarded anyways if you're looking for any form of realistic play. Even unrealistic realistic play.

Take the True Blood series for instance. Almost every vampire who is 1000++ years older than all the others are suppose to be so powerful that they can kill anyone 1000's years younger very quickly. However, even they are not immortal and can die to mere humans. To be honest, not all of it makes sense, but given that it needs to slow down enough for there to be plot and drama, at least it's possible.

Yet players or bosses don't have weaknesses, and if they do it's so minor it really doesn't matter.

Homitu · July 2011

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Homitu

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your post is besides just brainstorming outloud and looking for feedback?

Anyway, everything you said was fairly obvious, even if stated in such a round-about way. There are only so many ways you can balance a PvE encounter.

You can boost the enemy's health to near infinity, making the encounter an endurance race against your mana pools.

You can add an enrage timer, making the encounter a DPS race.

You can make the boss hit like a truck, thereby requiring strategic use of kiting, damage reduction cooldowns, or healing cooldowns.

You can add a bunch of environmental effects into the mix.

You can give the boss a variety of abilities, each of which vary in effect and power. To increase difficulty these abilities can be used randomly.

You can program the boss to have random aggro drops and make him untauntable. This would cause the boss to occasionally chase some of the most threatening damage dealers or healers.

There are other options as well, but you get the point. Obviously developers can program a PvE boss to be invincible if they wanted. It's not necessarily a matter of having better AI. They can program creatures to do anything. They can hike any one of these variables way up on the difficulty scale to make the encounter impossible. But that, of course, is no fun. The challenge of developing a fun, rewarding PvE encounter is to balance these variables so that the encounter feels extremely difficult, perhaps requiring dozens of attempts before eventually beating it. Then, when your group finally beats it, it should feel rewarding. If it's too hard or too easy, it won't feel rewarding. If the difficulty was just right, but what made it so was too cheesy (Ie. giving the boss 15 billion health, making the fight a 2 hour long repetative endurance/concentration battle), it also won't feel rewarding. The fight has to be balanced using all of these factors to make it feel interesting and rewarding.

What I want to know is, How do I balance a Powerful NPC boss, with the AI of a Player..

You make the boss have the same stats of a player so it's a fair fight. This is basically what Homitu was saying.

Typical MMORPG mobs have horribly predictable AI so they are balanced by making their raw stats much higher than that of the player. As you make the mob "smarter" you need to decrease its raw stats so that the fight remains challenging but not impossible.

But that seems like a Immersion breaker. Why would a powerful lore character be equal in power to a player?

Wouldn't you instead define "power" in this context as the cummulative sum of all these variables? Power isn't just the enemy's stats. It's the combination of the enemy's stats (health and damage output), abilities, and upredictability (what you might call AI) that make him powerful, just as it is that combination that determines the difficulty of the encounter. Are many of fantasy's greatest villians not known for their brains rather than their brawns?

Meowhead · July 2011

Originally posted by Homitu
Wouldn't you instead define "power" in this context as the cummulative sum of all these variables? Power isn't just the enemy's stats. It's the combination of the enemy's stats (health and damage output), abilities, and upredictability (what you might call AI) that make him powerful, just as it is that combination that determines the difficulty of the encounter. Are many of fantasy's greatest villians not known for their brains rather than their brawns?

Haha.

'Man, this guy is the most powerful raid boss EVER. I don't think we'll ever beat him.'

'Why not?'

'Because he's so smart, every time he hears us tearing through all his minions, he nips out the back door and goes to a different castle.'

Actually, in a P&P RPG I was running, I did that once... made a badguy who kept escaping from the heroes... and levelling up himself, each time having a better setup, better traps, better minions.

... I bet he was really annoyed the heroes kept running into him though.

Axehilt · July 2011

Originally posted by Disatisfied9
Because characters in video game Lore are capable of taking on entire armies by themselves.

WW2 pilots did not.

It wasn't The Red Baron (Solo) vs 300+ enemies all at one moment. If that were the case, he would need 32 million hp.

Instead, it was The Red Baron + Allies vs Enemies, in small skirmishes. Over time, the number defeated increased with every battle.

Unless you want every battle to be small, having an epic hero be as epic as Gaming Lore tends to make them far more powerful than the typical player.

Of course, level is retarded anyways if you're looking for any form of realistic play. Even unrealistic realistic play.

Take the True Blood series for instance. Almost every vampire who is 1000++ years older than all the others are suppose to be so powerful that they can kill anyone 1000's years younger very quickly. However, even they are not immortal and can die to mere humans. To be honest, not all of it makes sense, but given that it needs to slow down enough for there to be plot and drama, at least it's possible.

Yet players or bosses don't have weaknesses, and if they do it's so minor it really doesn't matter.

...but the Red Baron was amazing. Without taking on armies solo.

Power Level Over 9000 is a narrative bludgeon. It works, but it's inelegant and crude.

Meanwhile if you tell the story the right way, even a tale about two midgets sneaking around to drop a ring in a volcano can be epic.

At a certain point "OMG he just crushed five suns with that attack! OMG but the other guy just destroyed five UNIVERSES!" becomes ridiculous. As much as The Matrix 2 was a fun action music video, it was something of a step backwards from The Matrix 1 where Neo wasn't portrayed as an invincible superhuman. I'd guess it has to do with how believable the mortality of any given character is; as they seem more immortal, they lose that tension that existed with their mortality.

maplestone · July 2011

Originally posted by Meowhead

Actually, in a P&P RPG I was running, I did that once... made a badguy who kept escaping from the heroes... and levelling up himself, each time having a better setup, better traps, better minions.

I've never gotten around to doing it, I always wanted to have a villain who, when defeated and muttering his final words, whispers "load saved game".

Homitu · July 2011

Originally posted by Meowhead

Originally posted by Homitu
Wouldn't you instead define "power" in this context as the cummulative sum of all these variables? Power isn't just the enemy's stats. It's the combination of the enemy's stats (health and damage output), abilities, and upredictability (what you might call AI) that make him powerful, just as it is that combination that determines the difficulty of the encounter. Are many of fantasy's greatest villians not known for their brains rather than their brawns?

Haha.

'Man, this guy is the most powerful raid boss EVER. I don't think we'll ever beat him.'

'Why not?'

'Because he's so smart, every time he hears us tearing through all his minions, he nips out the back door and goes to a different castle.'

Actually, in a P&P RPG I was running, I did that once... made a badguy who kept escaping from the heroes... and levelling up himself, each time having a better setup, better traps, better minions.

... I bet he was really annoyed the heroes kept running into him though.

Haha. Well when I made my "brains versus brawns" statement I was thinking more along the lines of representing a boss's "intelligence" through a series of complex mechanics and abilities within the fight. I guess it could be my personal lens through which I view and play MMOs. My perspective is influenced more by epic fantasy literature like Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, where the strength of the primary villians lay in their ability to subtly manipulate and gradually corrupt others, than by Dragonball-esque stories that feature very literal "powerlevels" that seem capable of increasing infinitely, (or at least well over 9,000!)

Obviously, the power exerted through influence, manipulation, and corruption isn't experienced directly in an MMO encounter. Those are more devices used to bolster the legend of a particular baddie. Think back to Warcraft III: The Froze Throne. We see the power of the Lich King (and to some extent the sword, Frostmourne) to exploit a fatal weakness in the otherwise noble Prince Arthas. The resulting villian to be faught in WoW's third expansion is feared not just because he still embodies the combat prowess of the once mighty prince Arthas, not just because he now also posesses the magics of the Lich King, not just because he wields Frostmourne, but also because he has the power and influence to corrupt other powerful lieutenants. He's amassed an army of Scourge. He's become a major threat to the whole world. He emanates an evil that threatens to consume the world.

Again, this is all part of the legend of the villian more than it is a part of his actual boss encounter, but I do believe there's room to represent that "badass intelligence," if you will, in the form of what the OP calls AI. Give him some really crafty fight mechanics, nifty abilities and maybe throw in some dynamic adds (additional enemies, for non MMO linguists) into the fight.

Llilyth · July 2011

When you combine massive power with pvp oriented AI, you get Demon's Souls...just sayin.

Great game, but not made for the faint hearted or those who want their hand held by their Deadly Boss Mods addon.

CasualGamer · July 2011

I always thought it strange, in any video game, that NPC combatants should just stand in one place and keep attacking you without any sense of self preservation or any will to change tactics.

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Cant have AI thats as smart as Players, while also keeping Powerful Lore figures as the NPC. Gamepla

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