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AI in MMORPGs
JoeyNipps
Member Posts: 186
Why is the vast majority of mob AI in MMORPGs so incredibly simplistic and uniform? Virtually all mobs in virtually every MMORPG act (with very minor variations) the same way in a confrontational situation - they run directly at you and then fight to the death. Once in a while one might hold back and fire a weapon or cast spells - but that is about the depth of the AI variation.
Why do they NOT seek shelter (hide behind a rock for example) to fire their weapon or cast their magic to minimize damage you are doing to them? Why do they not run away (until they are almost dead) to get help or just get away? Why do they not sometimes knock you down and then grab your weapon so you cannot harm them as effectively? Why do ALL creatures in virtually every MMORPG act as if they COULD kill you - from bunny rabbits to cows to bears to lions? There are a myriad of examples one could come up with but these should suffice for examples of what I am speaking of.
I welcome your thoughts on this.
If all else in life fails you, buy a vowel.
Comments
You mean like chocobos in FF7?
And although it exists in some mmo's enemy's rarely fight each other, but you see more and more of that with each mmo.
Ryzom is well known for good creature AI. Creatures will hunt other creatures, sometimes their friends will group aggro you if you attack one. When a carnivore comes to a group of herbivores the herbivores will run away. A lot of herbivores often come up and look at you and sniff you if they are near before returning to their grazing.
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Kibs
Avatar by Ema
Playing: The Saga of Ryzom since march 2004
I think it's kinda cute the way that mobs that con gray to you will throw their hands up to cover their face (if they have hands) and shrink away from you in EQ2. It's like they know you could kick their ass and beg you not to.
It's mostly computing power that constricts a lot of things happening in the games. Single player non online games will have better and more technology in the game, because you have 1 person only to render, compute location, compute trajectory on weapon, consider weather, predict movement, etc etc etc. Look at when you think of something cool, like maybe having a chance of that orc knocking you down and taking your weapon from you. Whatever mathematical, probabilty and mechanizing code and calculations that have to made in real time for that to happen, multiply it by 1000 or so, because that's how many times that one thing can be happening at the same time. And thats just one thing. That same server has to be doing all it's other calculations as well, so you can see how the processor power gets eaten up quickly. And we all love that lag don't we? It comes from many places, not just bandwidth.
So time will get us those things, as computers get more powerful. If you showed Steve Jobs what we do now with computers back when he started Apple, even he probably wouldn't believe it.... hehe.....
My understanding is also that the languages used to make MMO's are not used in most AI work. MMO's pretty much have to use engines in compiled languages like C and C++ so that they run fast. Most of all with the large lands and freedom of movement. Thats a lot more awkward than making a single path through levels in a lot of single player games, even if they have big backdrops and so forth.
AI's are generally programmed in interpreted languages like LISP, which are slower than compiled languages or even Java. So even supposing some student somewhere came up with a great AI for an MMO situation, it'd probably be LISP or something that basically just wouldn't work in more imperiative languages like C.
Your understanding is flat wrong.
some have ok ai, where the mobs heal each other and attack in groups. It would be nice for better AI, though whether people would want that, ie as the mmorpgs go, people just seem to want to level up, if something is smart and kills them it might be unfun depending on whether there is a learning curve to the mobs in being able to take them down. Like if its random, sometimes mobs will defeat you people may generally not like that. However, if theres a learning curve to the Ai of the mob then a mastery to them would be good but would that defy the point of AI?
Because the A.I. mimicks how most people play
But I agree I would like to see more adaptive AI Example if a MOB registers X amount of fire damage it casts a fire resistant spell. Or If the mob is throwing ice bolts at you and its only doing 50% of the damage it should be then it switches to a different spell/weapon.