SIM SIM SIM (The PANDA, not Dhalsim)

[-VAL-]

I would like to talk a little about this option that we have had for a while and frankly, has its uses. I am obviously referring to Panda AI Bots that simulate the behavior of a player, as far as possible for an AI.

The first interesting thing I noticed is that in one match I even found a Bot that literally Tbag me after a successful Drive Impact in the corner. It was a Random Ken-Sim and I don't know if the AI was trying to simulate a "wild buffer" or trying to imitate something seen from players to be honest, but it's interesting. Playing against my SIM, however, I noticed that it incorporates my mistakes quite well and this is perhaps the best thing about these SIMs for self-analysis.


This leads to the first question, how do you think a SIM creation works?

There is no doubt that SIM have a certain percentage of actions where they continue to read your inputs like a CPU 8 and react inhumanly, but in general they do that much less.

However, the level of random SIMs seems variable to me.
They are often much easier than a real Master, yet they generally have a good attack and are able to replicate the main offensive setups of master players quite well, sometimes they have also surprised me positively with some crazy bait, however they also have big holes in defense.

i mean, you can't mindgame with them for Whiff punish, but there are situations and buttons that drive them crazy. Also, they are very good at jumping a fireball when they are in counterattack range, but in general they suffer quite a bit from long-range zooning.

But I have the feeling that the SIMs that are created (and yes they are created on the spot, they are not versions in memory. I WISH they were, so we could face the Daigo SIM) are not always the same. I happened to find myself facing SIMs that seem absurdly much stronger than the same version I had faced the day before, and other times that seem to tell me, "Please kill me quickly I don't want to be here".

What's your opinion of these Cyborgs? And what's your experience against them?

[Johnny]

Good thought-provoking topic. I actually asked myself this question recently when I played against them, here is how I think they work:

They have "status". Like getting DI, getting raw DR'd, getting countered or countering, in corner or opponent in corner, anti-air, spacing difference, health differences, round time, meters differences, etc.

Then based on this status, they collect input from players and use them accordingly. For example round starts most collected data is: Raw DR, jump in, or projectile? So it does it.

The spacing is X and both on ground ("neutral")? It does its footsie commands or even a DI.

And so it does errors and even tbagging because it is a data it collected, they do not want "most optimized" routes like CPU Level 8, this is the key difference. It might need to read input as part of the "status" cycle.

My thought is they are actually more fun than CPU and more than welcomed. I actually played against my own SIM that was "recorded" when the patch first came and surprisingly enough it did mistakes that I have already noticed and fixed in my gameplay.

I kind of wished they would have a feature to play against a player's ghost, that would of been cool, but unfortunately not yet.

[Castyles]

I don't really care how the ghosts work. I'm just glad they (along with the offline ranking system) are in the game.

It's a feature that every fighting game should have by default because not everyone has the patience to experience the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of online ( yet we still want to have a taste of it).

Look at Tekken and Virtua Fighter. They had ghosts since like 20 years ago. Killer Instinct brought them up like 10 years ago. Samurai Shodown came up with them like 5+ years ago, etc.

It's gonna be disappointing af if Fatal Fury and Virtua Fighter 6 releases without them, btw. Less fun for the likes of me.

[-VAL-]

It is useful for training about knowledge check of the various characters.

I guess even Tekken or other fighting games with this option, don't let you fight player Ghosts.

[Johnny]

Originally posted by -VAL-:

It is useful for training about knowledge check of the various characters.

I guess even Tekken or other fighting games with this option, don't let you fight player Ghosts.

Actually FF is supposed to have it on launch too. It has so many features that to this day SF6 doesn’t:
https://www.snk-corp.co.jp/us/games/fatalfury-cotw/gamemodes/

I am excited for it.

[omed_86]

Originally posted by -VAL-:

It is useful for training about knowledge check of the various characters.

I guess even Tekken or other fighting games with this option, don't let you fight player Ghosts.

Tekken does actually, ever since Tekken 5 DR on PSP, you could download friend ghosts. Except Tekken 7.
Then they brought it back for 8, You can go download anyone's ghost. but from my experience so far, they're not very consistent.

[X]

I don't play sim sim myself but I always wondered what the state of the game will be when you cant differentiate between real players and bots. I would imagine online would be relegated to us super sweats and all those afraid or those who can't hold an L would have a safe space in the SP ecosystem.