Why is it that AI in games has gotten worse over time?

[aG| Wardog]

I've noticed this recently as I've been playing a ton of Need for Speed Most Wanted from 2005, and in doing so, realised that the AI in all games after have been complete garbage, the police AI in particular.

I've also heard that the AI in FEAR is really good as well, especially compared to AI from newer FPS games.

You'd think that the AI in games would get better overtime, but I guess not.

[SpicyPepperoni]

Yes

[Dyne]

There's a lot of older games with bad AI too yknow

[Radene]

Pixels are prioritized over AI.

[Jonathan Sensei]

I find most ai in games are plenty good to play against on higher difficulties. Or they are getting worse and i'm just getting old and I can't tell the difference.

[Mossy Snake]

In racing games you're 100% correct.

Compare F-Zero GX's infamous AI with something from a newer game and you'll see the difference.

[Drab]

You have gotten smarter. AI is the same.

[Daxank]

Because the better the AI, the more ressources needed and the harder the game gets.

Since tons of people will play their games on normal, there's no reason to choose a good AI over good graphics or other features

[Exiled Alchemist]

Simple all the time, and money that use to go into making games that had good AI now goes to graphics. Thus is why you will see current games getting rushed out with more modern graphics. Then they make you pay for overpriced DLC to finish the rushed released game. This has been the way AAA companies have handled most modern games, because they want the money to roll in as fast as possible. That is also the reason for the lack of quality control in most modern games as well. They don't test them as well as they use to before release because they focus on getting the money from sales as fast as possible.

[shoopy]

Less work and people still buy it.

[King Of Nothing]

Shiny graphics and realistic grass is more important apparently.

[rept]

sometimes its that environments have gotten more complex so the AI gets confused

generally what makes older AI seem good is actually good map design

[aG| Wardog]

Цитата допису Barracuda:

There's a lot of older games with bad AI too yknow

Didn't say there weren't, I've just noticed that he majority of AIs in new games are garbage, whereas older games had a lot of really solid ones, that were actually a challenge.


Otherwise, yeah, I guess graphics seem to be more of a priority now, which sucks, cos most games end up suffering in the gameplay department.

Maybe the large focus on multiplayer has an impact as well, cos most people play online now, so maybe developers don't think it's worth putting in the extra effort.

[aG| Wardog]

Цитата допису i wanna be a bus when i grow up:

sometimes its that environments have gotten more complex so the AI gets confused

generally what makes older AI seem good is actually good map design

That'd make sense, but the cops in MW 2005 were able to take routes to cut you off even in the middle of the city, where most new AI would either just follow you or get confused.

[Nine-ball]

I'm amazed that a significant opinion here seems to be "More invested in graphics means less for AI." That's not even remotely true.

The problem with AI starts with binary. It doesn't matter what programming language you use or how many processors you have, every process that ever happens inside a computer is ultimately regulated by an ON or OFF signal that goes through ONE processor, your CPU.

Using more advanced programming languages or multiple processors can ease the botlleneck on the CPU by pre-calculating values so it only has to process one bit of data for a whole function.We have GPUs for that exact purpose, a seperate processor that only calculates the coordinates of pixels to be displayed on the screen every fraction of a second massively reduces the load on the CPU.

GPUs and graphics are not difficult compared to programming responsive AI. They use fixed values, it's only a matter of speed.

But since we're gamers here, I'd bet you all know the unpredictability of the average gamer. Let's fact it, we tend to bug out games by doing crazy stuff pretty often, or even stuff that seems rational.

That's because the AI cannot keep up with us. Whoever programmed it has to try to account for everything we will do. I like to use the basic chess analogy for this. If a human player has one of twenty possible moves they can make on a chessboard, the AI opponent must account for all of the hundreds of posible moves they could make next, and the thousands after that.

Good coding just elimintates irrational moves, the AI won't even take them into account because you wasted a move. But the more complex games get and the more demands players make for a good gaming experience, the more dimensions the AI has to move in, which means better programmers and more hours to create the code.

Those better programmers take years to train, and more years to replace with superior ones. That's why you're seeing the lag between AI and graphics. Graphics work on a fixed curve, Moore's law, more or less (no pun intended) while AI programming works on an exponential one.

[aG| Wardog]

You do make a good point actually. My only concern is that AIs have gotten worse, by better over time, when you'd think that they'd get better, even if only by a little bit.