Combat AI

[Dragon6624]

We've all seen them, fought them, experienced either complete stupidity or easy spam-alot victories over them. In my opinion, SLO should help to set a new standard in this department. Therefore, I've got a few questions that, although it may be a bit too early to answer, are still valid for the game as a whole.

The three principles that need to be addressed are reaction to damage/stats, reaction to environment, and reaction to allies/enemies. For and example, just how will the AI react to...say...a fire blast dealt by the player, thereby taking out a chunk of their health. A standard AI procedure would be one of the following:

...completely ignore the thought that it might have taken any damage or suffered something called "pain" (much like the Terminator when he smashes his fist through that car windshield) and keep going for the player.

...be "stunned" for a few minutes by, idk, standing still and holding his eyes for the duration, before getting right back up and trudging forward into the same attack.

...running away until other bots arrive on the scene from three feet away (they were watching without doing anything the whole time btw) and actually believing that force in numbers will beat an AoE.

The above ^^, needs to be changed. Will the AI in SLO react to it in a more...intelligent manner? By this I mean it takes the following into effect upon taking the damage from the blast:

...its own strengths/weaknesses to such an attack (fire-resistant clothes for ex).

...the surrounding environment (is it out in the open desert, or is the fight taking place in a heavily wooded forest?)

...its own skills (substitution jutsu, or is it lacking such a jutsu in its arsenal?)

...the distance of the player in relation to the AI when the attack hit (five meters, or fifty?)

...backup help (does it have superior numbers, or is it in a solo fight?)

Based on THESE conditions, the AI could then choose various options to fit the needs of the moment, such as:

...it will still attack if it happens to be close enough and the fire damage didn't severely injure/hamper it.

...it will retreat to the trees, finding that it is alone and the player is launching attacks from range, it substitutes out of harm's way and sets up an ambush position until the player draws within a set radius.

...it regroups with its nearby allies and launches an assault, but each AI reacts differently based on their own strengths/weaknesses to the player (say, a ranged AI takes them on from a distance, while the melee AI go around to try and flank the player, making sure to avoid their line of sight, i.e the player's frontal viewpoint, and surprise the player from behind)

Are you guys considering trying to make such a "condition-sensitive" AI, or will it just be (overall, both in long and short-term views) the same AI that either follow you to the ends of the earth, or run like babies wanting their mothers. And also, imo, there should probably be some different types of AI (as in all MMOs), i.e some that like to stay at range or retreat more often when taking damage, and others that prefer to finish the player as fast as possible despite taking damage.


Sorry for the long post, but I like to try and detail my examples to get the best response possible from you guys, ik you must hate it if someone asks a vague Q like "Will the AI in this game be smart?", without specifying "smart" at all. Again, Dev/Mod only response please, this isn't in the discussions forum.

[Dragon6624]

Just thought of something, if AI WERE "condition-sensitive", then bosses wouldn't be as REPETITIVE anymore, or farm-able for that matter. AI as a whole would vary from encounter to encounter, making each fight (especially in the context of a perma-death server) tense and more a battle of wits (like REAL shinobi) than one of "...thog punch, now you punch back, whoever outlasts the other in this old-style boxing match wins..."

And yes, I know that this isn't all that possible to do in the near future, but I'm kind of hoping you guys would at least consider it for a far future update, when the game has proper support/backing and can afford to come up with multiple revolutions in the gaming world.

[rayzote]

People around don't really think about the AI, since users will rule and have our own systems.
In such game is hard to believe that there will be AI running around in the forests or walking around the village[guards]
I don't even know what will AI be used for, I mean in a normal MMO, the NPC Kage would give you a pre-set mission that gives to every player in the world, he will tell you where and when to find the objective and when you arrive he'll spawn just for you to kill him[with a dumb AI].

But that's in every other MMO. In SLO howver, players will rule and give missions, i assume some random conflicts may arise initiated by random AI's or player around the village or outside the village.
This PvP Survival-like MMORPG will live due to player "living" in the game, a game that challenges player to fight against other strong players cannot fall into having simple AI's.

The AI needs to be as clever as any other real player [condition-sensitive] for it to living on SLO, which will have strong players running and killing around the forests, deserts,etc...

SLO is going to be a world, If Vreg wants to make players rule their own villages under their own systems, they need to create a new level of interactivity, unlike popular and almost every MMORPG out there.

Sorry I just saw the "Dev/Mod only response please" I just felt to throw this out. sorry
Although I'm pretty sure this question has been answered once.

P.D. I just re-read some stuff and the Q&A says that there will not be evil rogue AI's, So, I think this post makes no sense at all... but we could get smart ass wild animals
And Village AI's will give out missions at random times, I assume these missions will go directly to the Kage's mission list and then give to ninjas, and again, I wonder what these "random missions" could be about if there won't be evil rouge AI's messing with the SLO world.

[Vreg]

First of all, AI is not the main focus of SLO. SLO is going to be governed by players. Most of the AI you will see will have very trivial tasks so they won't be very complex either.

The more complex AI will be the ones you will be able to fight. AI in missions generated by a village and AI with whom you can privately train in village come to mind.

In these scenarios the intelligence of the AI is limited to specific tasks, like fighting the player. And here we will try to make AI as close to a human opponent as possible.

How AI will further influence the world of SLO in the future I can't tell. We may have something like an evil village full of AI shinobi.

[Kayleb]

The main AI idea that I like for SLO is the village guards attacking people that attack you when in a village, then taking them to jail or something