PLEASE help me improve AI......all suggestions welcome. The more the better!

[Vaskez]

I'm posting this here cos I assume most ppl have played BG2 and most ppl visit here. This is to do with a conversion I'm working on for BG2 so it's not the SoA or the ToB storyline so that's my excuse for not posting it either of those places.....mods please don't move it.

This is to help me make AI that actually provides a challenge in my conversion game based on the BG2 exe and files, Fragile Alliance.
These are improvements I have implemented already or ones I have thought of and think can be implemented. Feel free to post more advanced ones...
What I would like to know is any other ways in which you think the AI in Baldur's Gate 2 could be improved. How have you exploited the AI before?

Improvements so far:

- Enemies will help each other if in trouble (by ganging up on attacker of most injured comrade) not act as if they were one-man fighting machines.
- Divide and conquer no longer works because enemies shout a warning which is heard by all companions in sight as soon as they see the player
- Enemies will leave party members who cannot harm them until last....for example clay golems will switch targets if they take no damage from an attack.
- Intelligent enemies such as humaoids will have leaders and a wingman system where the leader shouts orders and they obey like a proper 'army', making them more effective in combat.
- Enemies will try and do something if their target is immune to their weapon as opposed to just hacking away (effect depends on creature)
- If the player runs out of sight an enemy will not simply "forget" that he was fighting the player 10 seconds ago and quit following. Once an enemy has gained sight of the player, they will hunt him/her down if they are still in the same area.
- Thief characters and others with trap setting skills will set snares all over the place once they know of the player's presence and are out of sight of the player.
- Mages and priests will actually check if it is worth casting a spell on an oponent....they will not waste fire spells on characters with high fire resistance for example.....and they will not cast confusion or fear for example if the player is already helpless. Also they will react intelligently to the current situation beyone simple healing themselves if injured. Priests will cast slow poison and resist fear if companions are effected, will cast repulse and control undead and sunray if player is using skeletons to attack for example. But of course not ALL the time, an element of randomess is in there to keep players on their toes. Mages will use remove magic and dispel magic intelligently etc. etc. priests will not use hold against inquisitors and many many small improvements besides...
- More intelligent and widespread use of potions by humanoid enemies.
- Intelligent changing of weapons to suit the situation beyond simple "bow if player is more than 8 feet away otherwise sword". This includes, dropping shields to wield 2 weapons when better and picking up shield when defense is needed for example.

EDITED to show ideas posted so far:
- Mages should summon more creatures and then switch priority to other tasks such as magical traps and defenses.
- Enemies showing better group tactics...e.g. helping to defend weaker and injured comrades.
- Enemy parties withdrawing rather than getting killed to extract revenge later.
- If odds are hopeless, enemies will find others to help them before coming back to fight.
- Priority targeting (an old, well-discussed topic and a whole huge area of its own)
- Moving out of the effect of area effect spells.
- Fast enemies using their speed to an advantage such as running around in circles while they quaff potions.
- Mages will always assess situation at start of battle and THEN decide which defenses to cast.
- Enemies who react dynamically to player's tactics (have to be careful with this one...otherwise enemies will never initiate attacks of their own )

Phew. You lot are gonna hate me for this

And remember.....I plan to move on to NWN editing after this......any general ideas will also be used there (I hope)
Thanks.

[ 11-11-2001: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[Neb]

Possibly mages summoning and the retreating a bit, letting the summons fight for them while they cast protective spells, set magical traps, heal themselves and/or summon more creatures.

If a hostile NPC spots a the PC and his/her party heading towards someplace, thieves allied with that NPC will set traps near that area in anticipation of the PC's arrival.

Stronger NPCs using weaker ones as a distraction while retreating and possibly fleeing from the area, getting reinforcements, circling behind the PC and his/her party for a backstab attack.

[Vaskez]

Nice ideas although they are difficult to implement....

I can do the first one...thanks for that idea [img]smile.gif[/img]

I can't predict where the PC is going to go......also you can only tell an AI controlled character to set traps if u know the co-ordinates. So I would have to make him move to the point where the player is heading and for that I would need to know which area they are in etc (different script for each area? don't think so....)....it wouldn't work

I can do the 3rd one in part.....stronger enemies using smaller ones as distraction.....good idea......fleeing, reinforcements: possible....circling behind back.....difficult:
There is no trigger to check whether you are behind or in front of the trigger and the Backstab() script command does not work and is not used by Bioware....they use the simple attack command so AI thieves sometimes 'backstab' from the front, maybe u have noticed


without giving too many surprises away ...I do have thieves doing a random walk after they go invisible because if they were just fighting an oponent.they would be facing them....a random walk might place them at a different angle.

[ 11-10-2001: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[Vaskez]

BUMP

[Bahamut]

AI movement... improve on this... if you have a designated style or positions for the party, and they STAY there... not ending up in other places, etc.

Party AI, like you said, but this time it is also the same for the NPCs and your character. Once an NPC goes below 25% of their HP, his/her party members surround him, if possible, launching an all out attack- one NPC per enemy- to distract them.

Demons attacking noisiest NPC- example crying out in pain- damn masochists... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Vaskez]

Hehe, yeah I could have demons attack the player with the lowest morale......MUHAHAHAHAHAHA! *Ahem* excuse me.

There are sooooooo many possibilities (thanks Bioware for leaving the AI crap so we can improve it ).

Come on guys......for a board with 4000+ members this input ain't exactly monumental.

Where's Memsy-boy when you need him?

[Memnoch]

I'm here, Uncle Vask. [img]smile.gif[/img] I really think that this thread, despite not being strictly SoA or ToB related, is better in the BG2 forum as there are more *active* players there and you will probably get more feedback, but I'm happy to leave it here if you wish. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Here are my comments:

• Enemy parties that engage in a fighting withdrawal rather than fighting to the death, and appearing further on (fully healed, presumably).
• If initial odds are hopeless enemies will run and set up ambushes, etc. to regain tactical advantage (especially devious enemies like drow).
• For spellcasters and spell-casting enemies, much greater use of buff spells (haste, etc) before combat, rather than during combat (I realize this is difficult as PCs cast buff spells usually after their first reload. )
• Concentrate fire on the most dangerous target (spellcasters?)
• Moving out of the effect of duration-based AoE spells like Cloudkill, Incendiary Cloud, etc. (this may have been implemented in ToB, I can't remember.)
• Greater spellcaster support for enemies that are disabled (eg if an enemy gets chaosed or charmed an enemy spellcaster should cast dispel magic, etc.

Let me sleep on it, and I'll post more later.

[ 11-11-2001: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[Vaskez]

Hmmm I see your point about the active players being in the other forums BUT.....I am hoping that quality MODs (hopefully including this one) will get inactive players back into it. The engine is not dead......it's just the story and characters that everyone is bored of......but I'm replacing all that.

Hmm Mem: would you play a good conversion story? Or are you done with the Infinity Engine forever?

Well anyway.....it's still a while till completion...

[ 11-11-2001: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[250]

man!!

I am all for your ideas working out here! BGII's old AI is just simply not worth playing!

First of all, my math professor always tell me: Randomness solves everything!
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the spell caster's AI is the hardest one implement, so I'll give you an easy one, coming from my dueling experience with/vs barbarians

the duelers who use barbs are a dominate force

read on:

vs fighters of any type

They will fight with an equal level of thac0 and AC, while claiming superioty with high physical resistance and HP.
If their HP run low, they start running in circle and drinking potions (Barbs run significantly faster than EVERYONE ELSE) so it is only barb catch you not the other way round

bottom line:
certain enemy AI can be categoried as "Barbarian"

Their main force to deliver damage is potentially everyone
while their healing force is: potions/clerics

Please note that I am talking about parties with prowess that resembles the PC party (example: the dwarven party at Seven Den, and the bandits at Sewer, the ogre party at red dragon's cave, and the Drizzt's party)

Start the combat by blasting away with all damaging forces.

the barbarian relies on fast damaging delievering. their fighters are often well equiped, and spellcasters immensely powerful. they ignore any summoning and focus powers on the strongest PC (strongest fighter and high level mage) the mage/cleric will strip off all attempts to protect that PC, while the fighters deal out damage. and if one party member is significantly weakened, then retreat that member from frontline and focus all healing force on that party member

A well balanced party can be "barbarian"
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in dueling, another type of duelers are kensai/thief

lets call it stalker for short
the stalkers by itself cannot deal out too much damage, therefore it constantly hide in shadow, and attempt backstabing

those duelers will attack their opponent then go into shaodw, attempt a backstab and go back to shadow again, rinse and repeat. to most novice/decent duelers, the stalkers are a royal pain in the ass

bottomline:
Any party can potentially be a stalker
A well balanced and powerful party (IF weakened) can turn into a stalker

the stalker doesnt require thief. they are stalkers in literal sense. strike at where you least expect, or strike at the place where would frustrate you the most, or strike from a superior advantage

therefore, focus all attacks on the isolated character, weakest character.
the party highly rely on mind effecting and movement alternating spells, which could cause PCs rendering helpless or ran in confusion/fear.
the mages/clerics then go to great length to protect their fighters from being dominated/confused/shaken/paralyzed
all attacks focus on the weakest character who is still fuctionable (meaning not disabled by either confusion or fear or held etc)

Combine the barbrian and the stalker, a party can switch bewteen stratgies according to its condition
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This party we call it CWizard (Cowled Wizard)

you must know that one particular flow of AI is that, all magic user begin the battle with a defensive spell that protect them from physical damage, that is a big NO-NO

how about this:


There is a 90% chance that:

A spellcaster only casts defensive spell (against melee/range) IF he is being targeted physically

AND IF he is not under a spell protection and taking dmg from physical attack, THEN he retreats from the attacker, and attempt to cast a protection spell.

This suits a type of party which consists of pure spellcasters and weak physical offense

remmeber what I said? do not start a combat with a physical defensive spell, instead, IF EVER NEEDED, try to out-run the attacker and cast protecions

so basically, there is a 90% chance the spellcasters will not cast physical protections, so we devide this 90% by two

there will be 45% chance the spell caster begins with an area disabling effect spell
there will be 45% chance the spell caster begins with an area dmging spell

OF COURSE, if PC party has a mage, the Cwizard should do the following

10% chance casting physical defense spell
70% chance casting magical defense spell
10% chance casting an area disabling effect spell
10% chance casting an area dmging spell

if any wizard has both physical and magical defensive spells on, then split his casting odds between area disabling and area dmging spells

if the wizard is being attacked by physical attack AND taking dmg, then run and cast a physical protection spell

if the wizard already have a magical protection, then do the odds:
10/45/45

if the wizard has none of the protections, then do the odds:
10/70/10/10

sigh, the last one is the hardest to explain... bah... hope you understand it... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

thats about it... basically, I hope my approach provides some helpful thoughts

[Memnoch]

quote:

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Originally posted by Vaskez:

Hmm Mem: would you play a good conversion story? Or are you done with the Infinity Engine forever?

[ 11-11-2001: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

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Mate, I love the Infinity Engine. I would gladly play MODs, conversions, etc as long as they were bug-free. Keep us posted on how it goes.