Maglok wrote:
Actually the entire scoop was that the higher skill levels dont only add units but are also playing at max AI. Still you might be able to easily beat it I dunno.
Most computers except Mesk's ridiculous AIs are easily beatable with walling off, defending expansion and massing Carriers and/or BCs.
What if the AI in SC2 is capable of the same thing?
If you mean the wall off strategy done by a computer, there are very easy ways to counter it.
I guess it's too opinionated to have a right answer.
Then I would be shocked. Because AI in every Blizzard game to date has been fail of biblical proportions. Oh, I've heard all about the "scouting" and the super-dynamic I'm-going-to-counter-you AI in sc2, but I'll hold my reservations until I actually play it in a nice big map.
We all know you have a passion for AI. But your AI cheats the shit out of the game And wouldn't go over well with the mainstream audience. The really really smart AIs are projects on themselves (deepblue anyone?) and are hardly capable of realtime calculations.
Besides I like my AI beatable If you want hard hard, go play humans.
- Maglok
Audio engineer and writer
SC2 campaign dev ranting: The Bunker blog
I'll also be holding my reservations on the AI as well. Still looking forward to the game either way. ;p Gives Blizzard an opportunity to flex their creative muscles.
Maglok wrote:
We all know you have a passion for AI. But your AI cheats the shit out of the game And wouldn't go over well with the mainstream audience.
I guess that depends on your audience. Maybe not for a campaign, but a lot of people (AI mod fanatics mind you) loved what I did with the AI in AO with RequiemD. Often the AI needs to cheat to provide any form of a challenge.
I would like to make an AI that doesn't need to cheat, but then it's no challenge because of the serious limitations of the game engine and your tools.
Last edited by IskatuMesk on Fri Aug 21, 2009 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Maglok wrote:
We all know you have a passion for AI. But your AI cheats the shit out of the game And wouldn't go over well with the mainstream audience. The really really smart AIs are projects on themselves (deepblue anyone?) and are hardly capable of realtime calculations.
Besides I like my AI beatable If you want hard hard, go play humans.
You know why the AI has to use every cheat it can? The AI cannot micro and its limited to suicide attacks so unless it's constantly pumping out units it won't even provide a remote challenge for anyone that knows how to play, there isn't an alternative to it unless they made an AI that can micro like a pro without lagging the crap out of everyone lke majority of AI mods do on newer games.
Saying go play against humans is the exact same thing every idiot on the B.net forums will say.
I don't think I am going to get into this with you. I gave arguments that basically say what you are saying, that computers cannot in real time make the neccesary calculations to be 'good'. There is no need to call anyone idiot, even if it is from a notorious forum.
- Maglok
Audio engineer and writer
SC2 campaign dev ranting: The Bunker blog
I wasn't calling you an idiot, the B.net forums are like why are they putting in voice chat when I won't use it.
Its like you are saying, why have an actually hard AI when I want it to be defeatable like options don't exist for difficulty or turning a feature off.
Last edited by UntamedLoli on Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
Maglok wrote:
We all know you have a passion for AI. But your AI cheats the shit out of the game And wouldn't go over well with the mainstream audience. The really really smart AIs are projects on themselves (deepblue anyone?) and are hardly capable of realtime calculations.
Besides I like my AI beatable If you want hard hard, go play humans.
You know why the AI has to use every cheat it can? The AI cannot micro and its limited to suicide attacks so unless it's constantly pumping out units it won't even provide a remote challenge for anyone that knows how to play, there isn't an alternative to it unless they made an AI that can micro like a pro without lagging the crap out of everyone lke majority of AI mods do on newer games.
Saying go play against humans is the exact same thing every idiot on the B.net forums will say.
I was talking specificly about SC and to an extent WH40k/WC3, SC is limited to suiciding in how it attacks beyond using hardcoded spellcasting like disruption web etc and the other 2 managage to lag like a bastard trying to run any of the AI mods that make the AI better and WH's case try to move it units around more.
This isn't about making the AI play by different rules beyond being fed resources or letting them build a Marine from more than a Barracks so they don't block themselves inside their own base like they love doing while trying to hit the supply cap.
On AI - I've worked with projects like AMAI and an even more advanced project for Dawn of War called Dawn of Skirmish, and even in games considerably more softcoded than SC you are still forced to make the AI cheat to have a reasonable level of difficulty. The reasons are pretty obvious; you can't program game sense or metagame understanding into an AI. In fact, dynamic AI's are even weaker than straight out build order Ai's because dynamic Ai's have fundamental flaws in their dynamicness. AMAI is a heavy dynamic AI and it really suffers in comparison to Dawn of Skirmish which is a mix of build orders and dynamic platoon management. Yes, Dawn of Skirmish programmed high-level style dancing and micro into the AI, but it still doesn't understand the terrain geometry, it doesn't have economic sense, it doesn't know that a big map means it should turtle more, it doesn't know that retreating on a big map is a really bad idea.
I've seen sc2 videos with their super amazing AI where it just runs up to a base and then runs away and gets destroyed because it doesn't fight back, and it walls off half of its units in its own base. It doesn't look any different than wc3. I hope you can disable that, because I think the new pathing will really help the AI, whereas in cases like wc3 the extremely limited pathing engine really, really hurt the AI's ability to control its units. If the AI is largely softcoded then it should be possible to make an oldschool-styled AI that is really lethal without having to resort to feeding it a ton of cash.
The most a flat-out dynamic AI can do is read your units and build counters to them. I actually find that incredibly boring. I could make the AI do that in starcraft, but it's not challenging and it's not fun to play. The AI becomes too predictable. "Well, if I get marines, he'll always get lurkers". Boring. Boring boring boring and doesn't work at all in big games or FFA's like what I play. From what I've heard, that's the road sc2's AI is traveling down.
So..... is this "great news" thing from the twitter updates a deal with Blizzard to let us all try the editor for free??? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE say yes!
"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."
-George Bernard Shaw
And wouldn't go over well with the mainstream audience. The really really smart AIs are projects on themselves (deepblue anyone?) and are hardly capable of realtime calculations.
If you want hard hard, go play humans. 
