An AI Coach for Bad Gamers? 79
newchurch writes "In this week's "Gaming in 2020" issue of The Escapist, Chris Dahlen writes about a no-talent gamer who gets help from the 'Nintendo Coach' - an AI installed in the console that watches him play and gives him pointers and feedback. This is set 14 years in the future, but how hard would it really be for a next-gen console to pull this off? Would gamers want this kind of thing, to make them more competitive or just to help them master a title like Ninja Gaiden? And would your average gamers even admit they need help?"
What about opposite? (Score:5, Interesting)
Play a deathmatch against bots, that learn movement patterns of players, instead of using predefined paths, learn new ones by watching the players and follow them, becoming more of a challenge, less predictable, learning most efficient tricks? At first the game is just a game against bots. Later it becomes a game against yourself. And if you limit the bot to learn from you, and not from the "hive mind" that contains tricks from all players, fighting it you learn your own weaknesses.
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2, Interesting)
for all the advances in graphics, sound, and even mechanics it seems that AI is the slowest to come along. that's understanable to me, but it just gets boring when racing games have rubber-band cars, fps' with the "stupid bot," "medium bot," and "bot that whips around and headshots you with a rocket launcher while jumping over obstacles" and boss battles that just throw wave after wave of attacks at you in easy to remember patterns
i'm sure AI programming is hard, but can anybod
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
Remember the Half-life 2 AI hype? Or Oblivion?
bleah.
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, give us poor readers a hand. I've tried to make sense of your comment for a couple of seconds, and by the time I started re-reading the entire thing I just gave up.
Honestly - how do you expect to actuaclly be able to communicate with anyone?
-stormin
Re:What about opposite? (Score:4, Funny)
No. Apparently, you're a grammar mormon
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
I'm just looking for a little legibility? Is that so much to ask?
-stormin
(note to real grammar nazis, I'm aware that I used "legibility" incorrectly there, but look at the alliteration! We're going to call this one 'artistic license'.)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
Oh well, it's probably 'cause I mentioned religion. LOOK AT MY NAME!!! Can we say "irony"?
Sheesh.
-stormin
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
Of those cheating AI is by far the worst. I hate playing car games that use rubber band AIs, or Civilization on harder difficulty levels where the enemy AI gets everything cheaper.
Realistic AI is the most difficult to program and is most useful in 1vs1 or other even situtation. Quake/UT bots are good examples for these. The most difficult things is to create realistic AI that doesn't exploit the characteristics of computers (like perfect ai
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
Whichever one wins most gets to fight for the users.
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
Not true. You just have to outthink the AI, just like you would a human opponent. A small band of rebels can overcome the empire, in real life and fiction; they just have to use their advantages to their fullest and prevent the empire from using its advantages.
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
> the world in some impossible odds, because if the opposition
> can actually think, then it is really impossible. For example
> you'll never see an AI in a MMORPG capable of coming up with
> the idea that killing whoever can heal is smart.
The standard MMORPG concept is "extremely tough, but offensively weak guys, extremely powerful but squishy other guys, and semi-squishy to very squishy healers".
Such a group would get destroyed on
Re:What about opposite? (Score:1)
Re:What about opposite? (Score:2)
A group of humans versus an army would have a ghost of a chance...But not before hilarity ensues.
Hell no! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hell no! (Score:2, Funny)
So in other words you don't want to RTFM and you don't want the machine to do it for you either?
Admit it. You need help (Score:3, Interesting)
Coach,"The first step to recovery is to admit you have a video game playing problem."
Guy,"Ok, I admit it, I have a problem."
Coach,"Alright, now lets review your build order for Xel'naga."
Guy,"Wait, I thought my problem was that I'm addicted to video games."
Coach,"There's no such thing."
Guy,"Oh cool, thanks. I don't need you anymore. I'm going to go back to playing Duke Nukem Forever"
Re:Admit it. You need help (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, be realistic... this fake scenario is only 14 years away.
Re:Admit it. You need help (Score:2)
Re:Admit it. You need help (Score:2)
Yes, yes I do.
Re:Admit it. You need help (Score:2)
What, some Slashdotters don't know who the Xel'Naga are?
AI Coach (Score:5, Funny)
Good, ok...go here. Get that gun. Jump this lava thingy. Kill that guy.
Ok, now right. No, your other right, dummy. You stepped on a trap! Oh noes, they're coming. RUN!
LEFT! GO BACK GO BACK GO BACK! WAIT WAIT, NOT THAT WAY! Awwww....dammit.
It's not my fault!
Re:AI Coach (Score:5, Funny)
* shoot the enemy
* move toward the enemy's base
* dodge the enemy's fire
* write a letter to your enemy
Re:AI Coach (Score:2)
Well, if the enemy is a robot, cyborg or an ultratechnical soldier, like they often are, then sending them an email virus might be a very effective way of getting rid of them.
No (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the wrong way around. If a gamer is having difficulty in a single-player game, the right thing to do is usually to detect this and ramp the difficulty down for them. Believe it or not, most people who are bad at gaming are bad because they are casual gamers. The last thing people like that would care about is any kind of coaching.
Re:No (Score:2)
The score is more realistic, but I have to work too hard to even eke out a draw - it stops being fun. I don't play games to lose - I wa
Re:No (Score:1)
Re:No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:1)
Great Idea (Score:3, Funny)
* Get Help Killing The Ninja.
* Just kill the Ninja without help.
[]Don't show this messege again.
I have that already (Score:3, Funny)
"C'MON! We have to go this way! What're you trying to do? Its not XYYBYAXYYB, its XYYBYAXXYYB." ;-)
Yes I am exaggerating, but nothing motivates you to learn a game like Halo or SSBM like having your kids pound time and again.
Re:I have that already (Score:2)
Man, I had to look that one up. For a second, I thought that maybe you were playing games in the same way the WOPR plays games
Ship Submersible Ballistic Missile
Re:I have that already (Score:1)
Re:I have that already (Score:2)
Anyway, googling for it found the result that I posted. I would imagine that it's a more generic term for sub-launch missiles bearing unspecified ordinance. That, or a whole lot of sites had made the same typo, then gave the incorrect expanded meaning. *shrug*
I think I've been playing too much Superpower. The game sucks, but Shadow President is just too damn buggy in DosBox to be playable
Re:I have that already (Score:2)
You're ahead of me. All I could come up with was "Single-Shot Bowel Movement".
Re:I have that already (Score:1)
We already had this (Score:2)
Some "AI" tells you what you have to do.
Rhetorical? (Score:2)
Of course not.
my l33t skillz pwn u any d4y biatch ch3ck teh mad aimb0t i got w/ my 133t skilz f4gs u wish u had m4d h4xx0rz lik3 me
Re:Rhetorical? (Score:1)
I aggree. Either the gamer is a casual one who doesn't really care all that much about getting l33t skillz, or the gamer is at least semi-hardcore who wouldn't dare learn l33t skillz from some in-game help thing.
Besides, you know how annoying those help/hint/tutorial/whatever things are in most games.
Re:Rhetorical? (Score:2)
So true. I remember when Devil May Cry offered me easy mode. I was offended.
But, when I sit and think about it, I suck at that game.
Re:Rhetorical? (Score:1)
Existed for StarCraft (Score:2)
For most games, there really isn't a substitute for just playing or just playing with others. Most AI these days for FPSs feature increasing difficulty of bots that you can train against.
The more chess-like the game, the more coaching might help.
Coaches for games that have Coaches. (Score:2)
Fighting games rely heavily on your familiarity with the different moves the characters perform, they typically offer a sparing mode which is far more beneficial then a "coach" would be. BOTH of those game types are too fast for decent live coa
Ah, yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
If everybody uses AI coaches, will that make everyone l33t or will it just raise the minimum requirement for playing online without embarrassing yourself?
Re:Ah, yes. (Score:1)
Yes, but if everyone is training first (Score:2)
In other words, additional training may change the range over which skills vary but it won't change the fact that skills vary - nor will it change the behavior of the skilled and the unskilled.
Re:Yes, but if everyone is training first (Score:1)
Re:Ah, yes. (Score:1)
AI expression (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AI expression (Score:1)
Similar to a walkthrough? (Score:2)
An AI coach would have to be more than Navi from Ocarina of Time too. In theory, it could replace talking to tons of townspeople for clues and hints, annoying fairies, and the like. I think I would use it if I got stuck in some place and didn't know what
Forza has this now, sort of (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say you drive into a turn too quickly. What were once green arrows (to say "keep going, no need to slow down") suddenly turn yellow, then red, as you pass the point at which you should have hit the brakes. Once you've slowed down enough to recover, the arrows go back to green (or yellow). This simple mechanism is surprisingly useful.
It's not a big leap to take that data and present it in faux-human form (a voice saying "You're driving into the turns too fast!" and a worried face on your robo-instructor) instead of graphically. So yeah, it's already here.
Re:Forza has this now, sort of (Score:1)
really bad gamers (Score:2)
I personally have no interest in racing games, sports games, and I'll be totally inept at playing them. No amount of coaching from the AI (or real people) will make me any better, or for that matter, even ap
Forget Coaches, just RTFM (Score:1)
ANNOYING!!! (Score:2)
"There's some Nazi guards sneaking up on you."
In real life? My response would probably be:
"You've only told me this eight fucking times in the past 30 seconds. Has it occurred to you that maybe I'm setting a trap, and don't wa
Re:ANNOYING!!! (Score:1)
What happened next [vgcats.com]
Re:ANNOYING!!! (Score:2)
"What are they doing?"
"What?"
"I said, what are they doing now?"
"God damn, I am getting so sick of answering that question."
"You have the fucking rifle, I can't see shit. Don't bitch at me, because I'm not going to just sit up here and play with my dick all day."
"OK, OK, look. They're just standing there and talking. OK? That's all they're doing. That's all they ever do, is just stand there and talk. That's what they were doing last we
Re:ANNOYING!!! (Score:1)
"You are low on Mana."
or
"All of your creatures are getting slaughtered."
Of course, they paraphrase, and I paraphrase, but they are pretty close. Anyone who figures out which game has the annoying coach that says those phrases gets an intangible, invisble, and non-existant cigar.
Won't ever happen. (Score:1)
Since the development costs of games are skyrocketing and companies want to maximize their profit with little risk, they seek out ways to provide as much pleasure as possible to as many people as possible for the lowest amount of money possible.
The budget to create something like this could be much more readily implemented into providing better AI for enemies, which is something that more people would appreciate, and get more use out of. Not only that, but it'
Prior art - Madden (Score:2)
Not exactly what people think (Score:2)
Thi
I'd do it (Score:1)