Lookspring » No wonder I’m a loser

The New Scientist has a nice link to a report (PDF alert) from some Austrian AI specialists, which suggests that being neurotic may be a key competitive advantage in gaming. Working with Age Of Mythology, they’ve set out to discover if the attractiveness of a game is affected by how emotionally or neurotically the AI within it behaves. By creating four bots, with normal, aggressive, defensive and neurotic personalities, they discovered that the neurotic version was the most successful, winning as often as the aggressive AI, and in substantially quicker times.

The hallmarks of a neurotic AI? Extreme playing styles, and an irrational assessment of available resources. You’re welcome to quibble about whether or not those are reasonable extrapolations of neuroticism, as defined by the Big Five factors of personality the researchers were working from, but they certainly aren’t traits most game AI designers are aiming for.

I suspect the researchers will ultimately find what any seasoned gamer could have told them off the bat: emotional, irrational AIs sound like a great idea, but it practice they decrease the attractiveness of the game to the player. Those carefully constructed irrationalities can all too often feel like buggy, unfair flaws rather than a sophisticated approximation of a human. AI doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to be reliable - I have extremely fond memories of Advance War’s rock-solid, flawed CPU opponents, who could be relied on to pursue cheap, empty APCs rather than your more valuable units. If they had only done it erratically, it would have driven me mad. But do it rain or shine, day or night, and it becomes a tactical tool.

For many gamers, however, playing against any AI is a shoddy second-best, no substitute for the unpredictable thrill of playing against real people. But isn’t that a contradiction? If unpredictability is a bonus in a human opponent, why is it a flaw in a mechanical one? Here’s the research I’d like those Austrians to do next. Have people play against their neurotic bots. Tell half that it’s an AI opponent, and half that it’s another human player. I put my money on the second group having a better impression of the attractiveness of the game than the first. We’re just fundamentally more forgiving of people than we are of AIs. No wonder they’re turning neurotic.

4 Comments so far

Perhaps gamers want different things from AI players and real players which would explain why they might think that a neurotic AI opponent was buggy.

My guess is that you cant gloat to a computer when you mercilessly wipe them from the playing field.

And on top of that i guess it makes a game more social. Playing Warcraft 3 alone wasnt so great, playing multiplayer with a few friends made it the greatest game in the world.

I can see where you’re coming from with this Margaret. When playing against the AI (especially on anything lower than “YOU’RE GONNA DIE IN 5 SECONDS FLAT” difficulties), the AI develops a particular pattern. Something I’ve noticed playing Tiberian Wars recently, as you can change the difficulty of the campaign mid way through. One of the missions, you fight against a rogue leader of the same army. On Easy, it throws very little other than basic infantry, and tanks at you after you crush the initial wave of advanced units. On Normal, you get the occasional top tech unit in the wave of normal units, for a little surprise. On Hard, you get nothing but the top tier units, pummeling your base into little more than dust.

The same can be said of Dawn of War. Ok, so you’ve got the differences between the races, the Orks, for example, you’ll always get wave after wave of troops coming at you. But on Hard, it builds the base more defensively, with more banners to get more troops at you.

Personally, after the 15th mission, the AI routines get boring. I love the challenge of facing off against something you can’t properly predict. Especially as it means looking in to new tactics. Orks on Dawn of War mean just using heavy firepower to mow down their foot troops, and slowly pushing them back to the base, destroying the banners, and stemming the flow of green bodies coming at you. Boring as hell after you’ve done it your proverbial eyes closed…

I for one welcome our new neurotic AIs, and challenge them to a duel

Neurotic AI, anyone thinking HAL here
I remember when bots first entered the scene, and everyone was raving about how realistic they were, yet I’ve rarely had less fun than being pasted by bots in unreal tournament…

I feel a part of the human element is that your competitors need to use the same toolset as you, they have hands, eyes, ears and a brain (for the most part) they have to pause and look around, sum up the situation, they may be tired, or drunk, inexperienced, or veteran. This affords an element of unpredictability that is difficult to simulate, when I’m running around in Warhawk, or Planetside, I occasionally just stop and take stock, or admire the scenery (yep really!) and sometimes in a fierce battle I just freeze up, or panic and go all fingers and thumbs, the flip side is that I love nothing better than sneaking up and killing an unsuspecting player with a knife in the back; were they on the phone, or getting lunch; do I care.

This level of unpredictability isn’t (to my knowledge or experience) replicated within these AIs they are usually generic in their approach, and dificullty level, using paths or zones or waypoints to know the level (with some exeptions)
The concept of moods within bots is interesting, and maybe if they could change on the fly, the bot enters panic, fear, get’s smug.
Although I get the feeling bots are on the way out, once it becomes easier and easier to link up games online I think we may see a massive shift towards multiplayer, both traditional and anonymous multiplayer, you want to play Age of Myth, boot it up, play a game, and dont ever realise you were actually playing against a real player at all.

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