I've been getting a couple of queries about AI, so I hope these suggestions can help your future AIs.Move analysis:Before you start assigning moves which your ai will execute, you have to understand each of their useful points, and useless points. "This move will attack the opponent" is not enough. Think about which direction you can attack, what will your position be after you perform the move, will it be risky to perform this move if the opponent blocks?Character strategy:Taking your move anaylsis into consideration, ask yourself if this character is suitable for rush down to keep dashing in to attack, keep away with poking moves or projectiles, zoning with far pokes and dash attacks, or a hybrid combination. That said, you can basically break down the AI into 3 main elements:1. Situational reactionsThese are commands the ai will do in response to the player's actions. You've seen Evil Ken or some other AI do an anti-air move when you try to jump in, right. The ai detects the p2dist X and Y values and does the move if the player is in the trigger zone. Or when the opponent is right across the screen from Evil Ryu and he does a slow hadouken then jumps toward him.These moves can be used to repel attacks, or detect if the player is in a good position to be set up for an attack.Random >= X triggers used here will give your ai variation to his attacks.2. Self-generated commandsThese are the ai's "autonomy". Unlike situational reactions which are used to specifically repel or set up an attack, self-generated commands are mainly used to apply pressure and attempt to confuse the player.Random >= X triggers used here are your key to confuse the opponent and prevent him from knowing exactly what to expect. 3. Follow upsThese are commands which the AI will input when one of the previous two conditions are met. Useful for combos once the combo starter makes contact.Movehit or movecontact triggers will be your key here, along with p2dist X and Y triggers to make sure the player doesn't fall too far during the combo.You have to combine these three elements to give more diversity to your AI. Making a self-generated command a situational based trigger, will give your pressuring game more control. Playtesting and pattern breaking:You're going to want to do stupid things to your AI when you're testing once you get his basic gameplan in. Sometimes really retarded things over and over, because your ai will fall for it. Take note of these things and fix the corresponding triggers.AI Memory: Think a player can get too smart with a certain strategy? Trigger a variable addition at the start of his combo starter like a light punch, then subtract it when the move ends. If the AI's move is interrupted by a player trying to do a counter move, the variable will stack up. Once it stacks up past a certain level, make your AI mix up a light punch with a roll across the player, for example, and show him that that won't work.Flairs and useless things:Make your AI taunt your opponent with a 5% chance when he's down, or make him jump backward and do an air hurricane kick and fly really high for no reason with a 3% chance. These useless flairs will add to your pressuring game when the player is trying to anticipate the attack and go "what the?"Flaws and weaknesses:You may want to make sure a certain strategy will nail the hit on your AI, or make the AI move into a vulnerable position. This will give the player a chance to wreak his own havoc on your insanely fast reactive AI. But can he withstand the pressure to set up the attack properly? That's another mind game.To sum it up I guess you could say the basic AI game is based on logic, but if the player gets it too quickly, he may get fraustrated or bored. Break the logic, make your ai do illogical and unpredictable things, then your player will sweat.Hope this helps, I'll be looking forward to have more sparring partners
I'm not sure about reviving this. There's no rule against it in this particular forum and I really must have my say here, but... oh well, let's see what happens. On with the post:Gee, all of that sounds nice and all......except you applied all those to your Evil Duo so strictly. They do all of the above all of the time, without mercy and without missing a beat. I don't like that kind of AI, especially if boss chars like the Evil Duo have it. Thanks to their uber-strict AI, they're either nigh unbeatable or beatable only by select few redundant methods that vary from character to character. Not my idea of fun.But otherwise, those AI ideas are good advice. So to everyone who'll take advice from these tips, please do not make your AI so strict. Unless you hate everyone...And here's another tip: Try to keep impossible AI-only actions down to a minimum (or better yet, get rid of them entirely). Y'know, dashing while guarding (some of Splode's characters are guilty of this), defying power requirements, being able to air recover despite getting hit by a no-recover move, that sort of thing.....
Baby Bonnie Hood said, May 28, 2004, 08:10:16 amAnd here's another tip: Try to keep impossible AI-only actions down to a minimum (or better yet, get rid of them entirely). Y'know, dashing while guarding (some of Splode's characters are guilty of this), defying power requirements, being able to air recover despite getting hit by a no-recover move, that sort of thing..... Well if a character is well converted (i.e following the game if it comes from a game, or following logical schemes if it is original) there are few chances to see its AI having this kind of behaviour unless the creator wanted so (but that'd be dumb).
I know it can be damn fraustrating sometimes, but I guess some people do appreciate a good challenge. Stupid or easily killable characters come in the dozens, but one which will threaten to give you a good trashing are more rare.EK and ER weren't meant to be normal obstacles you encounter in a game, they were meant to be THE biggest nasty at the end of the game.I guess I've always loved arche's characters because some of them had ridiculous ai. So challenging that when/if you actually do beat them, you can throw your hands up and go "oh my god, I did it!". That was a great feeling.I've also been in competitive gaming for quite some time, used to meet up and play with the local shoryuken.com bunch for tournaments and friendly competitions, and guess I wanted to share my experience of tight, random, challenging gameplay. I get comments about EK and ER's combos being insane, but those are my basic combos which I pull of, and friends I play MUGEN with do the same, they learn from the AI.If its too tough to the point of pissing you off, ctrl 1, ctrl 2, disable their AI, if you don't think you are up to the challenge. Last thing I had in mind was to try and annoy people with them. I only wanted to share this experience with the people who download them and so far, I know there are quite a few who do appreciate it.Back on topic, I guess it all boils down to what level of challenge you want to give to your players; as proven, not everyone will enjoy a strict AI. But having said that, you can't please everyone
Evil Ken's okay, but Ryu really does the same 5 combos over and over again.that tatsumaki senpuu kyaku combopunch, punch, punch, hcf_2pmetsu hadouken combolow attack, jump back, mssmroll, low attack, one of the above combos
Aye, there was one move which I was waiting for before expanding Ryu's combo tree options, however... it didn't make it in the last release.
Reu said, June 28, 2004, 11:44:40 amIf its too tough to the point of pissing you off, ctrl 1, ctrl 2, disable their AI, if you don't think you are up to the challenge.Doesn't work. Even the tiniest bit of computer control will activate their custom AI X_XThese two are just no fun as computer opponents
In my opinion, ER/EK's AIs will not be much of a challenge if you remove the exaggerated invincibilities, what made them tough is not the AI, but it's actually the properties of some of their moves.
wanna hear a really stupid and unbeatable AI? its of Shadow Dio made by Orochi HermanI was able to win against E-ken a couple of times but this is the char I've never in my entire god damn life been able to beat.Its also doin' the same move all over again (just like E-ryu....which is my most fav char btw..lol)yea E-ryu's my most fav but that doesn't change the fact that it does all the same move over and over again. E-ken was better.
I myself like to watch them fight every now and then!I just pop up some popcorn and watch the insanaty!But someone who RELLY is cheap is the KOF zero....He's got 7 (!!!) moves that he CAN NOT be hit out of, and does the super that attacks the playing field every time...Also did I feget that he's got two allies that he can summion over and over and over......You get the picture....But still I gott use this data one day! Thanks for the info!
You should see Elque in action. Very fun. (Copies lipucd and watches Elque beat up another sucker (with popcorn in hand))
If you want good artificial intelligence, it has to mimic real intelligence. The primary thing AI is missing is reaction time. The average reaction time of a human is somewhere between .2 and .3 seconds. Giving this handicap to the AI forces the AI to use the same strategies as a human. They can't just instantaneously counter whatever the opponent does, so they have to anticipate and plan ahead. You don't have to make learning AI or AI that develops its strategy dynamically. You just have to make sure it understands what its strategy is.
sander said, September 08, 2004, 11:11:28 pmIn my opinion, ER/EK's AIs will not be much of a challenge if you remove the exaggerated invincibilities, what made them tough is not the AI, but it's actually the properties of some of their movesOf course, I want him to be a strong and challenging fighter but not having too exaggerated invincibilities. Maybe, their AI can be lessen but still a boss AI. Allow me to disagree that without a strong AI, their strong moves will not make them an invincible character.Henry EviL said, September 10, 2004, 11:14:32 amwanna hear a really stupid and unbeatable AI? its of Shadow Dio made by Orochi HermanI was able to win against E-ken a couple of times but this is the char I've never in my entire god damn life been able to beat.Its also doin' the same move all over again (just like E-ryu....which is my most fav char btw..lol)yea E-ryu's my most fav but that doesn't change the fact that it does all the same move over and over again. E-ken was better.I disagree that Shadow Dio has a stupid ??? and unbeatable AI. He's not even as strong as EK/ER ???. I have defeated him several times and few times with EK/ER. Every character (including all the chars mentioned in this topic, except for Elque), has a pattern and knowing that pattern after several tries, can be an edge for you to defeat them. Regarding Elque: almost impossible to beat. And it's really unbeatable if you're just gonna use weak to average chars. BTW, I can beat him only when I use D'raven and Amakusa (and maybe Rick from SplatterHouse).
One who would be very meticulous and who wouldn't fear to try something stupid might want to test this :Simply a var to remember the state number it will change to, and a var for a timer. Instead of changestates triggered by the AI, it would be varsets, the first would take the number of the desired state, and the other, give a value to the timer so that it would give the illusion the computer is atually performing the command...That's an awful way of coding things but the idea may work, especially with Guile-like characters (those whose attacks are done with "hold back, forward, button").
