Dynamic A.I

[Diango12]

What Rapture did was disagreeing, and presenting his own version of how he believed the Alien acted. If something like that was to be considered rude, and dismissive, then I don't see how we could ever have any sort of discussion on anything ever without being "rude".

No, you're glossing over his tone and approach. His post was dismissive. 'Party A is not to be accused because they didn't technically say any bad words. Sure their demeanor, attitude and approach was rude as shit. But party B is the one tossing around the curse words. Condemn party B.'

Also, even IF Rapture was being rude to you, then the worst thing that you could do is be rude back. It will just potentially, and needlessly continue the line of drama.

Wow. And I'm done. I don't see how tone policing and in group favoritism is an effective way to moderate. If you're not even going to pretend to be impartial why attempt to mediate at all?

[Romulator]

I'd post something, but I'll see what Kreekakon has to say first before I fuel anything.

[Diango12]

I'm done. I don't want to bicker endlessly when the thread is thoroughly derailed as it is.

[Kreekakon]

Believe me, if it was Rapture the one who was slinging around the bad manner I would not hesitate at all to call him out on it. I am calling you out because you were the first person to be impolite. I have read over Rapture's post multiple times and cannot find any traces of bad tones, or passive aggressiveness.

If you believe that he has wronged you in some way you are welcome to defend your standpoint UNDER the condition that you act civil, and courteous. Breach that, and you lose the right to not be at fault as the defending party.

And since you bring it up so often...yes, what I'm doing is tone policing. Bad tones in posts are one of the reasons that lead to online fighting, and should be avoided at all costs.

You are welcome to voice your disagreement with Rapture's post, but I urge you to do it courteously and politely. If you want to argue this matter any further with me please do it over PM. This thread should be about the Alien, not who's tone is good, or not.

Any further posts on this matter in this thread will be deleted regardless of who made the post, or the rest of its content (More serious offences will result in warnings)

[Rapture]

Well I don't know if my logic is correct, I expect it to be wrong in some form or another or perhaps wrong all together.

But I was, as you implied, using a brute force technique to get some varying degrees of dynamic encounters with enemy AI.
I know their are a 1000 ways to skin a cat, but that just seemed the logical/easiest way to go around it. But hey, if it works, it works.

"As with most A.I systems today, Alien Isolation most likely has an event based architecture, similar to event sourcing in CQRS with a pub sub layer over a public message bus, possibly also employing fuzzy logic. Player interactions produce events that are picked up by publisher module, and registered domain elements, like the Alien A.I, subscribe to those events. You get a cleaner architecture that doesn't rely on procedural gunk, but more importantly, you can easily slap on a suite of unit and integration tests on those domain subscribers and the publisher."

I don't understand any of the technical stuff, but looking up the term "CQRS" on google for a minute. It's to my understanding that it works something like a Database?

http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CQRS.html

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About this snippet... "You get a cleaner architecture that doesn't rely on procedural gunk, but more importantly, you can easily slap on a suite of unit and integration tests on those domain subscribers and the publisher."

(In Bold) : I would think if you want good AI, the movement should be somewhat random or pseudo-random to give the feeling that your facing against a real-player/entity (procedural gunk as you call it). Sometimes he will sometimes move to the right or perhaps to the left. Maybe he will not see you and search elsewhere or deduce that you are hiding inside a locker and open it and skewer you.

(Underlined) : With the "suite of unit and integration tests on those domain subscribers and the publisher" is that a part of the game development or code? I'm not sure to what this means.

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Can you still post the link to the particular blog?

I'm going throw them slowly, looking at ones that might have what your talking about...

So far this is the closest I could find, not sure if it's the right one...

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2012...later.html

Spoiler below!

Sofiane Merah - September, 16, 2012

I have a question. Playing through Amnesia it seems to me that encounters (the thing you dread the most) happen with certainty at scripted times and sometimes happen at random in certain scripted areas. Like taking the bend in a turn at a dark hallway (not fair!). But have you guys ever considered dynamic encounters?

Playing through amnesia for the first couple of days were the most intense and scary for me. This is because I convinced myself, thanks to the brilliant game design and immersion, that I could get into trouble at any time, any place. I also believed that I could provoke an encounter with unintentional and uncontrolled actions on my part. For example dropping a vase and making to much noise. Losing sanity and breathing to loudly. This made the environment seem 'alive' in sense, and the notion and also the possible consequences of it, frightened me so much, because I was constantly in a mode of fight or flight and it would never stop.

But when I realized that it was mainly scripts, I felt more at ease. One reason is that my brain was able to gain a sense of security in certain areas and situations. Two because it made the enemies almost feel 'restrained' where before I perceived them to be omnipotent and almost omnipresent. Before I would be horrified if I even did something to re arrange the furniture I later realized that few things had consequences.

One last mention about dynamics that I as a player I observed generally in games. When it comes to scary situations the brain does not like the feeling of fight or flight and like any physical tension it seeks to relieve it. So while playing I have noticed that my mind likes to form these mental safety constructs made up of patterns it infers about the game world. An example: The entrance hall at the beginning of the game where the lab, archives and wine cellar are. After so many times of moving back and forth through that hall to complete the quests, I couldn't help but start to have a sense of security and ease when at that hall. The pattern of safety was established and not even the untrue belief of a dynamic environment was enough to return me to fight or flight. It was no longer scary then, and that carried over to the later experience of the subsequent levels.

The same phenomenon occurs when you are at the height of fight or flight. As is in the archives when you are moving through dark hallways and rooms. The tension shoots up so much that you are compelled to run into a room for no reason at all and barricade yourself until the tension comes back down. Here my brain starts to construct this pattern of relief when exploring the world and after a while it lessens my fear when entering an area that is strange and unknown. Because my mind has trained me that no matter what situation, I can always release the tension by running into a room and barricading myself. I would go so far as to say this is probably the only 'weapon' in the game that you have and removing it and teaching the player's mind that you cannot construct these patterns of safety would make what would be a very scary experience almost unbearable.

If you took the time to read this I appreciate it. These are just observations from a humble player and as a huge fan, I look forward to the reveal of the secret project.

Thomas - September 16, 2012

Two comments on this:
- We tried more dynamic encounters in Penumbra and our take away is that they are very hard to control and get right. While they can increase tension because you are never sure when it will hit (even as a designer) the actual encounters are really hard to to consistently engaging. The player lack a good hiding spot, the running might last for too long, etc. All of these break down immersion and while they do not mean dynamic is bad, it is important to have in mind that it comes with problem. When we used a more scripted approach with short time spans in Amnesia, many of these problems went away.

- The major problem is that we simply have too many enemies of the same kind and with similar behaviors. This is why you are able to get the patterns, because we repeat it too much. Had we been better at hiding the patterns I we could have fixed much of what you say.

Still I find more dynamic systems interesting, and I am sure some kind blend of the approaches might be really nice.

Anyone know if their is a "search" feature anywhere on the Thomas Grip's Blog? Can't seem to find one anywhere.

[Googolplex]

The Alien also adapts. After evading it successfully enough times, it will begin to behave like an ambush predator. Waiting in the vents, you can sometimes see its sick silicone drooling seeping out. It waits for you to make the wrong move, to come closer.

This is unscary for me. When a monster is waiting for you it seems like a fun-challenge and no longer increasingly serious. When the monster plays "catch me if you can" with the player, it is acting like a human and this means a bad designed A.I. (even when it might be more dynamic).

[Kreekakon]

This is unscary for me. When a monster is waiting for you it seems like a fun-challenge and no longer increasingly serious. When the monster plays "catch me if you can" with the player, it is acting like a human and this means a bad designed A.I. (even when it might be more dynamic).

Could you elaborate a bit for me? I think your two sentences are slightly contradictory (Although I'm sure it'll be cleared up once you explain)

You say that you dislike it when the monster game becomes a "fun challenge", but also dislike it when the monster is acting like a human. Isn't the fact that the monster behaves more intelligently, and dynamically in some ways akin to a human mean that the game is overall more fresh, and not constrained to learning "gamey enemy patterns"?

[Diango12]

The Alien also adapts. After evading it successfully enough times, it will begin to behave like an ambush predator. Waiting in the vents, you can sometimes see its sick silicone drooling seeping out. It waits for you to make the wrong move, to come closer.

This is unscary for me. When a monster is waiting for you it seems like a fun-challenge and no longer increasingly serious. When the monster plays "catch me if you can" with the player, it is acting like a human and this means a bad designed A.I. (even when it might be more dynamic).

I have to agree slightly. Giving the monster a semblance of intelligence and personality is a bit less scary in my opinion. In all honesty, when the monster behaves this way, I consider this the relief phase of the hunt. But I don't think this is a badly designed A.I. But a negative design decision in the scare department, at least for me.

But on the plus side it does add to its unpredictability, and it mixes things up. Scary or unscary, if it did the same thing over and over then it would get incredibly boring.

I don't understand any of the technical stuff, but looking up the term "CQRS" on google for a minute. It's to my understanding that it works something like a Database?

CQRS is about separating the concerns of write objects from the concerns of read objects. In event sourcing, state is changed through events and their respective event handlers. This architectural pattern makes it convenient to drive a system's state through events and never have to worry about side effects simply because you performed a query. It doesn't have to touch a persistent store either, writes and queries could just as well be dealing with an in-memory collection of object state to do their stuff.

In Bold) : I would think if you want good AI, the movement should be somewhat random or pseudo-random to give the feeling that your facing against a real-player/entity (procedural gunk as you call it). Sometimes he will sometimes move to the right or perhaps to the left. Maybe he will not see you and search elsewhere or deduce that you are hiding inside a locker and open it and skewer you.

This is actually the case. The Alien's A.I is unpredictable. It has no set patrol path and it - for the most part - does what it wants. Hiding is never a guarantee. Last night I found myself cornered, so I made a mad dash to a locker before the Alien could see me and knocking over a few oxygen tanks on my way. It took only a couple of seconds to hear those horrible foot stomps running towards me to rip the locker door open and finish it. Sometimes the Alien tries to investigate hiding spots and you have to hold your breath (as a in-game mechanic) not to get discovered.

Unfortunately the A.I is at its best on hard difficulty. Which is why a lot of people have been complaining that this game is really really hard. If you place it on easy, then the A.I is dumbed down and you get a lot of stupid situations. For example, the Alien looks directly at you but doesn't 'see' you.

Can you still post the link to the particular blog?

I'm going throw them slowly, looking at ones that might have what your talking about...

So far this is the closest I could find, not sure if it's the right one...

Yes.

I stand by the way I felt after reading your post. I felt offended and it seemed to me that you were being rude. Maybe that wasn't your intention, and if I was wrong, I apologize for reacting in an insulting way.

[Googolplex]

I think everyone of us has to play Alien Isolation first to understand of what Diango12 is taling about. Maybe he has right and the dynamic A.I. is really an excellent improvement for horror games like this.

But I think this will depending from game to game.

[J.R.S.S.]

I have yet to play Alien yet, but from what I've read about, the A.I. is what the game is being praised for (that and the fact that it's loyal to the first film). I would say that the Alien (A.I.) is just a different breed from that of the Amnesia games. The Alien tends to adapt, hiding and chasing when it sees fit, reacting to the players actions and so forth. In Amnesia, it is, to say anything, just different. It may seem less advanced then that from the Alien game, but one must remember that it's a newer game and so it shows it. For Isolation, they heavily advertised the A.I. (not saying that the story or any other elements are less important, to note). For Amnesia, the main story line and the mystery was the core element (story line mixed in with the horror elements, of course).

I believe that the A.I. in Alien: Isolation may very well be more advanced but I don't believe it's particularly fair to compare it to Amnesia. Either way, both games A.I.'s do the job.