State of the AI Bottleneck

Hi all,

I have noticed a consistent theme to the telethons question and answers sections. That is AI. The current and seemingly endless state of the AI is that it's bogged down, and bottle-necked.

My question is: What is going to be done and should be done about it before release? I think it's a significant enough problem thus far that it's frankly my main concern for the longevity of the game at it's (AI) current rate of improvement.

Thanks for reading!

(the 2 year plan kind of references the different parts of what is wanted, but not AI directly)

 

@Scrambler

 

AI is a very specific category... it's how NPCs behave and react.

Other categories relate to AI, but have more to do with NPCs: path-finding and mesh management, movement, optimizations (network traffic, frame-rate, load times), spawn management, and a bunch of other categories.

There isn't a single person in charge of NPCs... Many systems intersect w/ NPCs now : level design, combat design, conversation, UI, player state, quests, animation, etc.

NPC optimizations and improvements are a shared technical responsibility where several people contribute on a regular basis. We've made great progress on load times, frame-rate, and will be spending more time addressing network optimizations in the next few releases.

I'm not sure where the AI 'bottle-neck' idea came from, but that's beside the point. The company decides how best to deploy our resources - what we focus on can change from release to release. For example, if we feel having several programmers focus the majority of the release improving our frame-rate / or load times, that's what we're going to do.

The entire staff has plenty of work to do - we always have

I leave the planning up to Starr.

 

Soo New and end game is the focus, what bout broken / incomplete

 

Great post @Chris its a balm on my shattered heart. I'm sure everyone including critics can appreciate honest communication such as this, helps us see where to focus when we want to be helpful.

Did you just mention @Gix ? or is there also a dev named the same ?

 

If you read between the lines, it will all come in the second pass.

The devs didn't just aim for perfect, that would have eaten their budget way too fast, instead they went for the long term, longevity and stability, which I appreciate.

We might not understand the philosophy, but to me understanding the intentions is more valuable.

 

There's a dev who shares the same handle, yes. I get tons and tons of friend invites... never sure if it's because they think I'm a dev or if they just want a teleport.

@Chris @Scrambler So far I got to say that the AI (yes, even stuff like pathfinding) is possibly my favourite part of the game and blows a lot of other behaviours (for online games) out of the water. So keep on rockin'

P.S. - can someone take a look at the any of the ranged enemy's tendency to run away? Water elementals in particular are pretty much:

 

Indeed, have been saying it since the archers are here... at one point it should turn back and hand to hand... all it does by running away is delaying the inevitable while doing close to no damage.

 

that is if you have all the archers infront of you, chasing an archer with one or two in the back is devastating and stressing, when they slow me it takes a while to get infront of the one I am chasing to then turn and start dodging again. I guess my choice to play "without" armor (13DR & 0 avoid)
was a bad one

Love the replies here from the devs, informative .

 

Ah yes I guess in some cases it can be a good strategy which is why I always advocated for variety of behaviors, most archers would get into defensive hand to hand combat mode which makes them last longer than running around aimlessly, and they deal more damage as a group... of course I think lower IQ monsters shouldn't have those behaviors, but kobolds shouldn't behave like skeletons for example.

 

Or you know... curl up in a ball and weep/beg for mercy.

 

Just want to say, thanks for the responses! Definitely gives me warm and fuzzy feelings to learn that tweaks to the AI will be ongoing and knowing more of the ins and outs on AI development at Portalarium is helpful.

To clarify, I think what my main concern regarding "AI" is the load it takes on scenes, and why we cannot have "more pets, more (complex) vendors, more complex NPC behaviors, combative creatures in cities perhaps?" Those types of AI possibilities were what I meant as the bottleneck, and maybe I worded it incorrectly.

 

A critical thread and post, with in depth answers from devs, not attacking each other and derailments. This is what we need more of, not moderation.

 

are NPC mages not healing(or resurrecting) other NPC like 1 year ago'? (talking about AI) or i'm just me that have this impression?

 

I hate Water Elementals. Sometimes, the deck is in my favor and I can blast off enough high damage attacks in the right order that even with their ability to spam near 100 or more Hit Points every... 12 seconds (it feels like that anyway) that I can get them knocked down. Most of the time though? I see Water Elementals and I just go the other way.. it's just not worth trying to beat on them for what could become a literal endless period of time while they run, heal, heal, heal run, hit me some more, heal, run, hit, heal, heal and heal again.

Worst MOBs yet.

 

Stun them.

 

We were just giving suggestions for the AI, the things you can do like root it in place we already know of

 

If you already know how to deal with it then it's not really a problem is it. *tongue in cheek*
But yeah i get what your going at, sorry for my attempt at humor =)

 

probably just want a teleport . Im kind of like LB, I dont "friend" people I dont know, so I need to adventure with someone or at least have a conversation before the friend list gets engaged. I hope no one thinks im being rude, but I reject a friend invite about once a day because I know its just people expanding their teleport network, and that doesnt feel friendly to me. It feels more like ... facebook *shudders*.