DavePack

Some of you might be following a current thread on Madden 2002 and the "cheap" AI it reportedly uses against a human player to, in essence, cheat.

While I don't have Madden 2002, I do have NCAA Football 2002 for the PS2, and I've noticed that whenever my team is called for holding, it is almost always when I've scored a key touchdown against the CPU. Given that sometimes I can even predict this being called, I've come to the conclusion that the AI is cheating in this regard as well.

So my question for discussion is this: why has game AI apparently not evolved as much as other game aspects (such as graphics, sound, options, etc.) when developers have had well over 10 years now to get it down? Or do you disagree with that statement? Why?

I feel it *has* evolved somewhat--I feel like I'm playing the best football games I've ever played in my life right now--but it still could use some work. And sometimes, series took steps backward in that department (989 Studios comes to mind here). I would think basic game AI should be largely hardware-independent, so that the basics of what should happen in, say, a video game of football *should* remain the same 10, even 20 years from now.

Comments?

Cornfed

Anytime I think the AI is 'cheap' in a game like those made by EA Sports i.e. Madden Football, I only need to recall the days of NBA Jam. If you want to talk about cheap AI, look no further than Midway's arcade sports games. In NFL Blitz, any time I got two touchdowns ahead of the CPU, the next time I was tackled a fumble was a definite. I would have to resort to jumping out of bounds before they could touch me. The CPU would intercept any pass that left the pocket. If you're getting mad at NCAA 2002, you never played enough NFL Blitz.

DavePack

Ah, but Midway's sports games were SUPPOSED to cheat like that--it was the infamous "CPU assistance" mode, common in games like NBA Jam, Blitz, etc. I remember some of the home versions of these games allowed you to turn this feature off; otherwise, the whole point was to keep the games close.

I think we're comparing apples and oranges here (i.e. a feature that is supposed to cheat because it's part of the game design, vs. a more "truer" representation of the sport that appears to cheat when it shouldn't). My basic point is this: companies like EA have had well over 10 years now to perfect the basic AI of a sports game, without regard to the graphics, platform, etc. So why are we still seeing games with such significant flaws?

Again, my opinion only--I'm simply hoping to start some discussion on this topic.

cartman

"Cheating" in racing games gets me even more. Anyone remember the whistling grey truck in Off-Road? The "super car" every once in a while in RC Pro AM? It still goes on (not quite as much, but it does), and bugs me more than sports games... probably because I don't typically play sports games.

mr.snowmizer

Because nobody picks up a game box, looks at the pictures on the back and says, "Look at that great AI. I'm buying this game!"

McHawkson

One thing I hated about Madden 2001 is that AI computer made too much passing mode rather than rushing mode. I remember one game the AI quarterback had about 75 pass attempted (in 10 minutes game). But in reality, no quarterbacks can pass that much.

What they needed to do improve AI and be more reality.

DavePack

Nobody is saying that you can't have great graphics or your requisite eye candy in a game in order to sell units. What I'm saying is, why hasn't basic sports game AI seemed to advance as much as graphics has? Especially when it's really independent of graphics, hardware, etc.

And don't you think that a football game with superb, perhaps even revolutionary AI, would definitely hype that fact on the back of the box in the next, and following year's, version as a selling point? Let's say Madden 2003 had what most people felt was superb AI, the best of any football game ever. Would that not be a selling point for Madden 2004, assuming EA didn't mess with something that worked so well in the first place? I know I'd be extremely partial to Madden 2004 if they announced that it featured the same, award-winning AI that was in Madden 2003.

My point is still this: many developers have had well over 10 years to perfect the basic AI in sports games, so why are we still seeing some of these glaring flaws in 2001?

Aghama

This is how it is in all games, not just sports. So-called "A.I." is just a complex set of rules on how to react to a given stimulus, and it takes up more memory than you might think. There are always going to be ways to exploit it, so the quick way to fix it is to make the computer "cheat". I don't think anyone has figured out how to make a real learning (something akin to a neural network) A.I. yet; at least, I've never come across one.

DavePack

As a computing professional, I'm familiar with AI is and how much memory it might take. But I'm not talking about anything real extravagant here--I'm talking about building a good, solid AI for, say, a football game. I think the Visual Concepts AI efforts (NFL2K, 2K1) on the Dreamcast were outstanding, so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if it helped force EA to become a little more innovative in their own efforts. Now I'm not saying those games are perfect, but I think they arguably offer some of the best video game football experiences you can have, and I'm not talking about the graphics or sound--I'm talking about the AI.

Well, maybe this isn't such a good topic for discussion after all. I feel like maybe I'm the only one seeing this issue (perhaps I am, perhaps not). Not saying that's good or bad either way, I'm just not getting the responses I thought I'd see.

In any event, here's hoping that companies like EA and Visual Concepts continue to innovate with the AI side of things as much as they do with graphics, sound, gameplay options, etc.

We've certainly come a long way from Atari 2600 Football, haven't we?

Poo Poo

Great AI in games does exist, just look at Black & White, which has some wonderful AI. But that game was developed by a top-notch developer that cares more about the "experience" than actually getting the game out the door.

You have to remember, most of the companies today only want one thing: Sell lots of games. The best way to do that is to have the most advanced jaw-dropping graphics of any game on the market. So developers spend much of their time working on the graphics engine of a game mostly. In addition, 3D games have traditionally been extremely CPU intensive. Most games nowdays spend close to 70 or even 80% of the cpu's resources JUST on transforming and lighting. With the advent of GPUs, that load has lightened a bit. Unfortunately, except for the X-BOX and GameCube, no next generation console systems have GPUs with onboard T&L, so the CPU is still going to be strained. Although the PS2 should be able to do some rather good AI because it's designed for gaming, where a PC isn't. So the PS2 should still be able to pump out some good AI.

Now having said that about CPU resources, more resources have been dedicated towards AI in recent years than before mainly because computers have been getting so fast and the graphics cards have been able to take some of the graphics processing loads off of the CPU. There was a poll done at the Game Developer's Conference starting in 1997 and continued through the most recent one regarding AI. In 1997 most games being developed had less than 5% of CPU resources dedicated to AI. That's not a lot to work with. But by the year 2000 as much as 30% of CPU resources were being dedicated to AI in some cases.

In addition, where AI used to be developed during maybe the last 2 months of a 2 year development cycle as an afterthought by maybe 2 or 3 collaberating programmers (in their free time), nowdays as many as 70% of games being developed have at least 1 dedicated AI programmer that is brought in from the start of development.

So the quality of AI is getting better. I've never played any sports games on any system so I couldn't comment on the current state of sports AI. However, in other areas I have seen a definite improvement in Game AI. Examples are Perfect Dark for N64, Black & White for PC, The Sims for PC, etc. Notice that these are games that have taken 3+ years to develop. But sports games have to be pumped out year after year in time for whatever sports season the game is related to. So that gives a definite deadline for a gaming company, and that probably has something to do with the state of the AI in sports games.

Mike

Whoops, wrong thread.

I was hoping to see Haley Joel Osment in football tights.

Lethal Nemesis

Although A.I. has vastly improved over the years, it is still no match for a human opponent. In order to make up for that, the computer has to "cheat" in order to keep things close. While this definitely frustrates most, it is the only way it can compensate for lack of a human player with a real mind. One day, A.I. will most likely improve to the point where the computer no longer has to "cheat." By then, the computers' A.I. will be so advanced that they'll become self-aware and take over the planet, kinda like in Terminator 2.

Feneant

This is one of the main reasons why I only play multiplayer games. Even when I play games like EA's sports (which is very rarely), we play at 3-4 at a time to make it fun. I play hockey games, not football, but you could pull the same move 50 times in a game and score 50 times without the other team ever changing tactic, it was such a drag... but in games with other players, its always unpredictable what they will do. Like that Poo guy said, AI might be improving, but it's still wayyy antiquitated compared to the rest...