AI

[Amadman]

I thought that at one time ai was listed on the road map but, I do not see it there at this time.

In my opinion ai was one of the weakest points in MO. So it kind of concerns me that there seems to be little focus on it with such little time until the planned release.

I hope there are big plans to bring in things in the game from old videos, like the troll and swimming npcs.

I also hope the new engine allows for more natural ai like was attempted in the past.

More roaming type behavior would be nice. This would lead more towards players having to hunt in the world for their kills and resources vs just going to a certain location and farming/grinding. Like town life, animals should have their routines. Getting water, hunting for food, resting ect...

Along with that would be predator and pray type behaviors. Preditors would hunt prey to eat while others would look for vegetation while trying to keep hidden and flee when feeling threatened. I could even imagine the herbivores searching out and eating some of the vegi type pickables in the world.

Ai should also work in the same way as players so they have stam, have line of site, cant shoot through walls, have to swim in water, ect...

NPCs should be required to have the items required to make things work. So archers need a supply of arrows, mages need all reagents required for spells. And if such supplies run out then they no longer can use those things until they are able to resupply or be relived by someone else. Also if they are killed before this supply runs out then it should be in the drop for that npc.

Even though we have yet to see any ai and it no longer appears on the roadmap, I look forward to the fauna being released next month and getting a first look at what has been done at this point.

Hopefully big things are planned and in the works!

 

[PatWins]

Hey Amadman! It looks like most of the concerns you've listed in your post have already been addressed a number of times now. I would recommend taking a look and Rolufe and Henrik's interview. You'll be pretty pleased with what you find there.

The fact that AI was pushed back on the roadmap does NOT mean it is a low priority. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

SV is no longer a tiny team with minimal resources. They utilize multiple teams to work on different areas of the game simultaneously. Just because you see X content doesn't mean Y isn't being developed by another branch.

I'm sure it was pushed back because they want it in the best possible condition before giving it to the community. For many players, functionality of AI is going to be the benchmark for whether or not the game will be successful. It has to release in the best possible state.

 

[Amadman]

I'm sure it was pushed back because they want it in the best possible condition before giving it to the community. For many players, functionality of AI is going to be the benchmark for whether or not the game will be successful. It has to release in the best possible state.

Yes, this is how I feel exactly.

But with the planned release time approaching rapidly I fear that it will not be in that state at the planned release time.

Having been on this boat for some time I have multiple times seen things release that where clearly not ready but the deadline was past. This is what I do not want to happen at the initial steam release. Many will expect a fully functioning game at that time and will judge it as if it is. Sure there can still be plenty of the extras that can be added down the road. But the full core of the game should be solidly tested and working as intended at that time.

Anything short of that will be a missed opportunity for SV and MO that they will not have a chance to get back. So lets hope they have learned their lessons here and release the game to steam only when it is ready.

 

[ThaBadMan]

Hey Amadman! It looks like most of the concerns you've listed in your post have already been addressed a number of times now. I would recommend taking a look and Rolufe and Henrik's interview. You'll be pretty pleased with what you find there.

The fact that AI was pushed back on the roadmap does NOT mean it is a low priority. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

SV is no longer a tiny team with minimal resources. They utilize multiple teams to work on different areas of the game simultaneously. Just because you see X content doesn't mean Y isn't being developed by another branch.

I'm sure it was pushed back because they want it in the best possible condition before giving it to the community. For many players, functionality of AI is going to be the benchmark for whether or not the game will be successful. It has to release in the best possible state.

I hope so, releasing AI in any shape close to MO1 is gonna be a disaster, especially after they have talked about AI and what we can expect.

 

[bbihah]

Seb is a pretty damn good AI programmer, i've seen his work.
Hopefully the new engine+netcode and some maybe even greater minds on the team will let us have some good and interesting AI this time around.

 

[Eldrath]

I mean I like good AI as much as the next guy but I don´t think it´s that important for a sandbox. It´s about player interaction after all.

If it does not bug out all the time I will be happy. I also dread the issues with grind-to-win if those creatures with special moves are allowed to be pets.

 

[ThaBadMan]

I mean I like good AI as much as the next guy but I don´t think it´s that important for a sandbox. It´s about player interaction after all.

If it does not bug out all the time I will be happy. I also dread the issues with grind-to-win if those creatures with special moves are allowed to be pets.

I dread pets aswell, hopefully they wont be too good and serve a support function, same as mounts imo.
MO1 had too good pets and mounts who simulated a player/several players.

 

[barcode]

i have severe doubts that the AI will respond as you would expect in a single player game. Henrik seems optimistic but i really dont think its reasonable for an MMO. i'd be pretty happy with AI that responds with a normal aggro table and proper pathing.

other games give tamed creatures vastly different stats/abilities to keep it balanced. I can't say that i really agree with that approach but i dont see how else to keep things from getting completely unbalanced in pvp.

-barcode

 

[Eldrath]

other games give tamed creatures vastly different stats/abilities to keep it balanced. I can't say that i really agree with that approach but i dont see how else to keep things from getting completely unbalanced in pvp.

Well that was kinda happening in Mortal with beast mastery allowing for stronger attacks depending on the skill level.

The question is if they want to keep the idea that everything can be tamed or dominated or limiting it to a few species. Lets be honest, most pets in Mortal were generic and 99% of types were almost never used. If we can take away complexity from weapon crafting to balance it better, the same should be done for beast mastery.

The first question that SV needs to answer is how much of a character should be spend on a pet. The bigger the skillpoint investment, the bigger the return has to be. If I sacrifice the ability to f.e. ride and do mounted archery I should get something back. Once they have answered that question they can scale the power of pets accordingly.

Personally I would like to see more specialized pets that can help in other tasks as well. It would be cool to have tamed predators sniffing out enemies (or huntable creatures), bears collect honey for you (with their share), Razorbacks to carry bags etc. This would involve a lot more work above creating a basic system though, but potentially make beast masters into an interesting choice for utility.

Lastly I read lots of comments by the usual crowd that think that time investment should yield massive and overwhelming power. Pets are a prime candidate for this to happen.

 

[bbihah]

If they streamlined pets a little bit and made your companion more permanent. They could easily limit the type of pets you could have. atleast for taming vs dominating. With dominating still allowing some ridiculous stuff, as is tradition.


Some methods to make pets less of a massive pain to obtain, train and then lose to wonky AI or for any other reason (AHEM JUST SIMPLY VANISHING ala mo1) would be if the pet could be revived much like a player. With either loss of levels(if they still want to use the level system), monetary cost or like in SWG where pets have a "vitality" stat, every time the pet dies and comes back it has less vitality and once it hits 0% it can still come back but its stats are so gimped its just worth keeping for memory or as a vanity pet. If i remember correctly the pet stats take a hit at 50% vitality as well, but that is IMO irrelevant, as people that use their pets for any purpose will just count 50% the same as 0% and get a new pet. So it feels like just tuning the entire vitality/durability mechanic on a 0-100 scale with 0 being time to retire and how much is lost per death being the balancing factor instead.

 

[Keurk]

Sincerely doubt you've seen anything.
The fact that you are here speaks volumes.

dude i played this game from june 2010 to end 2018, and seen pretty much all what was possible to see with AI. I know they have had huge restriction due to engine and such things, but one sure thing is you havent seen any "good" AI in mo. What you have seen is flying pig, underground/undercliffs tupilaks, guards or bandits shooting you trought 4 layers of walls, beeing stuck on animals that are positionned right bellow you,and i can add a bilion more things, or even add videos but thats not the point. The point is you havent seen any good ,spectacular AI in MO, the aggro system is utterly basic. People were easly able to trio kimuru, i was soloing minotaur chieftain like hundred others players very easly. "the fact that you are here" but wich fact are you even talking about XD