AI - or the lack thereof

[Modslave]

Wondering if anyones every seen a really good NPC AI modification.

 

See I love Oblivion, been hacking and modding away at Bethsofts stuff for years now, but the really big problem that continually turns me off from Oblivion while I play it is the way the NPC AI reacts to the player character.

 

Ergo, if you're just wandering around Cyrodil, and you run into an NPC, its a very binary situation, they either:

 

1) Automatically hate you and will attack you on sight...even though they've never seen you before

2) Are completely non-hostile (which takes a little walking up slowly, with your weapon ready, to determine.

 

Whats more, attacking enemy NPCs is always a situation of that enemy running DIRECTLY at you to attack you. Say you identify a bandit down the road before they see you...well thats great. So you drop an arrow on them...and lo and behold, the AI immediately goes into suicide mode and runs right at you attempting to kill you.

 

This leads into a situation of one or two outcomes.

 

1) The enemy dies before getting to you

2) The enemy closes the distance while you're firing and then you simply back pedal and kite them.

 

Overall the largest problem with the NPC AI in Oblivion comes from allied NPCs in mixed battles. They have no concept of you ACTUALLY being there, so they run in front of you, block your path to enemy targets, accidentally run into the line of fire of your arrows or magic while you're attempting to support THEM while they do their crazy NPC melee routine.

 

Its frustrating and annoying, that in a game this well designed, the AI is so.....10 years ago.

 

Overall the only thing I've ever found that goes any where near trying to address this is OOO, and it doesn't really address it, it just beefs up the NPCs to make them more challenging.

 

I'd be interested if anyones aware of any AI overhauls that makes Oblivion NPCs a bit less stupid. I'd probably wet myself from happiness to just ONCE see an NPC, after getting hit with an arrow, look around for the attacker and try to hide behind cover. Rather than immediately knowing exactly where I am.

[Povuholo]

Thieves' Arsenal makes combat/player detection A.I. a little smarter.

 

There's also the Oblivion A.I. Overhaul, but that's still a WIP.(People really gotta stop using the word 'overhaul' in their mod names...)

[madgamer]

Wondering if anyones every seen a really good NPC AI modification.

 

See I love Oblivion, been hacking and modding away at Bethsofts stuff for years now, but the really big problem that continually turns me off from Oblivion while I play it is the way the NPC AI reacts to the player character.

 

Ergo, if you're just wandering around Cyrodil, and you run into an NPC, its a very binary situation, they either:

 

1) Automatically hate you and will attack you on sight...even though they've never seen you before

2) Are completely non-hostile (which takes a little walking up slowly, with your weapon ready, to determine.

 

Whats more, attacking enemy NPCs is always a situation of that enemy running DIRECTLY at you to attack you. Say you identify a bandit down the road before they see you...well thats great. So you drop an arrow on them...and lo and behold, the AI immediately goes into suicide mode and runs right at you attempting to kill you.

 

This leads into a situation of one or two outcomes.

 

1) The enemy dies before getting to you

2) The enemy closes the distance while you're firing and then you simply back pedal and kite them.

 

Overall the largest problem with the NPC AI in Oblivion comes from allied NPCs in mixed battles. They have no concept of you ACTUALLY being there, so they run in front of you, block your path to enemy targets, accidentally run into the line of fire of your arrows or magic while you're attempting to support THEM while they do their crazy NPC melee routine.

 

Its frustrating and annoying, that in a game this well designed, the AI is so.....10 years ago.

 

Overall the only thing I've ever found that goes any where near trying to address this is OOO, and it doesn't really address it, it just beefs up the NPCs to make them more challenging.

 

I'd be interested if anyones aware of any AI overhauls that makes Oblivion NPCs a bit less stupid. I'd probably wet myself from happiness to just ONCE see an NPC, after getting hit with an arrow, look around for the attacker and try to hide behind cover. Rather than immediately knowing exactly where I am.

 

 

I think I can identify with what you say and have the same kind of wish. A person such as yourself with hacking and MOD stuff you must know the answer to your question. It is difficult to code AI movement and reaction. If it could be done better I like to think it would be. I do not see this AI ten years ago type behavior. AI behavior in other games like Neverwinter Nights 2 is no better or worse than this one. There is no ground breaking AI out there that is better than what we have now. If we were willing to pay the price the knowledge is there but the cost would be very high.

I don't mind firing that arrow or spell at a distant NPC where there are several of them, That way you can fire and run down a hall , through a door and attack one at a time till the 6 or 7 NPC's in an area are are all gone.

For my old brain I have enough to deal with and if the AI were really smarter it would be a lot harder to play the game :-)

 

Madgamer

[Jumonji]

Oh, how I feel your pain!

 

I'm constantly trying to make Rhianna smarter but there are so many limitations in the scripting options. I think the designers got a bit carried away and created very high-level actions to trigger and forgot to give us the control over the details. It's like giving me a bus token with a choice of destinations, when I really just want to just drive myself.

 

The limitations for modders break down into two areas:

1. Lack of access to low-level objects and behaviors
   
2. Lack of 2nd-generation programming constructs like loops and subroutines(not to mention 3rd or 4th level!)
   

The wide selection of high-level, precoded behaviors is the only thing that saves us. With a lot of creativity and trickery, you can do some cool things with what's there, but you really have to work at it.

 

Anyway... back to work. I'm in the middle of Rhianna's brain transplant and there's a lightening storm coming...

 

-Jumonji