NFL Head Coach to be released Tuesday, 6/20

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by That Guy

have you ever played UT2004? cause the AI does all of that. and no, some n00bs never learn or they leave and more n00btards take their place. Uscript is open for ANYONE to improve the AI, and people have. the AI for UT came from the guy who made reaperbot for quake 1, so good single entity ai has been around in 3d games since 96, and since then a lot of focus has been put on teamwork. Which you'll see if you try CTF or assault or domination or whatnot. Just cause the battlefield guys write the worst AI known to man doesn't mean everyone else's sucks as equally. Farcry's AI is pretty good too. in fact, if you start attacking a base there, the AI will helo in reinforcements very quickly as well.

Played UT2004 extensively for about a year or two - completely unimpressed with the AI, including 3rd-party add ons. In all my time of battling UT2004 bots I never saw problem solving skills that even approached those of a n00b in BF2. Have you actually played BF2?

I still think you're confusing Artificial INTELLIGENCE with faster bots. Bots in UT2004 are incapable of using creativity to concot a strategic plan and can only respond as they've been preprogrammed to respond. That's not really "Intelligence." HL2 with all it's scripted events comes about as close as any game has to portraying Artificial Intelligence, but you play it through a 2nd time and it's the same thing. Same deal with Unreal. Far Cry did a good job with unscripted AI, but even that got really predictable in no time.

Bots in BF2 (even if they had the magical UT Uscript) would never have thought to take a hummer, pack it full of C4 and make a car bomb with it, let alone be able to target the appropriately weak portion of the enemy. They never would have thought of it because it requires creativity, which can be preprogrammed.

Rome: Total War (one of my favorites of the past few years) had pretty good AI, but even that showed gaping flaws. On the hardest level the AI seems incapable of probing for weaknesses in a defensive line or using spies appropriately.

To each his own - I'm glad you enjoy competitions with the AI. Personally I find it incredibly dull when compared to something like BF2. The designers of BF2 didn't need to bother programming good AI because the multiplayer aspect would blow any AI out of the water.

I guess I'm a bit baffled how someone could be endlessly entertained by AI that can eventually be predicted perfectly, but be bored competing with humans who offer an infinite number of different possibilities and challenges that will never be the same.

Different strokes for different folks - I guess in my mind it's as simple as playing something that can't adapt or playing something that can.

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by mheisig

Played UT2004 extensively for about a year or two - completely unimpressed with the AI, including 3rd-party add ons. In all my time of battling UT2004 bots I never saw problem solving skills that even approached those of a n00b in BF2. Have you actually played BF2?

I still think you're confusing Artificial INTELLIGENCE with faster bots. Bots in UT2004 are incapable of using creativity to concot a strategic plan and can only respond as they've been preprogrammed to respond. That's not really "Intelligence." HL2 with all it's scripted events comes about as close as any game has to portraying Artificial Intelligence, but you play it through a 2nd time and it's the same thing. Same deal with Unreal. Far Cry did a good job with unscripted AI, but even that got really predictable in no time.

Bots in BF2 (even if they had the magical UT Uscript) would never have thought to take a hummer, pack it full of C4 and make a car bomb with it, let alone be able to target the appropriately weak portion of the enemy. They never would have thought of it because it requires creativity, which can be preprogrammed.

Rome: Total War (one of my favorites of the past few years) had pretty good AI, but even that showed gaping flaws. On the hardest level the AI seems incapable of probing for weaknesses in a defensive line or using spies appropriately.

To each his own - I'm glad you enjoy competitions with the AI. Personally I find it incredibly dull when compared to something like BF2. The designers of BF2 didn't need to bother programming good AI because the multiplayer aspect would blow any AI out of the water.

I guess I'm a bit baffled how someone could be endlessly entertained by AI that can eventually be predicted perfectly, but be bored competing with humans who offer an infinite number of different possibilities and challenges that will never be the same.

Different strokes for different folks - I guess in my mind it's as simple as playing something that can't adapt or playing something that can.

first off, BF2 has no UScript, so i have no idea what you're talking about there, and secondly, UT bots can easily be made to consider using a car as a bomb. I don't know why you'd play through HL2 twice, but that's your thing. And who said anyone was endlessly entertained? I just said the AI at max in UT2004 blows away the average BF2 player by a mile. Anything else you took from that is fine, but human intelligence ain't some magical cure all that makes games fun. In FPS's especially, it's mainly a way to play while getting cussed out and subjected to aimbots :P.

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by That Guy

first off, BF2 has no UScript, so i have no idea what you're talking about there, and secondly, UT bots can easily be made to consider using a car as a bomb. I don't know why you'd play through HL2 twice, but that's your thing. And who said anyone was endlessly entertained? I just said the AI at max in UT2004 blows away the average BF2 player by a mile. Anything else you took from that is fine, but human intelligence ain't some magical cure all that makes games fun. In FPS's especially, it's mainly a way to play while getting cussed out and subjected to aimbots :P.

The sentence was "even if BF2 had the magical Uscript," as in even if BF2 "enjoyed" the benefits of the Uscript functionality, it wouldn't matter. Sentence comprehension man, sentence comprehension.

Sure, UT Bots could be made to do it - but they didn't do it on their OWN. When the human playing that Bot figures out how to counteract that particular trick (in this case the bot making a car bomb), what happens? Well, nothing happens (except getting bored) until someone reprograms the AI to counteract. It's an absurdly slow and inefficient way to have an action-reaction response.

It sounds like you must have had some bad experiences in BF2, and for that I'm sorry. I can say that in 15 odd years of playing computer games, the problem solving ability demonstrated in BF2 makes every other AI-opponent game look utterly pathetic.

Complaining about aimbots seems odd for someone who thinks bots present a great challenge - what's the difference, they're both computer-controlled aiming. Oh, and I've never seen nor heard of an aimbot in BF2

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by mheisig

Sure, UT Bots could be made to do it - but they didn't do it on their OWN.

please provide one example of a computer program that wrote itself, or how about a self-assembling car? All AI needs to be programmed, and if it's ever going to get better, it needs to be worked on. That's really a pretty silly arguement.

and if you've never heard of a BF2 aimbot, you're not looking hard enough.
google BF2 aimbot and loads of crap pops up.

http://www.msxsecurity.com//bf2.php

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by That Guy

please provide one example of a computer program that wrote itself, or how about a self-assembling car? All AI needs to be programmed, and if it's ever going to get better, it needs to be worked on. That's really a pretty silly arguement.

and if you've never heard of a BF2 aimbot, you're not looking hard enough.
google BF2 aimbot and loads of crap pops up.

http://www.msxsecurity.com//bf2.php

It's no a "silly argument" if you're comparing and contrasting AI vs. human players. AI vs AI yeah that'd be a silly argument. Human play is not preprogrammed, the fundamental difference between Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence. It's incredibly valid and at the heart of what we're talking about. Nobody was ever saying one AI is better than another, we're arguing about AI vs. humans.

I didn't say I hadn't heard of a BF2 aimbot, I said in my years of playing I haven't seen one in use. As far as I'm concerned everyone who's killed me either got lucky or was better than me. If they were using an aimbot, fine - I really couldn't care less. I've never witnessed someone in BF2 dominate the scoreboards to the point where it was just suspicously high to make someone think "cheater."

Sounds like I just play with cooler/nice people than you do

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by mheisig

It's no a "silly argument" if you're comparing and contrasting AI vs. human players. AI vs AI yeah that'd be a silly argument. Human play is not preprogrammed, the fundamental difference between Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence. It's incredibly valid and at the heart of what we're talking about. Nobody was ever saying one AI is better than another, we're arguing about AI vs. humans.

I didn't say I hadn't heard of a BF2 aimbot, I said in my years of playing I haven't seen one in use. As far as I'm concerned everyone who's killed me either got lucky or was better than me. If they were using an aimbot, fine - I really couldn't care less. I've never witnessed someone in BF2 dominate the scoreboards to the point where it was just suspicously high to make someone think "cheater."

Sounds like I just play with cooler/nice people than you do

complaining that AI doesn't program itself is silly. the tech just isn't anywhere to being a reality or to make such a feat seem possible right now. It's like complaining that the sky is blue when you'd rather it be fuscia like your ceiling. It's a known limitation. right now AI learns from programmers, and whatever you can do, they can be taught.

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by That Guy

complaining that AI doesn't program itself is silly. the tech just isn't anywhere to being a reality or to make such a feat seem possible right now. It's like complaining that the sky is blue when you'd rather it be fuscia like your ceiling. It's a known limitation. right now AI learns from programmers, and whatever you can do, they can be taught.

:confused-

Nobody is arguing that the current generation of AI programs itself. I never said that. Unless someone else jumped into this thread when I wasn't lookin, nobody ever proposed that argument.

Ideally in the future AI WILL program itself, at which point it will be actual "intelligence." Right now, the fundamental flaw in AI is that it CAN'T program itself, hence the overall inferiority to human play in terms of problem solving and creative thinking. I'm not saying a Bot can't beat a human or be better than your average player, I'm saying that in terms of reasoning ability, problem solving and creative solutions AI is incapable of matching a human.

It's an incredibly simple argument to follow - I'm not sure why there's such a huge miscommunication here. Let's go real slow:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently incapable of programming itself on the fly. Consequently, AI is currently incapable of truly reacting to problems in an "intelligent" manner and is also incapable of solving problems or creating solutions to problems with which it has not already received progamming. Stated another way, AI can't think "creatively" and it can't "learn." Conversely, Human Intelligence (HI) is capable of adjusting and reacting to problems and creatively creating solutions to which it has not previously been given the answer or solution. Thus, HI is able to do something AI cannot - learn, "think" creatively, and solve problems to which it has not been previously given a solution.

That's not debate, that's simply fact. There's nothing to argue about. Now if you think playing a bot is as fun or more fun, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it and I've got no problem with that. Personally, based on the argument above MY opinion is that HI offers more of a challenging environment as I associate challenging play with changing, dynamic play that I cannot ever predict.