Why good AI is so essential for a tactical RPG and a linchpin for suspension of disbelief

Ygramul

[re-edited repost on an AI discussion]

Good AI is not a niche thing.

Many people played BG/BG2 over the past 15 years because SCS and other challenges made it a very rewarding experience for well-thought out gameplay: you won by making excellent tactical decisions. AI consistently killed you, if you haven't.

There is nothing like this anywhere. NOT A SINGLE RPG.

I really would want to play IWD, NWN1/2, Witcher, DAO etc. more often, but they are just nothing gameplay-wise, when compared to BG+SCS.

Pillars of Eternity is just nothing gameplay-wise, when compared to BG+SCS.

(You need reflexes, yes, but not skill and smarts as much.)


Good AI is the linchpin for suspension of disbelief: no other way to take your opponents seriously.

If a game company wants my money and my support, I expect them to deliver good AI in their RPG *FIRST AND FOREMOST*.

I hope Beamdog will consider this in their future developments of excellent RPGs.

Grum

I haven't been able to play with SCS. Demo the demon lord is hard. Irenicus can be hard if you attack him with a full party (much easier to solo). Doing anything RP is hard (no prebuffing unless you *know* a fight is coming).

There are several really hard fights. Even early game, wandering into a yuanti mage and getting confused kills you. My point? You don't need AI that will wreck any player who hasn't played for 15 years and who has memorized all of the fights.

What do you need? Enemies who hit the caster first, use potions, and don't stand around in cloud kills. Black Pits 2 had sufficiently smart AI for a good game.

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FinneousPJ

Good AI is the linchpin for suspension of disbelief: no other way to take your opponents seriously.

Truth

JuliusBorisov

Exactly! Not a single RPG other than BG has 550+ posts threads about no-reload attempts, whose participants try to make the AI as best as they could, using all possible mods, the SCS mod being the most important. And old bioware forum is still running, at least in the part of those 2 threads.

If it's not a testament that a good AI is a good thing, I don't know what is.

DJKajuru

I remember some older mods that made the game more difficult, but their view of difficulty was having the enemy cast 9th level spells and and parade around with a katana +3 . It sounded challenging at the beggining , but afterwards I felt I wasn't playing a legitimate AD&D game.

I wanted the enemy thieves to be single class and attack us with a dagger or short swords, relying on stealth and invisibility. I wanted the enemy mage to use a variety of spells, not only melf's meteors and time stop.

I think that SCS made most of my dreams come true - and the features that don't work for me I'll simply not install them.

semiticgoddess

There should really be no-reload runs for other games as well. A no-reload Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul run would be fantastic.

I'd be tempted to use fatigue boosting if I did it myself, though... if you damage your attributes, you can drop your baste fatigue as low as 1, and fortify fatigue effects multiply in effectiveness. I remember one-shotting endgame OOO enemies on maximum difficulty with fatigue-boosted arrows using a crummy little shortbow and low Marksman. You can deal 100x damage per hit with a single spell, if you're willing to micromanage it.

But speaking of IE instead of TES... I'm really happy with SCS. No other mod applies difficulty so broadly and so evenly.

Ygramul

semiticgod said:

There should really be no-reload runs for other games as well. A no-reload Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul run would be fantastic.
....
But speaking of IE instead of TES... I'm really happy with SCS. No other mod applies difficulty so broadly and so evenly.

I have been playing TES no-relaod on and off for years (from Morrowind to Skyrim to FONV). Keep in mind that there your survival has much to do with your reflexes and not as much with the depth of your decisions. The "magic" system in all TES games are much more shallow.

Fun though they may be, it ain't match for BG+SCS. Nothing is.

Ygramul

Difficulty of a game due to smart opponents is not a turn-off. It is the very source of longevity.

You may lose and be frustrated at the beginning, but you will come back with new strategies.
Keep in mind that I do not mean merely complexity and tedium. For example, Nethack is NOT a good example of this (almost no substantial AI; you just need to memorize encounters/opponents/items).


BG is nearing two decades - unbeaten. Chess still exists after 1500 years, largely due to its tactical complexity.

When the next graphical engine renders it obsolete, Skyrim will be forgotten. I conjecture here that a game with nontrivial AI will far outlast its contemporaries. BG/SCS is proof of that.

AHF

IMO, the SCS mods do two major things: (1) they get smarter about fog of war abuse (you can't move through a camp picking off one enemy at a time, enemies won't simply sit dying in a cloudkill, etc.) and (2) magical opponents are much more strategic. By far the biggest impact is with the enemy spell casters. That works so well because BG has such a versatile spell system with the immunity spells in particular - invisibility making you immune to attack and spell targeting, protection from magical weapons, stoneskin, etc. Most games don't have that type of Move/Countermove magical system so there is no possibility of encountering AI as advanced as with SCS because there just isn't the range of options available.

I think the standard AI is just fine for a newbie, but SCS really enhances the replay value for experienced players more than any other mod.