NPC's and Their A.I.

[Sardukhar]

Meh. Reading it again, it looks like poop. Even after editing. ANYway.

Anyone remember back in the day, Bethesda talking about how their AI for Morrowind was going to simulate each NPC and their lives? The example was a family going out, doing t heir work, coming home, the dog plays with the kids, gets out of hand, knocks some stuff down, gets a fireball in the face (!!). The producer talked of how although that seemed extreme, it was an example of how the AI selected it from a range of responses for the angry magic capable and voila. Non-scripted. A whole world like that.

Now, that level of detail and response didn't happen in Morrowind or Oblivion or really any other RPG I an think of. Too random, too tough to code. At best you get NPCs following a moderatelt-detailed script of activities and responses, but very little reactive/adaptive choice and a following ripple of consequences.

For me, if I can pass through an area and no one is doing exactly the same thing twice, that would be great. If I can pass through that same area again and something weird and wonderful has happened, I might never leave that game.

 

[Lolssi83.811]

Meh. Reading it again, it looks like poop. Even after editing. ANYway.

Anyone remember back in the day, Bethesda talking about how their AI for Morrowind was going to simulate each NPC and their lives? The example was a family going out, doing t heir work, coming home, the dog plays with the kids, gets out of hand, knocks some stuff down, gets a fireball in the face (!!). The producer talked of how although that seemed extreme, it was an example of how the AI selected it from a range of responses for the angry magic capable and voila. Non-scripted. A whole world like that.

Now, that level of detail and response didn't happen in Morrowind or Oblivion or really any other RPG I an think of. Too random, too tough to code. At best you get NPCs following a moderatelt-detailed script of activities and responses, but very little reactive/adaptive choice and a following ripple of consequences.

For me, if I can pass through an area and no one is doing exactly the same thing twice, that would be great. If I can pass through that same area again and something weird and wonderful has happened, I might never leave that game.

Most living world I've witnessed has been In STALKER games. That really felt like it would go on even without you. Though no idea what kind of monster that AI code was.

 

[Suhiira]

Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games were a step in the right direction tho.
Each NPC has a work-eat-relax-sleep schedule they follow so at various time of the day they're doing different things.

Another game (Dragons Age I think I recall) had NPCs talking to each other from time-to-time, I remember stopping and evesdropping a few times when their discussion was of interest or amusing.

 

[blank_redge]

[tangent]

Suhiir. You're in SLC. You're using the wrong avatar.

[/tangent]

 

[Ghost_Machine]

As far as enemies go, here's how I see it:

* Street thugs: Untrained rabble, might be threatening to anyone just starting out, but should fold quick in the face of serious resistance.

* Cops, CorpSec, Crime Syndicate soldiers, Boosters: Know what they're doing, use cover, flanking, have higher-end gear. They'll make you work for it, but you should still come out on top if your as good as you tell everyone you are.

* Corp Assassins, MAX-TAC, Psychos, other Edgerunners: Better than you and they'll make sure you know it. Pull out all the stops and use every trick you know if you want to live to see tomorrow.

A bit bare-bones, maybe, but I think I've got my idea across.

 

[dragonbird]

Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games were a step in the right direction tho.
Each NPC has a work-eat-relax-sleep schedule they follow so at various time of the day they're doing different things.

I think the criticism with the later TES games (Oblivion/Skyrim) was that the NPCs may have reacted to the environment, but they didn't really react to YOU. Your actions didn't impact on the way the spoke to you, reputation, willingness to work with you and so on.

Another game (Dragons Age I think I recall) had NPCs talking to each other from time-to-time, I remember stopping and evesdropping a few times when their discussion was of interest or amusing.

The dialogues that the companions had between themselves were one of the strong points in the DA games. Again though, the lack of reaction in both NPCs and companions to your own behaviour was pretty weak, (to the point of being absurd in DA2).

 

[Sardukhar]

SLC Punks. I always liked the berseker-dweeb.

There are so many criticisms of Radiant AI. They abrely reacted to their environment. I've seen posts talking abotu how the AI in Morrowind was better, but I wouldn't want to swear to that. The AI in Skyrim was pretty basic.

 

[Lolssi83.811]

SLC Punks. I always liked the berseker-dweeb.

There are so many criticisms of Radiant AI. They abrely reacted to their environment. I've seen posts talking abotu how the AI in Morrowind was better, but I wouldn't want to swear to that. The AI in Skyrim was pretty basic.

I have no idea how system heavy complex AI is, but heard / read somewhere that consoles couldn't handle much more complex AI routines (propably some lazy developer who said that). But luckily the next generation is coming so we might actually get something decent.

 

[spiderword]

I expect NPCs to react properly on what my char will do and on the context in which they are. Of course something too much in detail would be a lot of work but I there're some easy "Middle Grounds" that can be reach as in some recent Games. If CP2077 gets to something like that I will not complain.

 

[Zagor-Te-Nay]

Something I'm hoping to be the next step for open world games in general.
Robust system of procedural generation where visual design/clothing style of even minor npc would follow his/her "properties" in terms of psychological and cyberware "assets".
So first physical/psychological base->cyberware/clothing-> possible ( concealed) weapons.
And their AI would also follow on this...in danger, do they fight back or flee or throw themselves on the ground in panic?
Their response actions while based on the above, would have a certain random factor, similar to enemy AI in older FPS games, actions would not be set in stone, "tricking" the player that the AI is seemingly complex.
Then the game would use this with triggers, typical random events in open world, like someone being robbed for example.
With density of population and amount of variables here, this would result in far more dynamic and less predictable unscripted ( emergent) gameplay scenarios.
Also Satellite Reign allows you to "scan" every npc in the environment...I could see something similar here, based on above, game would generate personal history/background. This would give more "personality" to background npc's in large cities, while still serving their purpose (in building scope and ambiance like in Witcher/GTA's/etc), but without reducing them to billboards like in Morrowind.
Or having a "city" with more "interactive" 10-20 people and with more hand designed daily cycles.
Setting up this kind of system would still require a ton of work, but the actual workings in would be fairly simple and without being (largely) hand designed by developers.

 

[Azriel7]

Need something like a combination of GTA street walkers + Skyrim Roles + Sims randomnes. Where they are not static just sitting there brain dead like the witcher or Deus EX:HR/MD. They should move around and do things, but also have roles they are doing. Skyrim did this a bit where they would move around, do work, eat, drink..etc which is a huge improvement to just aimlessly walking around, but it was also limited. I actually think the sims was really good in this, they had traits that affected what they did which made them unpredictable so you never knew for certain what they would do. Something that combines all these together would be great. NPC's have a "default" path, but they could have traits that will alter their behavior. Traits, like home location, job, family (wife, daughter..etc), friend, enemy, favorite foods, hobbies..etc. That would be pretty cool.

 

[Suhiira]

Obviously some level of reactivity on the part of NPCs would be great. Even it's as simple as running for cover if a fight happens in the vicinity. It wouldn't be too difficult to code some canned responses to being spoken to by a character, how relevant such responses might be is debatable because it's impractical to have an AI that can parse the characters sentences ... tho the NPCs could react to certain pre-defined keywords.

But even if NPCs aren't reactive just having then do something besides stand there or walk in circles would be better then nothing.

The problem (more in the past) with consoles and AI has been RAM, compared to your typical PC consoles didn't have much and developers had to prioritize what was most important to the game. That's less of a problem, but still an issue, with modern consoles.

Keep in mind that the SIMs games are built with NPC activity and reactiveness at their core, it's the primary goal of it's developers. As much as I'd love to see similar in other games it's unlikely.

 

[Azriel7]

I can see why it might be a challenge, but I will throw it up with a dream RPG. Even if it is GTA's spawning random people moving about, it is still a million times better than the witcher NPC's just standing there doing nothing most of the time. It does not need the complete complexity of the sims, just more than a fixed loop.

 

[Zagor-Te-Nay]

Need something like a combination of GTA street walkers + Skyrim Roles + Sims randomnes. Where they are not static just sitting there brain dead like the witcher or Deus EX:HR/MD. They should move around and do things, but also have roles they are doing. Skyrim did this a bit where they would move around, do work, eat, drink..etc which is a huge improvement to just aimlessly walking around, but it was also limited. I actually think the sims was really good in this, they had traits that affected what they did which made them unpredictable so you never knew for certain what they would do. Something that combines all these together would be great. NPC's have a "default" path, but they could have traits that will alter their behavior. Traits, like home location, job, family (wife, daughter..etc), friend, enemy, favorite foods, hobbies..etc. That would be pretty cool.

What would be the point? Ignoring the massive amount of effort this would require for a city filled with thousands of npc's ( you're forgetting that games like Skyrim have 10-20 npc's in every city, and variety of overall world activities is far, far lower than in games like Witcher or GTA), would this really benefit game in some way?...this is not NPC Stalker 2077.
What they can do, is work on AI complexity when it comes to reactivity to non scripted world events...given Night City's density of content/conflict, this would create incredible amount of unique emergent gameplay scenarios( more than any mini-game, for sure).
With certain npc's they can break the rule though: characters playing larger role in storyline ( like with "companions", who can hang out at your place, more important characters etc) or when it serves a specific role in questline( playing important part in assassination quest, where it is required to study npc behavior).
But all this for thousands of Joe/Jane Doe's...too much effort for too little benefit to the game.