The Role of AI in Cyberpunk 2

[Cyberdude]

Hi!

I'm an AI expert and I am sharing some forward looking ideas I hope Cyberpunk 2, when it's released around 2035, is able to embrace.
By the time CP2 comes out, AI will have spread into many areas, especially games and the groundwork should be paved early.

1. Living World - Rather than baked in decision trees, some advanced NPC's should be driven by an embedded LLM reasoning model, compiled into the game, or even as a remote service. The idea being that these advanced NPC's can have more dynamic conversations and reactions. Depending on what you do, the NPC can react (animations, dialog, actions) based on the AI reasoning.

Example: Rather than Storeshop NPC's immediately going aggro when you pick up an item (which is hard coded behavior), they MAY or MAY not, they might ask you to pay for it, or ask you if you are interested in that item?

2. AI managed difficulty - Current CP2077 is hard balanced based on presets and all the games perks, weapons etc. Everything is hard coded and not designed to scale (hence no NG+). 10 years from now, we would expect game difficulty to be managed by an internal AI that controls stats (not RNG based) and challenge factor based on your perceived skill. Enemy behaviors (in combat too) would be run by micro-AI LLM's that are tuned for the games behaviors. This way, they don't become predictable bullet-sponges

3. AI generated crafting or clothing system - 10 years from now we should be able to type in what we want to craft in terms of clothing and an AI creates the mesh for it and adds it to the game.

Example: "Brown leather pants with gold stitching and zipper pockets. The knees have black pads on them"
Then this clothing item is made for you.

4. AI Driven Quest Dialogs - Currently, CP2077 dialog is 99% button smash through a linear conversation (all the yellow lines). Let's make conversations great again! The game shouldn't tell us what to select. That's for the normies. Let us think about each line. And 10 years from now, the lines might be generated (on both sides). If I choose to be a tough guy who likes smart ass responses, then the game can generate lines for that "personality" type. The burden shouldn't be on the devs to decide how I like to play.

Same is true for NPC side of things. An AI can understand what the end goals are for a conversation but not dictate how to get there. The lines "steer" in different directions, but the entire purpose of the conversation is known in advance by the gamer and the AI.

5. AI generated voice lines - Especially for in world NPCs. You can talk to anyone and depending on their built in prompt (e.g. "I am a barista working in night city for 5 years. I am 25 years old and enjoy reading, skateboarding and night life." This would be internal to each NPC and when you talk to them they tell you about themselves and answer your questions. If you say anything mean or rude they would react accordingly (not pre-baked responses).


CP2 needs to blow away expectations and innovate with AI since it's already a major them of the game. Let's do this!

 

[WhiteYoghurt]

Lol, I am all in against it.
AI is dogsh*t that brings in what you want, not what you need.

 

[Delilah_]

we don't need AI.

 

[Guest 4802528]

AI can never replace true human talent. Hard pass.

 

[Tarille]

CP2 needs to blow away expectations and innovate with AI since it's already a major them of the game.

AI is a major theme for the game...

... Where it points out how detrimental to society AI is. To the point where the collapse of the Blackwall, unleashing AI would destroy all of civilization...

1. Living World - Rather than baked in decision trees, some advanced NPC's should be driven by an embedded LLM reasoning model, compiled into the game, or even as a remote service.

A remote service? Are you advocating for an Always Online Single Player experience simply to cram in AI? Yeah, no. No-one likes that.

AI can be used for this, but it should be mostly just AI generating the scripting for things they can do as a quicker way of implementing behaviours so they can spend more time on other things.

2. AI managed difficulty - Current CP2077 is hard balanced based on presets and all the games perks, weapons etc. Everything is hard coded and not designed to scale (hence no NG+). 10 years from now, we would expect game difficulty to be managed by an internal AI that controls stats (not RNG based) and challenge factor based on your perceived skill.

No thanks.

1) Progressive difficulty sucks. I have first hand experience with it as Rocksmith uses it to step up/down difficulty based on your performance and it sucks to not have control over it.

2) People will pick things based on their preference. If someone picks "Easy" because they don't want combat to provide resistance, then they don't want anything making the game harder because they managed to get through said combat without resistance. Just like if I pick "Very Hard" difficulty, I don't want the game to activate baby mode for babies because I find a tough encounter.

3. AI generated crafting or clothing system - 10 years from now we should be able to type in what we want to craft in terms of clothing and an AI creates the mesh for it and adds it to the game.

The issue is that unlimited freedom doesn't necessarily fit in the game. The world has a certain aesthetic, there will be certain fashion trends for the world and its aesthetic. Being able to magic up whatever (Even ignoring the issue of needing to train AI on various examples of all these items of clothing) can very easily clash with the tone of the game and the setting.

4. AI Driven Quest Dialogs - Currently, CP2077 dialog is 99% button smash through a linear conversation (all the yellow lines). Let's make conversations great again! The game shouldn't tell us what to select. That's for the normies. Let us think about each line. And 10 years from now, the lines might be generated (on both sides). If I choose to be a tough guy who likes smart ass responses, then the game can generate lines for that "personality" type.

Yes, having better dialogue is good.

But using AI will never be as good as having an actual person actually voice acting with human emotion and talent.

Sure, some level of personality customization can be desirable, especially for custom characters. But the cost of using AI is too great, losing out on amazing human performances for a few people to make their headcanon character personality a thing is not a good trade.

5. AI generated voice lines - Especially for in world NPCs.

This is about the extent I could see AI voices for. Adding extra dialogue to random NPC's that normally only say a handful of lines ad nauseum (I.e. "I used to be an adventurer like you...")

Together with more pre-generated behaviours, it could breathe a bit more life into NPC's without needing to take up much actual developer time.

Of course, it will depend heavily on the quality. Right now, AI is subpar at producing things, due to the nature of it simply trying to imitate what gets fed into it. Whether this will change in the upcoming years or not is yet to be seen.

I would not like to see substandard AI work in a game. I'd rather take limited quantity of human made assets instead.

 

[Draconifors]

With the possible, limited exception of 5, all of these would make for a vastly inferior game.

So, no thanks.

 

[Dunaedine]

I think there is interesting idea (I'm not fanatically against AI) but there is three blocking problem to create a game using current AI:

1. Remote computation: this can be a real pain for many players, because you always need a good connexion to play. Furthermore, there is a need for server to play your game, creating a limited lifetime for your game.
2. Cost: Associated with the previous, there is currently a very hight cost to use AI, So the cost will be on CDPR or on the player (with a subscription). I don't think this will work from an economic POV. This cost will be reduced in the futur years but you have to make your marketting plan using the current cost.
3. Performances: If the AI is remote, you will have performance issue due to the remote computation and the network. If it is local, it will take a very powerful setup to be able to play the game with all of this. I don't think this is possible for the standard gamer, and these functionality are too essential to be "in option" like some graphical option.

I know there is some technologies made by NVIDIA on some of theses subjects, but to my knoweldge, theses aren't ready for the current (as is currently in dev) or even next generation of game. They give good results but in lab context. Creating a game take so many times and ressources, you can't make a gambling on these technologies now. But CDPR probably keep an eye on theses technologies.