^ And training mode (good training mode) does exactly that. Set the Dummy to random block, jump all the time or random jump, set the dummy to A.I. and etc.
A really good training mode goes much farther than good A.I. which is something casuals don’t care about. They don’t care if the A.I. is any harder or easier, they just want to play as Blank character and watch the cut scenes.
Killer Instinct players
ST’s AI cheats in terms of reactions, inputs, and impossible moves, but it also has preset patterns and gimmicks copied from human players. They are also inherently weak to certain techniques. Once you know the patterns and weaknesses you can use them to make the AI look completely retarded.
Well, it is true that the vast majority of the people I know who likes the game only played it against the CPU - or like his brother, too - but this is also true about most fighters. Strictly speaking, most people don’t properly play the games they buy. I recall Quake 3 getting hate due to not having a campaign to kill monsters. Some casuals simply refused to play it.
I would definitely disagree that having better AI will always be useless. The Pro-Mode mod to Quake 3 is known to have great bots who help people get better at the game and play similarly to human beings. If you select the bot and follow him, he will act strange, but if you play against it, it’s pretty similar. The key is having a game that stays out long enough so people can grasp how they are played. As for OG SF, recall they were coded in assembly. One doesn’t code adaptive and clever AI in assembly under severe time restrictions, machine restrictions and a messy, hacked-up engine.
And MK9/Injustice players.
As for the AI, it’s a near impossible balance. Like d3v said you’d need an AI to fight like a human for it to be a challenge; to adapt to your strategy and change. Right now AI either comes at you with a predictable pattern (SF) or counters 95% of the moves you throw out (SNK).
didnt VF4 or was it evo that copied how top players played?
AI will never get the job done. Either they replicate strings of attacks that only work until you learn how to break it or the AI just breaks all the rules like in marvel where they 1frame throw on reaction and block unblockables.
Honestly, almost completely eliminate the AI.
Have developers eliminate all Single Player options for fighting except Training Mode. Would hopefully put enough pressure on themselves to deliver a quality netcode.
The whole point of fighters is to play other people. If you can’t do that, don’t pick up the fighter.
Yes, though as with all AI, it was exploitable. I had VF4EVO and nobody I knew played it. I finished Quest mode, but still sucked ass at VF4EVO, and that was apparent when I played some good players at EVO 2k7 in the casual tables.
Best answer.
What I like about this post is that you could easily integrate this into a story mode that doubles as a tutorial. You could have a character be afraid of getting hit, so they block everything you throw at him/her. The player would quickly learn to throw the character or use unblockable attacks.
I used to play quite often against the AI when I was first playing SSF4. Little crappy cheap stuff like jump-in HK can beat it, but most times it won’t on the hardest setting. I find the CPU extremely useful for practicing your meta game, spacing, non-jumping game play. Unfortunately, the AI does like to randomly throw out ultras randomly and psychic DP, but take and give.
Anyway, fundamentals are definitely what I get out of AI. Setups, combos, block strings and frame traps you can simply confirm are useful in game data wise…occasionally, but hardly in practicality seeing as the CPU has the reactions of Satan.
Point is, not really. I get what I need from it, so I’m pretty content.
There are a few simple techniques that can be used to make an AI seem more human.
eg. Probabilistic error-simulation. Instead of just having the CPU replay certain button inputs to land combos, pad the timing with an “error” variable. So let’s they have a 3f window to connect the next move of the combo, instead of making them hit it on the earliest possible frame, add a random value between -3f and +3f based on the AI’s skill level. The “harder” the level, the less chance that the random value will cause the next input to land outside the combo window. You can apply the same technique to AI reactions, spacing, and defensive options (eg. the odds that they will correctly block an ambiguous attack).
You can even give AI’s personalities in the same way. Give them a set number of options for different scenarios, but add more weight to the options they’re more likely to choose. eg. Will they prefer a guaranteed combo over a riskier mixup for more damage? Do they prefer to block or attempt a reversal? And of course you can apply your error-simulation on top of that as well.
Probability-based decision making will go a long way into making FG AIs more interesting. It’s also very simple to do. The problem is that even games with simple rules can have deep option trees for any given scenario, and it’s not really feasible for devs to spend so much time on something like this in an FG. That’s why I would like companies to open their AIs up to the community.
Namco did something like this with their “Ghost” AI feature. They let the players “train” the AIs which were then uploaded to their servers and made available to other players. So they managed to butt-loads of “free” AI data, and players got something interesting to toy around with.
Now you don’t even need a complex learning AI to do this. The complexity can also be offloaded to the hardcore players. Give players a scriptable dummy with a simple rule-based system. Hardcore enthusiasts will create their own AIs, and everyone can just download and tweak them for their own needs if necessary.
Case-in-point:
That’s a scripted training dummy on PC that was created using open source tools. If you want to share this “AI” you just load the script and run the macro program. Devs can do this and make it all much prettier, integrated, and user-friendly if they really wanted to.
I think it’s funny that people forgot about SC2 with the Conquest mode… You trained your AI character… 
It’s kinda’ hard to make realistic AI for fighting games because that AI would have to have an adapting reaction time, rather than having an all-encompassing mindset. In most old fighting games, the AI had pixel-perfect precision on avoiding and countering every move that you make.
Yussss!!! I’ve been trying to find these videos again for years! Hahaha. Thanks for posting them, man. I was starting to worry that I’d just made them up in my head.
I don’t think AI needs to get harder; like mentioned here when the cpu is on a higher difficulty setting, it tends to get cheap as shit. What I’d personally like to see are ghosts of the top players online thrown into arcade mode. It won’t be nearly as good as fighting against that human person, but it’d mix up single player mode & training a little.
I think you guys aren’t looking at Arcade mode properly. You shouldn’t look to it as a source of training (there’s a whole mode for that), it should be a challenge. In this respect, SNK bosses do very well. If anything, I want a challenging AI that doesn’t get chipped out or armored so easily. (Looking at you, Marvel 3!)
Fighting against an AI will never prepare you for the real game, because even devs sometimes have no idea what the characters are truly capable of. (Again, Marvel 3) So you are left with two options: Either leave the AI open enough so that the community can slowly work on creating a better, more relevant AI, or make a unique kind of challenge that humans could never provide.
Plus, you could finally fight against “theory” characters at their full potential.
The only time I really cared for the single player experience was in Mortal Kombat Deception’s Konquest mode, I enjoyed learning the combos, exploring the MK world, unlocking stuff and all the little secret details. Sure the core gameplay mechanics were terrible but I was more of a casual player back then so I didn’t really care too much.
Chess and puzzle kombat were also pretty fun vs. my brother.
On that note I was finally able to beat Shin King Lion and Jyazu from Kizuna Encounter. The input-reading was a huge bitch but with a little luck and using the tag super I was able to finally defeat them.
usually with input reading bosses you just find a situation where the computer is hard coded with the wrong answer and keep abusing it. like doing crossup tatsus on Gief in Super Turbo and he eats it every time. or uppercut right on the computer’s wakeup in 3s because apparently they can block every mixup and jab you out of walk up throws but they just have no idea what to do when you walk up and uppercut them.