Humans vs AI: We're Winning Because We're More Fun to Shoot At
Those interested in playing chess (or in the eventual domination of our kind by machines) may be interested in this page, where you can play the Shredder chess program hosted on the makers servers.We've known for a while that the computers can kick our ass in this particular (and very importantly, non- violent) field of combat but this is the first program I've seen be so smug about it. The instructions point out that "even on 'hard' Shredder doesn't show his full capabilities. He is trying to provide an equal opponent for a human player on those levels." The phrase 'puny fleshling' isn't explicitly said, but is pretty heavily implied.
How good to make computer opponents has been a major question in game design for years. We all know that our artificial adversaries should be able to beat us in any video game - after all, they're coded entirely into the world we're interfacing with through eyes and fingers and could instantly headshot any human who arrives if there wasn't programming telling it "Don't do that. Now, take a few seconds to turn around while he shoots you. No, slower than that."
Not that all AIs win by being better at the game - some realize "Wait a minute, I'm playing the game and I'm RUNNING the game", leading to such universally despised scab tactics as the rubber-band in Mario Kart 64. (Also known as the God-damned, MOFO POS rubber band). You could be four miles ahead of Bowser on a muddy course after pegging him with a star, lightning AND a red shell - but the instant the CPU decided he was going to win that kart took off at Warp Factor Five leaving you swearing eternal vengeance on the family of whichever sadistic Nintendo programmer coded this "Screw you for playing our game" maneuver.
Successful enemy programming gives the impression of a hard-fought battle where victory is meaningful, and in many places that's very hard to generate - which is why massively online games are turning to other humans to provide the human opponents. A computer-controlled Luigi losing the lead on the final corner of Mario Circuit by slamming into a pipe doesn't feel good - it feels patronizing, like the kind computo-tron driver is tossing you a cookie. When an online human opponent made the exact same mistake later that evening, I don't recall feeling mocked - in fact I believe my exact response was "YEeeeaAAAHHHH!", dropping a banana on him, and cruising over the finish line driving one handed because the other one was busy giving my faraway foe the finger.
It's warm human interaction like that which makes online play so much fun.
Which may be why we may be waiting a long time truly balanced AI. As online play becomes a more important fixture in the mainstream market, the challenge of coding a good bot opponent increases while the need to do so falls. Team Fortress 2 hasn't bothered with any and is doing just fine (and is free of the Team Fortress Classic curse of joining a server to find it's filled with bots playing themselves in some depraved silicon self-stimulation fest). Why bother with a program everyone's going to complain about when you can leave the same people to play each other?
The reason human enemies are winning out over bots isn't because the good players learn better and play more creatively, or because the match is fairer - it's because even the bad players are fun to beat. Source: link
Not that all AIs win by being better at the game - some realize "Wait a minute, I'm playing the game and I'm RUNNING the game", leading to such universally despised scab tactics as the rubber-band in Mario Kart 64. (Also known as the God-damned, MOFO POS rubber band). You could be four miles ahead of Bowser on a muddy course after pegging him with a star, lightning AND a red shell - but the instant the CPU decided he was going to win that kart took off at Warp Factor Five leaving you swearing eternal vengeance on the family of whichever sadistic Nintendo programmer coded this "Screw you for playing our game" maneuver.
Successful enemy programming gives the impression of a hard-fought battle where victory is meaningful, and in many places that's very hard to generate - which is why massively online games are turning to other humans to provide the human opponents. A computer-controlled Luigi losing the lead on the final corner of Mario Circuit by slamming into a pipe doesn't feel good - it feels patronizing, like the kind computo-tron driver is tossing you a cookie. When an online human opponent made the exact same mistake later that evening, I don't recall feeling mocked - in fact I believe my exact response was "YEeeeaAAAHHHH!", dropping a banana on him, and cruising over the finish line driving one handed because the other one was busy giving my faraway foe the finger.
It's warm human interaction like that which makes online play so much fun.
Which may be why we may be waiting a long time truly balanced AI. As online play becomes a more important fixture in the mainstream market, the challenge of coding a good bot opponent increases while the need to do so falls. Team Fortress 2 hasn't bothered with any and is doing just fine (and is free of the Team Fortress Classic curse of joining a server to find it's filled with bots playing themselves in some depraved silicon self-stimulation fest). Why bother with a program everyone's going to complain about when you can leave the same people to play each other?
The reason human enemies are winning out over bots isn't because the good players learn better and play more creatively, or because the match is fairer - it's because even the bad players are fun to beat. Source: link
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