Artificial Brilliance: Difference between revisions

*** Leading to the sad case of [[Artificial Stupidity]] in which they would never fire at the player as long as a (smarter AND faster) missile was in the air. Any number of gunships could easily be defeated at no risk as long as the player could keep a missile flying in circles until it could hit one from behind, then launch another or find cover immediately. Partially averted {{spoiler|on higher difficulty levels; when you're up against a duo of Gunships, each of which requires more than half-a-dozen hits to take down, and they keep shooting down your rockets, it gives the enemies on the ground ample opportunity to ruin your day.}}

* Raven Software is well known for pioneering the use of friendly NPC A.I. squads in FPS games, beginning in ''[[Star Trek Elite Force]]'' and continuing on in ''[[Soldier of Fortune]] 2'' and ''[[Quake 4|Quake IV]]''. Their games often feature friendly A.I. squads of several [[NPC|NPCs]] who are capable of following the player throughout an entire level and also of holding their own in firefights against waves of enemy [[NPC|NPCs]]. Notably, they make generous use of [[Gameplay Ally Immortality]] to avert the frustration that made ''[[Daikatana]]'' the smoldering pile of ruin it is remembered as.

* ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' was widely praised for the A.I. of its Replica Soldiers, touted as the best enemy A.I. ever at the time of its release. Enemies would work in squads, provide covering fire for each other, advance under covering fire, fire from behind cover intelligently, and even use cover to flank and circle around the player instead of charging straight for him and making themselves an open target in the process. The A.I. also had extremely high mobility allowing it to exploit the entire battlefield instead of limiting itself to a single small area, and could also dive through windows, vault over objects, and crawl under obstacles, allowing it to access every area of the level the player could.

** The ''F.E.A.R.'' A.I. is actually a good example of emergent behavior, which is programmer-speak for "we didn't program it specifically to do that, but for some random reason it does it anyway, and it's really, really cool that it does!". More accurately, complex behavior stemming from simple rules. Specifically, the A.I. is programmed for a limited number of simple behaviors: moving in coordinated squads, providing covering fire, seeking cover, and repositioning itself based on the player's movement and position. The A.I. isn't actually programmed to flank or circle behind the player, but its tendency to seek cover and reposition itself based on the player's movements results in flanking and circling behaviors occurring naturally without "conscious" effort on the A.I.'s part (mostly due to the A.I.'s high mobility combined with its preference for seeking lateral cover rather than charging the player directly).

** Not only that, they use smart responses to your moves. For example, they'll stop using attack moves if you start using Bide.

* The final boss of ''[[Lunar Silver Star Story Complete|Lunar Silver Star Harmony]]'' is a ''nightmare'' because of this. Good luck keeping Jessica alive, because he knows to [[Shoot the Medic First]], for one.

* ''[[Xenoblade]]'' has a battle system that relies on well-timed, structured combos of special abilities, and often relies on two or even all three party members using skills in concert. The player can only control one at a time, but fortunately, your AI partners are smart. Each has their own AI, uses their skills at the best time and position they can, and tries to fulfill their proper role: for instance, your tank will switch targets to draw aggro away from other characters, while squishier characters will stop using skills for a few seconds to let that happen.

* The first four games of [[The Elder Scrolls]] had AI that was at best laughable, since they would just dead-zone you and try meleeing (if you could tell they're doing that; sometimes the sprites wouldn't show them attacking) or use up all their magicka in the first ten seconds and then stand in front of you swinging their weapons, while saying they fought mudcrabs better than you or calling you an n'wah. However, ''[[Skyrim]]'' features much better AI. Enemies might flee into another room to get help to fight you, archers will switch to a dagger when they're in melee range of you, and enemy casters are ''annoying'' because they'll use frost spells on you to reduce your stamina and deny power-attacks And mages, when fighting other mages, will spam lightning on you to drain your magicka. Oh, and some of the higher-level Draugrs, who're armed with Shouts, will disarm you and force you to pick up your weapon while they get free shots. It's most prevalent to archer-player characters. The enemies know it's harder to hit a moving target, and will sometimes notice you're aming at them and will strafe, sometimes they even wait until after you fired to sidestep and force you to miss. They also know the game averts the [[No Arc in Archery]] and will often shoot arrows from seemingly impossible angles where an archer trying to counter-attack would miss due to an object in the way.