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The All-Seeing AI: Difference between revisions
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Despite what publishers would like to tell you, there really is no such thing as [[Artificial Intelligence]] in video games. Any video game AI is, ultimately, nothing more than a complex flowchart. Because of this, it's very tricky to make computer opponents behave the way a human player would. While it's possible to design an AI that receives data similar to what a player receives, then analyzes it to make a decision, this is ''immensely'' difficult. Since the AI is an integral part of the game engine, a far easier (and thus much more common) technique is to simply pluck the information directly from the engine, and base all AI decisions on that.
The consequence is that computer players can get an unfair advantage over humans: It isn't bothered by dark colors or ([[Blackout Basement|loss of]]) environmental lighting. Its performance isn't encumbered by [[Interface Screw]], [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]], or any amount of nested menu navigation. And since it's part of the same engine that keeps track of where your players and units are on the map, if the AI wants to mount an attack, ''it knows where to find you better than you do'', [[Fog of War]] (or even walls) be damned.
The AI is the narrator of the story; if you win, it's only because it told you so.
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Of course, this doesn't always make for a [[Rule of Fun|fun playing experience]]. To bring back the fun, programmers must make the AI ''act'' like it has the same limitations as a human.
If they don't, you have an [[The All
A semi-subtrope of [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], although it is worth noting that this isn't ''strictly'' cheating, as the AI doesn't bend the game mechanics as such. Not to be mistaken with [[Big Brother Is Watching]], even if it is analogous (with the AI filling the role of Big Brother).
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** Interestingly averted by humans. Goblin soldiers will gladly blunder into your traps time and time again. Piss off the humans, though, and their soldiers will remember and avoid every trap their merchants or diplomats saw.
* In the ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' series, once you make a noise with an unsilenced weapon or a stray bullet ricocheting, the tangos in the area will all know your position, although they can't see you yet. And when they do see you, even if you peek around a corner, they will almost always get an instant [[One-Hit Kill]].
* If you kill a baby or eat an egg in [[Spore]], the ''entire'' species ''[[Attack! Attack! Attack!|will]]'' [[This Is Unforgivable!|know.]] Always.
* An example that can be turned to the player's advantage; if you give any party members a "Foe: <Element>-weak" gambit in [[Final Fantasy XII]], your allies will always know when the enemy is weak to that element, even if the enemy has immunity from the Libra effect (that reveals weaknesses).
** Inverted in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics a 2]]'': the player can see enemies' reaction abilities, but the AI can't. This leads to the AI wasting turns by doing things like using normal attacks on units whose reaction ability makes them always dodge normal attacks.
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** The second type was also a nightmare for Masterminds before the introduction of Bodyguard - the hostile mobs would zero in on the vulnerable player and ignore the expendable pets.
* Anyone who's played a [[Trap Master|Sram]] in ''[[Dofus (Video Game)|Dofus]]'' knows that this applies. Enemies can see ''everything'' you do, and can even track (and sometimes attack) you when you're invisible.
** This is subverted now. Instead of knowing where you or your traps are, the A.I. makes an educated guess on where you are when invisible. Turning invisible, and then using 1 movement point, it will know you are on one of the squares right next to your former location, and have to make a guess based on that, just like any human player would. The same applies to Traps, as they too are invisible, only here they generally fail at guessing, and always assume you placed the trap in a perfectly linear path in the direction you are facing (Which you don't nessesarily have to). Oddly enough, even in high-tier [[
* ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' developers recently released a [http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=3279 beta for bots] which attempt to avert this, by having them simulate what a human would realistically see and hear in a match, instead of relying of server side data. And it kinda works. The bots won't open fire until they see you, but they will always hit you, and while they can see through a Spy's disguise they won't attack one until the disguise is dropped.
* In [[Battle for Wesnoth]], subjecting the AI to [[Fog of War]] is not yet implemented. This is probably why the single-player campaigns don't use [[Fog of War]] most of the time.
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[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:The All Seeing AI]]
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