Hello, all! It's been a while since I started a topic, and I realize there are only so many of us left. But I figure if there's even one person who is still interested in this game, there's always something fun to talk about, right?
So. Today, we're talking...AI.
(Before I do that, as always, I like to send a shout out into the ether for all the creators who have done so much with this game. Skins. Meshes. Skopes. F/X. Maps. Websites and hosting. Mod makers. Coders/scripters. All those who answer questions in the forums, offer tech support...All of the people who have done so much for this community, thanks again, because my obsessive/compulsive nature has long been satisfied with the challenges of playing a 10-plus year-old franchise. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST.)
So, with that said...back to AI. Which, if you're using :ffvstr: with FFX, you already know all about the amazing tool by M25 that generates AIs for your character. Without that thing...well, let's just say that life before that tool was...well, for those of us who have tried scripting AI, you know that every comma you mess up is basically nothing more than one frustrating search for that comma you messed up.
Before that, though, in the first game, Taskmaster X generated what I jokingly call "The AI Protocols," a set of documents/instructions that showed how, if you had the nerve, you could go in there and customize the AIs of your characters. (If there was someone else, anyone else, who I'm forgetting, I mean no offense.)
In other words, though, no more Batman attempting to punch Darkseid along with every other Justice League member in Watch Mode, then getting punched halfway across the map while getting knocked the hell out. Why, with patient scripting -- and by patient, I mean minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years of scripting and testing :angry: ^_^ -- it might all come together where a clearly weakened Darkseid, after defeating a majority of the League, with only a few points of health left, advances upon Bruce Wayne.
A Bruce Wayne who, through the application of the "SpreadOut" command, has hung back while his stronger counterparts attempted to take down the Lord of Apokolips. Batman is fresh. He's prepared. He's been....waiting.
Yet, with one blow, the God of Evil would make his victory complete and make the Earth his...only to get taken down by a well-placed Explosive Batarang, followed by a massive Taser blast. Batman wins! The Justice League wins! The Earth is saved!
(Yeah, you need a little imagination -- in my head, of course, Always-Prepared Batman has some Radion mixed into the explosives, but still...gold when it happens.)
That's what this thread is all about. If there are people who still do this -- scripting their AIs so those outcomes happen -- share your stories about your favorite characters whose moves you have scripted, and how they have executed them perfectly in the Danger Room. Share your favorite scripted characters and code!
And maybe, just maybe, if we help someone new to realize the potential that exists by scripting AIs, they will realize just how deep the rabbit hole goes in this game. With AI scripting...well, this game never gets old, at least to me!
*Some disclaimers: If you EVER, and I mean EVER, listened to anyone about the importance of backing up, now is the time! Failure to back up individually scripted AIs, especially those that work, does nothing more than make you work REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hard, especially if you make wholesale tweaks to a character and then decide you don't like the way it went, or, horror of horrors, you accidentally set the Danger Room to "AI Generator" instead of "Watch Mode" -- and erase your scripted AIs for those characters you were about to use! GAH!*
That being said, scripting AIs is fun and rewarding for the patient player.
Sooooo...let's hear it, people! Who has some kick-arse character scripting tricks to share? Which of your characters work really well together? Are the Fantastic Four the most balanced team EVER? (Those who know realize that answer is yes!) :thumbup: :thumbup:
I don't go too in-depth with the custom AI's, but I make it so the characters behave at least how I think they would. None of my minions overpower attacks and will only use a heroic if a character with the Field Commander trait gives them one. All of my characters have various sub-types added to them such as "male" or "female" and "normal_human" or "kryptonian" or "mutant" and I have the occasional character that targets those sub-types specifically. For example, mutants will be the prime target for Sentinels and Superman will be the prime target for Doomsday.
I'm still tweaking the powers and such, but I have a hard time going back to the original game without M25AI, for sure :P
The AI tool usually does a great job so I just do little tweaks here and there too tailor to the character. My son tends to be pretty energetic in his alterations though.
Well... For most characters I use the generated AIs with some or little modification. For guys that are supposed to be strong and dumb I make their AI even simpler, making them charge straight on without regard to consequences like enemy emitting damage etc., usually targeting the strongest enemy. Now for those heroes who are famous for their intellect/tactics I try to make the AI as good as possible, utilizing their powers to their best. The one I am most proud of is (of course :)) Batman's AI. My Batman always uses an attack the target is most vulnerable to (fire against martians etc.), he will not waste time attacking a character that is shielded, he will always use kryptonite against kryptonians (a limey lure state swap attack), when low on hit points he will retrieve to the shadows an start sneak attacking (stealthy attribue) and generally he can take much more powerful characters thanks to his AI. I like it because I wanted to base my Bats on the recent Brave and the Bold series where he takes on or at least fights such threats. My Deathstroke also has a good AI but I did not work so hard on it as with Batman, though Deathstroke is more powerful physically so it makes up for it. I also like how Magneto's AI turned out. He is great for boss battles. Frankly I didn't even need to modify him that much. The proper use of his force field is what makes him so powerful. Guys like Dr Strange and Galactus also turned out to have a great AI but they are powerhouses and it is much easier to make a good AI for a character who has high stats and powerful attacks. Street level characters (Batman, Daredevil, Punisher) on the other hand are challenging to work with. The one type of character that I have no experience in working on (but gonna try) is a magician type, one that is physically weak and vulnerable but uses magic type attacks like alteration, hex and others that make him useful (like Zatanna, Felix Faust) - probably will be hard to keep such a character from the heat of the battle, not getting KO'ed early by the Hulk or someone like that.
Thanks for the responses, all! I read them all and appreciate you guys taking the time. Sorry it took me so long to get back to the thread!
I tend to script more heavily for a few reasons, one based on the game and one not, all under the aegis of me being pretty much OCD.
First, I'm an absolute sucker for this -- I have always been so impressed with the meshes/skopes, with regard to the various animations. Since I tend to have more powerful characters, some of them tend to last a little longer, so it's always been fun for me to have enough powers to show the variations in attacks. With FFX and the various F/X that are out there, I simply enjoy using all of the slots available.
I've read comics for such a long time now, it's easy for me to fill the power slots available for longtime characters, mainly because at one point or another, I've read an issue of something where they've displayed the power. Once that happens, boom, I'm usually putting it in the game.
The thing about scripting that really matters to me is the ability to control movement and attack frequency. I used to go insane when a character would use the same attacks over and over and over, even when it was clear that the attack type was ineffective. It was really helpful for me, then, years ago to see how Taskmaster X did it, with attack percentages and subtypes.
Because of that, one thing I do on nearly every character is give them "an unblockable." (I tend not to do it with Kryptonians, mainly because they are so powerful to begin with, and I very, very, very rarely use passive defenses to stop melee crushing attacks.) But it was really interesting to me how Taskmaster X's scripts sometimes had a designated attack for when a character was, for instance, stunned or hexed. I liked that a lot, so I definitely use that technique.
I really struggled with magic-users characters, as well -- I've never scripted a Zatanna that I've liked, and even now I'm considering taking her down and rebuilding her for what has to be the 20th time over the life of both games. It's always been a sore spot with me, because I love Doctor Fate and, right now, I barely like his hero file/script enough to find it acceptable.
The characters I like using most are Captain Marvel and Black Adam, both based off Ren's meshes/animations. Even with them basically having powers from the same source, Ren gave them such a large number of animations, especially with the use of M25's keyframe tool, you can still make them feel like totally different characters. (Taskmaster X's Black Adam buildout from the first game is pretty much how I use him, whereas I go a little more with Captain Marvel's usage in animated and video game media for his inspiration.)
Again, folks, thanks for responding. I hope to hear more!
Quote from: ElijahSnowFan on September 06, 2012, 12:12:30 PM
I've read comics for such a long time now, it's easy for me to fill the power slots available for longtime characters, mainly because at one point or another, I've read an issue of something where they've displayed the power. Once that happens, boom, I'm usually putting it in the game.
I on the other hand have only read a few titles regularly, so I'm really thankful for all those 'respect threads' on the internet. I was using them a lot to learn about a character. Other than that there are of course the Marvel and DC wikis, and there are those great MarvelRPG stats sites like Ben Reilly's and Classic Marvel.
Quote from: ElijahSnowFan on September 06, 2012, 12:12:30 PM
The thing about scripting that really matters to me is the ability to control movement and attack frequency. I used to go insane when a character would use the same attacks over and over and over, even when it was clear that the attack type was ineffective. It was really helpful for me, then, years ago to see how Taskmaster X did it, with attack percentages and subtypes.
I noticed that specifying something like subtype='not resistant_fire' may not prevent a character AI from using its fire attack while more specific subtype='not resistant_ranged_fire' will prevent it from using a ranged fire attack so the latter should be applied. Just something to note if anyone is/will be having problems.