Should FO be geared toward AIs or MP?

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

Moderator: Oberlus

How will you play FO?

I will play amost exclusively with AIs
35
55%
I will play around 2/3 with AIs, and 1/3 in MP
12
19%
I will play around 1/2 with AIs and 1/2 in MP
9
14%
I will play around 1/3 with Ais and 2/3 with MP
3
5%
I will play amost exclusively in MP
5
8%
 
Total votes: 64

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Prokonsul Piotrus
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Should FO be geared toward AIs or MP?

#1 Post by Prokonsul Piotrus »

For those that have not been following related discussions the problem is: the more complex the game, the more difficult it is to program good, challenging (=fun) AIs. Several things have been postponed (like non-starlanes methods of movement) because they would be very consuming for Ais to use efficiently.

What should be more important in FO? Having good and challenging AIs at the expence of strategic choices available to MultiPlayer games, or having more choices for MultiPlayer strategies which would result in dumber (more difficult to program) Ais? Remember that we have a limited amount of programmers and they can't give us *all*. In our progress towards 1.0, do you think we should concentrate on AIs or on MP playability?

The above is the question for discussion. The poll question is slightly diffrent:
* Imagine your have near-perfect FO 1.0. How much time do you think you will spend plaing in single player with AIs, and how much in multiplayer games without AIs?
Note: of course when you get new game, player tend to play single player games against AI to 'get the feel'. When answering this question, think long term - as in you will play the game for several years (at least...this is an open source project which should never get 'old').
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guiguibaah
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Problem with MP

#2 Post by guiguibaah »

I'll probably play almost always multiplayer - but I'll be playing cooperatively with a friend against the AI.

So unless FO is to be only a game of versus play, you need a challenging AI programmed into the system. No AI restricts the replayability, especially if you'd like to play versus 6 opponents, but you can only find one to play with.

There's also the issue of loosing some immersiveness if it's only MP, but that discussion will be left for another time.
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Aquitaine
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#3 Post by Aquitaine »

Call me a cynic, but what is the point of this poll?

If 100% of everyone on the brainstorming board said 'MP only,' it wouldn't change a thing. There are always people primarily interested in MP just as there are always people primarily interested in SP. How many of them are on these boards at any given time is not going to change the course of this project.

-Aq
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iamrobk
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#4 Post by iamrobk »

Aquitaine wrote:Call me a cynic, but what is the point of this poll?

If 100% of everyone on the brainstorming board said 'MP only,' it wouldn't change a thing. There are always people primarily interested in MP just as there are always people primarily interested in SP. How many of them are on these boards at any given time is not going to change the course of this project.

-Aq
I agree. I know for me at least, it'll just depend on how much time I have to play, whether online lags a lot or not, and just how different/same the modes are.

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utilae
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#5 Post by utilae »

Aquitaine wrote:Call me a cynic, but what is the point of this poll?
I'd vote for AI just so that people see that AI is needed and as a result the AI is worked on more, thus both single player and multiplayer win.

Ranos
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#6 Post by Ranos »

I voted 1/2 and 1/2. The problem here is that it doesn't matter how many people will play what. The point of FO is to make a fun game for as many people as possible. I would also be willing to bet that 95% of the people that will play in MP will also play with AI empires. Why? People like us like a challenge. While a human player offers the most challenge, the more empires there are, the more of a challenge there is. So if you play multiplayer with a bunch of AI empires, you get the most challenge you could possibly get. If the AI is too stupid to be a challenge, then you ruin a big part of the challenge of the game.

As AQ said, this poll doesn't matter because an intelligent AI is going to be in the game.
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Bastian-Bux
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#7 Post by Bastian-Bux »

@Aquitaine

It seems some people that joined recently think they can change old decisions if they put enough "pressure" on the design team ;).

OK, to all that have that idea: look at MoO3. Its a very good example of what happens if you have a glorious vision, overestimate your ressources, delay, delay, find out that you overestimated yourself, change your plans radically and finally dish out a castrated and unfinished product.

The design team had long discussion about the very basics of this game. Those WONT be changed.

noelte
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#8 Post by noelte »

"I will play amost exclusively with AIs"
What should be more important in FO? Having good and challenging AIs at the expence of strategic choices available to MultiPlayer games, or having more choices for MultiPlayer strategies which would result in dumber (more difficult to program) Ais?
IMO, you state the wrong question. It's more about multiplayer ONLY against single+multipayer. If you favor MP you don't have to worry about AIs. If you want computer generated enemies, you have to have a strong AI.
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Kharagh
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#9 Post by Kharagh »

It really doesn't matter that much if FO is played more MP or SP. We will need a good AI in any case, because ppl will want to play cooperatively against the AI in MP.
Most ppl probably won't get enough guys together to make MP interesting without a good AI anyway. 2 or 3 ppl in a whole universe is just not that interesting.

Aquitaine
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#10 Post by Aquitaine »

Ranos wrote:As AQ said, this poll doesn't matter because an intelligent AI is going to be in the game.
Whoa whoa there! I don't recall making any such glorious promises. :P

there will be an AI in the game, yes.... :wink:
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Ranos
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#11 Post by Ranos »

Oh. Sorry AQ. :oops: My bad. Let me rephrase that.

There will be an AI in the game that can is capable of making moderately good decisions. At least good enough to keep people playing against the AI happy.

Is that better? :D
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Mirage
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#12 Post by Mirage »

I would probably never play a 4X game in MP (and voted so). Tried it a few times with MOO2/Stars! and gave up on the whole idea. It was just more fun playing against the AI at my own pace without having to first find the other players and adjusting faster/slower until everybody's happy.

That said, however, given the resources available to the FO team, the best choice would be for them to focus on MP and just toss in a cheap AI for now. Not much use if they focus on trying to get a good AI out and take away from the rest of the game. It's the same decision the major developers have taken most of the time, forgot about the AI and just push the MP/online part.

Once the game engine is properly in place, they can always improve on the AI (or sombody else can, I assume the AI module is swappable).

Of course it sucks for the SP in the first incarnation but I hope the nature of this project means that the FO team won't abandon improving the AI after V1.0 the way commercial developers tend to do so after getting the money.

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#13 Post by JamieK »

Well, i personally, never play these games online because i always get my ass handed to me very swiftly because i like to try to settle things with diplomacy and if that fails, i send in the warships, but with MP, all they wanna do is nuke you as quickly as possible. (Imperium Galactica 2 comes to mind)

I once tried it, but within 10mins, i wiped out by 20 Cruisers, while i had barely built a Colony Ship. :/

I got put off to Online Strategy games since then, so i will say 'do both', but since alot of people love MP and hate AI because they are always 'too easy' lol

When i first played IG2 SP, the AI declared war on me the moment we met and bam i was dead and that really peed me off.

I learnt, they only want to make peace with you is when you are like 100x or more stronger then them, either military, money, research or all of them and they always beg for peace.

But i think you should do a good MP, but do a good AI as well, It would be cool, if the Special Events would sometimes cause another race to have something terrible happen and when you learn of it, you can either choose to help them, or choose to do nothing or choose this moment to attack when they are most vulnerable.

Now that would be cool.

JamieK
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#14 Post by JamieK »

Also, this is meant to be a game, which is meant to be entertaining and not challenging, well, not too challenging.

If you guys make the AI like on Homeworld 2, i wouldn't play the game. lol (i hated the HW2 AI, it sucked big time), it totally made it unfair, it broke the unit limit rules that the player was limited by, so if the AI needs to do that to make itself challenging, its a crap AI, so try to make it challenging, but not breaking the rules the player has to follow.

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#15 Post by Ablaze »

To be fair, when I played home world I routinely broke the unit limit rule as well. The second half of the game I never made a ship, I couldn't.. but I captured nearly everything I came across.
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