I agree. If I want dice I'll go play Rifts or D&D.

What do you think is going on in that AI?

Hardly. Any Character based RPG will use Chance to hit systems or its not really character based.

You know nothing about computers. Do you think theres some dungeon master in there that throws some dice around and changes the game based on the out come? It's not a board game. When you swing a sword at an enemy the AI of enemy can react with block or a dodge. In fact the developers have to dumb down the AI's reaction time because computers can process faster then humans.

What exactly determines whether it blocks or dodges?

We think alike, good sir.

Whats going on in the AI? Definitely not dice throwing thats for sure.

On the second point your wrong. How many times do I have to tell you. ONLY TURN BASED RPG'S WORK WELL WITH CHANGE TO HIT.

But RPGs only incorporate chance of miss because they can't duplicate real combat (where there is a real chance of missing based upon your opponent's location versus the location of your weapon at the time when you would strike him). If technology continues to improve to where real combat can be better simulated, why keep to the archaic imitation when you can simulate the real thing much more effectively?



The if-then's can be dependent (or in sync with) upon the animation of your sword versus the animation of your enemy, each which in turn can be in sync with things that can be represented by the world on the screen itself (distance from sword to intended target, reaction time of enemy based on enemy skill set + random factor).

That is, a much richer and more complex "behind the scene" calculation can be going on, one in which the player's reflexes plays a larger roll in determining the outcome. True, computers are ultimately nothing but numbers, chance, etc, but what exactly to you think WE are? Very complex computers, for all intents and purposes. The physical world around us is a game of rules and chance, and so why not try to imitate it more closely? Why depend on methods of imitation that are outdated?

I would disagree with that. While there are no rolling bits of bone or plastic; those routines still make use of pseudo-random numbers within certain ranges (often the same as the dice).

Morrowind is Turn based?


A character based RPG is one that relies on the character's defined abilities. If your character has no skill with a blade, then they will usually miss, or even injure themselves in the attempt [some games]. If your character has poor strength, then they might not be able to break down a door or move the heavy rock. If they can't shoot, then they should not hit the target often. Fallout 3 attempts this [somewhat] with attenuation of the controls; (something I understand, but am still not fond of).

Heres how AI works just so you know. There's a list of situations it can get into, and for every situations there is a list of responses. This is how the earliest path finding AI worked. Keep moving tell you hit an impassable object, if you hit an impassable object move in a different direction. You can see that in Pac Man. When the ghosts hit a wall they just change directions. The AI in OB didn't doge because it wasn't in the list of things they were allowed to do. They could only block. If they didn't block in time they got hit. Thats the way it works, its not chance, it's simulated behavior.

It's not which is why the chance to hit system in it svcked.

That's some pretty cheap and illusory AI.

Why?

Games don't have to be turn based to use a 'Chance to hit' system.
(And turn based games are not required to use them either.)

The example I gave was AI form the 80's. The AI today is vastly more complex.

Why?! BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HIT ANYTHING. VERY FEW PEOPLE LIKE IT. YOU ARE THE MINORITY. VERY FEW PEOPLE WILL BUY THIS GAME IF THE COMBAT WORKS LIKE MORROWIND.

I can see them using defined lists as a calculation saver, but these days, and with multi-threaded engines... Why would they not advance to implementing virtual dice, instead of a rigid list?

Of course you can. Its a common complaint that Fallout (for example) let you become 'godly' accurate.

All you have to do is develop your character in the skills that he or she (or it) should be good in; that's the point of most RPGs.

Why are you printing in all caps?

I agree with everybody who says that it would be nice to have animations for dodging, rolling with blows, glancing strikes, etc. It would make combat feel way better, and be a lot more satisfying. BUT... to my knowledge the technology isn't there yet, at least it's never been demonstrated in a game AFAIK. Hopefully Skyrim and future games will be a step up from what we've seen in the past, but expectations may be high at the moment.

Gamers get this bizarre notion of realism based on satisfaction in games that are, honestly, ridiculous. There are these ideas from FPS games that you can score headshots on countless enemies while sprinting and bleeding out your ears. The truth is, any realistic game that depended on player skill would result in maybe 1 in 10,000 characters surviving the first minute of the first combat situation they got into.

So, when talking combat, we're really talking about satisfaction, which is totally separate, and often the complete opposite of realism.

Anyway, in order to get satisfying real-time combat animations, the calculations would have to finish before the weapon finished the swing. The combat simulation would have to anticipate action, and this would require a lot of computational power, and be very tricky to program. To get it right or "close enough", would probably require a lot more work than any company would be willing to pay for. This might evolve in games slowly over time as developers nudge forward, but we're not going to see a full-blown system appear out of nowhere. Nobody will pay for it. And when I'm talking anticipation, it would have to be close to 100% correct. For example, in a real fight, if a human anticipates incorrectly, they might get struck, or trip or whatever. But if a computer anticipates incorrectly, you get the wrong animation. That is, the game starts a dodge animation when it should be a stagger, or a block animation when it should be a trip, or whatever.

So while I don't actually care whether the system is min - max, IMHO it's closer to a realistic fight (as opposed to a satisfying fight). The variation in damage is an abstraction for glancing blows, subtle movement from the opponent, less than perfect timing from the attacker, and a thousand other variables that can't be controlled directly by the player.

:facepalm: because dice is only for D and D, and things trying to mimic it. People are trying to make AI that acts as real as possible, not just do random stuff. Computer AI has never used chance in the first place. The only reason they had chance in earlier games was because they wanted it to, because they were copying D&D. Todd even said D&D was the inspiration for the first three TES. We've all moved on. Games are reactive now.

The immense satisfaction from combat in Fallout, was squaring off against a large group and discerning a path to victory (preferably with few casualties ~or none); Its what I liked about the series.

Dice are not used for 'random stuff', they are used for probability. When you use a weighted system, where the dice reflect a probable outcome, and PC skill bends and influences that outcome, it can be pretty realistic (and not so predictable as a look-up table).

Are there any Computer games that aren't reactive?

First off you contraindicate your self all the time. You just said you like Fallout because of it's combat when there's no chance what's so ever. Unless you go into vats, which turns the game temporarily into a turned based game so it can actually work.

On the [censored] dice issue. If I slash my sword across someone's throat in a game I don't want something to throw a dice to see if I slit it. I want to see blood squirt out of there neck, because that's what happens in real life. It makes no sense to only have a chance of it happening because I actually used my skills to make my sword hit them, not chance. I'm in control. Not some dice, or some abstract representation of dice.

If you're literally talking "virtual dice", that's easy, a beginner could do it in any programming language. (Technically, you'd be talking pseudo-random numbers which is what most applications use rather than truly random, but real entropy is a limited resource on computers and can actually be used up faster than it can be replenished, look up "entropy pool" if you're feeling really bored.)

Anyway, tables or rigid lists are used for a variety of reasons depending on the context, in some cases for slightly more sophisticated purposes (state machines and dispatch tables), and in other cases for practicality. In terms of practicality, let's put it this way: despite having multi-core 3GHz CPUs simultaneously with similarly sized GPUs, we don't have even close to the raw speed and power to perform certain types of calculations in real-time.

If you were talking lists purely in terms of entropy such as dice rolls, it goes back to the entropy pool issue.

Serious?

Fallout didn't have VATS ~[actually it did, but it was a building that housed large vats... of goo].


That only happens if the attacker hits them. In most RPGs it is the PC that attacks (swings the weapon). It is an unfortunate side effect in 3d FPP RPGs that the weapon is often just for show. All you are doing in the game is selecting a target ("shoot that"), and the PC tries to attack. This is why one can miss when the gun is pressed to the target's body; its because the gun does not reflect the actual aim of the PC. This wasn't a problem in Fallout 1 or 2 as the game never depicted the combatants up close enough to notice.

If I'm not mistaken, the entire point of min-max damage was to mimic the fact that some blows do not hit as solidly as others, thus inflicting less damage. I suspect that with the way games are handled today, such a thing could determined by collisions rather than random numbers.

Dice roll games aren't reacting to you, there reacting to chance. If you want realistic AI you can't use chance. Everything we do is not decided by chance, we have free will, and everything that's tries to mimic our free will should be as chancless as possible. AI today is simulated behavior, it's not even close to as advanced as us, but at least closer then a chance system can get.

These games could pre-calculate a large list of pseudo-random numbers, and just pick a pseudo-random starting point, and use the values one after another. :shrug:
They could use AES or blowfish, or another, to hash part of the windows temp folder (or something else) on start up.

I had no idea we were in the presence of a perfect being.

So you've never - NEVER - while in the middle of doing something, sneezed? Had a bug fly in your eye? Been dazzled by the sun? Stumbled on a rock? Everything that you ever do, you do perfectly, every time? You never misstep? Never time something wrong? Never flinch? Never make any mistake at all, ever?

Sadly, the rest of us do all those things. Realistically, characters in video games would do all those things too. And since those things shouldn't be scripted, since that would destroy any possibility of anything like spontaneity, they instead have to be assigned a probability of happening, and virtual "dice" have to be "rolled" in order to determine whether that probability is met and becomes a reality.

Let's cut to the chase here, mmkay? Your tantrums over "dice rolls" count for absolutely nothing. Games use them. They have no other choice. Contrary to your laughable delusion, game AIs don't "think." They react in a relatively few ways based on a relatively short list of possibilities, and the chance that they react in a particular way is determined, in part, by just that - CHANCE. They can't react exactly the same way every single time - that becomes dull and predictable. There has to be a CHANCE that they'll react well and a CHANCE that they'll react poorly - a CHANCE that they'll react in one way and a CHANCE that they'll react in another. And the only way to apply chance in a game is with the "dice rolls" you so hate.

Deal with it.

Ok lets just end this argument. Regardless of what you think of it, Skyrim is not going to use chance to hit. Look at the gameplay trailer, the combat is the same as OB, just more flashy. Bethesda's never going to go back to that system. Most people don't like it. Old fashioned RPG gamers just don't make up a big enough part of the market to warrant that. If you don't like don't buy it.