Since the announcement of Skyrim i started playing Oblivion again. The first faction i joined is the Dark Brotherhood. There are some things i noticed in the missions i hope they change in Skyrim.

For example, i went to a house where i had to kill all the partymembers. I Shot one in the head on the second floor and when i walked downstairs everyone knew there was a murder. How could they know
that? In the purification mission i started killing everyone and the ones alive were walking around as if nothing happened. That's weird to....

It concerns me because there has been little improvement since Oblivion till now. In Fallout you see the same weird behaviour of NPC's. When you take something by accident from someones desk in
Fallout Vegas they start shooting at you right away.

So will there be a lot of AI improvement in Skyrim? I really hope so....

you have to play with mods man http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11911

But i think they will defenetly do something about it

My biggest AI concern is in my sig.

Stealth gameplay would be leagues more rewarding if the AI's awareness was no longer just binary (totally aware or totally oblivious). AIs should get suspicious, go investigate sounds, etc. This would also likely alleviate many of the "psychic AI" problems that plagued Oblivion.

The mod community is great for these little fixes.

Personally some of the A.I. problems I see that we face:

1) The walker (Quest giver that has to travel forever to hit the next quest sequence but walks rather than runs)
2) More monsters with needs. (Nothing better than having monsters with needs, maybe you can drop rats to distract goblins)
3) Guard/Crime overhaul (already explained)
4) Faction based response (You murder the entire town, and for a couple gold you can make the last person alive LOVE you......lame)
5) Behavioral response regarding relationships (You kill a dad, maybe his son is now a bounty hunter that tracks you)


eh i dont know

I think a lot can be said about AI, not complaints but ideas for improvements. Would a word of mouth AI work ? Say an NPC sees you start a fight so they might tell another NPC about it. Results/actions could be put into motion based on what that NPC does. If it's a guard do they come after you, or report it to their Captain and you're confronted the next time you show up ?

Maybe if you noticed an NPC that saw you start that fight so you go after him to shut him up, or threaten to do him harm if he talks, or pay him off from yakking ?

What about having NPC's who are related or friends with others, create NPC circle of friends kinda thing so if you picked a fight or pissed off an NPC maybe he has a friend who's a shop owner that refuses to sell you anything, unless maybe if you go back to the NPC you pissed off and perform some sort of task of forgiveness....if you wanted to that is.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/159/4/9/49022fddbbb5214f815f1c90d083f7d2.jpg comes to mind...


this amazing picture ? TheMinttu @ deviantART.com

Yeah I hope the AI is better in skyrim too

They already stated it would be.

I just hope people have believable conversations in the street and walk around with a proper purpose, not just stare at walls for hours and discuss mudcrabs.

Like they did with Oblivion...

Something I've been hoping is that they will eventually add random events that include the A.I

Maybe someone gets killed in a house, or die for some other reason. And a while later someone new moves into his house or something. Make the Citys feel more alive in general.

And maybe bandit gangs are being formed and they attack villages or outposts or something like that.

I'm not expecting anything outta this world. If they can master what they WANTED to do with Oblivions AI and make it work in Skyrim I will be more than satisfied. Especially now that they are expanding the concept into radiant story as well.


If we just get Fallout 3 RAI(which did less than Oblviions, even though it was stated it was "improved") I will be disappointed.

I hope so too. I like how FO did stealth, where you could be either hidden or detected, but there was also a "caution" mode - so say you stabbed someone in an alleyway, and they fought back or shouted; while people may not have seen it, if they were within hearing distance they may become suspicious and look around for a disturbance. Then it's up to you to get far enough away from the crime undetected so that you aren't implicated. The only thing is FOs caution mode was specifically for enemies, not for NPCs.

One of the things I most interested in getting details about regarding Skyrim, is the radiant AI system and the radiant story system.

What are the limitations? How well has it been tested? Is there a real significant improvement in the AI since the dumbed down radiant AI from Oblivion and is based on that same system?.

Honestly can`t wait for the details and I really hope the finished AI is all that it is made out to be.

I have no idea what "Radian Story" means. I think it's just a fancy way of saying "Randomly generated quests".

The problem with the Radian AI is that it's a very complicated way to make NPC's do simple stuff (as opposed to just a simple scripted pathfinding algorithm), that's why Oblivion was a bit of a letdown for most of us.
But I think that when they succeed to take it a step further that it's going to be rather unique and impressive. It's not just about giving the NPC's freedom, they also need to give them reasons to use this freedom. NPC's hadn't much to do in Oblivion.
Since Skyrim will contain jobs I hope it will finally create a real virtual consumer based economy where iron is mined/forged, wood shopped/crafted and food is produced and consumed...
That will compliment the Radiant AI like peanut butter and jelly.

Combat and stealth is a completely different branch of AI, it's easier too and I think it's reasonable to expect some improvements.

For combat I hope they go as far as to create unique behavior sets for every creature, having vectors for "circle diameter", "tame/wild", "fight/flee" and "reckless/coward".
In real life, wild creatures have one or more "circles", when you enter the first circle it triggers a reaction "fight/flee".
"Fight" means they'll try to intimidate you and if you get in the second circle they attack.
"Flee" means they'll move away until you're out of the circle again. If you get in the second circle, "Flee" may turn into "fight".
Some creatures are programmed to run away as soon as they get hurt, others fight to the death most of them are somewhere in between. "reckless/coward".
"tame/wild" determines how much you can agitate an animal before their instinct kicks in. (basically how long he can tolerate you in his circle)

It's not really that hard to program and it will really do a lot to make animals behave realistically.

Humanoids should use various strategies instead of attacking you head-on and calculate their winning chances, possibly working together as a team. That's a lot harder to do, but there are plenty of good examples in other games.
Mages should use more spells, Fighters should use try to knock you off balance, Thieves should try to blind-side you. When they see they're about to lose outdoors, they should flee and indoors they should try to yield.

For stealth I was already pretty happy in Oblivion, but it would be nice if you had a meter to see your exposure level and a way to create distractions by throwing rocks or creating sounds with magic.

No they don't. They simply walk up to you and take it back. You should probably have a clue what you are talking about before posting.

But now they have the technology to implement it, which they didn't have 5 years ago.

Just no more telepathic guards please. If one sees me committing a crime then fine, let him deal with me. But if I pick someone's pocket and suddenly all the guards in all areas of the city immediately chase me then there's something wrong.

I seem to remember shooting arrows at walls and having enemies investigate the area, only to catch the next volley to the side of their head. It wasn't much, but it would be great if they could expand upon it. I'd love if there were more breakable pieces of pottery sitting around in dungeons, allowing the player to snipe them with arrows to create a sound diversion or draw them into firing range.

Which they did. The A.I. of Oblivion is leagues better than the A.I. from Morrowind. Sure, they didn't get to accomplish exactly what they wanted to do in Oblivion but that just means they are ready in Skyrim and will have it done well.

I believe it was confirmed that radiant AI was in Skyrim once again. I'd also presume that they've improved it much since Fallout 3, since they seem to be out to improve most of their earlier systems. New Vegas isn't really a good example to go to since it was developed by another studio that Bethesda basically gave the older construction set to.

One minor issue I'd like to see is invisibility/chameleon awareness. Give some of the enemies detect life spells. If they get suspicious, they should cast it. If you're in the middle of a battle with a bunch of mages, invisibility shouldn't be such a valid option for running/manuevering.

They weren't able to implement RAI in OB to it's full potential but you have to admit that day-to-day normal NPC activities were way better done than any other RPG at the time. People actually talked to each other, they went to shops, they ate, slept, guards patrolled, shopkeepers closed their shop and would go to bed at night etc. If Skyrim is any better then I'm most definitely happy about that,

It was the first game they had ever really implemented it too, so naturally there were going to be bugs, there were going to be issues. Nearly 5 years after the fact though, I'm sure they've put a lot of work into the radiant AI to make it even better than before.

As for realism it was far more realistic when you compare to Morrowind, where everyone stood in one place all the time.