Comment on Creator's AI Section

[Fate Alseif]

On your website's Game Design page, at the very bottom, you talk briefly about the type of AI you'd like to introduce to the game. You end with the open-ended, or possibly rhetorical question of "How would/could you get the player to notice the difference between a 'stupid AI' that fights to the death because it's programmed to, and a 'next-level AI' that sacrifices itself to save the life of the player?"

Well you mentioned an in-between level of AI as well, which is programmed to look at its odds of winning a given battle and decide on a fight or flight response (feels fear and acts on it). This level of AI has been around in some games, and even some movies (Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers 'accidentally' created an AI that could flee in some instances for the large CG battles, seen I believe in the battle of Helm's Deep first). So it's definitely not anywhere near impossible to program this level of AI.

I think your solution lies in a combination of AI sets...and a "loyalty/rapport" system. The idea of rapport/loyalty has been in some games (mostly turn-based RPGs), but to my knowledge they've never had a serious impact on AI behavior.

Here's the bare bones of the idea:

You recruit a penniless, starving, scumbag, alcoholic theif for a few hundred coins. He has next-to-no respect/loyalty/rapport for you. You get into a battle with even a small group of low-level enemies, and he's more likely to run away than fight for you. If you've chosen a life of crime and have a decent bounty on your head and get cornered, he may even turn on you to collect the bounty!

Now then, say you recruit an honorable man of the warrior caste. If your standing in society is respectable enough (and if you've stayed out of trouble for the most part), then he's already moderately loyal to you and your cause. In an even fight, and even in one where you're slightly out-matched, he'll stick by your side and watch your back. If you're in WAY over your head, he'll strongly urge you to reconsider fighting, asking you to stay your hand or flee with him.

If you have an ally who believes in your cause, whom you've treated well, and who has been with you for a good while, then they'll follow your will as if it was their own, fighting insurmountable odds if only to keep you breathing for a scant few seconds longer.


The AI would take actions within certain groups/teirs based on the level of loyalty/rapport it has with your character.



If you wanted to push it even further, you could have your group's loyalty/rapport react within itself--each member reacts to one another's presence. So the loyalty of the honorable warrior may degrade slowly if grouped in the presence of the lowly drunkard thief. But those who respect you to the ends of the Earth may not degrade at all from the presence of another whom they despise.

[Fate Alseif]

I also posted this on the Steam forums in the game's page, and have gotten a few replies to it already. One of them prompted a short clarification post from me, so I'll copy and pasta that bit here.

Meta 12 minutes ago

Originally posted by CalPal_The_Great:
I think loyalty and rapport are good as they are, but we should add another element: investment.

While I didn't explicitly state the same idea in those words, I thought the implications for this were there in my op.
Glad you're on the same page though. Means that I'm not spewing out complete nonsense.

To clarify-
The implication was that continuing to support (invest in) one of your hirelings, whether it be through feeding and clothing them, giving them a place to rest, buying them better equipment, bringing them with you on missions (rather than say...having them work the mines all day...unless they like that), and probably most importantly, PAYING THEM (money's supposed to be important in this game)...by doing that, over time their rapport/loyalty would increase.

So in this instance the saying would go:

"While money may not buy happiness, happiness buys loyalty, and loyalty is worth a lot of money."

OR SOMETHING.

-And of course
The flip-side would be that treating your hirelings like crap all the time--not feeding them, not letting them sleep, making them do work they aren't suited for/don't like (determined by stats), not healing their injuries, and not paying them any wages--would make their rapport/loyalty run dry faster than you would realize.

I'm Meta, and the CapPal guy is the guy who prompted my response there. His post was larger than that, by the way. If you want to read the whole thing, you can do it there on the game's steam forums page.

[Kajan451]

The question how to make the player aware if its 1 or 3 is by including a "loyality" value somewhere. The Value increases or lowers depending on actions by the player. That value could be visible, or it could be tied into the way they speak to you.

Probably would be much easier in a japan language where you could express a lot of that stuff with honorifix or the lack of them, but if you are going to have banter between NPCs, considering the plan is to have everyone be their own person it would make sense that there is some interaction between your team. You could maybe overhear them talking about you. Maybe when they idle around they talk about the player.

Or the way they talk to the player when spoken to. Probably need some really good writer to express these subtilities in words.

Or of course one could just make the loyality value visible. If its above a certain amount they'll fight to death to protect you, if its below some value they run away and bother just about themselves. The player could check the value and would know how reliable their people are.

[Fate Alseif]

That's the general idea, yes.

More likely to have lists of certain actions that the AI is likely/unlikely to take in separate tiers, dependent on their rapport/loyalty values.

Example of possible actions in an even fight, with an "average" AI (no particular strengths/weaknesses, no outstanding character traits either way) if the AI:

Loathes You
Rapport/Loyalty Value: 0-29

Possible Actions-
Abandon Player's group - 40% Chance
Turn Against Player - 10% Chance
Defend Player - 20% Chance
Do Nothing/Flee - 30% Chance


Dislikes You/Disregards You
Rapport/Loyalty Value: 30-59

Possible Actions-
Do Nothing/Flee - 25% Chance
Defend Player - 50% Chance
Taunt Enemies (bringing more attention to self) - 15% Chance
Abandon Player's group - 7% Chance
Turn Against Player - 3% Chance


Tolerates/Likes You
Rapport/Loyalty Value: 60-89

Possible Actions-
Do Nothing/Flee - 5% Chance
Defend Player - 65% Chance
Taunt Enemies (bringing more attention to self) - 20% Chance
Fight to the Bitter End - 10% Chance


Loves/Worships You
Rapport/Loyalty Value: 90-100

Possible Actions-
Defend Player - 30% Chance
Taunt Enemies - 25% Chance
Fight to the Bitter End - 45% Chance



That's with a plain character archetype, it could scale differently and have different options for actions based on differing character types and situations.

For instance if you instead had an honorable warrior AI who liked you, and you're trying to pick a fight with an army twice the size of your own, he might recommend....getting the Hell out of there, rather than having everyone on your team, including you, die.

Having the good-for-nothing thief AI who hates your guts in the same situation might look upon the larger army and slip his dagger between your ribs.

Having an AI with you who respects you to the ends of the Earth might tell you to flee while he stays behind and makes the ultimate sacrifice--giving his life so that you, his friend and leader, can beat a hasty retreat and live another day--in your stead. If you refuse his offer, he'll stand by your side and fight proudly to the death with you.

That's the sort of thing I think Captain Deathbeard (Chris) wants to include in his vision for the game's AI, just going by what little he typed out.


Personally, I love the idea.

[Denninja]

TLDR?: Make disposition=morale?
There not being a "main character" shouldn't matter, the disposition of each faction member
could be toward the rest of them as a whole.

How about turning this into it's own set of attributes?
Pride, Regret, Satisfaction, Attachment, etc.
Each one would be listed under each character's "personality" page,
being affected by, and affecting various gameplay elements.

[skynet464]

Since there is no main character, how would loyalty work?

[Clawdius Talonious]

Dead State will incorporate some loyalty mechanics that should prove interesting. In Kenshi I imagine that there should be some additional states besides just attacking or fleeing. Once Chris adds the surrender mechanics there should be potential for a variety of other things. Someone could surrender without the command if their loyalty broke. Another interesting possibility would be someone you recruited stealing from you and abandoning your downed allies. That could spin off a dynamic quest to hunt him down and get your money/items back and such. Allies who surrendered could spin off quests to rescue them or break them out of jail if they surrendered to factions that would abduct them afterwards as has been previously suggested. A lot of interesting emergent gameplay could result from all of that.

[Nater]

I think this morale type AI would create a few very frustrating moments.

Most people probably pick a character they identify with to be their Avatar. I usually adopt the first guy as my main representative in the game. Since in this game the player is actually represented by the "faction" more so than any individual member, I think the idea dynamic computer controlled AI affecting the members of your faction would cause more frustration than fun. Currently you, the player are the AI for each member of your faction. Sure there are some autonomous things they should be able to do, but I think the fight/flight/heal/etc decisions should remain with the player.

I mean if you want to minimize the amount of required player interaction, then I would rather see an option to program my AI to run to the nearest town when they reach a certain threshold.

The way the combat works now I just cannot see the fun of unpredictable friendly AI that would leave me at the climax of a battle that I could win.

[Jake_j_a]

Interesting proposal, I must say however I'm on the fence, for two reasons.

First off, as Nater said, it could be a point of frustration. Now I dont mind a little frustration in the name of adding the strategic element you're talking about here. However it would have to result from a cause/effect that the player has control over. If you just 'were not paying attention' and it bit you in the a**, that's fine, but if there was nothing you could have done about it regardless that's not interesting, fun or engaging, it's just plain frustrating.

Second, programing AI is tricky business in the best case. The more options a game has, the tougher it gets. In it's simplest form, it's a final action based on a number of variables. More variables and more final decisions make the coding exponentially harder as they increase. Chris is good, but to code an AI based on that number of variables with so many possible results would be a herculean task, anything less then perfect will result in an AI that is complete rubbish, prone to flip-flopping and unpredictable behavior.

[Kajan451]

The way the combat works now I just cannot see the fun of unpredictable friendly AI that would leave me at the climax of a battle that I could win.

A pyrrhus victory isn't a victory. And the way i understand it, the way it is planned is for the AI assess the likely hood of not only victory but also its own survival. In which case i am fine with that.

I actually want to see the moral of troops playing a part and not just being throwaway people. Personally i'd love to see means and ways to influence that later. Maybe if you'd have the option to create something like a bloodcult of suiciders you might have them stay and fight to the bitter end, but i honestly would rather like to see my troops run away and act like real persons when they get send to their deaths.

If the AI is developed well enough, it should be able to determine success of the battle as well as their own survival in said battle. Troops that ain't loyal or suicidal should question their commanders orders when they are to be thrown away in a battle that can't be won, just because the player doesn't value (virtual-) lives.

But in the same way there should be ways to have deciated and loyal troops laying down their lives to slow an enemy advance. And i think that is the root of the problem. How do you get there?

Well the easiest way would be having a value or means for the player to gauge the loyality of his people, as well as action which allow him to boost that value or a selection process to get rid of people that ain't loyal enough. Ideally this should be able to be accomplished by several ways:

Upbringing - having a strong sense of family and loyality amongst your people/faction/clan/organisation, would mean people born and raised into that setting would be more likely to have a strong sense of duty and as such would be more willing to lay down their lives.

Religion - Having a religion or rather a faith concept, maybe even an enforced concept, would leave zealots and zealot armies with the same "cold as steel" mentality, willing to lay down their lives in any and all situation.

Cause - Having a cause, like rebellion against an oppressing faction, can breed devotion to the cause just as Religion and Faith can. Ties in very narrow with Religion i guess.


But while i would love to be able to go to these extremes of being able to form your own Cult or Freedofighter armor of rebels that live in a tight knit community, i am not sure how much sense that makes on the development end. Meaning how much time and effort would it take to actually be able to breed your own deeply devoted honor guard.

I am sure it can be done, everything can be done, the question is just if the effort to do it justifies the reward. But it would certainly be a first for a videogame to have that much influence on the game world to be able to create your own Fantatics or actually hold speeches that will rally people and make them lay down their lives for their charismatic leader or for a cause they perceive just.


However a bunch of sellswords should drop their weapons if they are being thrown into a situation where they realize they are just sacrificed. They are after all just mercenaries that pick the sword up to make a living and you can't make a living when you are dead. Same goes for farmer that are conscripted into an army. They should run away too, when things get to dire. Defending your home is a good thing, but lay down your life for an empty house that can be rebuild? That makes no sense at all. The only reason they should stay around and fight is if they'd die anyway or get enslaved or any other thing that is perceived worse than death by that farmer.

I do fully support armies to run away. Even trained soldiers run away or surrender. Unless you are a zealot or have an extraordinary sense of duty, selfpreservation overrides any and all alligencies at one point.

Its something you don't see that often in videogames, and i hope this game will actually sport the AI to do this. At least from reading the Gamedesign Blog i have faith that Chris is working at the best of his ability to get to this point and informing the player why that person ran... well common sense is something you can't relie on in videogames, because most players don't consider the soldiers to be alife and having a sense of selfpreservation, and as such expect their soldiers to be slaughtered like sheep, because they know they their unit will survive with 1 guy alive. 100 guys vs 101, they annihlate each other but 1 survives. The unit is still intact, can be replentished, maybe got some bunch of exp too, victory, right?

[Clawdius Talonious]

Its something you don't see that often in videogames, and i hope this game will actually sport the AI to do this. At least from reading the Gamedesign Blog i have faith that Chris is working at the best of his ability to get to this point and informing the player why that person ran... well common sense is something you can't relie on in videogames, because most players don't consider the soldiers to be alife and having a sense of selfpreservation, and as such expect their soldiers to be slaughtered like sheep, because they know they their unit will survive with 1 guy alive. 100 guys vs 101, they annihlate each other but 1 survives. The unit is still intact, can be replentished, maybe got some bunch of exp too, victory, right?

In Kenshi, one soldier left standing means one soldier to begin bandaging all of the wounded on his team. Of course, if we were modelling morale and flight characteristics after real life, rather than what is fun gameplay wise, most armies will have their morale break and start to see troops flee regardless of their orders at something like 30% casualties. At a 30% casualty rate, effectively everyone on the front line has seen a great many compatriots die. At that point, some begin to flee, and herd instinct can effectively mean that everyone tries to run from the scene of the slaughter.

Of course, that doesn't exactly make for compelling strategy gameplay, and doesn't account for a variety of factors. When you're downed in Kenshi, you're not dead, just severely wounded. They slap some medigel and some bandages on you, splint your broken limbs and you'll be good as new in no time.

Currently, anyway. The plans are to play with a variety of ideas and see what works. Infection isn't a thing yet, and neither are limbs being completely severed, but a large part of that is that we currently only control one squad. Once the game gets some of the basics taken care of, like the ability to smith equipment for new recruits and things of that nature, then we'll start to see more deadly combat. It is entirely possible, at that point, especially when Chris implements AI sieges and the like that we will see AI morale and life preservation changed.

However, many of the more entrenched enemies in Kenshi are fighting for their homes, ostensibly defending their families. Casualties before outright flight can approach much, much higher numbers in those circumstances. Two armies meeting in the field IRL is nothing like a besieged town, arming all capable of defending their homes against an incursion. The trick will be to balance common sense and real life, with entertaining gameplay. After all, you might be more inclined to keep fighting an outnumbering force if you felt you could win and knew the men you saw downed without arms could be patched up and given mechanical prosthetics.

[Bancheis]

I greatly disagree with taking away control of the player faction troops, to the point where they run away or take possible hostile action on the player. Don't get me wrong, I think if they are retreating because they are about to die, that is perfectly understandable. But if you are saying they should run away out of fear, then there would be a lot more needed to balance that kind of liability. For example, adding a new stat to their list for 'Bravery' to show their likeliness to flee.

The current state of AI makes you micromanage your troops, having to constantly check the status of your faction members health. Simply put, it would not be as fun to play wondering if/when you will be betrayed or abandoned. I say either take away all control from the recruitable NPCs, or take away none of it. It is already annoying when they run off to fight being in constant aggressive mode, I don't think we want to worry about them running away from one group just to draw aggro from another group. Also to remember, you are asking them to join your faction, not just follow you around. The faction is like a family. One may have a higher sense of duty to protect their family, rather than to leave them for dead or capture.

Morale of troops should affect their overall performance of tasks or combat rather than directly affecting their personality. Say it ranges from 25% to 125% depending on their current state. Are they well fed, hydrated, and sufficiently equipped? Then give them the highest value. The more hungry or thirsty they get, or the more exhausted they get, the lower the number goes. I would even venture to say it should range from 50% to 150% as it would be entirely unlikely to keep them happy enough to be maxed. Would be a struggle just to keep them in the middle once you add all those factors into the game.

Now there are a few options regarding the AI dilemma. You could take away all control from the faction troops and make them pure AI companions. Maybe add some programmable roles, so you can assign jobs to them such as medic, soldier, engineer, etc. Assign them to a certain task such as follow someone, or guard a building, or even patrol an area like the other faction guards do. Add options to avoid melee combat, or attempt to take focus of the enemy off someone in a tanking manner. The other option is to leave it the way it is, with more micro control over the recruits and making us do it manually. Granted, with a large party, being able to set roles and allow some automation would still be good. Early game though, I still think it is going to be difficult enough without worrying the one or two guys you hire will just run off and leave you to rot. Again, not saying they shouldn't run if their life is in imminent danger like one of their health meters are below 25%, or they are bleeding out too fast. Either way, adding a fight or flight mechanism would require a method to measure the troops bravery or mettle.

Ultimately it is up to the development team to make the AI how they perceive it should be. They may take in part or in full ideas from posters on the forums. Usually, they already have their own ideas how they want it to be and very rarely deviate from the original plan. There are those who will want more realism out of the game and expect the NPCs to have deep personalities and emotions, while there are those who are control freaks and want to micro every aspect of their play as if they are controlling robots. There is no real way to please everyone, other than adding them both in and allowing the player to turn options on or off.

I personally like the RTSRPG style the alpha is in currently, telling my recruits where to go, what to do, and molding them into their particular role. If I need a medic for my squad, and the recruit I picked up just doesn't want to do it, or learn the skills to become one, that would just get on my nerves. One post mentioned that if they are not fed or allowed rest, they would refuse to work. What if that guy was the one making the food in the first place? Then I have to take away another piece of my well oiled machine to fill the gap because my NPCs are having emotional problems? Too complicated and unnecessary.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give my piece of mind regarding the debate. Final note, yes they should run away if their life is in imminent danger. No, they shouldn't retreat or surrender while perfectly healthy if the rest of the group is fighting. No, they shouldn't turn on the party leaders faction even if there is a bounty on them. Yes there should be a fight or flight system added, while ultimately still giving the player full control of their faction members if they so choose. If so, also give them a bravery stat. No, I don't believe loyalty should be in question, I believe it should be absolute. The people looking for realism will not agree with that, but there is only so much depth you can add to an NPC without breaking them. If you implement 10 different ways for the NPC to fail in serving the faction or handling a task, then you have to have the same number of ways to make sure that doesn't happen. Add one to one side, you have to add one to the other. Too many means way too much stress on the player to balance each individual member. We already know food and water will be a factor, as well as sleep most likely. Add in some injured folk and you already have 4 things to manage for each individual NPC. Balancing those alone while a group is travelling or patrolling will be difficult in itself.

Anyway I have droned on long enough. If you managed to read all the way through this, I thank you for your time. Looking forward to the completion of this game.

Bancheis