Thoughts and Suggestions regarding AI
So much has been written on this topic, I just have not been able to keep up with it all - so my apologies beforehand; I'm sure these suggestions have probably already been made, in various forms. However, just in case there is something new to offer, I had these thoughts:
- The problem is not the quality of the AI - we want good clever, capable AI that can offer a challenge to even the most skilled player.
- The problem seem to be more one of matching players to AI of an appropriate threat level for them.
- You still want variety in the threats a player meets; sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger, but mostly at a level that puts up a challenging fight.
- If faced with an overwhelming opponent, it would be good to have the option of some form of surrender - maybe even offering them credits if you have no cargo to give. This should be possible even if combat has started!
- AI should act like "well mannered" players - right now they sound like they too often emulate griefers. A good step toward this is the newly-added behavior where at least some pirates will accept a cargo offering as a pay-off. In the same vein, if players have no cargo to offer, and don't fight back, the AI should maybe just give them a thrashing and leave them to limp home, rather than destroying them. (Indeed, this is a line of research worth testing - do we know the full range of AI responses to different player behaviors?)
It struck me that if Elite is using the players combat rank to determine the level of threat they should meet, that is a problem - indeed, a design flaw. Maybe it doesn't do this, but if it does, this could be a problem.
The reason is this that combat rank always increases over time - even if your personal skill level does not! I consider myself a good example. Having played since the original beta, my combat ranking is still only "Expert" - so you can see I am not much into combat, and I personally would not consider myself even "expert" skill. However, over time my rank will only ever increase.
What is needed is a hidden "combat rating" statistic for each player, used to decide what sort of range of opponent to face them with, and possibly what behavior options are open to them from particular threat-levels of opponents. For example, if the RNG rolls up a threat that would likely overwhelm the player, it might also activate a greater likelihood of that threat demanding and accept some form of surrender.
The "combat rating" of a player would be adjusted up and down based on the outcome of each combat the player engages in. It would look at factors such as:
- The duration of the combat. The longer it lasts, the more closely matched we can assume the player and AI are, so the outcome would have a diminishing affect on the player's combat rank regardless of the outcome.
- The amount of internal damage given and received. If a player destroys or drives off an AI without taking any damage, their combat rating would increase more than if they get away with nearly as much damage received as inflicted. Likewise, if a p-layer is destroyed without putting a scratch on their AI opponent, their combat rating would decrease.
Combat rating would only be affected by player vs AI combat. PVP would not change your combat rating.
Not sure yet how mixed PvP & PvE combat and how multi-ship combat would be fitted in to this, but I'm sure it could be done.
Players could still "sandbag" their rating if they really want to, but it would take time and effort, and really who cares if they do - the aim is to ensure the majority of players are offered threats that give them a challenge. The exact level of risk-of-death that constitutes "challenge" is something the developers would have to decide and maybe adjust over time.
So, bottom line:
- Keep the skilled AI, and continue to make it better and harder. but...
- Implement a mechanism for measuring a players combat skill based on their historical success/failure in combat, which then drives the level of threats presented to them.
- Add some alternatives for people who are not skilled combatants, so that being destroyed is not always the only way to lose a combat.
Of course, maybe these mechanisms are already implemented. Maybe we already have a hidden combat-skill statistic, but the previous reign of easy-kill AI has skewed some people's rankings? If so Frontier really just need to make us aware of them; there are some things it is probably not best to just leave us to discover on our own!
