Are there any recommended blogs or whitepapers that talk about making the AI in an RPG game feel more real? (Specifically in turn based combat.)
I know something must be out there, but I am only finding papers that talk about algorithms behind the AI. I am looking more along the lines of "this is what makes a computer opponent feel alive". Taking risks, going easy, retreating, etc....
So many awesome answers, and I wish I could accept several of them. Thanks everyone!
Answer
Mistakes. Nothing is worse than an AI opponent who can headshot you from fifteen miles away, or always picks the perfect winning strategy. It breaks the immersion and makes it apparent that you're playing a routine. Mistakes can make the AI seem more human.
Many FPS games force the AI to miss with its first few shots, warning the player that the AI is there, before going for the kill.
Strategy games could sometimes select a suboptimial strategy, or when evaluating threats may purposefully ignore some proportion of them.
A racing game I worked on calculated when the player was nearby, and then rolled a dice to make the AI cars in front of him understeer through the corner or blow a tyre. It was praised for its realistic AI.
However creating imperfect AI is still something of a challenge. You have to make convincing mistakes, at a convincing rate, rather than perform perfect action after perfect action until making a ridiculous blunder. That can be even worse than playing just a perfect AI. For instance, the programmer working on the racing AI above spent a lot of time on modelling how a car understeers, and what inputs the AI needs to make to cause a convincing understeer. As always, playtesting is vital.
Here's a good article on what goes into producing these kind of mistakes: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3947/intelligent_mistakes_how_to_.php
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