That's part of the fun - tricking the enemy into killing itself.
Sure I agree that it should be a valid tactic. And I would love to see a good working FF system.
But as it is I rather that the computer cheese then acting completely derp by continuously nuking and killing his own while your resist guy just shrugs it off like it is nothing.
enemies do not receive friendly fire from their team. Although some factions will fight each otha
...from the twitter thread.
This does not please me at all.
Oh great, what's the point of turning FF on, then? I'm not going to disadvantage myself if my enemies don't have to conform to the same rules.
I wanted friendly fire to make the game more realistic. I wanted equality.
Oh great, what's the point of turning FF on, then? I'm not going to disadvantage myself if my enemies don't have to conform to the same rules.
I wanted friendly fire to make the game more realistic. I wanted equality.
You'll never get true equality because the AI isn't as smart as you, hence why they get certain advantages.
That's not what equality is. Not equality of outcome, but equality of oppprtunity.You'll never get true equality because the AI isn't as smart as you, hence why they get certain advantages.
Care to elaborate?
Oh great, what's the point of turning FF on, then? I'm not going to disadvantage myself if my enemies don't have to conform to the same rules.
I wanted friendly fire to make the game more realistic. I wanted equality.
That's not what equality means.The point is challenge. You can't get equality because the AI is too stupid to work fair.
I'm going to enjoy the game less because FF isn't on for enemies.
As others have said it's an AI issue. To properly use FF you have to essentially solve a number of min-max issues which are very demanding for most.
I'm getting quite fed up with the AI excuse.
In Infinity Engine games, friendly fire was always on, and it worked perfectly fine.
Somehow enemies didn't kill each other mindlessly, system was completely symmetric (as all D&D based games) and the game was challenging but fair.
Are you telling me, that developers cannot do the same thing now, when average CPU has ~50 times the power it had then?
Somehow creating a symmetric and fair combat system with friendly fire enabled and balanced for both the party and enemies is impossible now, but was possible 15 years ago?
Don't say to me, that 'humans are smarter than AI', because we have chess engines that consistently win or draw against everyone, including the best Grandmasters.
I'm pretty sure we can program AI to make decisions at least as good as an average player.
I worry more about the tactical camera than FF to be honest.
Well, without decent FF mechanics (which we now know we aren't going to get), the tactical camera loses 50 % of its purpose anyway, since aiming spells correctly and positioning are far less important without FF.
I'm getting quite fed up with the AI excuse.
In Infinity Engine games, friendly fire was always on, and it worked perfectly fine.
Somehow enemies didn't kill each other mindlessly, system was completely symmetric (as all D&D based games) and the game was challenging but fair.
Are you telling me, that developers cannot do the same thing now, when average CPU has ~50 times the power it had then?
Somehow creating a symmetric and fair combat system with friendly fire enabled and balanced for both the party and enemies is impossible now, but was possible 15 years ago?
Don't say to me, that 'humans are smarter than AI', because we have chess engines that consistently win or draw against everyone, including the best Grandmasters.
I'm pretty sure we can program AI to make decisions at least as good as an average player.
2 points
First, Chess is MUCH simpler to program than the AI for a game like DAI. In chess, their are a finite number of very distinct possibilities, and at its core what a chess program does is run through every possibility and then choose the most desirable. Simple but tedious, exactly what computers are best at. There is some optimization to make things run faster, but that is the essence of how a chess program runs. DAI on the other hand, is much much more complicated. Since the player can respond in real time, (such as having the character targeted with the AoE spell charge a group of enemies, or having the party spread out to negate the
effects of the spell or a hundred different other possible actions) there is no finite number of possibilities which can be calculated and have the results compared to select the best course of action, especially not in real time. Furthermore, what the computer would most likely conclude is that it should NEVER use AoE, because their is almost always a possibility for me as a player to make the AoE hurt the enemy more than it hurts me if I make the optimum response. I may or may not so/react in time to make that response, which makes using AoE a judgment call, something that is very easy for humans to do, but very difficult for computers. There are undoubtedly high end AIs out their that could do it, but that is cutting edge computer science and is not cost or time effective for this game, or any other.
Secondly, equality in computer games vs an AI is a pipe dream. If there was equality, you would have exactly 1 combat encounter. You fight 4 guys with the same stats/abilities/gear as your party. As soon as you know how to beat that group, the game would get really boring really quick. Additionally, there is no AI that can outthink a human. As I mention in the paragraph above, chess programs at heart use a brute force approach, calculating every possibility and selecting the most desirable. When that is not possible, the AI falls apart. The best gaming AIs out there are a combination of slightly-less-stupid than average AIs and a whole slew of scripted behaviors that tell them how to respond to specific situations. As soon as you can recognize each of those scripts, it becomes laughably easy to outwit the AI. In order for there to be any challenge at all in ANY PvE combat game, the AI has to cheat (don't take my word for it, look it up, lots of articles by game devs cover this point). Could they make it so the enemy hits themselves with FF? Yes, but it would entail some other from of cheat for the AI to make combat interesting. They could for example make many waves of enemies repeatedly spawn, so that the AI can't nuke itself to oblivion to quickly, oh wait they tried that. On the whole, having the AI be immune to friendly fire is one of the least objectionable ways to increase difficulty, since it gives the AI a capability that we already have, the ability to use AoE without killing itself. I know that there are people who aren't interested in challenging combat, which is why there are the casual/normal difficulty settings, but there are just as many that do find difficult combat entertaining, which is why no FF for the AI, or something else that achieves the same end, is a must.
I don't want equality in the sense that my party and my enemies are equally strong. I want equality in the mechanics. If my spells do damage to my party, the NPCs spells should do damage to their party. Likewise, enemies shouldn't be able to spam abilities if I am forced to have a cooldown on the same abilities.
To compensate for the player being smarter than the AI, enemies in the game could be given extra abilities, greater numbers, or better equipment. That's fine. I just don't like it when the very mechanics of the world are biased against me and only me. It makes the world seem artificial and cheap.
First, Chess is MUCH simpler to program than the AI for a game like DAI. In chess, their are a finite number of very distinct possibilities, and at its core what a chess program does is run through every possibility and then choose the most desirable. Simple but tedious, exactly what computers are best at. There is some optimization to make things run faster, but that is the essence of how a chess program runs.
Modern day chess engines are able to evaluate practically any position and determine which player has the advantage - and many Grandmasters use it to analyze their own games. They do much more than just "find the best move".
But anyway, you haven't answered my examples. Infinity Engine RPGs prove that not only symmetry (I never spoke of 'equality') but also friendly fire, could be programmed and implemented in games released 15 years ago without any problems, on hundreds time lower budget and with more than 50 times weaker hardware. Moreover, I dare say that encounters in those games were designed far better, than most of those in Dragon Age games.
Somehow AI there was able to pose a challange to a player, without cheating. Of course, enemies could've been higher level, or there could've been more of them (but not to the extend of DA2) - but mostly they've used abilities that the players could've used themselves, equipment that players could've taken from their bodies and use in further encounters...
Enemies used various abilities, potions, protective spells, tactics, they utilized traps and consumables to their advantage.
So all that you wrote is basically disproved by practice. All of that was already done before. So it sure as hell can be done again.
Modern chess engines evaluate every position the same way the decide how to move, by calculating all the possibilities. I didn't respond to infinity engine RPGs because I haven't played any, but I would bet you dimes to the dollar that the difficulty came in spite of the AI, not because of it. There are many different ways for the AI to cheat, not having FF is just one of them. infinity engine might have used others, but either the devs used some method to give the AI and edge the player didn't have, or the combat was laughably easy. If you weren't able to see those hidden advantages, kudos to the devs for hiding them well, but crack open the hood and I guarantee you'll find something designed to make the AI more powerful than you to counter the fact that you can think.
but either the devs used some method to give the AI and edge the player didn't have, or the combat was laughably easy.
The combat was so laughably easy, that people were stuck on certain fights for a long time (on normal difficulty) - which almost never happens in today games.
Of course there were hidden advantages that you can use - but the trick was, that those games didn't just put 10 regular guys against your party.
Every major encounter (and there was a lot of them) was designed in such a way, to give the enemy the edge. They had potions, sometimes were prebuffed, battlefield was filled with traps, enemy had good weapons or other items (that you could loot later and use yourself).
Enemies had the same chances that you did - so if an enemy mage casted haste on his party (which then proceeded to murder you horribly), you could counter that by for example sneaking in with a rogue first and backstab - kill the mage. Or prepare a dispel magic spell instead of your fireball. Or just interupt enemy's spellcasting at just the right moment.
The thing is, that those fights had many more options than just launch 20 guys at opponents party and have mage spam AOE, which enemy party is immune to.
They followed the particular path and strategy, which you could of course exploit and distrupt by various means - killing the spellcaster, dominating their main warrior, using summons for cannon fodder, so their mages run out of AOE spells, hurting enemy warriors in the process... Lots of stuff, and it was all done fairly.
Thinking gave you a significant advantage - but you had to think and control your party. Controlling just your main character and rushing in would result in certain death, unless you really knew the system. But for the first-time playthrough? You'd die. A lot.
And none of that felt unfair, like all those damage-sponge bossess in DA series. Or enemies immune to friendly fire.
In general, those games just used less obnoxious ways of giving AI the edge: better equipment, slightly higher level, traps, prebuffs, potions, scrolls, more enemies... You could always of course count for the boss to have more HP and better damage than your guys, but disproportion was much lower than in DA series - so you didn't feel that the game is cheating.
Enemies immune to friendly fire (and having several times more HP) does feel like cheating.
Equal rules for everyone involved in the combat. Not too much to ask.
The combat was so laughably easy, that people were stuck on certain fights for a long time (on normal difficulty) - which almost never happens in today games.
Of course there were hidden advantages that you can use - but the trick was, that those games didn't just put 10 regular guys against your party.
Every major encounter (and there was a lot of them) was designed in such a way, to give the enemy the edge. They had potions, sometimes were prebuffed, battlefield was filled with traps, enemy had good weapons or other items (that you could loot later and use yourself).
Enemies had the same chances that you did - so if an enemy mage casted haste on his party (which then proceeded to murder you horribly), you could counter that by for example sneaking in with a rogue first and backstab - kill the mage. Or prepare a dispel magic spell instead of your fireball. Or just interupt enemy's spellcasting at just the right moment.
The thing is, that those fights had many more options than just launch 20 guys at opponents party and have mage spam AOE, which enemy party is immune to.
They followed the particular path and strategy, which you could of course exploit and distrupt by various means - killing the spellcaster, dominating their main warrior, using summons for cannon fodder, so their mages run out of AOE spells, hurting enemy warriors in the process... Lots of stuff, and it was all done fairly.
Thinking gave you a significant advantage - but you had to think and control your party. Controlling just your main character and rushing in would result in certain death, unless you really knew the system. But for the first-time playthrough? You'd die. A lot.
And none of that felt unfair, like all those damage-sponge bossess in DA series. Or enemies immune to friendly fire.
In general, those games just used less obnoxious ways of giving AI the edge: better equipment, slightly higher level, traps, prebuffs, potions, scrolls, more enemies... You could always of course count for the boss to have more HP and better damage than your guys, but disproportion was much lower than in DA series - so you didn't feel that the game is cheating.
Enemies immune to friendly fire (and having several times more HP) does feel like cheating.
This makes my point, the combat was difficult not because the AI was intelligent but because it was given advantages, such as better gear, more levels, more guys,w/e. You may prefer one particular set of advantages, I prefer a different set, (such as AI having high health vs using potions, I prefer high health so I can see how much longer I have to go, you prefer potions, six of one, half-dozen of the other, just personal preference). I'm personally fond of the no FF AoE edge because it gives the AI a tool it can't have otherwise, resulting in more interesting combat. as I said before, could they make an AI that didn't use AoE? Yes, but they would have to add in some other edge for the AI, and I prefer this edge.
I kind of think that we've wandered into debating two different things at once, so I'm going to try and separate them for clarity, correct me if I'm wrong.
Issue#1, can the AI use AoE intelligently without having FF turned off
I say no, you say yes
Issue#2
Can the AI pose a challenge to the player without being given advantages
I say no, you say no, but we have different personal preferences on which advantages we prefer the AI be given
I'm getting quite fed up with the AI excuse.
In Infinity Engine games, friendly fire was always on, and it worked perfectly fine.
Somehow enemies didn't kill each other mindlessly, system was completely symmetric (as all D&D based games) and the game was challenging but fair.
Are you telling me, that developers cannot do the same thing now, when average CPU has ~50 times the power it had then?
Somehow creating a symmetric and fair combat system with friendly fire enabled and balanced for both the party and enemies is impossible now, but was possible 15 years ago?
Don't say to me, that 'humans are smarter than AI', because we have chess engines that consistently win or draw against everyone, including the best Grandmasters.
I'm pretty sure we can program AI to make decisions at least as good as an average player.
Well, without decent FF mechanics (which we now know we aren't going to get), the tactical camera loses 50 % of its purpose anyway, since aiming spells correctly and positioning are far less important without FF.
Equal rules for everyone involved in the combat. Not too much to ask.
We know we're getting FF. On our side. Enemy FF is meaningless for the tactical camera.
I'm not getting FF. In order for the option of FF to be meaningful for me, it'd have to be FF that I could reasonably want to play with, i.e. FF applying equally for enemies, without hp asymmetry, and with aoe damage balanced for the presence of FF.
The presence of FF in the form we're getting it is just as meaningless as the presence of FF in DA 2 nightmare mode, as it isn't something I'll ever turn on.
Just don't turn it on. Simple.
I won't. At the same time, having no FF will pretty much ruin a big part of the tactical gameplay, so the gameplay overall will be mediocre at best.
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