Poor Ally AI

**n assistance turns into a liability**

Ally NPCs very rarely work out well in most genres. Action games, rpgs, and some strategy games occasionally have sections of the game with computer controlled allies, and more often than not those allies end up being more of a nuisance. Party NPCs often waste items, attract unwanted attention from enemies, and are generally fairly weak and die often. In certain situations, players might need to completely change how they were playing the game, and not always in a good way.

### **Example: Kingdom Hearts**

Kingdom Hearts runs off a party system, the player is assisted by two Disney or Final Fantasy characters for most of the game. Because of how the AI is set up, your party members tend to burn through their inventory items and recovery magic almost immediately. The player can adjust the AI in the menu, but is forced to turn almost everything off in order to avoid wasting recovery items.===

### **Example 2: Fallout 4**

In "Fallout 4" the player is given an AI companion of a dog that frequently assists the player in finding useful items and notifying the player of danger, however, when the dog roams freely it can cause the player unintended consequences such as running through a bunch of laser trip mines killing the player and his dog. AI companions that punish the player for the AI's mistakes quite often frustrate the player and ruin their interaction with the game.

### **Example 3: Ni No Kuni**

   In Ni No Kuni players control a party of multiple characters which each summon and control multiple creatures called "familiars". The characters themselves can be set to follow a variety of artificial intelligence paths in battle. While the player's companions will indeed follow the set scripts, they neglect proper actions outside of the broadly assigned categories. For instance, the characters themselves are extremely weak in melee range, excelling instead with spells from afar and with summoning their familiars. When the players sets their companions to "heal" the AI will attack from melee range until their mana is full enough to heal. What they should do is summon creatures to attack from melee instead.

**Example 4: Left 4 Dead 2**

 Left 4 Dead 2 is 4-player cooperation game. If the number of real players is less than 4, AI allies will compensate the position left. But the intelligence of the AI allies is not very high. For example, the healing package is very rare and valuable in the game and players can rescue others partners when they are dying. So most real players will use the healing package after being rescued. However, the AI allies will use it as long as someone's health is under 1/5 of health. In addition, they usually cannot help you immediately when you are caught by some special

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### **Example 5:** **Resident Evil 5**

In Resident Evil 5 you have one companion, Sheva, whose AI is problematic to say the least. She frequently uses any healing items given to her for insignificant injuries, gets stuck on objects, visible and invisible, and will sometimes run up against an enemy without even attacking them. Sheva's poor AI leaves the player feeling less like they have a companion to fight by their side, and rather like they are babysitting a well armed toddler.

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### **Example 6:** **007 GoldenEye**

In 007:GoldenEye, the player has to complete certain missions which involve escorting their partner AI, Natalya. This becomes frustrating very quickly as she cannot shoot enemies nor can she hide from them. It becomes especially difficult to complete a mission because there are times when she can walk straight into a line of fire and be immediately killed without the player being able to anticipate it.

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**Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii**
When doing a classic campaign for the Super Smash Bros on the Wii and you select the highest difficulty at time you have to team up with the computer for a two on two match. The AI that is on your team sucks and it is like a scene off the movies where a Professional Baseball team kills a elementary team.

## *Age Of Empire 2*

I have faced the same problem in RTS games like *Age of Empire 2* and *Age of Mythology where* allied AI makes a base with you, but couldn't send forces to help you even if you ping them for assistance. Their forces are strong and ready but stand idle. Their base won't interact with you at all. It made players feel like they are playing with pre-programmed AI which has no logic to interact with the dynamic environment.