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Avadon Developer Diary #4


Spidweb

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Oh, that's good.

 

It's a lot more fun to be able to have the characters work together strategically. The game would suck rather hard, in my opinion, if two-thirds of my party acted on the whims of the AI, and the game would likely be either too easy or too hard. It would be hard to design the game like that to be not too hard or too easy unless you give the computer-controlled characters both lots of HP and little attack power, so that the user doesn't have to worry about them dying so much, but they also can't win every battle while the user just presses space bar over and over.

 

tl;dr - That's great.

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Originally Posted By: jecowa
The game would suck rather hard, in my opinion, if two-thirds of my party acted on the whims of the AI, and the game would likely be either too easy or too hard.
Sounds like me when I'm playing one of the Geneforge games, and I leave the AI to do the thinking for my creations; sooner or later (usually sooner), they seek out the strongest enemy in an area, and go on a suicide run at it. It's good to know that the new game won't necessarily put the AI in charge of other characters in my party.
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Jeff wouldn't do that. He's quite aware that his AI isn't brilliant, and most of the skill it has is situational and very specific scripting. Even Geneforge operates with the assumption that very few creations won't have the two Intelligence necessary for control. Later games even default with those two points added.

 

—Alorael, who wonders if anyone has tried a shaping-heavy build with AI control as a challenge. It would be quite difficult.

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Originally Posted By: Draloraelich
Jeff wouldn't do that.
Tell it to the ur-glaahk, six vlish, eight roamers, three battle alphas, and countless fyoras that G1 chewed up and spit out. All had the AI on, and all are now dead. All in the same playthrough too, now that I think about it. I hope it's just a case of really, really bad luck.
Quote:
He's quite aware that his AI isn't brilliant
No AI is perfect, nor will it respond the way you want it to every time; I've long since come to accept this. One thing I can say, however, is that I've never had a creation go rogue or get confused, whether the AI was on or not.
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Originally Posted By: The Mystic
No AI is perfect, nor will it respond the way you want it to every time; I've long since come to accept this. One thing I can say, however, is that I've never had a creation go rogue or get confused, whether the AI was on or not.
I seem to remember my 5 thahds with no intelligence from G3 beat me to death, but they may have just been charmed. Been a long time since that happened. Still, its probably better to play it safe and give them some intelligence.
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Creations can go rogue, and they can go rogue even with high intelligence. Usually that just means they run away, though.

 

Oh, and your suicidal AI creations? Your fault. Jeff gave you the means to prevent it, and you let them run around and die anyway. You are a terrible Shaper and the rebels all hate you.

 

—Alorael, who wonders why the rebels seem so markedly lacking in hippies. Yes, the moderately psychotic drakons are a downer, and the war in general is not amenable to flower power, but someone must want to hug all creations great and small.

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Originally Posted By: Draloraelich
—Alorael, who wonders why the rebels seem so markedly lacking in hippies. Yes, the moderately psychotic drakons are a downer, and the war in general is not amenable to flower power, but someone must want to hug all creations great and small.
I dont think hugging a rot, gazer or a unbound would be a good idea... A fyora, maybe, a vlish, maybe, a roamer, maybe, as long as it isnt a unstable roamer.
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Originally Posted By: Draloraelich
Oh, and your suicidal AI creations? Your fault. Jeff gave you the means to prevent it, and you let them run around and die anyway. You are a terrible Shaper and the rebels all hate you.
In my defense, the battle alphas and ur-glaahk didn't die until the Inner Crypt.

I was still relatively new to Geneforge at the time, and wanted to see what would happen if I left the AI in control. After that episode, I no longer use the AI to any extent. I think the deciding factor, though I didn't realize it until much later, was when I lost three fyoras in the tutorial.

Quote:
—Alorael, who wonders why the rebels seem so markedly lacking in hippies.
That's because nobody in the Geneforge universe bothered to make tie-dye clothing. wink
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Greta, to some extent? Especially G3 Greta, who talked a lot about servile rights and seemed genuinely uncomfortable with many of the things the rebels did, even though she preferred them to the shapers. Greta in general seems to be one of the voices of sanity and moderation in the later Geneforge games.

 

I also found the Awakened in G1/2 to be a bit hippy-ish, if we define hippies based on idealism and (by Geneforge standards, anyway) relative pacifism. The rebels of G3 and on seem to be much more based on Taker ideas, probably because the shapers kept massacring the Awakened.

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Originally Posted By: Draloraelich
—Alorael, who wonders if anyone has tried a shaping-heavy build with AI control as a challenge. It would be quite difficult.

Geneforge 5 where Delicious Vlish ran an AI controlled clawbug army. He just floated in their wake to cast the occasional blessing and heal. smile
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Originally Posted By: FnordCola
"Roamers are, most likely, a highly modified breed of dog. The Shapers apparently decided, at some point, that a dog could only be improved by the ability to spit acidic saliva. Or to explode." -Illya Safehouse roamer dialogue
The first thing that came to my mind reading this was exploding poodles and golden retrievers that spit acid. I'm never going to be able to look at a dog the same way again. eek

Although it will be fun to go to a dog park and imagine one blowing up and starting a chain reaction. But im just crazy normal like that.
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