Topic: "AI: strong"?

king_of_nowhere Topic Opener Joined: 2014-09-15, 17:35 Posts: 1668 One Elder of Players	Posted at: 2015-12-03, 01:19 I just started to use version 7652, and I noticed that the old notation for AI (aggressive, normal, defensive) has been swapped for a new "strong, normal, weak" notation. I suppose it has been changed because the addition of difficulty levels is eventually programmed, but i find it deeply misleading at the current moment. I suppose they are still using the same setting with "strong" simply having replaced "aggressive". I know that, but most people don't. They will expect a "strong" ai to be stronger, which is actually the opposite of the truth: unless you are playing 1 vs many AI, it's actually easier to win against aggressive: aggressive ai is more likely to squander its troops in suicide attacks, and unless they are teamed up, they are guaranteed to fight each other to the death, making the taks much easier for the human. I know there were plans to make difficulty levels by limiting the number of buildings an ai can make. Maybe they are already implemented, making my previous point moot. Even if that was the case, the current notation is still misleading. The reason is, in over 90% of videogames, "normal" difficulty means the AI has neither bonuses nor penalties compared to a human. So what is called "strong" should instead be "normal", since even in the best case, that of no limitations at all, ai is at most on the same level with a human. the levels in that case should be very easy, easy, normal, with the harder levels reserved for when the ai will actually get some advantage. Furthermore, no matter how improved it is compared to version 18, "strong" is not a proper adjective for the current ai. In any case, the levels as they are worded so far are misleading on several levels. I think the old notation was much clearer. easy-normal-hard should wait impplementation until we have actual difficulty levels, and then normal should refer to the ai with no bonus or penalty over a human. I express this opinion because I saw no related discussion on the forum, so i assume it was done without much thought. If the decision to change the tags came from a long debate with a majority agreeing on the current situation, then ignore me. Top Quote

DragonAtma Joined: 2014-09-14, 00:54 Posts: 351 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2015-12-03, 08:26 I'm a bit behind on playing Widelands, but if all the setting affects is their willingness to attack, then it definitely should be aggressive/balanced/defensive. Strong/normal/weak should be left for modifying other numbers (such as how quickly their buildings work; a Strong AI's woodcutter may only take twenty seconds to do what a human's woodcutter needs thirty seconds to do). As I've said before, I'm not a programmer. Therefore, if a programmer is willing to try adding difficulty levels, here's my suggestion: have strength levels for all players and CPUs (default "normal") and have the "time to finish working" part (such as that woodcutter's chopping) multiply by a number, depending on the difficulty levels: Strong: 0.67 Normal: 1.0 Weak: 1.5 Also, I recommend an option that multiplies the starting stocks for AIs and players (and rounding up): Poor: 0.8 Average: 1.0 Rich: 1.5 Very rich: 2.5 The numbers would likely need some tweaking in both cases, but it'd help provide challenges for veterans while making it easier on people who aren't that good at games. It'd also let a good player play against a so-so player online without it being an easy win for the better player! Top Quote

GunChleoc Joined: 2013-10-07, 14:56 Posts: 3324 One Elder of Players Location: RenderedRect	Posted at: 2015-12-03, 09:23 This was discussed in a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/1516785 Comment #6 in that discussion mentions "the forum thread", but there is no link back to where this was discussed in the forum, and I can't find it right now. What the new implementation lacks is balancing of the restrictions. We can certainly rename the levels to "Very Weak", "Weak" and "Normal", I would be fine with that. Busy indexing nil values Top Quote

king_of_nowhere Topic Opener Joined: 2014-09-15, 17:35 Posts: 1668 One Elder of Players	Posted at: 2015-12-03, 12:20 GunChleoc wrote: This was discussed in a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/1516785 Comment #6 in that discussion mentions "the forum thread", but there is no link back to where this was discussed in the forum, and I can't find it right now. What the new implementation lacks is balancing of the restrictions. We can certainly rename the levels to "Very Weak", "Weak" and "Normal", I would be fine with that. yeah, i remembered that difficulty levels were discussed and that i took part in the discussion, but i wasn't aware that such discussion had progressed to the point of actually changing the names. it was baout how to implement difficulty levels in the first place. ok, i should post some comment there again Top Quote

kaputtnik Joined: 2013-02-18, 19:48 Posts: 2440 OS: Archlinux Version: current master One Elder of Players Location: Germany	Posted at: 2015-12-03, 17:14 It's sometimes hard to manage information on two platforms (widelands.org and launchpad) simultaneous .... You could subscribe to messages and/or comments in launchpad globally for widelands: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+subscriptions. Fight simulator for Widelands: https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/ Top Quote