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The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

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Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#81

Post by baud147258 »

vector_spaces wrote: post #16
cgh wrote: post #5

Perhaps this explains why Fromsoft npc quests are easily the most inscrutable in all of gaming. Like, okay Hyetta, have another “grape”, aka eyeball, oh now you’ve moved to the bridge in Liurnia, cool. I’ve exhausted your dialogue but you’re stuck. Oh I have to reload the area and exhaust it again to advance your quest. Okay, cool. Now you’re in a random church and you want a “fingerprint grape”. What? It’s all part…

RE who writes these things: I know you're probably referring to code here but on the actual dialogue side, there was a charming interview recently with the person responsible for translating Miyazaki's vision into English. He apparently did all of the writing (dialogue, item descriptions, UI text) for Dark Souls, and split the work with just one other person for all the later games including Elden Ring. https://youtu…

> They experimented with different approaches in DS3, where certain NPCs you encountered would essentially evaporate after you exhausted their dialogue, and they would later materialize back in the hub.

I can't really talk about DS2 because I didn't play very far in that one, but in DS1 there are a few NPC who do that, like Laurentius, Griggs and Ingward

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#82

Post by baud147258 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #76
pitkali wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the speedrunners just kill the guy in the jar to get the medallion: you don't have to talk to him. Also, all you have to do in the Snowfield is to take a teleporter: that's not very secret, is it?

It's not secret, but it's not exactly easy; you can find one part of the medallion just by exploring (iirc its description says what it's for), but not sure if the second half is that straightforward. And even then, while an item may say "use it here", if it's been dozens of hours since you got it you may just straight up forget about it. That said, I think that the target audience for the DLC was always people who t…

Well for DS1 DLC, you had to kill an enemy from one of the latest area you unlock, then go to the back of an early zone, without any indication that you had to do so.

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#83

Post by xdertz »

rootlocus wrote: post #69
munificent wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ex-game dev, I always found it a little annoying that they used "AI" for what was essentially just hard-coded logic. It's a hard problem because "AI" has been a term since the 50s but has been used to describe different approaches to making a computer do things over time. The way game developers use "AI" to mean "hardcoded logic for game behavior" is fully inline with what "AI" meant in the 60s when they were u…

LLMs can be described as "hardcoded weights for generating the next token". All code is "hardcoded". I think AI for game NPCs is perfectly valid terminology. The actor senses the surroundings and makes decisions to achieve its goals within the constraints and events of the environment.

> LLMs can be described as "hardcoded weights for generating the next token". All code is "hardcoded".

I disagree. Hardcoded means you need to change and recompile the entire program. So neither an .env file nor model weights that are loaded at runtime are 'hardcoded'.

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#84

Post by trashb »

raincole wrote: post #7

As a game dev, the fact "AI" as a keyword became totally unusable is quite annoying.

Everyday I hope a LLM enthusiast discovers how game "AI" (and games in general) fool/trick people and realizes LLM's don't do anything different. Some of my favorite examples are the Mario kart AI, Amnesia and Deadspace. It's all an extension of the ELIZA effect.

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#85

Post by trashb »

munificent wrote: post #55
raincole wrote: post #7

As a game dev, the fact "AI" as a keyword became totally unusable is quite annoying.

As an ex-game dev, I always found it a little annoying that they used "AI" for what was essentially just hard-coded logic. It's a hard problem because "AI" has been a term since the 50s but has been used to describe different approaches to making a computer do things over time. The way game developers use "AI" to mean "hardcoded logic for game behavior" is fully inline with what "AI" meant in the 60s when they were u…

  AI - artificial intelligence
The "artificial" can have several meanings. It seems a lot of folks interpret it as "man-made but identical" however I usually try to interpret it as "not sincere", "fake" or "a replication of". If you use the term that way it will fit a lot nicer into your understanding of AI in games, frankly also AI as in LLM's. In the way that it is not actually intelligent it is mimicking intelligence.

Just by using the term "AI" I feel like you are indicating that it is not actually intelligence, otherwise you would call it intelligence instead. Therefore using hard-coded logic to fake behavioral patterns makes perfect sense.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/artifici...

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#86

Post by trashb »

xdertz wrote: post #83
rootlocus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs can be described as "hardcoded weights for generating the next token". All code is "hardcoded". I think AI for game NPCs is perfectly valid terminology. The actor senses the surroundings and makes decisions to achieve its goals within the constraints and events of the environment.

> LLMs can be described as "hardcoded weights for generating the next token". All code is "hardcoded". I disagree. Hardcoded means you need to change and recompile the entire program. So neither an .env file nor model weights that are loaded at runtime are 'hardcoded'.

But you can use hardcoded while referring to interpreted languages as well, it's a bit of a difficult term. I feel it's more about repeatability when non of the input changes.

I would define it more broadly, "same input == same output, with the same program" and using that definition all computer programs are hardcoded in the end.

There is a gray area, you can consider that even programs that use random() are in the hardcoded category as with the same (semi)random value they will produce the same output. You just need to think of the random value as input, since not all input needs to be user input.

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#87

Post by a96 »

rambojohnson wrote: post #17

What do you mean by "low-tech AI"? This isn't AI...It's a behavior tree. Calling every decision-making system "AI" is like calling a flowchart a neural network. What you're describing is a behavior tree: predefined logic, predefined responses, no learning, no inference, no model. Stop calling everything AI, guys.

Artificial intelligence is a huge research field and has been for closer to 50 years. It's taught in schools. It has hard theory and praxis. Not everything, but adversarial algorithms are absolutely core AI.

LLMs are a tiny blip in it.

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#88

Post by trashb »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #15
gchamonlive wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F.E.A.R. 2 has the best AI that I can think of. Wonder if it counts as high tech or they just squeezed a lot of juice out of basic techniques

F.E.A.R 2 was released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, both of which have laughably low specs by modern standards. When you have to create dynamic experiences out of a potato you are forced to get creative and that involves squeezing a lot of juice out of basic techniques. Transformer based AI had to wait until the world's compute capacity reached a certain level to become feasible.

  both of which have laughably low specs by modern standards ... potato
I have the opposite view, modern games require laughably high specs for what experiences they are achieving, look at what great dynamic experiences (games) can be achieved on older generations of gaming hardware.

Transformer based AI does not magically equal great dynamic experiences, good game design does. Sometimes a basic technique is more effective then a complex one.

Dynamic experience wise what is really the upgrade between ps3 call of duty and current day, aside from graphic fidelity that has increased there is parkour now. But mirror's edge shows that was possible at the time too. Seems it's just consuming a LOT more resources for not a lot of benefit. If you run a ps3 emulator with a modded game with high res textures & shaders you're still using 1/4 of the resources the modern re-release does.

  squeezing a lot of juice out of basic techniques
"limitations breed creativity" I think this is one of the reasons why games on limited hardware are often better games, it requires the game designer to choose between prioritizing the game's core or other distractions like graphics.

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#89

Post by [deleted] »

rambojohnson wrote: post #17

What do you mean by "low-tech AI"? This isn't AI...It's a behavior tree. Calling every decision-making system "AI" is like calling a flowchart a neural network. What you're describing is a behavior tree: predefined logic, predefined responses, no learning, no inference, no model. Stop calling everything AI, guys.

[deleted]

Re: The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring

#90

Post by pitkali »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #76
pitkali wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the speedrunners just kill the guy in the jar to get the medallion: you don't have to talk to him. Also, all you have to do in the Snowfield is to take a teleporter: that's not very secret, is it?

It's not secret, but it's not exactly easy; you can find one part of the medallion just by exploring (iirc its description says what it's for), but not sure if the second half is that straightforward. And even then, while an item may say "use it here", if it's been dozens of hours since you got it you may just straight up forget about it. That said, I think that the target audience for the DLC was always people who t…

Oh, yeah, the Snowfield itself is secret enough, but getting to the palace afterwards is just a matter of exploration. The teleport is not that hidden.

FWIW, after you get one half of the medallion, get invaded by Gideon's lackey and then talk to Gideon, he will tell you to look for the Albinauric woman, so at least they give you this much.

All in all, I find the quests in the base game relatively straightforward, but anyone with any prior experience in their games will have an inkling that if they care about quests' results, you need to double-check with the wiki.

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