Tim Cain creating "Cain on Games" videos

[rusty_shackleford]

Weird how nobody ever cries about fighting NPCs with poor AI

[Stack of Turtles]

Weird how nobody ever cries about fighting NPCs with poor AI

Paradox players do.

[Acrux]

Weird how nobody ever cries about fighting NPCs with poor AI

I see complaints about that all the time: Arcanum NPCs with magic hardly ever cast, one of the most popular mods for BG2 is specifically for improving enemy AI, lots of criticism about how bad the enemies in the Pathfinder games are, one of the major complaints of SKALD was that no(?) enemy magic users ever cast a spell, and so on...

[rusty_shackleford]

I see complaints about that all the time:

By a tiny minority.

one of the most popular mods for BG2 is specifically for improving enemy AI

Proving it can be trivially done.

[MeatEatingStork]

NPCs jumping onto your grenades isn't very immersive, but it's unlikely to break the game. Companions doing the same creates unique and obnoxious problems.

That said, the issue generally isn't that your minions are stupid, it's that they're indefensibly stupid. Players get a lot of joyous rage out of Dwarf Fortress/Rimworld style shenanigans, because they're plausible as your dudes being complete jackasses. XCOM mental breaks are accepted, armies can rout, and so on. Enemies tend to be pointless meatsacks anyway, so this is usually much less relevant.

[Vergil]

Arcanum NPCs with magic hardly ever cast

Reminds me of how in Oblivion you mostly fight mages with daggers because they have enough magicka for maybe 2 spells one of which is usually conjuring a bound weapon they don't have a major skill in anyway and then like, a summoned scamp lol.

[rusty_shackleford]

controlling multiple party members is just cheating, people will rationalize any reason to cheat up to and including using cheat menus relabeled as "difficulty customization"

[rusty_shackleford]

it's ok if you want to play a tactical game but those are things like x-com, not RPGs!

[rusty_shackleford]

This video is pure cope now that we know the outer worlds 2 sales figures, yes, customers absolutely were tricked into buying Outer Worlds(he even tries to mock people using this point as if it's not true when it was marketed as "From the creators of Fallout / Fallout New Vegas"!)


outer worlds 2 sales figures are so bad that it's possibly the worst selling game Cain has worked on since Bard's Tale Construction Set.

[asf]

any kind of allied ai is always ********

[Norfleet]

any kind of alliedai is always ********

FTFY

[Tweed]

Why are people trying to argue with Rusty?

[rusty_shackleford]

What's the point of having companions if you control them anyways? Just make the PC as strong as however many companions you gave and save a ton of development time in whatever ******** would have been required.

[asf]

could have the pc ai controlled also, you dont even need to play the game

[rusty_shackleford]

could have the pc ai controlled also, you dont even need to play the game

The point is he's your character, why not control all the enemy NPCs too? Why have a game at all, just imagine it in your head

[asf]

just cast dominate

[Stack of Turtles]

could have the pc ai controlled also, you dont even need to play the game

The point is he's your character, why not control all the enemy NPCs too? Why have a game at all, just imagine it in your head

You should, it's more fun that way. I used to love messing around staging fights in scenario editors.

[Norfleet]

What's the point of having companions if you control them anyways? Just make the PC as strong as however many companions you gave and save a ton of development time in whatever ******** would have been required.

Because then you would be playing Diablo. And this doesn't really save any development time, because now instead of creating 5 character classes that the player will use, one for each party member, you'll create 5 character classes, 4 of which the player will NOT use, because there will only be one character, and that one character class needs to incorporate the functionality of all 5 character classes in alternate reskinned forms to greater or lesser degree, whereas in a party-based game, it's okay if only one character has the toolkit to deal with a specific thing because the player is expected to have that character. Result: Where you had 5 character classes, each of which did a thing, you now have 5 character classes, each of which does the work of 5 character classes, which now takes 25x the time to make because each character class redundantly replicates the functions of the other 4.

[Norfleet]

Why are people trying to argue with Rusty?

As we used to say back in the day, #-1 CHANNEL (PUBLIC) EXPECTS AT LEAST ONE ARGUMENT

[Tweed]

could have the pc ai controlled also, you dont even need to play the game

The point is he's your character, why not control all the enemy NPCs too? Why have a game at all, just imagine it in your head

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Quest

[Havitner]

Dungeons & Dragons Online takes place across multiple D&D settings

To be fair, it was Eberron only until they started adding content from Greenwood's magical realm ~6 years after release.

[rusty_shackleford]

No coherent argument can be provided beyond "I don't like bad allied AI!!!!!", yet the tactics system in DAO was widely loved.

[Oyster Sauce]

No coherent argument can be provided beyond "I don't like bad allied AI!!!!!", yet the tactics system in DAO was widely loved.

You're using the system where you literally program exactly what a companion does as one where you don't control the companions?

[rusty_shackleford]

No coherent argument can be provided beyond "I don't like bad allied AI!!!!!", yet the tactics system in DAO was widely loved.

You're using the system where you literally program exactly what a companion does as one where you don't control the companions?

Whoa almost like you could just add ways to influence companion behavior.

[Oyster Sauce]

No coherent argument can be provided beyond "I don't like bad allied AI!!!!!", yet the tactics system in DAO was widely loved.

You're using the system where you literally program exactly what a companion does as one where you don't control the companions?

Whoa almost like you could just add ways to influence companion behavior.

this argument is falling apart at the seams...

[rusty_shackleford]

You're using the system where you literally program exactly what a companion does as one where you don't control the companions?

Whoa almost like you could just add ways to influence companion behavior.

this argument is falling apart at the seams...

How is being able to give orders the same thing as directly controlling?

[Oyster Sauce]

Whoa almost like you could just add ways to influence companion behavior.

this argument is falling apart at the seams...

How is being able to give orders the same thing as directly controlling?

This isn't "attack from far away" or "prioritize defending me", it's directly controlling your companions

[rusty_shackleford]

this argument is falling apart at the seams...

How is being able to give orders the same thing as directly controlling?

This isn't "attack from far away" or "prioritize defending me", it's directly controlling your companions

Yes, it needs to be developed further, but nobody will do it because people like you freak out anytime you can't control your companions directly

[Oyster Sauce]

How is being able to give orders the same thing as directly controlling?

This isn't "attack from far away" or "prioritize defending me", it's directly controlling your companions

Yes, it needs to be developed further, but nobody will do it because people like you freak out anytime you can't control your companions directly

Nobody will do it because it's a relic of underdeveloped games that doesn't make the game more fun and artificially restricts a ton of gameplay from the player. I'd like to see Mr. "Never Save Scum" play Fallout 1 and either reload after every fight or only have companions for 1% of his total playtime. Or is Fallout another example of a game that "just needs to be developed a little more bro trust me it'll be good!"? What games directly benefit from autonomous NPCs?

[rusty_shackleford]

This isn't "attack from far away" or "prioritize defending me", it's directly controlling your companions

Yes, it needs to be developed further, but nobody will do it because people like you freak out anytime you can't control your companions directly

Nobody will do it because it's a relic of underdeveloped games that doesn't make the game more fun and artificially restricts a ton of gameplay from the player. I'd like to see Mr. "Never Save Scum" play Fallout 1 and either reload after every fight or only have companions for 1% of his total playtime. Or is Fallout another example of a game that "just needs to be developed a little more bro trust me it'll be good!"? What games directly benefit from autonomous NPCs?

Sorry I think my companions should express themselves through behavior instead of only dialogue