Devs: How about just a longer list of AI difficulty tiers like in Ranked Games

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Some people like the new AI, and some don’t. I am sure the Devs are of course planning on improving the AI over time continuously to make it smarter, which is good. Regardless, there are more than 4 levels of difficulty in this game. FFS, in the Ranked games, there are 7 levels, each with 3 sub-levels (21). And for that matter, there there should be a lower Wood league and higher Wololo league.

How about skipping the “Easy, Intermediate, Hard” terminology and just have numbered levels or something with more tiers.
These tiers could be adjusted continuously as well based on how good the AI is developing.

At least can we have:

  • Easiest or Novice or 1 or Wood. The “Easy” AI is too hard for new players, which we all need to keep the money coming, correct?
  • More intermediate levels perhaps.
  • Bring back the old Hardest and call it Harder, or better yet, give it a number. Hard is too “easy” and the 2.0 Cheater can be too hard.
  • Finally, can we have more tiers of the cheater. e.g. 1.5 cheating and 2.5 cheating!

Not to nitpick, but we can’t really call an AI “Hardest” or “Easiest” since you could always make one easier or harder than that.

To clarify, some people are upset a better than human AI hasn’t been invented yet. I don’t think that matters. Cheating is fine, it is just that there is too big a jump between the “hard” level and x2.0 resources.

Also, if people are interested, you always have been able to adjust the cheating difficulty with the Advanced Settings Mod which let’s you handicap Amy player in smaller 0.1 increments up to x3.0. Just in case you didn’t know.
But what you cannot set in those settings is the AI aggressiveness. We just need to be clear what the highest level of AI before cheating starts to kick in

Anyway, more cheater levels as well as AI levels. All the levels can be adjusted over time.

Also, another thought is the masteries, which need work anyway, will be impossible to finish with this “hardest” implemented.

Finally, I want to emphasize I think Devs have a great game here. And they don’t need to spend too much time making the perfect AI. Let Boston Dynamics do that. But I see they do tweak the AI, so fixing a few weird bugs works be good.

e.g. the sacred time has a minute to go (my side is winning) One site is completely unguarded and in fact the enemy AI has army right next to the site and even wanders over it, but isn’t focused on stopping the timer and just let’s is win. Happens repeatedly. Should be easy fix.

Second major example is unless it is pure water like Warring Islands, the AI will lose to my boats. e.g on “Baltic” it will making fishing ships but basically does not try to take control of water. On those maps and river maps you can “unfairly” take advantage of AI “stupidity” by having a warship just obliterate it’s expensive army as it matching by the shore. A human wouldn’t let you get away with this boat nonsense.

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I don’t like the cute names, I like the clear distinction of difficulty. I guess I would prefer numbers in that case. But I don’t think we really need more than 4 difficulty levels for AI. In case you’ve never played ranked, anyone gold and above can easily slap the hardest AI around with 1 hand behind their back. There’s no AI equivalent for gold 1,2,3; plat 1,2,3; diamond 1,2,3; conquerer 1,2,3 and there likely never will be. So you’d be making a dozen AI difficulties that are all for bronze and silver level players. And that would just split the playerbase up more than it already is. There’s nothing that suggests the game is going to rise in popularity, in fact it’s decreasing. To add more insignificant steps of difficulty is senseless. Well, it makes sense but it’s wishful thinking when they can’t even make the AI harder than a gold player without cheating.

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This is correct.

You hit a ceiling when the “I” in your “AI” can’t go head-to-head against a moderately good human player. The way to circumvent this is by allowing the AI to see the whole map, get extra resources, have more powerful units, etc., basically cheating.

The problem when working with AI in RTS is predictability. No matter which civ you’re playing against, there are specific things that you know the computer will do and it’s only a matter of time before you find a way to exploit those things. What another (good) human player has is not knowing what to expect. Are you getting tower rushed or is your enemy super greedy and will completely roll over you in Imperial? Even against a very good player you sometimes win easily, it’s part of that unpredictability and that’s fine. A super hard AI should lose stupidly sometimes, but because it took a calculated risk that didn’t pay off.

That being said, the first difficulty levels are good enough for 80% of folks at least. Those of us who join there forums are the minority of more experienced players who now have a void between Hard and Hardest.

My solution would be to shamelessly copy the C&C series by adding difficulty levels plus AI strategies at random (turtle, rusher, balanced, steamroller, greedy, etc.).

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I like having more difficulty levels. For players who play against the AI and don’t like pvp, it’s really good to have more options.
That C&C3:TW/KW game, it really had some nice AI options.

Here at home we play a lot against AI.

We want back the previous version of “hardest”.
And the current version of “hardest” should change its name, maybe to “insane” or something else.

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You have thousands of other players to play against. Thousands of difficulty levels. What do you think the AI is trying to simulate? A fully developed AI would be at pro level and scale infinitely down to the worst player. AKA the same as just playing against the actual players. I don’t understand why people are afraid to play people. Are they embarrassed their skill might be below average? In a fully developed AI scenario you’d still be playing against “Potato AI” if you’re a potato league player. You would be denied the glory of beating even the intermediate AI, but who cares. Playing balanced games and seeing self improvement is what we all really want right? You can get that today if you just play against people. Fussing around with AI difficulty levels is a waste of resources when the same exact experience is already there for free.

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Good point, on efficiently using Relic’s resources. However, now that one reason to play AI is your can pause or save the game. Also can experiment with different settings and MegaRandom map without navigating the Custom waiting room. Thx.

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Well, you don’t understand. There have already been people who have suggested AI options at levels in another topic.

There are people who don’t like to play PVP on a daily basis. Maybe you like it, but obviously there are players who prefer to play private games with friends, others against AI + friends and others who like to play campaigns, mods and AI. In short, AoE4 is not just about PVP, just as Call of Duty is not just about Warzone, just like ARk Survival evolved is not just about pvp. There are people who prefer PVE / Co-op and or other modes and so on. Many people do not train at a professional level and have no interest in it.

The issue here is that they destroyed the “hardest” difficulty. Just put it back the way it was and add the one or more Insane levels for those who need it.

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  • Some people want to be able to pause a fricking game because they have other things to do.
  • Some people live in places where internet is not good enough for online play.
  • Some people have very low spec PCs not suitable for online play.
  • Some people just have 30 min in between real life and need to be able to drop off the game without getting penalized or banned.
  • Some people don’t love getting bullied by a teenager in their parent’s basement.
  • Some people enjoy trying new strategies and ideas against a more predictable opponent.
  • Some people get the game just to finish the campaigns.
  • I could go on…

It’s good to put yourself in other people’s shoes sometimes. I don’t like playing ranked (in any RTS). If you check the stats for every single RTS, we offline players are the 80%-90% majority.

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  • I have checked the online stats and it’s a 58% majority vs AI, 42% pvp. No stats for offline players obviously.
  • You can still play pvp quickplay without ranked. If they erased the names you wouldn’t even know the difference between a silver level player and the AI.
  • There isn’t any harassment in the games I’ve played. 85% of players I see are from AoE2 and >30 years old. In comparison, I’ve encountered way more toxic players in co-op vs AI; people throwing the game, people raging in chat, trolling allies, leaving, etc. PvP players have more respect, humility, maturity.
  • There is no penalty for leaving games early. The only existing penalty is for queue dodging, and it’s only 5 minutes. No bans
  • You can try new strategies against players too…
  • If your PC is slow it’s still going to be equally slow vs AI or players.
  • The campaign is a completely separate topic that has nothing to do with 1v1,2v2,3v3,4v4 games.

The AI is so deeply bugged, if you only play vs AI you don’t even understand that you’re basically playing a different game already. Playing vs an opponent that simply doesn’t walk through your towers or face dive your keeps is worth more than all your reasons to continue playing against a broken AI.

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I think to clarify this, there might be some confusion (or conflation) between skirmishes you set up with AI (single player) and those “Co-op” online Versus AI (multiplayer). The whole pause/save and Offline benefit of single player is lost in those Co-op. I personally would agree that (a) the Co-op games don’t seem to make much sense and PvP would better than those and (b) that there are probably teenagers who are playing those more with all the defective HI (human intelligence) associated with that. But I apologize if there are readers who love those co-op games, because there probably is a segment that like those games, which is great. Good.

Meanwhile, in skirmishes, single player, it can still be fun and challenging against the AI I find. You just have to wrangle the settings. You can play 1 Hard Ally vs. 3 Hardest AI for example. Or you can adjust things with the advanced game mod. Turn off and on the win conditions. Even more importantly, you can play with a giant MegaRandom map every time, in which case you must usually work with a dangerous neutral trade post in the middle of no-where.

I agree it is a different game. In 1v1, you know what the other guy is doing and vice-versa. Meanwhile, you can take advantage of the AI being dumb sometimes. On the other hand, it is sometimes the opposite. I noticed the AI always seems to have 3 scouts continuously updating where you are, regardless of what it does with that info. On the lower levels in ranked or quick match, you can hide in the dark easier sometimes.

Oh, and one big reason I have had to play against the AI, is sometimes, my game just crashes during the 4v4 loading screen. If it crashes 2 or 3 times, I give up, especially since I am probably ruining others games. I then give up and just setup a game with the AI. Fixing that should be a higher priority than the AI of course.

:crossed_swords:

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