I was thinking: are the multiplayer games which use a waypoint-based navigation system for bots example of this? Such as Unreal Tournament (also Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal) and several bot mods for Quake, Quake II and Half-Life.
Problems with waypoint systems: bots become lineal, more predictable, mappers can deny them access to important areas (or even forgot to path them and ways back to playable areas), and third-party maps usually don't implement them, not to mention that the routes themselves require a lot of optimization work.
Edited by AMNK
Wouldn't artificial incompetence be a better name because it's the same acronym.
I think I just realized something that must be noted when talking about this trope.
The AI cannot "GG." Or, for the non-gamer, acknowledge defeat with the shorthand for "good game" and leave, thereby awarding the remaining opponent with victory by default. Many strategic multiplayer games traditionally end with the "gg" rather than the completion of the technical objective to "destroy the enemy's base/forces."
As a result, there are cases when A.I.s might appear stupid, but in reality, they're playing the hand they are given. For example, it is noted in this article that in Company Of Heroes, the AI will attack tanks with infantry when the AI is cut off from fuel (and thus unable to make tanks themselves). If it were a human player in this situation, they would admit defeat and end the game before things got dull. A computer cannot do that, as this would give the human player too little control over the action.
I feel that this must be noted in this trope's description at least in its most basic terms. Thinking of computer A.I.s as having all of the resources that humans have is ludicrous, as they fundamentally Cannot Self Terminate.
Hide / Show Replies
Maybe strategy games should be programmed to account for this. I'm not sure how, though.
Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com
Age of Empires has the AI automatically surrender if it gets too unbalanced.
I like this trope. It's so funny and the title is utterly amusing. It was good at shedding light on a weird incident I had while playing Pokemon Sapphire. My leading pokemon was Vibrava. It is a dragon/ground type with levetate. I fight an NPC trainer, and this guy is a moron. After I beat his first Pokemon, I was thinking of switching. Then he switches in MAGNETON of all things. That is one of the worst Pokemon to use against a ground type. It is electric/steel making it take quadruple damage against ground attacks. Most of its damage dealing attacks are electric, which doesn't work against ground type Pokemon. The trainer had a varied team too. Having type variety seems pointless when he can't properly tip the elemental rock-paper-sizzors to his advantage. If I were him, I would have tried Wailmer, especially if it had ice attacks. Ice may be the best choice, because it hits Vibrava at quadruple damage. The trope page mentioned that NP Cs try to use electric on Flygon (Vibrava's evolved form) because it looks like a flying type. It helped me understand the NPC's flawed logic. Rock would be a posible similar mistake too. It is bad against ground types in both offence and defense. However it is the best type to use offensivly against a bug/flying type, which Vibrava and Flygon look like. In the battle, Vibrava defeated Magneton useing a ground type move. It was fast enough to get the first hit. It is like the Lightning Bruiser with Confusion Fu mixed in.
Should we separate the examples into game related and non game related sections for easier classification?
It's been a long time but I seem to remember back in Pokemon Red/Blue the opponent (esp Lance) would repeatedly use Agility against fighting or Poison types because it's a Psy move. Can anybody confirm this?
What if an In-Universe AI is poorly coded? An Attack Drone that is In-Universe coded to Attack! Attack! Attack! any assigned target would make for a pretty stupid enemy that the player could exploit, but In-Universe, the drone really is Just That Stupid, while any entity that is not Just That Stupid has an actually decent AI?
Also, what about cases an AI makes stupid/random decisions on purpose (Any entity that hits the "blind panic" threshold of it's Morale Mechanic switches to a very stupid AI)?