| jopezu |
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is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
#389878 - 02/12/21 04:17 AM
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it would be cool at some point to play older arcade fighters without a cpu that resorts to cheating. it's literally the equivalent of an ai wanting to have fun with a game, and a human just pulling the power cord to the machine. #fuckyou
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: jopezu]
#389880 - 02/12/21 11:39 AM
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: Olivier Galibert]
#389882 - 02/12/21 03:54 PM
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> Define "cheating"...
cheat verb
\ ˈchēt How to pronounce cheat (audio) \
cheated; cheating; cheats
Definition of cheat
(Entry 1 of 2)
transitive verb
1 : to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud cheated the elderly couple out of their property
2 : to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice a young man who cheated young women into marrying him when he was already married
3 : to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting cheat death
intransitive verb
1a : to practice fraud or trickery denied the accusation that he cheated
b : to violate rules dishonestly cheat at cards cheating on a test
2 : to be sexually unfaithful —usually used with onwas cheating on his wife
3 : to position oneself defensively near a particular area in anticipation of a play in that area the shortstop was cheating toward second base
cheat noun
Definition of cheat (Entry 2 of 2)
1 : the act or an instance of fraudulently deceiving : deception, fraud His financial activity turned out to be a great cheat.
2 or cheat code : a code (such as a button combination or password) that activates a hidden feature or capability in a computer or video game In fact, some game levels are so tough that I had to resort to cheats to get through.— Peter Cohen Most people think that using a cheat code is the only way to earn a dishonest reward …— Christopher Breen
3 : one that cheats : pretender, deceiver is a liar and a cheat tax cheats
4 [probably from a deceptive resemblance to grain] a : chess sense 1
b : cheatgrass
5 : the obtaining of property from another by an intentional active distortion of the truth
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: SecretAgentMan]
#389883 - 02/12/21 03:58 PM
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And none can apply to the "ai" of a fighting game, so I guess we're done here.
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| jopezu |
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if i need to define 'cheating' as it relates to arcade fighting games, you
a) aren't very familiar with the subject
or
b) operating from a bad faith position
but, just for benefit of the doubt, here are a few examples;
1) immediate/frame perfect counteractions to player input USING player input for operation (any snk boss, and mainly most fighting games where the programmer has decided the player has reached a point where the purchasing power of a quarter should end)
2) actions executed by the cpu that aren't available to the player (blanka walking forward and executing a ball roll that requires charging back)
3) interrupts that aren't available to the player (any mk game where the cpu can throw your character from well out of range or during moments where their character is otherwise disabled)
4) the cpu actions doing noticeably more damage than the player's corresponding actions would (killer instinct is hilariously guilty here)
a book could be written. it's laughable that we're entering the area of petty legalism about this subject.
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i learned everything i know from KC
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: Olivier Galibert]
#389885 - 02/12/21 04:55 PM
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> And none can apply to the "ai" of a fighting game, so I guess we're done here.
There are all sorts of ways that a game AI can cheat. Whether or not any given game uses any of these methods is unknown, and that's not of any interest to me, since you asked how the game's AI can cheat.
Also, I disapprove of the snark-quotes around "AI". It's what's been used for ages to refer to the underlying algorithms behind CPU-driven players, so I'm sorry if you feel the need to telegraph that you're slumming it with the proles because you work more closely with modern sorts of AI, but I digress.
If I had to, here's a handful of ways in which a CPU-driven player in a fighting game could cheat:
- Instant insight into counter-moves. If you input a given combo into a game like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or Tekken, it takes time for the animation associated with that move to play out. It takes a human opponent time to recognize what move is being performed, and more time still to input a counter-move. The game, however, knows what move you're performing as soon as your inputs have registered, and depending on context, could immediately counter your move on the same frame.
- CPU characters could be made to have a slightly higher move speed than a character controlled by a human.
- CPU characters could have a slight reduction in damage applied by the human player's moves.
- CPU characters could have a slightly higher jump height than a human-controlled character, resulting in a potentially better defensive position or better evasion abilities.
- CPU characters could be granted a slightly longer period of invincibility after receiving damage.
- CPU characters' attack moves could have slightly heightened range or damage values than when the same moves are performed by a human player.
- CPU characters could have slightly-reduced hitbox size when compared to the same character as controlled by a human.
All of these things are what an average player might characterize as "cheating" on the part of the game's programmers. Some would be fairly obvious, some a bit less so: The average player is hardly going to notice if a CPU-controlled character is invincible for 3-4 frames longer than a huamn-controlled character, nor will the average player notice if a CPU-controlled character's attacks have a few pixels of additional range. But in a particularly intense fight on high difficulties, those subtleties could be the difference between making it to the next round or having to pump in another quarter.
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| jopezu |
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very nice
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#389886 - 02/12/21 05:01 PM
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i like how loving and careful your hand is here; almost all of your examples would be slight edges in favor of the cpu. i might not even mind those. i get incensed over the glaring, egregious moments where it's obvious the computer is cheating. as in, somebody pulling a gun during an mma match obvious.
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#389887 - 02/12/21 05:24 PM
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> > And none can apply to the "ai" of a fighting game, so I guess we're done here.
>
> There are all sorts of ways that a game AI can cheat. Whether or not any given game
> uses any of these methods is unknown, and that's not of any interest to me, since you
> asked how the game's AI can cheat.
>
> Also, I disapprove of the snark-quotes around "AI". It's what's been used for ages to
> refer to the underlying algorithms behind CPU-driven players, so I'm sorry if you
> feel the need to telegraph that you're slumming it with the proles because you work
> more closely with modern sorts of AI, but I digress.
>
> If I had to, here's a handful of ways in which a CPU-driven player in a fighting game
> could cheat:
>
> - Instant insight into counter-moves. If you input a given combo into a game like
> Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or Tekken, it takes time for the animation associated
> with that move to play out. It takes a human opponent time to recognize what move is
> being performed, and more time still to input a counter-move. The game, however,
> knows what move you're performing as soon as your inputs have registered, and
> depending on context, could immediately counter your move on the same frame.
>
> - CPU characters could be made to have a slightly higher move speed than a character
> controlled by a human.
>
> - CPU characters could have a slight reduction in damage applied by the human
> player's moves.
>
> - CPU characters could have a slightly higher jump height than a human-controlled
> character, resulting in a potentially better defensive position or better evasion
> abilities.
>
> - CPU characters could be granted a slightly longer period of invincibility after
> receiving damage.
>
> - CPU characters' attack moves could have slightly heightened range or damage values
> than when the same moves are performed by a human player.
>
> - CPU characters could have slightly-reduced hitbox size when compared to the same
> character as controlled by a human.
>
> All of these things are what an average player might characterize as "cheating" on
> the part of the game's programmers. Some would be fairly obvious, some a bit less so:
> The average player is hardly going to notice if a CPU-controlled character is
> invincible for 3-4 frames longer than a huamn-controlled character, nor will the
> average player notice if a CPU-controlled character's attacks have a few pixels of
> additional range. But in a particularly intense fight on high difficulties, those
> subtleties could be the difference between making it to the next round or having to
> pump in another quarter.
If you watch LordBBH's coverage of the recently added Master's Fury he points out several of these things, as they managed to implement them in ways that were not subtle.
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Re: lol
[Re: jopezu]
#389888 - 02/12/21 05:31 PM
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>
> 1) immediate/frame perfect counteractions to player input USING player input for
> operation (any snk boss, and mainly most fighting games where the programmer has
> decided the player has reached a point where the purchasing power of a quarter should
I'm not aware of any that use the player input directly, but yes, some will 'next frame' react as soon as you trigger a move (or you know, react at the exact point a counter will work, as sometimes reacting too early is no good either)
As for 'throw you off the machine' tactics, some games are more obvious about it than others. I think the most obvious example I encountered recently wasn't a fighting game, but IGS's Photo Y2K 2 https://youtu.be/dWgQMMUj8yA I created this video by pausing the game to look for the differences, even with the game paused, when it wanted to kick me off there was barely enough time to use the joystick move the cursor to the things I wanted to click on (sometimes even causing me to position the cursor incorrectly and misclick such is the time pressure)
It does seem to be more frowned upon in Japanese games, as most of those are balanced so that you can 1 credit clear them, but outside of Japan there are even some that allow you to set a 'time' in the service mode, and when that time expires for your credit the games will rank up to 'kill you instantly' level (some of the Arcadia games for example)
As you note, CPU opponents being able to do moves without 'performing' the correct inputs is also a big issue. Inputs are typically read once per frame, and often input read routines will expect a button to be held for more than 1 frame to stop accidental triggering of specials etc. This means the minimum number of frames for a player to trigger a move can be sometimes cover 1/4 of a second for more complex sequences. I don't think it's "intentionally" cheating that the CPU doesn't have to go through that sequence, more a byproduct of how things are programmed, but yes, it's obviously unfair in many cases. Quite a few games that can be hacked to allow you to play as the bosses don't even have input sequences for their moves as it never needed to be a consideration.
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: jopezu]
#389901 - 02/14/21 01:37 AM
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> it would be cool at some point to play older arcade fighters without a cpu that
> resorts to cheating. it's literally the equivalent of an ai wanting to have fun with
> a game, and a human just pulling the power cord to the machine. #fuckyou
At the end of the day, if you want to get good at fighting games, you will have to put in time and effort.
In the case of games with cheap AI, you'll also have to learn their patterns, what they react to, and what their actual strengths / weaknesses are.
Complaining about it on this forum is pointless and annoys people.
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: Master O]
#389903 - 02/14/21 12:54 PM
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> At the end of the day, if you want to get good at fighting games, you will have to
> put in time and effort.
>
> In the case of games with cheap AI, you'll also have to learn their patterns, what
> they react to, and what their actual strengths / weaknesses are.
>
> Complaining about it on this forum is pointless and annoys people.
Nah. Your posts like this one, where you call someone out for a vent post in The fucking Loony Bin of all places, is pointless and annoys people.
jop's post was fine, and actually garnered an interesting discussion.
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Re: lol
[Re: jopezu]
#389904 - 02/14/21 03:04 PM
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Thanks, it was point "a", I'm not at all familiar with them, so I was really wondering what it meant in practice in a fighting game context.
In an "ai" context, or at least a machine learning one, instantaneous recognition of the movement at the first frame of non-ambiguous animation would happen no matter what. Perfect answer to that would also be a thing. All the rest is indeed very very much cheating.
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| jopezu |
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: Master O]
#389910 - 02/15/21 02:14 AM
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sorry, i didn't mean to kill the vibe in here. i figured the loony bin was the most appropriate place to whine about this. i understand your point about "get gud", but that still doesn't make people feel better when the cpu cheats. i can beat the mk games blindfolded by exploiting the computer, but it would still be fun to try playing without the cheats.
it would almost be cool to make a keyboard input program that could command the player 2 position. 
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> Thanks, it was point "a", I'm not at all familiar with them, so I was really
> wondering what it meant in practice in a fighting game context.
>
> In an "ai" context, or at least a machine learning one, instantaneous recognition of
> the movement at the first frame of non-ambiguous animation would happen no matter
> what. Perfect answer to that would also be a thing. All the rest is indeed very very
> much cheating.
Here is a prime example of a cheating game engine. You don't need to be an expert to understand. If people think SNK cheats hard, they never played TMNT Tournament Fighters for Genesis/Mega Drive. 
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: Master O]
#390077 - 02/27/21 07:02 AM
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> > it would be cool at some point to play older arcade fighters without a cpu that
> > resorts to cheating. it's literally the equivalent of an ai wanting to have fun
> with
> > a game, and a human just pulling the power cord to the machine. #fuckyou
>
> At the end of the day, if you want to get good at fighting games, you will have to
> put in time and effort.
>
> In the case of games with cheap AI, you'll also have to learn their patterns, what
> they react to, and what their actual strengths / weaknesses are.
>
> Complaining about it on this forum is pointless and annoys people.
Getting good at fighting games is not the same as getting good at kicking the CPU's ass though. Case in point, a "cheating" CPU in UMK3 will wipe the floor with its human opponent (usually "cheat mode" AI sets in by the third or fourth stage), yet if you somehow do manage to hit the CPU you can sometimes spam LP for the whole round and win in about five seconds while it endlessly tries to run up to combo/throw you and gets hit over and over. Try using an AI breaker like that against a human player and you'll be beaten in five seconds instead of your opponent. On the flip side, what works against some human players sometimes never works against a CPU player. Even worse, the AI sometimes changes between arcade revisions, and then there's several home versions which are different still (for example, if you were a kid/teenager in a first world country in 1994 and played SF/MK at the arcade, chances are you had a SNES/SFC or Genesis/Mega Drive rather than a brand new $2000 arcade cabinet in your house).
That said, with CPU opponents, there's "cheating" like the above, and then there's flat out cheating. Street Fighter II literally cheats, it generates moves out of thin air rather than actually going through the input motions like Tekken for example. That's why Guile can spam Sonic Booms while ducking and without ever charging the move up (e.g. holding back for a second or so before pressing forward+punch like the human has to), you can get yoga'd by Dhalsim fifteen or so times in a row instead of six, and fireball throwers can also have more than one on screen as well while you have to wait for yours to hit something or fly off-screen.
I don't even think the 2D Mortal Kombats cheat like that (although I swear I've seen Cyrax spam two nets on screen at the same time, so maybe I'm wrong); MK and Tekken seem to be a classic case of the CPU just reading your inputs the instant you press them and countering whatever you're doing with something that works against your move in a rock-paper-scissors manner (and throwing you when you're idle) - "cheating" by simply being too good (the tropes being Computers Are Fast, mixed with Perfect Play AI) rather than the CPU cheating by doing what it wants when it wants like SF2.
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| Rotwang |
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Life is too short to be little...
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Re: is it possible to reprogram the ai in arcade fighting games?
[Re: Heihachi_73]
#390078 - 02/27/21 07:58 AM
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> That's why Guile can spam Sonic Booms while ducking and without ever charging the
> move up (e.g. holding back for a second or so before pressing forward+punch like the
> human has to),
Actually human players can charge sonic booms while crouching. Holding back at any point starts charging up for a special move, even while performing other moves, such as crouching.
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