Why Halo Infinite's Bots Play More Like Humans | AI and Games #71

[@AIandGames]

It's been a little while since I last visited the Halo franchise. Around 3 years actually. Be sure to catch all of my Halo episodes in their dedicated playlist. kzbin.info/aero/PLokhY9fbx05ddpisDpZQ9QfQQsumxn46c You can join in the discussion for this episode in our Discord server at: discord.com/channels/328554213896617986/1099820411073597501 One of the reasons that this is my first video looking at the work by 343 Industries is that they don't often talk about their work. I've never found any material (talks, blogs etc.) discussing the NPC AI of Halo 4, 5 or Infinite. Halo has been instrumental in the success of this channel over the years. So it's nice to be able to come back to the franchise to look at it again.

[@shannenmr]

LUA part was probably "good enough" though funny as it could potentially be a hotspot if you did have 8 bots and that increased CPU usage might lower their potential Dedicated Servers to underlying CPU Cores ratio. Of course it wouldn't take anywhere near your maximum quoted 31.25ms BUT if it did that would off the bat cap the servers maximum FPS/Tick rate to 30 let alone the outcome of the LUA along with all characters movements and objectives and shooting etc.

[@VexWerewolf]

"Players hogging weapons was considered authentic to the Halo multiplayer experience" is a brutal but extremely accurate design choice

[@mayman4255]

Bots in HI holding any objective (especially the oddball) drop it and focus on either fleeing or attacking when threatened, it's crazy to me that the AI understands objective play more than the majority of players including some experienced ones

[@PeteNice29]

Most players look at objective games as slayer plus something else to do.

[@RayShadow278]

@@PeteNice29 Slayer + "Something I'm just going to ignore"

[@BengalaFraca]

This comment was unintentionally funny

[@theshrew2804]

At about 5:00 you explained core behaviors. As an avid player of infinite’s multiplayer, I contest that few if any real people actually engage in combat or even consider touching the objective. (Not the players on my team, anyway.🙄)

[@AIandGames]

Okay so the 'ideal' human player, who actually knows how to PTFO. 😅

[@HikeYegiyan]

For all my complaints about 343, I do really appreciate that they decided to undertake the creation of bots. Their ability to adapt to custom made forge maps and human like play style is really awesome. I just wish you could have more than 8 at a time and that they had the ability to use vehicles. Hopefully 343 will add these futures soon.

[@jayceneal5273]

>343 >add features soon Lmao

[@chadhansen5057]

If hardware is a problem for more bots just make it a pc and series x exclusive plz

[@FLy1nRabBit]

@@jayceneal5273 well we're getting campaign ai and firefight in a week so, i guess it sorta worked out lol

[@Dominik-K]

Wow, this really reminds me of Perfect Dark on the N64, where a you could unlock a bunch of AI styles in the multiplayer. I'm still wondering, how they realized that on such a constraint platform like the N64

[@anteshell]

Easy. Take what ever default system you have, be a behaviour tree or some other AI system, and just tweak a few constant parameter in it. And it is exactly as easy to make differently emphasized AI behaviours today, although the amount of parameters is multiple times more. It's not like they would be completely different AIs. No, they're exactly the same AI with tweaked parameters.

[@acsiegemaster3532]

One massively underappreciated part about the bots in infinite that I haven't seen in other games (not that it doesn't exist, just that I'm not aware of other games that do it), is that in the training mode you can independently set the bots movement skill and shooting skill. I'd love to see more games have more ways to define difficulty than just the usual 1-axis scale. Like in RTS games, say you could make one team have 3 ais with weak military but great eco, and 1 ai with great military and weak eco. Something like that.

[@Dominik-K]

Thanks for the replies, that sounds like a good approach to vary personalities of AI. Just seems like tons of work to fine tune

[@jimmyispromo]

I played Halo 1 and 2 during high school. Competed back in 2003-2005, then quit when I hit college. Picked Halo back up last year with Infinite. I'm a fan of Infinite mechanics and graphics. Just some fixes to be done server side, but still love it.

[@chadhansen5057]

The return to form was a necessity but welcome, I like infinite wish It came out swinging with the content it has today with forage

[@bigdawg77]

I lived and breathed Halo when I was a kid in the early 2000s. Halo infinite is honestly a lot of fun, and it's exactly what I'd expect from a modern Halo game. Halo 4 and 5 might be good in a lot of ways, but they really felt like a different game that was set in the Halo universe. Halo Infinite feels like Halo. The gameplay is fun, the story is honestly great and engaging, and multiplayer is pretty good. There's flaws for sure, and I would still rank the game overall below the Bungie Halos; but that's really a testament to how amazing and game changing the first Halo games were, not a critique of Halo infinite.

[@nzpowa._.6662]

Tbh I wanna see the AI beat the campaign.

[@Tuskbumper]

Probably would require a lot more programming but I think it's possible

[@hunterh1175]

they can't drive :| But actually I think you can beat the campaign without driving so why not

[@iceman78772]

Very interesting. It's too bad you can't spectate the bots in first person to see how their aim works firsthand. Like CSGO deathmatch bots are uncannily humanlike, where Quake Live bots look like they're in an earthquake when they spot an enemy.

[@AIandGames]

Yeah sadly in private matches with bots you need to have at least one human player. 🙁

[@iceman78772]

@@AIandGames I think you can spectate them after the fact from Theater mode with the Bot Bootcamp playlist if private matches don't record, though you're still limited to just over the shoulder cameras when spectating bots specifically. Those glorified toasters with legs are hiding something, damnit.

[@MultidimensionalSock]

Hello! I'm doing my final year project on AI and my lecturer just (literally half an hour ago) suggested this video to me to look at and I've already watched all of it. I love this video! It's made me feel way more excited about my project when I was reaching a plateau. It can be really hard to find information about how developers developed their AI, especially that isn't extremely long form (I have ADHD so focusing on a GDC lecture for a very long time can be really hard for me, but your addition of video content makes it so much more engaging and helps me actually take in the information) Thank you for your videos!!

[@AIandGames]

Happy to help. Best of luck with your project!

[@aeriumfour6096]

W... wait... these things are just behavior trees? Damn. 343 might not be the best at making Halo games, but I've played a LOT of Infinite, and as a game dev that is a seriously impressive outcome from a behavior tree.

[@FreemanFreak87]

It's not 343's fault Halo Infinite failed. Microsoft didn't provide 343 with the resources and time they needed to succeed. And even now, 343 doesn't even have the staff it needs to properly continue development because Microsoft fired half of the studio in order to make room for the the Blizzard/Activision acquisition.

[@lt_johnmcclane]

@@FreemanFreak87 343 hasn’t made a good Halo game yet. Can’t blame it all on Microsoft

[@itsPonkulz]

Surely 343 has a say to Microsoft's work contracts. /s

[@FreemanFreak87]

@@itsPonkulz 343i is owned by Microsoft. They aren't a studio on contract like Bungie was.

[@FreemanFreak87]

@@lt_johnmcclane Halo 4 was supposed to release as an Xbox One launch title. Microsoft delayed the One and demanded Halo 4 release according to the date promised to shareholders. It has always been this way.

[@apawhite]

I LOVE that the use of a sensible but slightly slow coding language makes their reaction times more plausibly human. Brilliant.

[@watermelongaming3698]

There's two types of AI/Bots: Ones that are tough but could be beaten by a skilled enough player, and Chess bots.

[@Ryan-ni7mo]

Google actually made an ai for star craft that beat a pro

[@bigdawg77]

​​​@@Ryan-ni7mo Bots aren't beatable in video games because the technology isn't there, they're beatable because it's fun. With modern AI, you can create an unbeatable AI in damn near every game. ESPECIALLY FPS games. Hell, Google let machine learning bots play a game they made long enough that they eventually learned how to glitch the game out and beat it.

[@gabrielandy9272]

theres also ai that uses cheats, and ai that don't use cheats, some hard ais are cheaters and some ais can beat pro player without cheats.

[@gabrielandy9272]

@@bigdawg77 not true, its hard to make a bot that don't cheat and beat pro players they had to use machine learning to do that =) theres no SCRIPT/manual code able to beat a pro player without any cheats in starcraft.

[@watermelongaming3698]

@@gabrielandy9272the end result is the same though, the player gets their ass kicked when on max difficulty

[@senshai1267]

hands down one of the best bots in any game .

[@GraveyardTricks]

Why are the hands down?

[@MillionaireHoyOriginal]

​@@GraveyardTricks Because the race can be won with little to no effort/absolute certainty. It's term originating from Horse Race betting. If a jockey is so far ahead that he can drop the reigns, his hands are down.

[@bigdawg77]

​@@MillionaireHoyOriginal Damn, word.

[@MillionaireHoyOriginal]

@@bigdawg77 old saying are the best, because they sound crazy, but actually make sense.

[@CipherFiveZero]

It's great Infinite has bots but I just wish they could do more such as drive vehicles, not run into blocked off doorways in Infection and most of all allow for way more than 8 bots in custom games up to 23 for BTB or crazy games of Infection and Last Spartan Standing.

[@bangboats3557]

I used to be a wargamer, until prices went up to where it's probably cheaper to host a real war someplace. Thanks to isolation and unhealthy anti-socialism I was a solo wargamer, running many games from Charles Stuart's excellent book "programmed wargame scenarios" which gave a set of reactions based on battlefield conditions and situations so that the opponent seemed autonomous. I took this further by designing a "rolling scale" morale system where enemy units were constantly adjusting their morale value as situations around then changed and influenced their actions based on a series of reaction tables and pre-existing orders or objectives. I had to balance these with some random factors, the "local hero" rule so that while results might be expected, they were not always automatic and predictable. So I'm fascinated to see how they implement these kinds of ideas in computer games. I'm a solo player because I find online play quite often frustrating due to the lack of player skill base, so am looking for better AI in games for solo players, especially racing games. Milestone's ANNA is a bit hit and miss in the MotoGP series but Sony's Sophy in GT7 showed what's possible. Two of the modes I could beat easy enough, the third was challenging, the fourth... out of my league. I might have to check out Halo Infinite and see what it's like - it's one of the few in the series I haven't played. Great video as always. Thanks.

[@ravenwulf8]

With the newest forge updates, i've recently had an obsession with pitting the multiplayer bots in fights against the campaign AI. I don't know why, but its interesting for me to see how two fundementally different NPC systems engage with each other. The bots tend to have the advantage though. Given x number of multiplayer bots, it takes like 2x number of blue Elites to take them down.

[@bensadfleck9972]

Just wish they could increase the difficulty they play at. They do become a liability in Slayer type game modes

[@3333218]

IMHO: Training an AI model for imitation and prediction with a dataset extracted from real human players is probably the best way to go about solving this problem. If paired with a natural language model, it could prove to be also useful and powerful during gameplay as friendly bots who can understand player commands given in natural language; as well as be given direct natural language commands and queries by the developers in both multiplayer and singleplayer maps.

[@anteshell]

"imho" Well.. It's not about opinions. Those are irrelevant when measuring what is the best method of going about solving a well defined problem. But if I over simplify this problem, machine learning would be the best for coming up with un-expected AI behaviours or responses to human behaviour, while traditional manual system is still the best for creating the exact behaviour you want. If we don't simplify the problem, similar is still true but much more complicated with more variables to measure.

[@3333218]

@@anteshell We can't measure what I'm suggesting since it doesn't exist. Therefore It's in the realm of speculation, or in other words, in the realm of opinions and thoughts. You'd need to have both the system I've speculated upon previously AND this system running side by side in a double blinded controlled environment against players to measure what they found was the most fun and interesting to play against.

[@anteshell]

@@3333218 No... Just no.. *facepalm You are proposing a solution to an existing problem. A well known and researched solution to a well known problem of video game AIs. There is literally nothing unknown in your proposal. Literally the only thing that hasn't been tried yet at least in large scale is the usage of LLM to generate speech for AI bots. But it doesn't matter. There is absolutely nothing unknown about generating speech with LLM and voice generators. Everything from that can be measured. I didn't talk about LLM in my original response, because that is literally the only way to generate believable text and subsequently speech and at the moment it's not in use in anywhere, so there was nothing to add to that. Try again.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

These systems are notorious for being hard to introspect on, meaning you loose a *lot* of control. At least with current tech they're also a lot more expensive to train and to run, as far as I can tell. You also have the problem of making they understand a new mode, for example, or decide you want them to imitate players in certain ways but not others, or neatly segregate skill levels, etc. That being said, using some machine learning to help set parameters on a hand-crafted system, or using machine learning to help find regularities in data to help inform the crafting of such systems, those sound more reasonable to me.

[@3333218]

@@anteshell I never said anything about generating speech.

[@ozymandiastheiii9176]

I think the bots would be great if they factored in a teammate proximity factor. Too many times will they die in no man's land by themself.

[@LuccDev]

I just stumbled on your channel, and it seems like such a goldmine for inspiration for people interested in AI and procedural generation. Thank you for all the work you put into making these videos.

[@PlebNC]

But can they teabag like a human player would? That's the Turin Test for bots I think?

[@Gorefinger8235]

They teabagged in the beta but they took it out on release :(

[@AIandGames]

At release there was a 'bug', or so they say. That meant they t-bagged. Though they never mentioned it in any of my research. 🤣

[@PlebNC]

@@AIandGames Clearly the AI became sentient and had to be curbed to prevent a Skynet situation. First it starts with teabagging then it escalates to robot armies.

[@AIandGames]

It always starts with t-bagging...

[@PlebNC]

@@AIandGames John Connor (via video recording to Sarah Connor): "It all began with a LAN party of Halo Infinite over XBL. We were all having so much fun no-one noticed Jimmy dropped from the lobby and was replaced by a bot. It was so human like that we didn't realise what we did until it happened: I T-bagged a bot after bunny hopping around a corner with a shotgun." Sarah: "Dear God..." John: "You need to run before the bots go back in time to bag you before I can bag them. I'm sending help." Terminator (after breaking door down): "Sarah Connor? Come with me if you want a carry for the rest of the match." Terminator clears path out of building for Sarah by sliding and bunny hopping everywhere.

[@midshipman8654]

This is super interesting stuff! really fascinating how these problems and intents are addressed mechanically.

[@AzaIndustries]

I hope more singleplay experience get some AI love. I feel like we peaked a decade ago for AI in FPS games in terms of the actual challenging and varied gameplay it offered.

[@ScoutOW2]

I could be wrong, ive never had the resources. But wouldnt it be possible to record 100 people playing the game and just build an AI based around exactly how they play? Like if most players begin jumping in a direction while shooting, more likely to jump the closer you are, could you just...remake those actions exactly how the players do but with randomisation because of human error? Learning AI might pickup traits like going AFK or being TF2 friendly. If you manully build it to how you see players (who are actually trying to win) act, you can recreate it to look exactly how it looked in the recorded footage. Even could have a random archetype like the "runs straight forward to the objective and only shoots when shot at" guy.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

Well, depending on what you mean by "build an AI", this is exactly what they've done: they observed players and built an AI. If you mean something like the image and text generation stuff which is big right now, then that needs a *lot* more data do be any good, training it is crazy expensive, and the hability to tweak them is way more limited. You're trying to blow a birth-day cake candle with a cannon ball, pretty much.

[@ScoutOW2]

@@user-sl6gn1ss8p Ohh shit youre right, i wasnt that far into the video when i wrote that and i had noooo idea they woulda done the exact same thing ive been suggesting for years!

[@PeteNice29]

You mean effective objective players, I like it

[@hunterh1175]

For an average to bad player, being called a bot is actually a compliment on Halo Infinite lol

[@nickthepick8043]

This is something I think should've been shown to DICE regarding Star Wars Battlefront.

[@Matijas907]

Great material. Lets hope we see more ai in future games

[@jeffersonblackmon]

The 2008 Unreal Championship had Bots that were just as good if not better.

[@PeteNice29]

There does need to be a slider. Bots aren’t very good unless they have a needler or carbine, and that’s more a function of OP weapons vs skill set.

[@jordanfilentino7076]

Plot twist: Bots turn out to be just the 343 devs playing to keep the game alive 😂.

[@sealsharp]

Wonderful video!

[@compton_gaming1769]

I'd love to see a analysis of the Company of heroes franchise And love the videos

[@Shargok]

Can you look at the campaign AI in Mount and Blade Bannerlord?

[@hrthrhs]

Great vid. But I hate the bots. I want PVP when I play multiplayer.

[@ValentineC137]

18:15 tiny editing error to keep you up at night, accidentally starting option B at 0.99 :)

[@AIandGames]

Yup, that will keep me up at night. Thank you. 👍

[@13thravenpurple94]

Great video Thank you

[@WAFFENAMT1]

What are you saying...when i play free multiplayer shootsrs, i am playing againt a computed AI, and not real people?

[@skupipup]

Wow, could've sworn they used ML! 😆

[@CharliReef]

And the marines still can't drive vehicles

[@agentoranj5858]

The quality of Halo Infinite's bot AI stands out in an otherwise mediocre game; I haven't seen arena AI this competent since Unreal Tournament 2004.

[@BillyTheKidOfficialYT]

Ummm bro wtf are u talking about I played today and some of the bots were just standing there 😂

[@YourPalKindred]

I just wish the bots were harder Edit: sounds like I haven't played long enough for the game to pick up my "skill level". Maybe I'll give it another try

[@JeoJetsonmusic]

Reading the comments and the title of this video has me feeling like I’m in the twilight zone. I don’t think the bots are realistic at all

[@lexreallydone]

How to tell if a real person will jump in fps games.😅

[@Vipus2501]

Every time someone uses footage of the Halo 1 "remastered" version while talking about the original game, a puppy dies.

[@AIandGames]

*me slowly killing puppies...* 😈

[@3333218]

Is the remastered version not a good version?

[@Vipus2501]

@@3333218 It's not terrible, but it completely changes the original game's art direction. On the gameplay side, it has some issues with invisible walls in some maps due to using models with way more polygons then the ones found in the original game (which makes your shots hit invisible tree trunks and cliffs annoyingly frequently in some maps).

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@3333218 It's really just that it's not very good from a design standpoint. The game's original visuals are simple but obviously well thought-out, consistent, honestly it just *looks good* even today while the Anniversary visuals feel like Hire This Man asset vomit because they pretty much are. I'll take the original's 70s sci-fi book cover vibe over poorly repurposed Reach assets any day. It doesn't help that for a long time, the "original graphics" in MCC were a bit broken, which made them seem less impressive than they were in some cases. Over the past few years it's largely been fixed, though.

[@brianfunt2619]

GET TUDA CHOPPA

[@nathanlehman9415]

Wrastle Dastle

[@Fachewachewa]

That was very interesting, but idk, it seems overcomplicated. If they wanted to make bots that behaved like humans, they should just have them ignore the objectives 😏 Also stealing weapons is not enough! Getting to drive a vehicle should always be priority n°1 😆

[@joechristl1444]

Does this mean I can play against AI Bots exclusively?

[@AIandGames]

Yes

[@Democracyhasbecomehypocrisy]

So are you trying to tell me that when I’m playing multiplayer some of these teammates or enemies are bots? Can I disable this? What’s the difference between nonplayer characters of the past and AI what’s the difference between AI and controlling the characters in game they both do the same stuff what’s so fancy about AI? AI was here for years in a way . 😂 That annoys me so you’re saying that now bots are also going to hog the weapons . It’s bad enough humans did that.

[@whynaut1]

Yeah, but do they teabag their enemies?

[@GraveyardTricks]

You still in love with this multiplayer?

[@AIandGames]

I'm still enjoying it. I don't play all the time, instead I float in and out every couple of weeks. It sadly still needs more regular content updates. A problem that is exacerbated by having too many different games modes. This is a problem that other shooters should have learned from but have not managed to address either (*cough* Call of Duty *cough*).

[@GraveyardTricks]

@AI and Games Yeah it's a solid game. Haven't played call of duty since 2003. 20 years later and every top seller is a franchise

[@odriscolljd]

hello can you play off line and earn xp?

[@driftwoods2229]

Just seems so lame. What if its a 4v4 match. 4 bots on the opposing teem, 3 bots on yours, and you. You want a unique multiplayer experience, weather it be cookie, anger inducing, or comedic while playing with different people from all over the world. I don't put a bunch of cardboard cut outs in my living room and pretend I'm hanging out with people, why would I want to fight a cardboard cut out of a player?

[@christianbethel]

They're good, but incomplete. They cannot use turrets or vehicles, and they are no longer available offline.

[@MarsiB013]

They can use turrets and get into vehicles. However they can't drive/pilot vehicles.

[@christianbethel]

@@MarsiB013 So, in other words, they can't use vehicles/turrets.

[@MarsiB013]

@@christianbethel They only can't jump into the driver's seat. They can get into secondary positions/turrets. Is reading comprehension not taught in primary school?

[@christianbethel]

Look in the mirror and ask yourself that question.

[@nineonine9082]

Not massively impressed, I mean the AI in unreal and Unreal Tournament always did good and that game is 20 years old, an important thing though is that the AI in that game was made by a Deathmatcher, so it knew how to play like a human, it 100% had more flaws then these, but it had many human elements, but you were still able to see the godlike ai under the hood, which is why I never tried to take on the highest difficulties, I mean how can a human beat a literal aimbot with hitscan 1hit ko sniper, outside just ambushing it.

[@player1id]

Steve pogel made reaper bot originally for quake and then was hired by epic to make the AI for the skarj.

[@Atharv0812]

First 🤜🤛

[@deanvangreunen6457]

First 😂

[@DoesNotInhale]

Only AI I care about is in games. All the other AI sh*t is literally gonna doom us a la Ted Kaczynski warned us stylee. That being said your videos are the best there is on the subject matter, bar none

[@paynekiller70]

All we need now is for 343 studios to increase the 4v4 limit against bots and allow bots to pilot vehicles.