In my last post, I talked about how I wanted the AI to work in Bounty Hunter. I had a chance over the past week to implement the AI and found out something important… the game is not fun with smarter AI.
Because I had not implemented the save system, I found out I restarted the level every time I made one mistake. The game started to feel more like a chore where I was trying to go for the perfect run instead of enjoying the AI adapting to situation.
I am now going to try to fix this issue by making the AI more stupid. I am going to amend the list I created in my last AI post.
Calling for backup. The guards will not call for any backup now.
Changing patrol routes. If the guard AI loses sight of the player, it will always return to its original position.
Central Control System. I am keeping this in the game as I originally stated. The headquarters, as I originally called them, will tell a guard to check out any broken equipment, players detected on camera, etc. Guards will still have to report to the headquarters with their findings. If a guard does not report to headquarters, then another guard will be sent in replacement to assess the situation. If a dead body is found, then a new guard will enter the level.
Level alert states. This feature is going to be removed. I started to notice that every time I got to a high state, I would restart the level. This means the level got too difficult to continue, which is something I did not want.
After I make these changes, I will further assess on how the AI guards affect the game. Hopefully the guards will be the right mixture of difficult, but not too difficult that makes the player restart the level.
In AI-unrelated news, I decided to scrap most player abilities for now. This is because I still have not found the fun core loop of the game. Sneaking past the guards is fun, but not that fun. I think I might need to amend the core gameplay feature of just sneaking. Or maybe I need to add some props in the game that can be hacked.