• As part of the relaunch of Skullheart, ALL previous threads have been archived. You can find them at the bottom of the forum in the Archives (2021) section. The archives are locked, so please use the new forum sections to create new discussion threads.

Feedback/Suggestions needed for improving AI in Skullgirls

Although not much can be done with Marie, it would be great if her AI could be improved somewhat on nightmare difficulty.

I enjoy playing arcade mode on nightmare however, its not quite as fun once you reach Marie.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WrestlerGuile
Muro said:
At the moment, nightmare AI appears to tech (nearly?) all throws. It teaches players that going for a throw is never a good idea, which is not true.
This is exactly what I was coming to this thread to say. The Filia AI is especially bad about it (I think she actually does tech all normal throws on Nightmare?)
 
The AI does not know how to handle Fukua's armor grab. It works especially well on Fillia, which is how I cheesed Fukua's final battle. Just throw her, and do her armor grab and she'll fall for it every time. For the rest of the cast, they eventually do something to break out of the loop, but not Filia.
 
IsaVulpes said:
CPU never seems to groundtech (this would be kinda bad for people who eg think that Para jHP > stuff is a "real" combo) - just have it always groundtech imo (as long as that doesn't make them guaranteed to die to untechable burstbaits..)

I don't think it's a problem if the AI falls victim to some specific setup that's halfway-decent in actual good play. If someone naturally finds untechable burst baits and uses them against the AI, more power to them I think. It's not a bad thing imo to find something that you can exploit against the AI, it's just a matter of how obvious is the exploit, like the above post with the armored command grab or command grabs in general.
 
Oh another one that i remember:

I personally would like it to never have to fight solos... But if it must stay, then can we pls make it so that i dont have to fight 2 solos of the same team in a row? As it is right now, every rotation i play has a solo filia and usually a solo bella, and besides being boring matches, it occurs rather frequently that i have to play them twice in a row which is frustrating on 7 round matches cause thats like 8 games in a row of playing against solo filia...
 
  • Like
Reactions: KaboomKid and Ravendeth
I always seem to have a solo Peacock and a solo Parasoul in every single arcade match. The weird thing is they both always have the same colors; Peacock has the light pink one and Parasoul has the Panty socks show color.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sauce_fonda and agent13
@render In tekken they have something called ghosts where the computer analyzes your playing style and how you play and if other people want too they can download the "ghost" and have it as a cpu

it also downloads their weaknesses and w/e i think it would be a good idea to look into that
 
  • Like
Reactions: Broseidon Rex
chickenwithtie said:
That's really weird, Filia and Cerebella are the only solos
The only solos that matter
png.png
 
Thanks everyone for your suggestions! We're reading all of them and are trying to work out what's feasible. Can't guarantee anything but we hope to make some of these suggestions a reality. :)

Dime_x said:
Oh another one that i remember:

I personally would like it to never have to fight solos... But if it must stay, then can we pls make it so that i dont have to fight 2 solos of the same team in a row? As it is right now, every rotation i play has a solo filia and usually a solo bella, and besides being boring matches, it occurs rather frequently that i have to play them twice in a row which is frustrating on 7 round matches cause thats like 8 games in a row of playing against solo filia...

I agree something should be done about this, but the frequency of the opposing team's size and characters has nothing to do with the AI.

Zazz said:
Marie could use a reworking. I but think Lab Zero knows she's not very fun.

Yeah, I'd really like to spend a little time with Marie and make some adjustments, especially making the tells for each of her attacks more obvious/readable.

agent13 said:
@render In tekken they have something called ghosts where the computer analyzes your playing style and how you play and if other people want too they can download the "ghost" and have it as a cpu

it also downloads their weaknesses and w/e i think it would be a good idea to look into that

I've heard about that and think it's really cool, but that's beyond the scope of what we have time/resources for.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KaboomKid and Dime
render said:
Yeah, I'd really like to spend a little time with Marie and make some adjustments, especially making the tells for each of her attacks more obvious/readable.
That's good to hear.

Given her current state, I think Marie would work better if she had a "getting dizzied" mechanic like Touhou fighting game bosses do (IaMP & SWR). As I recall, in those games, players have to hit a shield on boss characters (while dodging fields of projectiles) and when it was broken the boss would be dizzied, take much increased damage and not attack while the shield regenerates. Maybe some Touhou players could clarify the nuances of this system as I haven't played those games in a while.

I had the idea since Marie is pretty much Touhou character as she covers the screen with fireballs and wears frilly dresses.
 
Zazz said:
That's good to hear.

Given her current state, I think Marie would work better if she had a "getting dizzied" mechanic like Touhou fighting game bosses do (IaMP & SWR). As I recall, in those games, players have to hit a shield on boss characters (while dodging fields of projectiles) and when it was broken the boss would be dizzied, take much increased damage and not attack while the shield regenerates. Maybe some Touhou players could clarify the nuances of this system as I haven't played those games in a while.

I had the idea since Marie is pretty much Touhou character as she covers the screen with fireballs and wears frilly dresses.
She has one, sort of. You need to do enough damage/hits fast enough and you'll get her stunned and will be able to perform a normal combo on her. Hard to get that effect most of the time though.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can't say much about AIs' offense, I don't usually leave them an opportunity to show it, but I can talk about their defense. Some stuff may be bella match up specific, but most problems seems to be recurent :

• filia : blocks way too much...except on incoming.
If she enters the screen while you are doing an attack, she will most likely block it, but if you just delay it a tiny bit, she will either airball or airdash and NEVER guard, making her absolutely free to well-timed excellebella or other DP/fast-ish far-reaching attacks.
Except that, she's dead free to all command grabs and some overheads like BB giant step and fukua H shadow.

• cerebella : would be well balanced if she didn't sometimes "zone out" and decide to do nothing and not block either. Except that, she's a bit free to command grabs, but sometimes counter command grab you, so maybe add more diamond drop/360 mashing and less "standing there doing nothing" and she should be fine. Could guard a bit more often in general but nothing exploitable 100%.

• painwheel : she doesn't know about spacing while flying and doesn't attack much, but when you're reseting her, she's ok...sort of. Nothing to say on wake up, true 50/50 fly/block, she can do it too for some resets, except on some MGR and diamond drop reset loops. She's 100% free to these.

• fortune : could guard a bit more, too much normal mashing, but at least she makes you learn about how good it is to do fast resets, that doesn't leave her free of will for too long. So at least people can learn from playing against her. Free to well-timed MGR loops, but will avoid all run stop resets and corner c.lk c.mk s.hk diamond drop resets and probably will grant you a j.lp for it. So that's a point for her.

• valentine : has an okay neutral, okay guard, but is free to all command grab resets. Same problem than filia during incoming, free to well-timed excellebella.

• peacock : PLEASE make her guard sometimes when she's airborne! I can do double snaps combos on her and she will never avoid or block them ever! Also, free to command grab resets.
And barely knows how to use SOID.

• parasoul : okay neutral, good guard, but free to command grabs.

• double : maybe make her not cancel into car if luger gets deflected or armormed? Because for now I can bait car by deflecting luger and get a full punish after blocking the car. PW players can probably do that with j.hp thresher?
On defense, she could guard a bit more, run stop resets into low/instant j.hp works a bit more thann it shoud. And she's free to command grabs.

• fukua : same behaviour than fortune for the most part. So she's pretty okay regarding defense in my eyes.

• squigly : like bella, one of the most balanced defense during resets, not completely free to command grabs, blocks often enough, but derps a bit on neutral charging stances even when you're right in her face. If she stopped charging automatically when you get close enought to her, that would be a good improvement already.

• BB : drops the controller as soon as your feet leave the ground. Not much more to say, this by itself ruins all the fun.

• Eliza : same problem than BB.
 
I've beaten fukua and peacock just by doing cr.hk with eliza all day(but that works on scrubcocks too)
 
Cerebella also has the habit of run stopping when you make any movement so much that its predictable and you can control when she does it
 
PKStoopKid said:
Cerebella also has the habit of run stopping when you make any movement so much that its predictable and you can control when she does it
I guess that's another change: don't make the AIs over exploitable.
 
WrestlerGuile said:
I guess that's another change: don't make the AIs over exploitable.
Else I'll have to keep speedrunning the game.
 
One thing ive noticed is that some characters never use assists while others use them pretty liberally
 
On Nightmare all they do is throw out assist and I mean its predictable cause they don't use it to get in safely, just toss it up. I actually use that to practice double snap combos
 
I'm starting to think the AI in general doesn't know how to handle Armored moves well. As Big Band, I utterly decimate Nightmare AI.

Actually, I think it's just the AI just isn't aggressive enough on the highest difficultly. If I'm on Nightmare difficulty, I expect the AI to go full rage zombie on my ass. Button reading, lightning fast reflexes, y'know, actual Nightmare difficulty. Don't be afraid to go all out, devs. I'm fine with losing once in a while.
 
Ran nightmare a couple times last night and want to suggest having the AI Throw more. I know some people mentioned that the AI tends to tech every throw/ throw reset. But I think having the AI also try some throw resets will teach players to tech throws just as much as teach them to use throws.

Not many people use Throws or get reset by not reading a throw reset properly (i still fall for these more than i'd like to admit)
 
Ridiculous mode should let the ai reset you
 
Imma just throw this out there.

When fighting Marie, any of Big Band's moves that Sound Stun should add extra stun to compensate for the fact he has no ground multi hit attacks. The only way to stun Marie with Big Band is with SSJ. Every other character can nail stun on Marie, some character can do so with such insulting ease.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Broseidon Rex
Thought of some other change. if this hasnt been brought up yet.

When playing in a team if one of the players character is near death, maybe have the AI snap in the opponents low health characters. either for the kill or to get rid of red health completely. train the player to be mindful and careful i guess.
 
So I was just observing the Sleepwalk AI and it can use some improvement. I'm fine with the AI moving randomly at Sleepwalk, just stop them from jumping so much. Only Parasoul, Filia, Big Band, and I think Painwheel don't constantly jump. I personally think the AI should at least fight back a little on Sleepwalk, but that's just me.

Big Band's AI is especially derp. All it does is H A-Train. I'm just sitting there eating lunch while he keeps missing me.
 
Have COM characters NOT use a super move as soon as the match starts. I experience this a lot with Big Band, Valentine and Peacock.
 
Have the AI use a reversal option and/or PBGC into a reversal if they're kept blocking for too long.

Could be one, then the other depending on length kept blocking.

For example: try to go for a reversal if they keep poking you but not getting hits and do PBGC if they're kept in blockstun for X amount of time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Broseidon Rex
  • Not directly related to AI, but allow all possible team combinations. Currently only Filia and Cerebella appear solo, which is a bit boring. To keep the teams viable, give each character a priority number for the order (Peacock and Val have high priority to appear in front, etc).
  • AI loves doing supers or snapback to start the match, which is pretty dumb.
  • In general, air grabs should be used more and have reliable followups.
Things Squigly should do more:
  • Air-to-air jLK, confirming into full combo.
  • jHP > SBO against grounded foes.
  • cMK > cHP confirm into Silver Chord.
  • When charged, stancels after blocked or whiffed heavy moves.
  • Center Stage into SBO or Daisy Pusher.
  • Midscreen throws into charged Center Stage, or SBO.
  • Corner throws into cMK > sHK.
  • Charging after Daisy Pusher and Silver Chord, or comboing into cMK > sHK.
  • Burst baits! An easy one to add would be cHP after Silver Chord or SBO...
  • Jump rope when the enemy hasn't attacked in a long time. Just because.
Things Squigly should do less:
  • Uncharged DP, in neutral, in combos, basically ever.
  • Charged Tremolo over and over in neutral, though it can work as a punish.
  • sMP, sMK, cMP, sHK in neutral.
  • jHP > cMK when it will whiff.
  • Center Stage without super or assist.
  • Throw into Tremolo for some reason.
A lot of these will probably fall under "do more standard combos"...
 
I'd love an increased AI that goes beyond Nightmare, but on par with fighting a top-tier opponent.

I want a CPU that makes me regret making mistakes and find solutions to fix those problems.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WrestlerGuile
I would love to see the AI use spacing better and be less predictable with how it tries to get in.
 
I don't think this one has been mentionned yet (I may have missed it, but just to be sure) :

Valentine should hit her opponent after a successful counter super (Acquisitive Prescription). Most of the time she just stares at them and lets them recover.
 
The changes to the ai are nice. Most noticeable now is that the ai actually does decent combos.

But its still reacting in a computer way which is frsutrating and it is still free to resets, but it pulls stuff out of its hat sometimes now and can actually kill one of my characters once in a blue moon.

It is better overall, but i really wish the ai could be thrown and that it didnt look at inputs. Today i was playing against double and i sat there in crouch block and moved to offensive crouch and double L lugered me on reaction instantly everytime. Of course the Lugers went over my head, but that isnt the point, the point is that the ai is reading button inputs which is really uncool. I hope a better non input reading ai can someday be built.
 
That's good feedback and everything, but to my knowledge, we haven't made any changes yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Flotilla
Thats rather funny :) I've detected distinct changes to the ai around 6 times over the years. The last big one I've noticed occurred about 3-4 days ago. Big band is hitting me with near 240 undizzy combos and Val is doing followups to her lvl2 counter
Whereas she NEVER did anything before. And near full combos is almost never done by the computer to my knowledge (except if the combo will kill), yet all the ai's combos have gotten longer on average.


So Idk. I do remember reading somewhere that sg had/ has a kind of learning ai which would kind of explain it, but afaik that was never implemented or it is only implemented in very small amounts...


Whatever it is maybe god came down and touched up my ai... Something's different is all I know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back