What is your preference for video game AI difficulty?

What kind of AI do you prefer to deal with for your virtual enemies/opponents in a video game?

Myself, I like randomness, because it keeps you on your toes and the experience fresher. Sometimes that can be hard to program in terms of good balance though.

Dynamic would be my second pick, because, if I'm really having trouble, I like it when the game recognizes that and gives me a break, and, conversely, if I'm just coasting through the game, I think it's good to see things ramp up a bit to provide more challenge.

I think the perfect AI level would be one that adjusts to just about your level or ever so slightly higher, so that you have to improve to overcome it.

Playing a 2 player game against someone way better or worse than you is never much fun, it's always better if you're at a similar level.

Excellent poll, my vote goes to the "other" option. I'd call it semi-dynamic, as I like the AI getting harder, If I'm succeeding, but not easier. The latter peeves me always in Last Resort, where loosing a life makes you loose some extremities. That said, the Battle Garegga suicide regime is fascinating, but appears too enforced, like they try too hard on being original. Other than that, playing with rank is definitely interesting. I also don't mind a bit randomness to spice up things, like in Daimakaimura.

Random, it's why i love the Dark Souls games. Some of the enemies are quite unpredictable. Same thing with Alien Isolation.

I picked Dynamic but I also kind of agree with Semi-Dynamic. I kind of don't want to completely run over the enemy if I lose several times to them at first. Yet, I would like it to still be challenging but not how the way a Mortal Kombat game treats you at stage 6 of 8. Those games seem to match and have an answer for every single thing you throw at it.

Depends on the game, I'm all up for Dynamic but only becoming more difficult if you are doing well.

Dynamic would be my pick, if you're playing a good game it would be cool for the difficulty to raise up a notch to keep you on your toes.
Close second would be fixed because then you know what you're getting when you choose you're difficulty, someday's i'm not up to the challenge on the harder settings and will plump for medium, and i like the fact that the game is easier for me.

Dynamic.

Max Payne 1 & 2 hit that sweet spot for me - it went easy on you if you were doing bad, but ramped it up just enough when you were doing well. The game didn't hold you hand, but it didnt throw you to the wolves either.

I prefer fixed, because that enables things like high scores and achievements to be objectively compared.

Yoshi said:

I prefer fixed, because that enables things like high scores and achievements to be objectively compared.

Click to expand...

But that also applies to dynamic, where the increase of difficulty is always the same. If you play for score, you'll encounter nothing other than other player's, too. Your argument rules only random out.

There's something else... a good example of a game with fixed AI is Viewpoint. You have no rank here, nor any kind of randomness, yet, there are so many parameters thrown at you at the same time, that the situation can change from easy to hard in no time. Granted, it won't matter to a good player, though even the best player is not a machine, i.e he can't repeat the exact same difficulty patterns throughout a whole game, so that they never really are fixed.

Now this does not disarm your argument entirely, but it shows that a fixed AI is rather just a theoretical concept whereas only dynamic and random exist.

I prefer static as it allows the developer to finely craft the difficulty and maintain complete control over the experience. For the same reason I tend to avoid games that auto generate levels.

I don't mind simple dynamic changes such as rank in shooters, but still tend to prefer shooters that have minimal or no rank.

Static, it allows me to track my achievements/successes in a set scenario
Also it allows me to set at which point I "earned" to see the story progress.