I'm thinking of gaming with things like autoaim or extreme chess, where human input is essential to success, but allows the AI to take care of the mundane aspects of a game. I notice that people frown upon those features as sissy, yet I can't help thinking how much better off we'd all be if a game played like a modern action movie with close calls and longer bits of head to head action. Actually, the one movie that really triggered my imagination was the Riddick Chronicles. At the end of the movie where the wierd undead guy could be in two places at once but both were deadly, it made me think... Gee... what if a game wasn't about who had the greater ability to handle the mechanics of the game (yes there's always some strategy, but strategy has always taken a back seat to ability to handle the input.) but it was about being really sneaky and clever and creating situations that even matrix time and godlike awareness couldn't get the other player out of. It seems like games could be made available to more mainstream gamers and actually increase interest with more going on. Then a game would degenerate somewhat into a constant action movie with a player deciding what to do next. Drunk players could play, newbies could play, and the expert could pull off manual maneuvers to beat the other players in a stylish way. More on this after some responses.

The problem with this approach is that you can't really adapt it to any game play. Can you imagine a quake like game with the concept you mentioned ? I for one can't imagine such a game ^^

But you already have turn by turn strategy games, games like Myst, and I'm sure there are a lot more games using those concepts. It just isn't useable for any game type ^^

Quake doesn't have much other than running and aiming well. But what about a game like a fast paced racing game where players have a degree of interaction. The interaction is a direct distraction to the actual racing. Maybe you want the game to play like that, but maybe you don't. Maybe the game is funner if the not hitting walls part of the game is nearly automatic, but the choosing the right path or timing your shots so that you cause a player to get knocked into the scary path was the focus of the game.

Some of these AI assisted things don't have to take over the player's controls. They could be projections of where shots are going and where path intersections may occur. They could be running lights along a corridor that indicate timings for making it past the deadly pendulums. These things can add to gameplay because now instead of figuring out where and how the missile will hit you, you are figuring out how to trap the other player so he can't escape your missiles. So I guess that weapons will have to be more powerful too.. :-D

I'm enjoying this conversation. Could you explain why you don't feel like a game that is essentially an action game would be less fun with assisted play? I think that an action game that played like a single unit RTS might be fun if there was constantly changing discrete set of actions that you had to choose from to survive and win.

I guess that from my point of view, I suck at using thumbpads like they are intended as analog input and usually they degenerate into 8 directional. That's one reason why I feel that Super Smash Brothers has done well as a game, the input system is very forgiving, and does not expect unreasonable levels of control from a mere thumbpad.

I could sure see a quake type game using this tech:


Imagine walking through a corridor...
Suddenly a short ingame event occurs, i.e big bad ass thing tries to pull you down below... by pressing a certain combo (Shown on screen) you manage to get away.

Hmm..
Don't know if that sounds so cool, but I think it sounds kinda cool. :)




And I also realized that my post has absolutely nothing to do with the OP's post.. but I post anyway. peace! :D

I like the idea of more AI assistance in an RTS game. Let's say the AI controls everything from city building to warfare. As you play, you can take control of anything you want away from the AI. It would be a lot like being a single general going about and making sure things get done the way they need to. If the AI suddenly decides to attack an enemy, you could go help the war effort. If you think it's time to attack an enemy, you could tell the AI to get on it. If you see the AI building something stupid, you could tell it to stop.

Hardcore RTS gamers would probably trash the idea, but I think casual gamers would enjoy it. When I see a really cool AI demo, even if it's not interactive I'll watch it just because it's cool. If you made the AI interesting enough to watch, adding the ability to interact with it would just make it that much cooler.

Perhaps with the RTS idea, you could play as a single character who only has influence within a certain radius of himself. The character would also of course be very strong in battle. The game would be a balance between making sure cities are built right and the armies are trained, and using your character to dominate the battle field. The more you fight, the less control you're taking over the bigger decisions, but the more battles you win.

Whatever type of game you apply your idea to, you'll definitely need to make sure that the game is interesting to watch. If the character can't fully interact with your game, you'll have a hard time getting away with repetitive level design or gameplay.

While not directly related to your 'AI Assistance', there are some games that attempt to indroduce style as a gameplay element. The best example I know of was a mod for half-life called The Opera. A more recent example is the free game Gunz Online.

Both of these games are made of features that exist in many games (such as 'wall jumping' that is in many games) but these two try to do so in a manner that promotes a kind of artistic style more than gamer elitism. Except for many annoying bugs, I found both of the games I mentioned enjoyable, and I think that a kind of auto-aim would only make them better because it would allow the player to think more about the style aspects.