StarCrack AI Official 6.0 Feedback Thread

[maxoxpower]

hello great ai so far... i got some suggestion

- maybe the terran will create some bunker? ( not too many but need more defense )
- sometime, protoss or zerg dont create air unit.. !
- need more infestor hight templar !
- when a queen is dead, the zerg dont recreat it ( need more queen for each hatchery, and need more hatchery )
- the protoss suck ?

did the protoss create some sentry ? or terran reaper ?

[Enox]

There's a lot of talk about this AI being so easy. I feel like everyone ignores novice players. I'm not a complete n00b, I used to play SC1. I'm just more of a casual player. I don't mass produce units and buildings as fast as the AI does. I feel likes 6.0 Easy..is Hard. 5.5 Was easier yes, I could play against AI and win a lot, But the AI was boring, did the same thing all the time. I dont want to play the older AI. I dont feel like the AI being smarter should always make them harder to play. The nice thing about 6.0 is that its more intelligent, not as weird and twitchy and smarter about expanding. But its fast. much faster than me. Doesn't seem easy at all. Or fun for a casual player. The AI should make mistakes too. Maybe I forget to build units when I was distracted with a battle. The AI should have problems like this too. maybe thats not easy to code. I dont know.

[kurupted]

Hello guys. Just registered to say that your work and time spent on getting shizz done in here is really appreciated, huuuuge thanks for this effort. I'd also like to share my insight with current AI you provided so far.


As a starcraft/warcraft veteran player, I found the 5.5 AI version ridiculously easy everytime and on every map I've played. But the 6.0 is a huge step in difficulty which I love ofc


I started playing a Terran vs protoss ("normal" AI) and got my ass kicked at first, reloaded  and same situation occured, won but had a few hard moments.(Those damn Colossi+immortals flooding )


When I played against Terran, he seemed to just do basic units or a big spam of Vikings+Marauders, rarely Thors. Was quite easy to counter.


I havent got a chance to play against zerg, and with several AI FFA they were dying first to enemy force. Not gonna judge though, imo Zerg are quite a bit harder to play (decently) than the other 2  factions.


What I didn't experience is a strong air force and base defenses(few random turrets in some weird places), propably my bad luck. ^^


Nonetheless, once again - great fuckin' job on this, sc2 is sure great even in sandbox ^^.

[Razredge]

Played a few games now.


And here's what worth noting:
-Zerg would burrow, and try to ambush my units.
-Zerg evolved Overlords into Overseers in order to have detectors.
Didn't really get the feel of the Terran AI, it did poorly on the FFA games I had, which leads me to believe the Protoss and Zerg AI are better.
-Protoss had Stalkers use blink in combat.
-Protoss had way better unit variety than earlier versions.
-Late game Protoss goes for mass carrier+void rays... was kinda hard to counter.
-AI did research tech and upgrades.
-Zerg Queen never went to use creep tumor.
-There was only one Queen, should have one each hatchery.


Thing AI did lack was micro... And now it wouldn't retreat till the bitter end, even if it wouldn't stand any chance at all.
AI early/mid game strategies weren't very efficient... I tend to wall off in the beginning.
AI did lack of defense in the main base, and could have a bit more defense overall too.


I guess this is what I have to say by now... later I might come back with a bit more info.

[Valen]

Haven't scimmed through the thread, but does the AI (at least in Standard Version) delay their initial attacks at the start? V5.5 saw them attacking in masses at the start. Dunno, seems to me that v6.0 is a little bit easier.

[killabyte]

i finally got beat.  in past games of 3 on 1 i usually see one AI get wiped out within the first 10 mins or so.  this time though they were all 3 still around.  i kept foolishly messing wtih a protoss base and anyway, long story short, i got my ass whooped from messing around.  i had lvl 3 upgrades on all my infantry too.


much tougher than the last game i played.


@Valen i would think with the various early,mid, and late game strategies this AI uses that you won't be able to say if they will rush you or not.  if i've understood what i've read correctly it will be a matter of chance.

[GraveUypo]

Best version so far, fixed that annoying "dancing" they did with their units when they see they can't win, which made they lose their entire army for nothing.

I play the cheating version (as it's the only one that gives me any trouble at all), and it's challenging enough to entertain me, but promotes too much turtleing. can we have a cheating AI that has the extra resource output but NOT the entire map revealed? it'd feel a lot more natural than now. i really hate the amount of effort needed to get a single far expansion when they can see it as soon as i start building.



on another topic: I see people complaining the AI can't deal with backhanded tatics like mineral harassment with cloaked units / reapers when playing 1on1. But that's asking too much from an AI. If anyone remembers you could easily beat AIs 4on1 in starcraft1.

actually, is there a way to make the matches all vs me, or 2 teams instead of FFA? FFA kinda sucks because sometimes you don't get to fight them at their full force and 1 on 1 is just too easy.

[pixartist]

There's a lot of talk about this AI being so easy. I feel like everyone ignores novice players. I'm not a complete n00b, I used to play SC1. I'm just more of a casual player. I don't mass produce units and buildings as fast as the AI does. I feel likes 6.0 Easy..is Hard. 5.5 Was easier yes, I could play against AI and win a lot, But the AI was boring, did the same thing all the time. I dont want to play the older AI. I dont feel like the AI being smarter should always make them harder to play. The nice thing about 6.0 is that its more intelligent, not as weird and twitchy and smarter about expanding. But its fast. much faster than me. Doesn't seem easy at all. Or fun for a casual player. The AI should make mistakes too. Maybe I forget to build units when I was distracted with a battle. The AI should have problems like this too. maybe thats not easy to code. I dont know.

excuse me, I never played any RTS before and I beat any AI easily, you must be doing something VERY wrong

[Maverick]

Wow nice work.
I'm not sure if others are playing the same AI as me. But this is good.
I played 3AI+ me FFA, They had fair size armies, I took on two of them at the start all out offense, no sunkens. Thinking last AI gone dumb. SURPRISE! 12 CARRIERS? Shield and Weap upgraded? gg for me.
That's the first game. The 5 more that followed were good also. The trick is to pissed all them off early, so they go for you. Hahaha that's just me.
GW GW GW on new AI

[r3ddrag0nx]

a little on the zerg ai:

- base is still not fully saturated (drone count at 14)
- first 22-24 lings sent on a suicide run (i had bunker up w/ 4 rines, 1 rine and 1 marauder outside. instead of attacking the bunker, perhaps they should either sit back and wait to ambush my troops or head str8 to my mineral line and take out scvs)
- around the 5 minute mark, they have an abundance of minerals (700~) and larvae that are not being used (8 larvae)
- they then throw 2 extractors up (not neccessarily great b/cuz only one is fully saturated and the other one just sits there - also their drone count is low so extractors lower mineral intake), a roach warren, start producing some drones and lings (which is good, but by the time the warren is up, they have no larvae to make roaches asap). also, they upgrade their hatchery to lair (good idea as i was going for banshees)
- at the 8 minute mark, they are now near saturation and are consuming minerals at a good rate. they decided to expand, but didnt have defence to stop my attack (only had some lings vs my small group of marauder, hellion, rine)
- they never use spine/spore crawlers (could be good thing, but only if they are spending the resource)

that's it for now. banshees ripped apart base cuz no defense ^^

[Maverick]

excuse me, I never played any RTS before and I beat any AI easily, you must be doing something VERY wrong

This guy has no idea what his talking about. Have you installed the AI? Please keep the bragging to a minimum.

[Razredge]

a little on the zerg ai:

- base is still not fully saturated (drone count at 14)
- first 22-24 lings sent on a suicide run (i had bunker up w/ 4 rines, 1 rine and 1 marauder outside. instead of attacking the bunker, perhaps they should either sit back and wait to ambush my troops or head str8 to my mineral line and take out scvs)
- around the 5 minute mark, they have an abundance of minerals (700~) and larvae that are not being used (8 larvae)
- they then throw 2 extractors up (not neccessarily great b/cuz only one is fully saturated and the other one just sits there - also their drone count is low so extractors lower mineral intake), a roach warren, start producing some drones and lings (which is good, but by the time the warren is up, they have no larvae to make roaches asap). also, they upgrade their hatchery to lair (good idea as i was going for banshees)
- at the 8 minute mark, they are now near saturation and are consuming minerals at a good rate. they decided to expand, but didnt have defence to stop my attack (only had some lings vs my small group of marauder, hellion, rine)
- they never use spine/spore crawlers (could be good thing, but only if they are spending the resource)

that's it for now. banshees ripped apart base cuz no defense ^^

Another HUGE problem with the Zerg AI, is that the AI will make just one Queen, and that's it. It will never make a replacement Queen in case it dies, and the other hatcheries don't have their Queen.


And this is worse on the Zetg, but it does happens to every race, if you keep harassing the workers in the AI natural expansion, it will just keep building workers and more workers to replace the fallen ones, but they don't build an army to counter your attacks, as long as you don't destroy it's expansion's main building.

[Enox]

There's a lot of talk about this AI being so easy. I feel like everyone ignores novice players. I'm not a complete n00b, I used to play SC1. I'm just more of a casual player. I don't mass produce units and buildings as fast as the AI does. I feel likes 6.0 Easy..is Hard. 5.5 Was easier yes, I could play against AI and win a lot, But the AI was boring, did the same thing all the time. I dont want to play the older AI. I dont feel like the AI being smarter should always make them harder to play. The nice thing about 6.0 is that its more intelligent, not as weird and twitchy and smarter about expanding. But its fast. much faster than me. Doesn't seem easy at all. Or fun for a casual player. The AI should make mistakes too. Maybe I forget to build units when I was distracted with a battle. The AI should have problems like this too. maybe thats not easy to code. I dont know.

excuse me, I never played any RTS before and I beat any AI easily, you must be doing something VERY wrong

Well if you're so wise, tell me what you starting strategy is for Terran. By the time I have 2 Barracks and a wall built an entrance (blistering sands map) and one bunker and about 10 marines and few marauders I'm getting mauled by much larger army. This is way early on the map. Is it possible theres something wrong with my install of SC2? A script hanging around that doubles their unit production? Seriously I'm open to ideas. It's the same with any race i've played. By the time i have an army up theirs is twice as big. Maybe i'm not managing my resources well? I never let resources build too high without using them up. SHould I skip marines and go right for marauders as soon as I can to stop the rush? Im Stumped. I'm getting destroyed.

[turdburgler]

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's made an interesting read.

V6.1 is coming out tonight with the following fixes:

Changelog:
- AI will attempt to counter air units.
- Expansion code fixed, after taking out the AIs main he'll re-organise at a different location. He'll also rebuild expansions if they're destroyed.
- Chrono boost is in, thanks to Aeg1s for working this one out.
- Zerg will now build a queen for each expansion.
- Defence code has been improved, AI will defend bases depending on how much they're contributing to the economy.
- Minor tweaks to make the AI more of a challenge.

[orbb24]

6.1 sounds great. Exactly what it needs. Looking forward to it. Already greatly impressed with 6.0. Heck I even finally lost a match. I think mainly because I have been getting lazy but hey the AI normally didn't beat me when I was lazy so very impressed. Keep up the great work!