Deepmind and Starcraft 2

[Don]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/4/13518 ... e-blizzard

Honestly, I thought this is a pretty stupid thing. The hardest challenge would be figuring out whether an AI can actually play things from visually as opposed to just input commands directly, which is certainly an interesting challenge since this is something the AI isn't very good at, but there shouldn't even be a question whether an AI can completely spank the best human players in a game like StarCraft 2. In Chess or Go, the computer does not get multiple moves and multiple extra pieces despite having far superior processing powers. In a game like StarCraft, its superior APM lets the computer issue more moves and gather more resources to produce more units in the first place and there's virtually no way the AI would ever lose with that kind of advantage once it is aware of what kind of units strongly counter each other. Of course, the AI still has superior vision compared to any human so it's awfully hard to catch it off guard and superior APM will generally allow you to at least withdraw from an unfavorable matchup until you build something to counter it, and looking at the stuff Automaton 2000 does it can probably counter even unfavorable matchup with just superior micro + macro.

Now I guess maybe they're trying to make a computer that's limited to some maximum APM and not able to say simultaneously look at every screen it has at any given time, and I suppose if you put that kind of limitation on the AI, it might be beatable, but I'm not even sure there's a point to make an AI that purposely hamstrings it in an area that it can easily beat a human to have a challenge. It'd be like humans trying to play basketball against cyborgs and saying it's a fair challenge if the cyborgs can't just dunk across the entire court with their jet packs and have to pretend they can only run/jump as fast as human beings.

[Eric]

Let people watch and bet on 2 AI controlled CPUs that would be infinitely more entertaining lol.

While on the topic of SC2, and because I really don't feel like making a new topic on it. I think it's amazing that Blizzard of all companies, made 0 effort into making the game more accessible to their general audience like they have for every other IP they own/operate. Like I know nobody here probably plays WoW, but WoW used to be a much much harder game to play, classes were harder to master, things were harder to get done in general, but nowadays a great deal of it is automated in terms of getting people together to do things, and the classes are 10x easier to play then ever. Overwatch is probably the easiest FPS on the market to get into, even if you're awful you can have a great deal of fun playing this, and you can Q(Ultimate) for the win without regard to your skill level, eventually even the worst player can get play of the game because of this. HOTS goes without saying, it's the easiest MOBA on the market to play/get into vs DOTA2 & LOL which pretty much requires you understand that 1 map people have been playing on for 15 years and item loadouts for characters. Hearthstone is Card Games made easy. Diablo kinda screwed up initially with 3, but corrected the ship into faceroll adventure/loot game with Reaper of Souls which was for the better.

Starcraft 2 is the only game out of the bunch that went not 1, but 2 expos without trying to make it easier to play. The developer's idea of making it easier to play was giving people opening build orders in hopes they could keep up/perform right lol. In fact during beta for Legacy of the Void(The last expo) they were talking about removing macro abilities(Shit you have to do every 30 seconds or so in-game or fall behind) to make it easier for people to focus on other parts of the game, like army and building, but ultimately threw their hands up in the air and said fuck it, Koreans don't like not doing insane shit after testing for like 2 weeks and said they're gonna keep em in. The E-sport has since crashed and burned with the SC2 Proleague dying in Korea and most Korean teams disbanding as a result, and the ladder is for the most part dead with the sales of the 3rd underperforming the previous 2 entries.

So what's keeping Starcraft 2 alive/afloat nowadays? Co-op. Yep, with Co-op you don't have to be particularly good at the game, your partner can carry your slack and your opponents are just CPUs. It's the most popular mode of play in SC2 nowadays and is probably the reason they got the whole Deepmind AI thing going on and might excite some people. It makes me wonder why the fuck the campaigns were delayed for 4 years when most people who play SC2 were interested in the single player/story vs the minority that actually dedicate insane hours into learning multiplayer.

I don't exaggerate when I say Starcraft 2 is probably one of the hardest competitive games to play properly on the planet, learning to play SC2 at a high level is the equivalent of learning to play the piano. I'm also amazed it came from Blizzard with that in mind.

/rant over