My turn to rant.

[Anastasia]

I suppose this could go under the video gaming section, if you'd prefer it there, feel free to tell me and I'll delete this and move it.  Personally, I feel it fits more in the rant section.....It took me a few hours to calm down enough to write a coherent essay on why I'm pissed.  Anyway, on with the show.

In the course of video gaming, there are instances where you may not be in control of your characters. In some cases, this is fine. However, in certain cases it is nothing short of chaos and hell on earth. Arc Arena personifies this idea and runs with it.

In the Battle Arena portion of Arc Arena, monsters you have captured can compete in 3 team tournaments. Winning these nets you items and monsters that can be used in the main game. Sounds good, right? But, there is a catch....You can't control your monsters in this mode, it's AI only. So, I plunked my well trained killing machines down to kick ass and take names, confident that the AI would understand how to use them effectively.

WRONG.

The 'AI' is instead a hideous mockery of a system, designed only to frustrate players as they watch there monsters commit boneheaded mistake after boneheaded mistake. For example, I'll take my healer monster(I don't recall the name offhand). In a situation where he can heal 2 critically wounded monsters, cast Divine Judgment to pick off a weakened Ninja, or attack for crap damage and get killed in the counter attack, guess which one he usually chooses? You got it, he goes suicidal. Mind you, his AI was set on Defensive, which gives 'priority' to healing and defensive magics. How hard is it to program him to use Cure when two monsters are badly injured, instead of throwing the match and his life away in a worthless staff attack?

Next, my lovely Black Dragon. A fine specimen, he can shred opponents with body blows or fang and tooth, as well as lethal poison and sleep breaths. Combine this with a high defense, HP and offense, and you have a winner, right?

Nope, not in Arc Arena. Instead of using his breath weapons in a timely manner, he'll waste tons of MP using it when only one is in range. Or, he will attack one monster and take heavy damage from the counter instead of a breath weapon that would injure all 4 monsters.

This only covers the two most glaring snafus I've dealt with so far, there are numerous lesser ones as well. I don't even mind the AI control idea that much, it's the execution of said idea that sucks. What's the point of using AI if it's dumber than a load of coal?

In conclusion, I hate the AI of Arc Arena and I need some sleep.  G'night.

[Nerem]

Well...It hates you, too. Note to self: Stay away from Arc Arena.


NeremWorld
"When Excitement is about, BOREDOMMAN comes to the rescue!"