Opinion: I think Riot should invest more in coding AI bots

z63XnLCMwX·Aug 4, 2018·1 votes·663 views

I believe Riot now has the resource and technology to make better AI within the next three years. Asking for a diamond-plat level AI is impossible, but a silver AI should be doable. If the AI is able to have a 50% winrate against people who are truly silver, it would be a good option to revolutionize our ranked placements to remove all of those RNG teammates and accurately place people where they belong, eliminating the grind/fall to get to their true elo.

Looking at our history, we already had scripters making functions for skill evading, combos, and smite timing so I doubt it would be hard for Riot to make an AI with diamond level mechanics. In terms of game knowledge, the average silver playing lack both meta and microgame insight, so they won't be able to really out strategize a well programmed bot either.

2 Comments

AeroWaffleAug 4, 20182 votes

Setting up AI to make micro decisions is much easier than setting it up for macro decisions, even for fairly short time-frames. You can see some decent micro-AI from Riot's end already. They dodge skill-shots and and last-hit. Smite timing, and combos also fall under micro. It's simple, because it's based around perfect data and has an extremely simple flow (if X then Y). If they see a skill shot they know what it will take to avoid it. If they see the health of the target they know exactly when to smite.

But macro decisions such as, "When is it a good time to engage or disengage?", "When should I roam to a lane to gank?", "When should I group up with a teammate to secure an area?" are much more difficult to program into AI because of how much imprecise data goes into making those decisions. Those decisions are made every game by even the worst bronze players, because humans are easily capable of coming to a decision based on imperfect data. Computers not so much.

TheWizardMAug 4, 20181 votes

I think you're greatly overestimating what AI is capable of. Silver is the average player, so implying that it would be "doable" is the same as implying AI is about as good as humans at real-time video games, which they simply are not. League may seem simple at the surface, but it is far too complex to make a consistent AI at a reasonable level of play.