Notes

• Another way we used difficulty level to improve the AI was by providing a consistent challenge

  If the game goes from easy to hard and back again

  players attribute the easy parts to poor AI

  and the hard parts to evil level designers

  by keeping the difficulty level consistent we avoided these pitfalls

  Negative Reinforcement

  Don't be afraid to kill the Player

  he can tell how he messed up

  he can tell how to change his tactics

  we tried to accomplish these goals through the death cam

  In Halo the Player was equipped with a recharging shield

  this allowed him to take temporary damage

  so we could show him that he was using the wrong tactic without killing him

  One of the tactics we wanted to discourage was the Assault Rifle Rush

  it wasn't fun because the battles were ended too quickly

  our AI gets more accurate the longer the Players stays out of cover

  a long charge will almost always get you killed

  Another tactic we discouraged was the Melee Attack Rush

  Our AI isn't very good at shooting at someone moving quickly very close to them

  we gave some of the characters powerful melee attacks

  If you are going to punish boring tactics you had better reward experimentation

  So in Halo we rewarded stealthy, careful Players by letting them do instant kill melee attacks from behind

  We rewarded Players that carefully selected their targets by making the Grunts flee when an Elite was killed

  We also rewarded accurate Players by letting them get head shots

  and we rewarded Players that planned ahead by making some weapons much better at certain enemies than others

  In addition, for most encounters in Halo there is the easy way and the hard way

  A frustrated Player that engages in a little exploration might find a hidden ramp leading to a catwalk above their enemies

  or a player that simply watches an encounter before he attacks might get the chance to throw a grenade into a large group of guys at once