After doing an analysis on the Last of Us, I accidentally ran into this while searching for some other talks. Now I can understand why Ellie had those moments that broke the game for me. The part that I hadn’t really noticed while playing, but once mentioned I can recall periods when it happened, it when Ellie looks towards movement. This is a demonstration of situational awareness, she is aware that someone is there. The next step would be to add a reaction to what she ‘sees’ depending if its friend, foe or unknown.
Below is a link to a presentation by Max Dyckhoff at GDC14 which explains how and why Ellie’s AI was implemented.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/217215/Video_Ellies_buddy_AI_in_The_Last_Of_Us.php
– Wanted the AI characters to stay close to the player, added an emotional impact to the fights because you were worried about your friends.
– Wanted the AI to be useful and interesting. Ellie has lots of ambient animations and idle conversations that progress throughout the game.
– Never wanted Ellie to be blamed, they wanted her to have actions no more stupid than the player’s. which is why she stays in close proximity to the player.
– Dodging: Ellie will stand her ground if you walk at her. In real life humans walk around each other, not in to each other and the developers wanted the AI to do the same. The only time she will move is if it is a confined space, where you can’t walk around her.
– Cover share: Joel can share the same cover as Ellie. This has two benefits; Ellie doesn’t get in the way of the player; It enhances the bond between Joel and Ellie and Joel covers her with his body, like a father daughter relationship.
– Combat: Wanted buddies to be useful, but not unbalance the encounter difficulty that the designers had set.
– Stealth: The buddies will never shoot when your in stealth mode.
– Shooting: “We used this concept of a nervous idle almost. We dropped her fire rate way way lower we gave her this nervous “I don’t want to shoot” kind of animation and suddenly the ridculously low fire rate made sense. You could see that she was having a mental conflict with wanting to shoot just because of the animation we put on top of her.”
– Cheating: Enemies will not see buddies out of combat. If they could, the player will start to resent her for giving her away.
– Vocalisations: Ellie has lots of sayings in relation to recent events and they differ depending on what happened. So if she saved your life, after combat she will remind you of it, if you almost ran out of bullets or nearly died she will be like, holy shit that was close.
– Callouts: Ellie almost becomes part of the UI when she tells you when an enemy has crept up on you. The information is always accurate, and she will only tell you if danger is imminent and if you can see the danger immediately when you turn.
– Looking: Ellie will look at movement, so she will look at you briefly when you walk past before going back to what she was doing. It adds a lot of believability as this mimics human behaviour.
Honours Year 