AI and the future of FFXIV.

I noticed in a recent group of publications that Square Enix is looking to invest in the functionality of AI to enhance development times and procedures for the game's future development.

This is, of course, a very un-surprising turn of events. What I want to bring to the development teams' attention (hopefully through the community as my Email directly to feedback was likely observed and lost in the shuffle years ago) is the lack of necessity this might require for the future cycles of the game.

FFXIV has a LOT of content. I remember making a forum post about how much I adored the game when I first hopped on to it - It felt like people really wanted to feel proud and enjoy the interactivity with their work in an MMO. FFXIV still stands true as one of the only MMORPG's online that feels like people genuinely cared about the features and design of the game, even with its flaws. There's no such thing as perfect! When I think of AI taking the reins in portions of the development cycle I get this cold, eerie feeling of dread with memories of competitors and their shallow, emotionless and very-dead feeling games and environments.

This is, a game Afterall. There are computer systems that automate parts of development right now - It's computers. With that being said there is so much to do and so many things already to enjoy with FFXIV I don't see much of a point lusting after faster content although we all know that is progressive and parallel to business. I am worried that, in the future, the game might see ache and sorrow from the lack of human-made effort. You can think of a big snowy MMORPG that's always touted their millions of players on the box - I can assure you their new content is as dead and as shallow as ever. It's why their classic campaigns are popular and that entire franchise with all of its expansions was created as a platform to be enhanced later by AI systems. This was not only to train and catalogue interactions of players to then turn into population AI (for buffer zones of inactivity for consistency I assume) but to make sure they can machine-automate the development cycle of a videogame title that automatically maintains itself and its potential current and future equity.

There's a very funny relative aspect of understanding when observing AI - (trust me, those that practically push it as their main stay have even developed AI to bombard people in comment sections who understand this concept) - where you can result in a similar, echoing agitation of your senses in a similar way looking into a mirror after watching nothing but completely flat, edited people on a social media site can do to the way your brain processes the game played. It can end up being like the freshest looking bread ever but taste and feel stale in your stomach! It's what those who run those (mainly big-tech, big-science, big-religion and big-social media) never, ever want you to understand.

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Full post summary:

In the same way listening to a high volume of electronic audio can dull your ears, eventually a large amount of AI-extensive algorithm generators will pollute your mind and erode the consistency in which you are able to perceive and enjoy things of the presented nature.

It sounds a little silly, but it's relative to the same function of what you can physically see with AI as a concept. An easy example would be blemishes - errors AI doesn't know how to compensate for as an ongoing algorithm. This example will be pertaining to GTAO Ambient Occlusion types! When you're in foreground, AI doesn't know your shadow shouldn't be cast like you're a giant onto the background that is not near you - like lakes, hillsides, etc. This does in-fact erode your capable perception of the quality of the image while making the image you see more rich in other areas. It's an extensive effect that should really be cached and then referenced once AI has generated the necessary zones for shadowing. The more features that use and rely on this type of concept for, artistic motif, the more these types of things start to add up and detract from your perceptual capability of immersing yourself in the environment. Imagine if every single AI-based auto-effect has a blemish to be found like this - (things that automate do have those, when you manually work on a creative project you have complete control to omit these issues and AI should be used as a tool to speed up that process not deployed to automate it entirely. Algorithms are intrinsic functions not applications but this is why I'm harassed when I attend school or professional environments - Nobody wants you to know that, especially in North America.) - eventually everything does have an added augmentation to fidelity but yet another issue that clouds it further. At a certain point, if every single graphical feature worked with AI it would be a complete, redundant mess. You'd need to do exactly what I've submitted to SQUEX through their in-game suggestions and feedback system and cache this information after using it to build your information to then use as a static referenced feature in compilation with your graphical user-settings, and want to anyway to avoid the whole 'I'm a giant in-front of a TV' issue you're wanting to avoid with things like ambient occlusion, anyway.

A point last brought up before I stopped reading:

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Originally Posted by dwodmots

There's a lot of things AI can help with in this game. Having voice overs for every side quest is an obvious example. A more ambitious idea would be something like AlphaStar (AI system that beats StarCraft 2 pros) to have NPC allies that actually learn the fights together with the player.

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Things like this are cool, AI doesn't just magically operate. There's another game entirely most of you could wager is completely over-hyped and longstanding. It creates a certain amount of rebooted material from AI players but AI doesn't actually know what humans want. It's a computer algorithm matrix. It tries to find a goal and pass and fail it's functionality based on what it can calculate is a good pass or good fail check as it abort, retry cycles to find what works regarding what it can do as defined by programming. AI enhanced players and NPC's to interact with you are always needing to be created by calculated and recorded user input on the platform for it to be any different than the current 'Trust' NPC's we have. Computers don't actually learn we just like using very sly terminology to make them seem more intelligent. The voiceovers are also things that need to be sourced from a root function and unless you're looking to harvest someone's gorgeous voice to then remix and replicate for things like the North American music industry, you're going to find redundancy and lose out on opportunity for jobs to be made with people whom actually want to voice act.

This is a huge social experience even if you don't ever use the chat. Find some other players to play with and stop feeding the train that runs alternative games as if they're dynamic but full of bots recorded from past players. It's an actual thing and I will not be argued with.

It seems like a great idea for some things but in our age of 'communication' there's a lapse between what you actually understand and what is told to you, as in any concept. You will not be able to fully grasp the concept until you can hold onto it and most people just read and think they're geniuses after appreciating a paragraph. It's not exactly as it's advertised and while you'd immediately expect extra immersion: GO TALK TO OTHER PLAYERS! I know the freaky robots in IRL like to hurt everyone but people need to be vocal about those too to stop the complications of getting hurt in online interactions. There's no point in these kinds of games if you're not going to.

-- Continued from initial post:

When I log into the game currently, in comparison to playing alternatives in which I've heavily played for the content FFXIV does not have (Open-world PvP, a niche) I can genuinely sit and stare at my character hanging out in its various poses and find more enjoyment than playing through action-packed content in the alternative - And this game doesn't even have the playstyle readily available!

It's an industry where a lot of conspiracy and outrageous behavior remains - You could develop AI to run your entire trade route and franchise with a number cruncher to make certain you end up 1% higher than all other investors when considering business and how much data exists. It eventually defeats the purpose of even being human and shaking hands to discuss thus eventually defeats the purpose of art and what humans perceive and enjoy from a human-created, enthusiasm motivated piece of work.
(Hehe. - This is here for someone else, pay no mind.)

Having automation to smooth over your development cycles and get us new things to do, faster is great! Please make sure it's now shallow or shallowed on purpose by technicians who enter your company to train and use this to make sure that it slowly decays and degrades the experience most people are unknowing they are even enjoying in alternative!

Again, it's something the human psyche doesn't physically recognize as it's something that is ongoing and not something we hinge on as an aspect to reality as it's created purely virtual. Imagine wearing glasses that made everything super-perfect, clean and fleckless like an over-filtered or AI face for an entire month: You'll be very startled to observe what is actually behind it. The human mind creates and facets very subtle nuances of their personality to a development cycle even if following strict guidelines and already use automation tools. The more you add and invest the more accustomed the work of art will be in comparison to a completely flat over-filtered face on social media in contrast to someone's more natural appearance (even with makeup! Ladies know that there's a trick to it, you're always looking for the superficial but natural aesthetic.)

I hope someone can grasp a concept from this. I know there's a few weirdos that prowl every social forum on the net with their own strange amalgamated and automated system to argue infinitely over these topics, so I likely won't reply too often. This is here for anyone to consume whether you're interested or not.

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AI, for some reason, regardless of whom I talk to about it if it ever shows up in conversation leads to a negative diatribe or eerie, existential crisis like comparison or opinion. I hate to be that guy but when you wager in the actual facts and laws of relative function, you're unfortunately met with the understanding that electricity (as lovely as we all feel it is) hurts you! If you are struck by lightning that's not too pleasant. There always has to be a good balance and because we're all biological beings the aspect of working cohesively or utilizing products created with human interaction and understanding as a balanced aspect generates genuine enjoyment of the product - From food to makeup, clothes and videogames.

The fine line is always out of reach unless you're the top 10 shareholders of the world - They have enough money and control now to move that ceiling like a parasail. Don't fall for the greed, Square Enix.

Regards,

Master Kinzu.

-- Sorry, modern era. I know everyone is now emotionally trained to value super-short and quick-to-the-point exposes. I get it, too but I feel this needs a bit of a lecture-spoken style of notation. You might miss something!

AI generated poster.

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Square Enix is looking to invest in the functionality of AI to enhance development times and procedures for the game's future development.

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Good!

I noticed they have already had jobs going for that, and some such people in their credits. Frankly though? They could go much further than they have so far. Development times have increased, yet this is at odds with how much time AI saves for everyone, especially programmers.

Entire files can be generated based on a description, and thousands of files that are similar could be generated based on the information in a table, again based on a description. They don't even need to work very hard to engineer AI tools because the most popular tools already implemented it.

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the lack of necessity this might require for the future cycles of the game.

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Well that is the point.

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I remember making a forum post about how much I adored the game when I first hopped on to it - It felt like people really wanted to feel proud and enjoy the interactivity with their work in an MMO.

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This is still possible with AI, provided the AI is used as a tool by developers to achieve what they want and save time, rather than to replace their ideas and vision.

For example, you could ask AI to create an MSQ for you. And it would. I don't expect they will ever do that. It is the tedious tasks that surround that like copy and paste type stuff which can still take hundreds of hours of work and that AI can just prevent time waste.

They could get it to identify any spelling or grammar errors.

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When I think of AI taking the reins in portions of the development cycle I get this cold, eerie feeling of dread with memories of competitors and their shallow, emotionless and very-dead feeling games and environments.

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This happens if the entire thing is made by AI. That isn't what is really exciting about AI. What is exciting about AI is not wasting your time spending 20 hours doing something that you thought would take 1-2 hours. With AI, the thing in your mind can come true almost as quickly as you can imagine it, rather than spending months copying and pasting and reorganizing code that a machine could do like superman.

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There are computer systems that automate parts of development right now - It's computers.

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You're right, actually. A lot of things that AI will be used for can (and is) already automated with simple loop/iterate functions in programming. The problem is you have to code those loop/iterate functions... with all these AI chatbots you can just describe it with real language and save ages coding a method to iterate.

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I am worried that, in the future, the game might see ache and sorrow from the lack of human-made effort.

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That's what feedback is for then.

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I can genuinely sit and stare at my character hanging out in its various poses and find more enjoyment than playing through action-packed content in the alternative

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That isn't something I would expect to change though. AI isn't gonna change that they will record themselves doing a dance and then implement it into the game. That would likely become too soulless and I think that's kinda obvious.

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It eventually defeats the purpose of even being human and shaking hands to discuss

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Could have made this argument about loops in programming though, which have already long been able to mass-generate files or a bunch of randomized ideas. In practice, they are just used as a tool to assist the human and save time.

Actually, let me give you an example of how this already was a problem before AI. There was a concept for a game where the MSQ is "different for everyone". Without AI, this was possible with random() functions.

And games like that were made. I played Mount & Blade and went down a different path from my friend. I experienced FOMO, where I wanted to experience what my friend did. I wanted to experience "the" MSQ, not "a randomly generated" one.

AI could result in exactly the same thing. There does need to be a degree of direction and a degree of human oversight in what is happening. It needs to be used as a tool, not a replacement for the humans.

https://i.imgur.com/5BVmRGZ.gif

so, basically, Skynet is going to take over SE and kill all humans.

1. given the state of the world, is that such a bad thing?
2. not sure AI is there yet to write an entire game, and have it be...well.. good
3. AI can do a LOT of things, some good, some bad, but if used as it should be, which is a tool, then it can benefit the process. it can be used for quality checks in code, spelling errors, and this tool, can do it faster than a human can and doesnt get bored or tired looking.

dont worry about it, I am certain climate change and any AI issues will be sorted out by humanity long before the end of FFXIV

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Originally Posted by EZGIL

https://i.imgur.com/5BVmRGZ.gif

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NGL, I laughed harder at this than I probably should have. :D

What little I read of this makes so little sense and comes across as a GPT argument against AI that I cannot continue unfortunately

Also unless it it involves a privacy issue, consumer protections, etc. Ai is the future whether any poster here likes it not and your self indulgent posts will not stop it. Not here, not on any platform. Use that energy to plant a tree or something.

Hey investors of the AI sector: Refuting points with things like 'that's what feedback is for' when you know very well that feedback would not effect systems that deteriorate the enjoyment of the product if the entire product is mishandled by over indulging in the systems deacribed js pseudo-intellectualism, you need to study more.

The idea is that the less a human mind tackles what'a going on the less a human mind will seek relation or enjoyment. I didn't think you were dull enough to escape the idea that this game is very art heavy.

Go back to your competitor forum or cheek some more bitcoin strongarming into people unknowing.

With that being said there is no conspiracy here to be bashing. I'm certain all of you overfilter your selfies ;). There is genuinely no enjoyment to behold in one specific, super-franchise that competes with this game and it's due to the large allocation of completely AI maintained generation. It's nkt a very immersive World and the Craft and War aspect of it are like copy-pasting what was likely perceived by AI scrapers as popular mechanics of genre: MMORPG. I'd hate to see that happen here. Inspiration is one thing but a keen acuity can discern between what was designed and automated.

Automation should exist but not be the entirety.

The funny gif of the drone weapon compared to the human is true, electricity hurts so something maintained by it to hurt will hurt more. Imagine that.

- And for some reason these are a few of the same accounts from a thread I posted 2 years ago that started slamming racial slurs at eachother to have it completely deleted.

Shower.

You can get around the character limit by editing your posts.

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Originally Posted by MrKyo

Refuting points with things like 'that's what feedback is for' when you know very well that feedback would not effect systems that deteriorate the enjoyment of the product if the entire product is mishandled by over indulging in the systems deacribed js pseudo-intellectualism, you need to study more.

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That depends very much on if Yoshi-P continued to be in charge and do live letters. He listens. So if all the players complained and said "the AI has resulted in a lackluster product", he'd probably dwell on that himself, agree with it and make adjustments.

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The idea is that the less a human mind tackles what'a going on the less a human mind will seek relation or enjoyment.

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I understand that and agree, but ultimately, it doesn't mean they shouldn't speed up their processes and take advantage of modern technology.

I've wanted to code something that would have taken me 24 hours, but I wanted it done now. I went to an AI chatbox and wrote a giant, rocket-science paragraph. As I was writing each sentence, I understood what I was writing, but each sentence was so complex, it was incomprehensible trying to read it back. When I read the paragraph back to myself as a whole, it was so complicated that I could not even understand what I had written. But the AI did, and it generated all the code for me exactly as I described, and it worked. The issues with AI usually come from prompts being too small.

We didn't entirely disagree on this point, as you mentioned they should speed up their processes.

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Automation should exist but not be the entirety.

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See, my post doesn't even really disagree with you. I am just more optimistic than you seem to be about the developers' ability to draw the line, or correct it if they cross it.

Literally no one said the entire game is going to be automated by AI. So who are you arguing with? Casper the friendly ghost? Certainly not SE and no one on the dev team.

@OP


What Square Enix could do with AI is use it to make NPC characters feel more real and I don't mean battle-related stuff but personality, it would be really nice to be able to hold conversations with any NPC in the game as if they were real people.


I know SE won't do it because it would cost them too much money, they'd argue but it's the perfect opportunity to use AI in-game, besides making battle-related NPCs smarter and as fast as real people, which they aren't currently.


Can't grind dungeons with the Squadron because they are dumb and extremely slow compared to real players.

OMG THE ENTIRE GAME IS GOING TO BE AUTOMATED BY AI!!!

https://media.tenor.com/QCWto5N6k0EAAAAM/caos-bob.gif

OP, I hate AI as much as the next artist, but I have no idea what you're getting at here. This post is incomprehensible.

They've already been using it. In FF7 Remake and Rebirth, the facial expressions during non mo-capped cutscenes have been enhanced using data sets trained on the mo-capped stuff, to have a more realistic display of facial tics, blinks, etc.

https://segmentnext.com/final-fantas...l-expressions/

You're all thinking much less expansively than someone from a development POV.

Remastering and coordination to make things faster? Great. If they run the route of it being a potential successive development cycle to games that have made their money and are trash-hauling reuptake from what an AI can shove out as fast as possible for the sake of keeping it online, or even populated-looking, there's a problem.

There's a very common mindset I'm seeing of going to the extreme and that's just the way NA and similar regions are however the systems at hand do not produce very wonderous content if you're pushing them too far and it takes quite an explanation and comparison for someone to understand that as it's inherently a basis of thinking that nobody is very accustomed to - especially when using the technology all the time without thinking twice about it.

It's not to doom AI, who doesn't want a more productive cycle? It will, however, reach a point of redundancy and the last thing you'd probably wish to see from FFXIV is another 40 features that have absolutely nothing to relate to. It's just a videogame after-all but the scenery and environments in alternative titles have completely ruined it for me, personally. I've explained everything else.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

They've already been using it. In FF7 Remake and Rebirth, the facial expressions during non mo-capped cutscenes have been enhanced using data sets trained on the mo-capped stuff, to have a more realistic display of facial tics, blinks, etc.

https://segmentnext.com/final-fantas...l-expressions/

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For some reason the screengrab disturbs me at first glance. Possibly just a personal preference but the animation itself gives me an immediate feeling of a graphic designer trying comically hard to transplant a real face into a 3d environment - which is exactly what's going on. I'd wager someone spending the time to articulate this within the environment would end up being less "realistic" but more fluid to the content your consuming.

In the same way over-filtering yourself on a real-life image can be a little weird is because it's the exact same way in reverse. Both end-up over extreme. It gives me the same feeling; I want to laugh at it.

I can kind of try to drive home a point - It's when we spend so much time on these games that it becomes something that is potentially more toxic than just wasting away at a computer screen for the reverse of what over-tweaking your photos do. If we were to use AI to make action sounds, gibs (gore, movement, etc) and otherwise catalogued data from real slaughters of war you'd end up playing a game that could give you onset symptoms of traumatic stress or psychosis depending on how long you play it.

Technological advancements are cool, faster content doesn't bother anyone as long as it's enjoyable and I fully understand that it already is functioning and has functioned in the past. Going too far takes a very specific and acute understanding of what may perplex you over time when it's used too often for things that matter the most - And when you wager development cycle the things that matter the most would be the most vital things to want to have augmented by AI at first glance!

With how extreme the environment is in the first world right now I do urge that this was much more passive of a post than most might comprehend and because it's such a controversial movement of modern tech you can even see in immediate criticism that it drives an extreme narrative. With how business really works (as you can see video-game companies still get DDoS attacks for business related reasons - think on the maturity concept here, it's not just some script kid that hates final fantasy) there is a lot of things that alarm me when considering platforms like FFXIV that may end up conceptually dog-piling the game and not in the right way.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

That depends very much on if Yoshi-P continued to be in charge and do live letters. He listens. So if all the players complained and said "the AI has resulted in a lackluster product", he'd probably dwell on that himself, agree with it and make adjustments.

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Unfortunately, this is not how business works. The playtest cycle and buffer for criticism and response are predetermined at launch with a scope to intake and manage adjustments while also working on further content for your company (in most normal cases). It's like a cake factory that printed their entire lot of pastries of all types with a small number of defects on everything because of an automation that promised one thing and resulted in another - They aren't going to go back and scrap it like they did for 1.0 if it's add-on to an established product. The problem here resides in the understanding that instead of just eating the silly pastry from this example you're going to be returning to it and dedicating it. Adjusting what AI adds to a large amount of important aspects of your given product (especially when relating to art and functionality) can be 10x as difficult to go back and change because of how the automation builds and continues its build-allocated parameters in its own cycle to create what was 'AI' enhanced. -- What you might see happen, because of what screens are and how they work with our brains, is the content becoming cheesy, laughable and eerie. It'd be like grand-dad showing up to the back lot of your high school as a youngster trying to speak to you the exact same way your friends do. It won't feel right when things that are important and striking to you and your growth start coming up, it'd be cringe.


Regardless, I see what your opinion is and do recognize it. What I'm trying t touch on is not something many people will understand as just a consumer let alone are expected to but should. You might notice what I mean, eventually.

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Originally Posted by SigmaOZ

@OP


What Square Enix could do with AI is use it to make NPC characters feel more real and I don't mean battle-related stuff but personality, it would be really nice to be able to hold conversations with any NPC in the game as if they were real people.


I know SE won't do it because it would cost them too much money, they'd argue but it's the perfect opportunity to use AI in-game, besides making battle-related NPCs smarter and as fast as real people, which they aren't currently.


Can't grind dungeons with the Squadron because they are dumb and extremely slow compared to real players.

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This would be a great use of it! NPC's that give you a stock of script that is dynamic or changing based on what you wear, look, how far in progress and ETC would add to immersion. This could already be done without AI but and AI system would be able to string more personal and dynamic things related to your character to enhance what was already available. Like a moogle noticing your sword to a moogle noticing your sword that your friend also commented on as being jealous over you having. That's not the thing I'm really touching on - It's more related to art and mechanical interaction. Like I've noted previously the AI face-rigs devs are really in-to right now creep me out. I've had a few extremes in my life that have likely caused this perplexity prematurely in comparison to others, but it will end up being the case eventually. The systems and build and progress but it can and has been something that detracts the consumer from completely enjoying the product. The way it responds to the intricacies of human synapse result in slight agitation and annoyance. It's the same resulting concept if all of your friends suddenly over-edited their faces when you didn't want to, need to or otherwise. It's mildly disturbing (maybe not important as it's not you nor your choice). Here we have an added layer of investment into a recreational activity that, hilariously enough, more directly effects your perception in the equal and opposite way to what your real-life friends might be doing on social media.
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It's not like the world's going to end over FFXIV face rigs, it's just a discussion, of course.

In regard to the sh#t posters: It's like you're defending a concept that you're attached to and it's strange. Stop it. There are real-world implications to the uses of tech far beyond an era where grandma and grandpa told you playing GTA will make you a thug or murderer - There is so much tech that is so often attached to us that when you are looking at recreational activities that take place entirely on the platform of 'technology' there's a reasonable concern for going too-far, like you're sh#tposting. Did you impress your in-game retainer? Did it level you up on 4ch##? - Anyway, when a concept is used at an extreme it can be fun, worthy, capable, enhancing, etc. Like the whole 'dynamic NPC' or interaction idea. When an extreme concept goes too far it becomes extremism and the ism entails that it becomes an absolution wherein soon every single game ever has the exact same faces, animations, dialogue, concepts, ideas.

It's a tech that exists but requires use in moderation which is a finnicky thing to understand. There has to be some form of balance for it to be enjoyable thereafter and it's a discussion that will eventually need to take place and does take place in all things including technology.

When you figure in where extremes end up ism-ified you're hard-pressed to not feel most emotion to the most extreme - Like synthetics. The one chemical that does it all doesn't end up being that wonderful even though it ticks all of the boxes of a reaction at the lightest applicable dose - When is FFXIV getting the 'auto play' button? Similar idea.

If what I'm explaining is a bit convoluted think of what being unique is as a concept - Everyone is different and we all deserve equal opportunity where it's most appropriate (even when mishandled by modern standards, to this very moment) and what makes us ourselves is what we are: ourselves. This circulation is why our DNA strands look and are identified as the noted spiral-waved complexities that make us all our own unique person and the extension of whom made us. It's the root of why getting that signature of your favorite artists on your favorite art could be of value to someone and more valued than the watermark of SquareEnix or a possible AI-augmented copyright slogan.

I hate to be so introspective when approaching topics like this as bringing up outside understandings into the realm of a given topic and shudder some and lead to them mis-catastrophizing what's said or my own approach, henceforth, but it works conjunctively as it's what the basis of relativity and the circulation of what resides within our boundaries of life. When the time-to-ship and the money gained are over-cared for you get things like: Exploding cellphones, unraveled clothing, burnt food. The effects resonate similar when over-using automation just not nearly as obvious as a bad bun on your burger and it's why I've been so detailed in my thread.

I also want to note I am not omitting problem-solving here, it's just why over-charge your development cycle just to need to go back and amend? Discussion like this can attempt to future-proof a, albeit rare in potential, disaster. If they figure that before they venture too far into development, they won't bust up what allows us to sit for hours in Limsa Lominsa and ogle over our characters poses. I chose FFXIV as the place to place this as it's, like I've mentioned, so very important to the concept of the game - It's those important things that make it a great life sim alternative, as well!!

https://i.gifer.com/IQmK.gif

Also, if you've ever used DLSS, you've already used AI

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Remastering and coordination to make things faster? Great. If they run the route of it being a potential successive development cycle to games that have made their money and are trash-hauling reuptake from what an AI can shove out as fast as possible for the sake of keeping it online, or even populated-looking, there's a problem.

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Right, but I think that FFXIV developers, who are obviously looking at it from a development POV, are going to be able to distinguish this.

The difference between speeding up something you would have done anyway, and saying "write the entire MSQ for me so I don't have to spend weeks writing it" and "come up with all the mechanics for this savage fight so I don't have to" is a night and day difference. One is speeding things up, the other is just not having even the slightest bit of human involvement in the design/direction and effectively becomes like the "random" slider in the creator creator.

If I design a game, and I have thought about it occasionally, the difference between "write all the story and characters and speech" and "here is the story, organize it properly as a storyboard for me please" is night and day.

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They aren't going to go back and scrap it like they did for 1.0 if it's add-on to an established product.

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That's a good point and it would be a dilemma if they had to backtrack and erase an expansion.

But there is no situation in which they write the story of an entire FFXIV expansion and just have outsourced the entire MSQ to AI. You can't do that for a deep, emotional, fulfilling, final fantasy story for a mainline FF game. There is no way they would risk the reputation of the entire FF franchise on an AI's story writing capability, especially after how badly they got its reputation with the original 1.0 release.

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the systems at hand do not produce very wonderous content if you're pushing them too far

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AI is fantastic when used as a tool to assist you. It is not fantastic when you outsource the entire thing to it.

You can go as far as asking a chatbot for ideas (much like you used to get a random name/attribute generator), but you need to put them together and make sure it meets your vision and what is in your head. You can summarize your idea in a paragraph or few and just ask it to present it properly and write it out. But ultimately, it needs to have your vision injected into it, and it needs heavily adjusting to fit your original vision.

If used as a tool like this, it can be good, but if you just do it a lazy way like "make me a story please", it's going to be a soulless thing and everyone will be able to see this.

Another way to think of AI is "you get what you put in". If you don't put anything into it, then what you get back is worthless. You have to inspire the AI, or what it puts out will be uninspired or things you've seen before.

Most people just don't put anything in, but expect to get something back from the AI.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

As is, however, "investing in AI" could mean as little as improving DLSS support in all SE games, or as much as the board of directors being replaced by AI.

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That might actually be an improvement.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

That might actually be an improvement.

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https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b6/8e...995f657761.gif

Take your meds, now.

Bottom line is it will save money for the company to produce a similar quality product, then they'll do it.

Especially with the gaming bubble bursting, companies cutting developers. Gaming needs all the help it can get and AI can be shamelessly used to help.

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Originally Posted by SigmaOZ

What Square Enix could do with AI is use it to make NPC characters feel more real and I don't mean battle-related stuff but personality, it would be really nice to be able to hold conversations with any NPC in the game as if they were real people.

I know SE won't do it because it would cost them too much money [...]

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For the amount of work required versus the amount of enjoyment the average player would derive from it? Absolutely too much work, money or not.

These aren't just casual chatbots, they're characters with particular experiences and knowledge, and presumably it will need fine tuning for each character to stay within the right bounds on what they will and won't say, which will mean developing actual personalities for every minor NPC, plus probably develop a new two-way conversation interface so players can talk to them, all so players can have a deep (or likely still shallow) text-based conversation with the airship ticketer or random villager?

Where does that actually bring us in the end? What percentage of players would seriously want to engage with NPCs in that way once the novelty wears off?

Personally it sounds like the conversational equivalent of the uncanny valley for me – having to engage in a "realistic" conversation to maybe glean some new information about the world setting (hopefully not hallucinated by the AI) that would likely get highly repetitive from one NPC to the next.

I would much rather stick to the current system where each NPC has a small amount of deliberately written dialogue and you can be confident that you've exhausted everything they are capable of saying to you.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

For the amount of work required versus the amount of enjoyment the average player would derive from it? Absolutely too much work, money or not.

These aren't just casual chatbots, they're characters with particular experiences and knowledge, and presumably it will need fine tuning for each character to stay within the right bounds on what they will and won't say, which will mean developing actual personalities for every minor NPC, plus probably develop a new two-way conversation interface so players can talk to them, all so players can have a deep (or likely still shallow) text-based conversation with the airship ticketer or random villager?

Where does that actually bring us in the end? What percentage of players would seriously want to engage with NPCs in that way once the novelty wears off?

Personally it sounds like the conversational equivalent of the uncanny valley for me – having to engage in a "realistic" conversation to maybe glean some new information about the world setting (hopefully not hallucinated by the AI) that would likely get highly repetitive from one NPC to the next.

I would much rather stick to the current system where each NPC has a small amount of deliberately written dialogue and you can be confident that you've exhausted everything they are capable of saying to you.

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Time to ask the AI chatbot npcs which amogus character is the sussiest of them all.

There's a lot of things AI can help with in this game. Having voice overs for every side quest is an obvious example. A more ambitious idea would be something like AlphaStar (AI system that beats StarCraft 2 pros) to have NPC allies that actually learn the fights together with the player.