Home // International Journal On Advances in Systems and Measurements, volume 16, numbers 1 and 2, 2023 // View article
Authors:
Paul Williamson
Christopher Tubb
Keywords: Player Modelling; Difficulty; Combat Behaviour; Gameplay; FPS; Perception; Combat Awareness
Abstract:
Non-Player Characters are a core aspect of a modern video game. They fulfil a wide range of roles and features in most genres. How they are perceived can have an impact on the overall enjoyment of the game, and when the NPCs are poorly modelled, the experience can be negative. This paper explores modelling human player behaviour to develop a combat model for NPCs, which will provide a dynamic solution for skill scaling. Game difficulty is a subjective notion and when games have a predefined classification, being able to satisfy all players is not realistic. This paper investigates if the combat model can therefore be used to scale the difficulty of the NPC in real-time, by dynamically adjusting a skill attribute, which is used by several key combat behaviours. As combat perception is critical to maintaining an immersive and entertaining experience, this paper also explores the degree of combat awareness exhibited by players.
Pages: 66 to 79
Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2023. Used with permission.
Publication date: June 30, 2023
Published in: journal
ISSN: 1942-261x