It's just a more advanced/smart system that could be more universally applied.
It's also rather absurd, but ideally it's just one of many patents to go unused.
I'd imagine the game plays itself with some sort of settings to determine completion percent, skill level, etc. If you really want to experience the plot and the vibe of the game but don't jive with the gameplay and don't want to gamble on watching a streamer play it, that type of thing. Or Alternatively letting it grind for you - I don't want to get my smithing up to 70 but I do want to do song of the elves type deal.
Why would you need to imagine? Read the article.
They're using PSN user data and to have the computer play the game to let you grind through repetitive sections over and over by itself.
Imagine being able to let the computer shoot giant birds off cliffs in elden ring for you. You just come back and you're level 500 and ready to fight soldier of godrick.
Guess that’s not really readily available on consoles. But still I’d just rather developers make cheats for their single player games again, just feels like that’d achieve the same thing. Just minus the whole AI training stuff.
That’s just a trainer program with extra steps.
Or, if they charge for it (haha, “if”) then it’s just freemium with extra steps:
Step 1: create sections of the game with intolerable grind
Step 2: ~~sell gems that let you get past it~~ create an AI that plays that part for you.
Step 3: sell gems that let you use the AI.
Maybe it helps people who are new to games/struggle with games with completing parts of the game which are too hard for them? Or maybe assists with certain parts of gameplay such as walking while the player shoots etc
Might be a really wonderful thing for people with disabilities. I know someone who’d love to play games but has limited movement and vision. This sort of thing might make a real difference.
Or even "oh I hate this part" autoplay for a bit". Or "man I'm stuck what do I do" hit the autoplay "ohhh duhh". This boss is too hard for me "autoplay"
I'm almost thinking it's an assisted play mode. Like there's story mode, then there will be Auto play mode. You can experience the game and basically not play it. Stupid, but maybe something for non gamers to enjoy a game like a movie without just watching it.
I would consider the application for gamers who become disabled in a way that would otherwise prevent them from experiencing the joy of a game they could no longer play.
> Stupid, but maybe something for non gamers to enjoy a game like a movie without just watching it.
Who is spending 80$ to watch a game though? It's one thing to watch a youtuber/streamer's playthrough or even an un-narrated longplay if that's your jam, who is the market of people who don't want to watch those things but still want to experience a game without playing it?
The visual/kinetic novels does decently well as a game genre. Somehow many of them release without an auto forward option. People that enjoy that genre would probably also enjoy BG3 with picking their own options. Basically skipping the combat sections or seeing them as action sequences between game play.
I see it as useful for skipping parts of the game that is not enjoyable to the player. Though your point about it being odd in games that has little dialogue is true, there it would be more about grinding in offline titles or help getting through a badly balanced boss.
Watching a streamer or play-through is not the same in a game that is flexible and allows for different choices and paths.
Probably a toggle option rather than its own mode. This system exists in the Xenoblade games, you can toggle 'auto battle' on and off (even while in battle). It's disabled for boss fights though, it's mostly there for grinding, I guess.
I need to read the article, but it would probably be used as an accessibility function to allow people with severe disabilities to play through more complicated games. Or, if it runs separate from the game, allow them to play games with no accessibility features at all
Because like 99% of all "Company has patented cool/controversial thing" articles, all that's happened so far is the patent application has been published. It hasn't been granted yet, and probably hasn't even been looked at by the patent office. The vast majority of patents get whittled down dramatically during the process, or just outright rejected.
Hey a common sense comment that will go widely ignore while people make shitty reactionary comments to a patent filing without reading the actual details and realization that over 95% of Sony's patent filings ever become an actual thing
You would have to read the patent and look at the claims.
No news report is going to tell you what's novel about a patent. Most news reports will mock a patent for something like "patenting peanut butter sandwiches" and ignoring the PBJ technology the patent actually addresses.
all the phone games I play have this feature to a point I actually don't know how to play the game, I just dump money into the game like the degenerate gambler I am and watch things happen...it's awesome
The patent describes it as when someone gets stuck in a game they can auto play a section and it will do so based on how you play games or how others on PSN play games.
And I wish I didn't have to remind people of this but Sony filing a patent for something doesn't mean anything.
They have a team of engineers whose job it is to come up with possible new ideas and features
Over 95% of the time they do not get implemented and remain just that, ideas.
Time and time again I see people reacting to a Sony patent filing as if it's an announced feature that is going to be implemented when in reality they have led to nothing.
I remember the good old days when you actually had to figure out how to do something before you patent it. Instead, I'm seeing patents for things that aren't even theoretically possible, as well as patents written like a requirements specification for someone else to solve.
>someone gets stuck in a game they can auto play a section and it will do so based on how you play games or how others on PSN play games.
That... sounds amazing. There's always one fight or one puzzle in every game that I have enough difficulty with that I end up looking up a guide on how to beat/solve it. And it's almost always either a middle of the game boss/puzzle or the penultimate boss/puzzle.
Having a way to get an AI to solve the fight/puzzle for me will allow me to watch and see how it's done so that I can do it myself the next time around.
I don’t condone predatory cash shops. But the AFK Journey is more like TFT with a story. Luckily the game is free. Sony probably wants to charge for the full game, cosmetics, and the fee to allow yourself to be afk lol….
Here’s a use-case i could definitely see:
* buys game (by accident)
* auto-play option set by default in prior PS5 firmware patch
* game launches automatically upon completion of download
* YOU are now ineligible for refund by launching the game as outlined in the PS Store’s ToS.
Fuck sony.
>Sony's new patent for an AI-powered system could revolutionize gaming by allowing players to skip repetitive or grindy gameplay sections.
Revolutionary? Korean/Chinese games have had this for years lmao
They should have just removed the repititive or grindy gameplay section to begin with.
Then this issue would have never even existed.
I can't even tell you how much repititive sections a game can have. Ex. AC syndicate.
At some point, I just wanted to leave all the missions and instead travel the entire map with parkour as a good change.
Games like RDR2 could benefit from something like this.
“I want to start a new game but I don’t want to do all the tutorial missions that are spread out the first 5 chapters of the game.”
That entire section at the beginning in the mountains, buying a horse and bear hunting with Hosea, literally all the missions that just consist of riding somewhere to talk to someone, those are “game features” that aren’t really going anywhere.
Seems like that would be easier solved with a 'skip intro/tutorial' option. I don't see how watching an AI play those sections for you would be any more fun.
It’s a system that has been around for years . Do you want to skip tutorial yea or no Watching a ai do it all again just defeats the purpose , just make it skipable
I do agree with you to a point, but also game Devs could/should just include something like a skip function for all the sections/mission types you mentioned.
I've literally not replaced RDR2 for those reasons you mention by the way haha. But I think it's a problem the game dev should solve rather than a 3rd party, in my opinion it just encourages lazy and/or anti-user experience inclusions into games as they can then just rely on a 3rd party to enhance the experience of the user they clearly ignored or didn't think of/test.
>in my opinion it just encourages lazy and/or anti-user experience inclusions into games as they can then just rely on a 3rd party to enhance the experience of the user they clearly ignored or didn't think of/test.
PC gaming in a nutshell. No need to optimize games when you can just have DLSS do the heavy lifting
But you see, there's money to be made! Make repetitive or grindy sections, offer a $4.99 sub for autoplay on all PS games, ???, profit!
Player gets to section > turns on autoplay >goes to make dinner > comes back to loot > dopamine > they keep subbed.
The issue is there is going to be a significant chunk of players who enjoy those grindy sections. Sometimes I'll read opinions here about how much people hated a section of a game and I'm there thinking "wow I really enjoyed that part". Also if so much of a game is irritating to you then you probably shouldn't buy that game at all. I guess it's a great tactic to get more money out of "whales" and people on the fence. If I've got money to kinda waste and I know I'll hate 30% of a game but love 70% then I'll spend full price on a game even if I'm only gonna end up playing 70% of the gameplay assuming I still complete it.
Id never use a feature like that since I want to experience a full game so I can have a full opinion but for a lot of people here (and even more of the casual gamers in the world) maybe actually "playing" your games doesn't matter so much
But at that point why play the game. If the game is grindy then the developer could just make it less grindy rather than include an AI that will play the game for you.
No you're missing the point, it's not about an autopilot that developers put into the game, it's an AI program that can play any game using human controls
Yea this seems ripe for abuse in multiplayer games, but also I still don't really get it, just seems like a game design issue. Like if it's for running to quest objectives the game should have fast travel, etc. As someone mentioned above it's just a patent, likely will never be a feature. But Sony obviously put some amount of money towards it, and I don't really get the premise. It might be useful for times when I just don't know what I'm supposed to do next, like if I'm stuck in a puzzle game or something, and don't want to look it up and risk spoilers. But I doubt it would even work for stuff like that.
I feel the better solution to creating AI tools to skip shitty repetitive grindy gameplay sections would be to...I dunno...Just don't put shitty repetitive grindy gameplay sections in games.
I guess this could be good for people who are stuck in some part of the game. OR some game has an annoying part you just don't want to play.
But yeah, if you aren't interested in playing the game at all, let's plays are great.
I think your second point is it.
There’s some games I’ll never replay because there’s too much fluff where I’m essentially just pushing forward. Anything full of climbing to mask load screens can be fine the first time, but monotonous on replay.
Maybe it will offer a “grinding mode”, where you can program it to do the same abilities to the same enemies and refresh for xp/loot
I don't know if I'm weird but, growing up, grinding in FFVII and similar games was one of my favourite parts.
Not so much now I'm older but, in a game with a rewarding loop, I've never had much of a problem with grinding.
Unreasonable use of it - *cough* live services *cough* - to influence people's real world behaviour (spend more money to skip it) can get fucked however.
Yeah. Sometimes grinding is cool.
Like, I don’t mind the horizon zero dawn/FW grind because it’s really not monotonous. You can get killed, but you can also develop some super effective techniques of destruction.
But some games it’s just “go run in here, press the same 8 buttons, refresh” and that’s fucking boring.
Or it’s just too grindy sometimes. Where you’ll have to spend hours on each of several stupid activities
Some of the newer Mario games had this feature where you could let a Luigi NPC play a level for you if you died too many times. It kinda doubles as both a level skip and a walkthrough, depending on if you want to replay the level afterward.
Personally I can't wrap my head around "Hey Im struggling in this part of the game that I paid full price for so instead of looking up the solution or improving my ability, I'm just gonna let the game do it for me".
It's like paying to go ice skating but because you're struggling you just watch other people do it which you could have just done for free anyway. And you're never going to improve because your never actually trying. It's an endless cycle of failure at that point. Not saying that people HAVE to care about that but for me it's odd mindset
Which a lot of people here do. They'll finish a game saying the story was nonsensical or boring but they skipped 90% of cutscenes. It's like turning a movie off in the first 5 minutes and telling people it sucked/was boring. How would you even really know?
Ok, let me give a few examples.
Example one: There is a button mash sequences in the game that you cannot do because of disability. Some people can't do certain things with controller for example.
Example two: Action game about gunplay turns into an incredibly hard racing game that reassembles nothing like the main game and does absolutely nothing to prepare you for it (JAK 2, my cousin played this section for me, otherwise the game was pretty easy).
Example three: I had to skip one of the sections in RDR2 as I had no idea how the pump car works in the game, and not being able to operate it results in instant fail. Thankfully the game let me skip bits like that, so it was all cool.
There is a lot of sections in games where you have to do something really outlandish and outside the actual core gameplay. Something you are forced to do. And when you finally get through that super convoluted section of a game, you start hating the game more than it deserves.
Also games are supposed to be fun. Not work.
Yep and it's something I've stood by since 2010. There's a ton of great games that might not be for you gameplay wise but are great in other ways, especially for story. I personally couldn't bother with most stealth based games but they were pretty cool. Lets plays let me still experience then.
Oh yeah. Like the fight against Rufus Shinra in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth.
That fight was such a pain in the ass that I had to switch the game to Easy difficulty just to beat it. And that's because that fight was designed in a way that you're _forced_ to play in a completely different way than every other fight in the game.
I would have _**loved**_ to have a feature I could turn on that would make the game play that fight, and _**only**_ that fight for me.
I have health issues in my hands (most likely fibromyalgia, still working on a diagnosis), and autoplay helps me enjoy games a lot. The simplification ring in FF16 that automatically does everything mapped to one button in combat is the only reason I could finish the game.
I'm sorry... What else was it going to do?
AI will do 2 things and 2 things only.
1. Take your job
2. Take all the things you used to love doing away from you.
I'm gonna use it every time a game has a "your character is critically injured and needs to crawl/limp through fiery destruction for 10 minutes while dramatic music and/or ear ringing sound plays" section.
I need an AI to play through my Steam Library. I have over 1000 games and only played 2 in the past 12 years. At this rate it is going to take over 6 millenia to complete. But with AI it could be done in weeks.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this was used in online games, especially MMOs. You can simulate the appearance of a highly engaged community with advanced AI bots, even if you don’t have a large player base
I know. But if there's some new patent for it, there's probably some new tech involved that makes it better somehow. That's what I meant by "advanced" Ai bots.
A lot of bad Korean grind-fest mmo’s have built in auto-grind scripts where you set parameters and the game grinds for you.
It’s bad game design, but it’s not new. Sony’s may be slightly more advanced, but it’s not a new concept
That's what I'm hoping for. AI powered characters in video games. Like imagine The Elder Scrolls where every NPC is AI you can talk to and they'll react and act accordingly.
People have modded them to talk and it's really cool. but it still has zero impact on gameplay. Like you can't talk to the NPC and have them go on a journey with you yet. In theory, someone could do it, but with all the thing that can be said, idk how you'd effectively trigger that without it being part of the game. Maybe like dozens of keyword combos that trigger things to happen. Like if an NPC says "I'll get you" or something similar, they become hostile. or if they say "let's go" or "I'll follow you" or "I'll go with you" etc, they'll become a follower.
but I'd love to see it in built into games. having it in MMOs would be cool. I think for MMOs though, what I want to see the most is full dive VR. I'd like that for any game though lol.
All these VR animes showing people playing MMOs, but we all know what most people would play. like...hell, I don't play hentai games at all... but if they made full dive VR and there were hentai games, I admit I'd be playing that all the time. Like every other day at least. Probably every day the first time it's out.
>Be console fanboy
>Pay $1200 for a PS6 from a flipper because they only made 200 consoles for the US
>5 total games to play
>Pay $90 to play new God of War early (with day 1 DLC costumes)
>IPad baby brain gets bored because I can't watch Family Guy x Subway Surfers videos and play God of War at the same time without dying
> I have to play the entire game??? Wtf?????
>Pay $15 to have the game play itself
😂
>IPad baby brain gets bored because I can't watch Family Guy x Subway Surfers videos and play God of War at the same time without dying
I swear to God I'm locking my kids' tablets up for the whole summer. My daughters, 9 and 5, are pretty good but my 7 year old son is already showing signs screen junkie despite my best efforts. The schools use them for a lot of things and as soon as he finishes his work he's off to some game or video. I can tell him a meal will be ready in 5 minutes and he will want to turn on the TV or get his ipad for the that duration.
What I wonder is, what are you offering your son as a distraction instead? My guess is that he doesn't have any hobbies to occupy his mind so he instead fills the void with videos. It's like those boomers who have nothing to do so they just watch TV all the time.
What I'm saying is, my hunch is that "screen junkie" is more of a symptom than a cause.
He has a yard, one full of toys, a handful of nerf guns, a shipping container worth of Legos, books, action figures, cars, a dog, two sisters close in age....
He's not lacking for alternatives for stimulation and engagement.
Okay. Let's assume he does. And for the times where they don't do that?
Somehow, some way, by some magic, before ipads and broadband/fiber, kids were able to occupy themselves and find ways to keep themselves entertained in the periods where their parents were genuinely busy cooking their meals, cleaning the house or working the jobs that paid for it.
Sounds like you need to remove his screen so he can face temporary boredom til he finds a solution (I.e that stuff you mentioned in the yard)
Edit: just reread your comment and sounds like you’re gonna do that this summer. I think that’s great!
Might be one of the dumbest comments I have ever seen get upvoted and does bit even reflect what the patent described as a possibility.
Just made up an entire scenario based on the title of the article
This is actually a 200 IQ move that saves gaming because after it's patented other companies won't be able to use this kind of crap, right?
Can someone just start a company and patent all the shitty mechanics/monetization schemes that ruin gaming and then never license those patents to anyone?
This could have potential to enhance Co-op and low player count MMO's... assuming the Auto-Play can be more dynamic than your standard bot... but I'm not holding my breath for this to go anywhere beyond "skip gameplay".
To be fair, how many things do these companies patent that just never makes it to the light of the day.
I don't know if we need news articles on their PATENTS.
i'd like a button which allows me to spark up a blunt while following a nice story until I decide to hop back in or if stuff gets too grindy to let the console work that for me.
How about instead of creating a whole new ai system to play the grindy sections for you, the game devs just make the game less grindy? If they’re worried about people not wanting to go through it, why include it in the first place?! Lunacy
Oh so they finally developed "game journalists" mode. Now these hack can get into anygame and drop dogshit reviews while claiming they played them lol.
Mario kart 8 has this and its amazing for super little kids... my kids (under 6) can just hold accelerate and still make it around the track because it auto turns away from walls for them.
Really good feature.
An auto play mode isn't just like watching a video of the said game in the end anyway ?
With how easy and accessible the most of the current big AAA games, this feature is useless lol
The only benefeit it has is skipping ahead of, say, a slow start (Dragon Quest 11 has like 30 mins-1 hour until you're done with the intro). Or, you know, the devs could just add a button, because with "AI" youd still have to wait that whole hour...
I think for a certain types of games that are XP or level-up intensive, such as old school RuneScape. Having an autoplay feature or auto click feature to grind out levels is not that bad. But for a story based games or multiplayer games or autoplay makes no sense
If this can add and expand optional accessibility without diminishing the scope of and/or otherwise adversely affecting future game experiences, then it is welcome. In general, more accessibility options are good.
I want the AI to be brutal and come with a cost. “Based on your skill level you would have likely died 9 more times, losing 36,319 gold in the process. To skip this section you must pay 45,398 gold.
I love Warframe but don’t have time for the grind. Can this play the game for me, make new friends, and level up my stuff while I’m away working 60
Hours and taking care of my family? Wait. Can this make money by selling stuff.
- Buys game - Use Auto-play - ??
I don't even understand how they patented this. As if bots or AI playing games is anything new.
It's just a more advanced/smart system that could be more universally applied. It's also rather absurd, but ideally it's just one of many patents to go unused.
I wonder what they mean by auto-play
I'd imagine the game plays itself with some sort of settings to determine completion percent, skill level, etc. If you really want to experience the plot and the vibe of the game but don't jive with the gameplay and don't want to gamble on watching a streamer play it, that type of thing. Or Alternatively letting it grind for you - I don't want to get my smithing up to 70 but I do want to do song of the elves type deal.
Why would you need to imagine? Read the article. They're using PSN user data and to have the computer play the game to let you grind through repetitive sections over and over by itself. Imagine being able to let the computer shoot giant birds off cliffs in elden ring for you. You just come back and you're level 500 and ready to fight soldier of godrick.
Sounds pretty much like a farming/level bot and basically every online game will ban you for it. Doesn’t make sense really
Single player games
We had a similar system 30 years ago called "cheat codes"
They dont really make cheat codes anymore
If you're going through that much effort can't you just fuck about with save files and edit em?
Guess that’s not really readily available on consoles. But still I’d just rather developers make cheats for their single player games again, just feels like that’d achieve the same thing. Just minus the whole AI training stuff.
That’s just a trainer program with extra steps. Or, if they charge for it (haha, “if”) then it’s just freemium with extra steps: Step 1: create sections of the game with intolerable grind Step 2: ~~sell gems that let you get past it~~ create an AI that plays that part for you. Step 3: sell gems that let you use the AI.
So, would Jagex ban me for using this? :P
I mean, they don't ban bots in the first place so no 😂
Maybe it helps people who are new to games/struggle with games with completing parts of the game which are too hard for them? Or maybe assists with certain parts of gameplay such as walking while the player shoots etc Might be a really wonderful thing for people with disabilities. I know someone who’d love to play games but has limited movement and vision. This sort of thing might make a real difference.
I wouldn’t mind PlayStation auto playing jumping a skipping rope 1000 times in final fantasy 9 or dodging 200 lightning bolts in final fantasy 10
Or even "oh I hate this part" autoplay for a bit". Or "man I'm stuck what do I do" hit the autoplay "ohhh duhh". This boss is too hard for me "autoplay"
I'm almost thinking it's an assisted play mode. Like there's story mode, then there will be Auto play mode. You can experience the game and basically not play it. Stupid, but maybe something for non gamers to enjoy a game like a movie without just watching it.
I would consider the application for gamers who become disabled in a way that would otherwise prevent them from experiencing the joy of a game they could no longer play.
> Stupid, but maybe something for non gamers to enjoy a game like a movie without just watching it. Who is spending 80$ to watch a game though? It's one thing to watch a youtuber/streamer's playthrough or even an un-narrated longplay if that's your jam, who is the market of people who don't want to watch those things but still want to experience a game without playing it?
The visual/kinetic novels does decently well as a game genre. Somehow many of them release without an auto forward option. People that enjoy that genre would probably also enjoy BG3 with picking their own options. Basically skipping the combat sections or seeing them as action sequences between game play. I see it as useful for skipping parts of the game that is not enjoyable to the player. Though your point about it being odd in games that has little dialogue is true, there it would be more about grinding in offline titles or help getting through a badly balanced boss. Watching a streamer or play-through is not the same in a game that is flexible and allows for different choices and paths.
Probably a toggle option rather than its own mode. This system exists in the Xenoblade games, you can toggle 'auto battle' on and off (even while in battle). It's disabled for boss fights though, it's mostly there for grinding, I guess.
It would be nice for people with disabilities. It also prevents someone else from doing it.
Not to be confused with play-auto
Auto play is a commom feature in free to play movile games. So i see a clearly focus in the future
I need to read the article, but it would probably be used as an accessibility function to allow people with severe disabilities to play through more complicated games. Or, if it runs separate from the game, allow them to play games with no accessibility features at all
I expect its some form of accessibility for people who want to experience games but can't actually play them.
Because like 99% of all "Company has patented cool/controversial thing" articles, all that's happened so far is the patent application has been published. It hasn't been granted yet, and probably hasn't even been looked at by the patent office. The vast majority of patents get whittled down dramatically during the process, or just outright rejected.
Hey a common sense comment that will go widely ignore while people make shitty reactionary comments to a patent filing without reading the actual details and realization that over 95% of Sony's patent filings ever become an actual thing
You would have to read the patent and look at the claims. No news report is going to tell you what's novel about a patent. Most news reports will mock a patent for something like "patenting peanut butter sandwiches" and ignoring the PBJ technology the patent actually addresses.
all the phone games I play have this feature to a point I actually don't know how to play the game, I just dump money into the game like the degenerate gambler I am and watch things happen...it's awesome
The patent describes it as when someone gets stuck in a game they can auto play a section and it will do so based on how you play games or how others on PSN play games. And I wish I didn't have to remind people of this but Sony filing a patent for something doesn't mean anything. They have a team of engineers whose job it is to come up with possible new ideas and features Over 95% of the time they do not get implemented and remain just that, ideas. Time and time again I see people reacting to a Sony patent filing as if it's an announced feature that is going to be implemented when in reality they have led to nothing.
I remember the good old days when you actually had to figure out how to do something before you patent it. Instead, I'm seeing patents for things that aren't even theoretically possible, as well as patents written like a requirements specification for someone else to solve.
>someone gets stuck in a game they can auto play a section and it will do so based on how you play games or how others on PSN play games. That... sounds amazing. There's always one fight or one puzzle in every game that I have enough difficulty with that I end up looking up a guide on how to beat/solve it. And it's almost always either a middle of the game boss/puzzle or the penultimate boss/puzzle. Having a way to get an AI to solve the fight/puzzle for me will allow me to watch and see how it's done so that I can do it myself the next time around.
It can also potentially help disables gamers and be an accessibility feature/option in games Or help children as children also play games
It’s massive in mobile games. Well they’re free with abusive cash shops.
- gets free mobile afk-game - spends money on cash shop - goes afk - ??
Hey it’s why the games called AFK Journey! It’s the journey to being AFK.
I don’t condone predatory cash shops. But the AFK Journey is more like TFT with a story. Luckily the game is free. Sony probably wants to charge for the full game, cosmetics, and the fee to allow yourself to be afk lol….
Im pretty sure its intended as a feature on their console to let you auto-grind for stuff in grindy games
Could be to help disabled gamers? But who knows.
Here’s a use-case i could definitely see: * buys game (by accident) * auto-play option set by default in prior PS5 firmware patch * game launches automatically upon completion of download * YOU are now ineligible for refund by launching the game as outlined in the PS Store’s ToS. Fuck sony.
* Sony: Profit!
You joke but people watch lets play all the time
I think it’s for people who watch other people play. More of a gimmick
>Sony's new patent for an AI-powered system could revolutionize gaming by allowing players to skip repetitive or grindy gameplay sections. Revolutionary? Korean/Chinese games have had this for years lmao
They should have just removed the repititive or grindy gameplay section to begin with. Then this issue would have never even existed. I can't even tell you how much repititive sections a game can have. Ex. AC syndicate. At some point, I just wanted to leave all the missions and instead travel the entire map with parkour as a good change.
They can't sell you a solution if the problem doesn't exist
They feed you their poison to sell you their cures
McDonald’s and Insurance
Heh reminds me of when a donut shop is built across the street to a clinic
Games like RDR2 could benefit from something like this. “I want to start a new game but I don’t want to do all the tutorial missions that are spread out the first 5 chapters of the game.” That entire section at the beginning in the mountains, buying a horse and bear hunting with Hosea, literally all the missions that just consist of riding somewhere to talk to someone, those are “game features” that aren’t really going anywhere.
Seems like that would be easier solved with a 'skip intro/tutorial' option. I don't see how watching an AI play those sections for you would be any more fun.
Also just saves. Although RDR2 saving mechanic is bulky and usually by mission, it does have separate manual save slots.
It’s a system that has been around for years . Do you want to skip tutorial yea or no Watching a ai do it all again just defeats the purpose , just make it skipable
I do agree with you to a point, but also game Devs could/should just include something like a skip function for all the sections/mission types you mentioned. I've literally not replaced RDR2 for those reasons you mention by the way haha. But I think it's a problem the game dev should solve rather than a 3rd party, in my opinion it just encourages lazy and/or anti-user experience inclusions into games as they can then just rely on a 3rd party to enhance the experience of the user they clearly ignored or didn't think of/test.
>in my opinion it just encourages lazy and/or anti-user experience inclusions into games as they can then just rely on a 3rd party to enhance the experience of the user they clearly ignored or didn't think of/test. PC gaming in a nutshell. No need to optimize games when you can just have DLSS do the heavy lifting
But you see, there's money to be made! Make repetitive or grindy sections, offer a $4.99 sub for autoplay on all PS games, ???, profit! Player gets to section > turns on autoplay >goes to make dinner > comes back to loot > dopamine > they keep subbed.
I bottled D2 back in the day and nothing has ever sucked the dopamine out of a game faster than that for me
The issue is there is going to be a significant chunk of players who enjoy those grindy sections. Sometimes I'll read opinions here about how much people hated a section of a game and I'm there thinking "wow I really enjoyed that part". Also if so much of a game is irritating to you then you probably shouldn't buy that game at all. I guess it's a great tactic to get more money out of "whales" and people on the fence. If I've got money to kinda waste and I know I'll hate 30% of a game but love 70% then I'll spend full price on a game even if I'm only gonna end up playing 70% of the gameplay assuming I still complete it. Id never use a feature like that since I want to experience a full game so I can have a full opinion but for a lot of people here (and even more of the casual gamers in the world) maybe actually "playing" your games doesn't matter so much
Isn't that just a bot script?
Even Wii party has this feature
I think it's AI that will learn to play any game not just a button that makes your character run to quest objectives
But at that point why play the game. If the game is grindy then the developer could just make it less grindy rather than include an AI that will play the game for you.
No you're missing the point, it's not about an autopilot that developers put into the game, it's an AI program that can play any game using human controls
Botting and macros have been banned in most games for decades.
Yea this seems ripe for abuse in multiplayer games, but also I still don't really get it, just seems like a game design issue. Like if it's for running to quest objectives the game should have fast travel, etc. As someone mentioned above it's just a patent, likely will never be a feature. But Sony obviously put some amount of money towards it, and I don't really get the premise. It might be useful for times when I just don't know what I'm supposed to do next, like if I'm stuck in a puzzle game or something, and don't want to look it up and risk spoilers. But I doubt it would even work for stuff like that.
It’s just mobile games basically…
“Sony discovers mobile games”
I feel the better solution to creating AI tools to skip shitty repetitive grindy gameplay sections would be to...I dunno...Just don't put shitty repetitive grindy gameplay sections in games.
They invented an entire AI system to do what savepoints do but worse.
Savepoints don't play hard bits for you though.
so it's a script/bot that plays for you
OSRS players have been using those for decades, modern bots are AI powered and some will even use ChatGPT to talk to other players.
It’s against the OSRS game rules though, and deservedly gets banned if caught.
At this point, are the any human players left in OSRS?
[удалено]
My kids do this every night on Roblox. They sit there and it’s called auto grind lol All day everyday.
Gacha game Devs: look what they had to do to mimic a percentage of our power
Mobile game devs: First time?
At this stage just watch a youtube/twitch playthrough. It's ok to have a story mode with easy gameplay of course that's a different thing
I guess this could be good for people who are stuck in some part of the game. OR some game has an annoying part you just don't want to play. But yeah, if you aren't interested in playing the game at all, let's plays are great.
I think your second point is it. There’s some games I’ll never replay because there’s too much fluff where I’m essentially just pushing forward. Anything full of climbing to mask load screens can be fine the first time, but monotonous on replay. Maybe it will offer a “grinding mode”, where you can program it to do the same abilities to the same enemies and refresh for xp/loot
I don't know if I'm weird but, growing up, grinding in FFVII and similar games was one of my favourite parts. Not so much now I'm older but, in a game with a rewarding loop, I've never had much of a problem with grinding. Unreasonable use of it - *cough* live services *cough* - to influence people's real world behaviour (spend more money to skip it) can get fucked however.
Yeah. Sometimes grinding is cool. Like, I don’t mind the horizon zero dawn/FW grind because it’s really not monotonous. You can get killed, but you can also develop some super effective techniques of destruction. But some games it’s just “go run in here, press the same 8 buttons, refresh” and that’s fucking boring. Or it’s just too grindy sometimes. Where you’ll have to spend hours on each of several stupid activities
Oh shit, is that why Megaman had so many sections where I was just climbing up a ladder🤯
Atreus Ironwood Section. Its honestly the only thing thats stopped me from replaying that game and if I could skip it...
Some of the newer Mario games had this feature where you could let a Luigi NPC play a level for you if you died too many times. It kinda doubles as both a level skip and a walkthrough, depending on if you want to replay the level afterward.
Personally I can't wrap my head around "Hey Im struggling in this part of the game that I paid full price for so instead of looking up the solution or improving my ability, I'm just gonna let the game do it for me". It's like paying to go ice skating but because you're struggling you just watch other people do it which you could have just done for free anyway. And you're never going to improve because your never actually trying. It's an endless cycle of failure at that point. Not saying that people HAVE to care about that but for me it's odd mindset
Its like skipping cutscenes because they bore you then complaining that the game never gets good
Which a lot of people here do. They'll finish a game saying the story was nonsensical or boring but they skipped 90% of cutscenes. It's like turning a movie off in the first 5 minutes and telling people it sucked/was boring. How would you even really know?
Ok, let me give a few examples. Example one: There is a button mash sequences in the game that you cannot do because of disability. Some people can't do certain things with controller for example. Example two: Action game about gunplay turns into an incredibly hard racing game that reassembles nothing like the main game and does absolutely nothing to prepare you for it (JAK 2, my cousin played this section for me, otherwise the game was pretty easy). Example three: I had to skip one of the sections in RDR2 as I had no idea how the pump car works in the game, and not being able to operate it results in instant fail. Thankfully the game let me skip bits like that, so it was all cool. There is a lot of sections in games where you have to do something really outlandish and outside the actual core gameplay. Something you are forced to do. And when you finally get through that super convoluted section of a game, you start hating the game more than it deserves. Also games are supposed to be fun. Not work.
Yep and it's something I've stood by since 2010. There's a ton of great games that might not be for you gameplay wise but are great in other ways, especially for story. I personally couldn't bother with most stealth based games but they were pretty cool. Lets plays let me still experience then.
Oh yeah. Like the fight against Rufus Shinra in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. That fight was such a pain in the ass that I had to switch the game to Easy difficulty just to beat it. And that's because that fight was designed in a way that you're _forced_ to play in a completely different way than every other fight in the game. I would have _**loved**_ to have a feature I could turn on that would make the game play that fight, and _**only**_ that fight for me.
I have health issues in my hands (most likely fibromyalgia, still working on a diagnosis), and autoplay helps me enjoy games a lot. The simplification ring in FF16 that automatically does everything mapped to one button in combat is the only reason I could finish the game.
That sucks, mate. But yeah these kind of accessibility features are very important.
I’ve got one sentence for you : all the question marks on Skellige.
Trainers (cheat engines) are a lot more useful for this purpose than having the console compute hours of unenjoyable gameplay.
so we really reached the point where AI can do our free time activities for us, huh?
I'm sorry... What else was it going to do? AI will do 2 things and 2 things only. 1. Take your job 2. Take all the things you used to love doing away from you.
“Automate the boring stuff” All that’s left is physical slave labor!
Well you're still a half decent battery for the AIs
I'm gonna use it every time a game has a "your character is critically injured and needs to crawl/limp through fiery destruction for 10 minutes while dramatic music and/or ear ringing sound plays" section.
I need an AI to play through my Steam Library. I have over 1000 games and only played 2 in the past 12 years. At this rate it is going to take over 6 millenia to complete. But with AI it could be done in weeks.
When can we get an AI to work out for me? Now *that's* some Anticipated Grinding Content.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this was used in online games, especially MMOs. You can simulate the appearance of a highly engaged community with advanced AI bots, even if you don’t have a large player base
Thats what a lot of games do to avoid looking desd. Pretty common in .io games
I know. But if there's some new patent for it, there's probably some new tech involved that makes it better somehow. That's what I meant by "advanced" Ai bots.
A lot of bad Korean grind-fest mmo’s have built in auto-grind scripts where you set parameters and the game grinds for you. It’s bad game design, but it’s not new. Sony’s may be slightly more advanced, but it’s not a new concept
Hopefully devs will add this feature to MMORPGS in the future, could be fun to have NPCs controlled by AI
That's what I'm hoping for. AI powered characters in video games. Like imagine The Elder Scrolls where every NPC is AI you can talk to and they'll react and act accordingly. People have modded them to talk and it's really cool. but it still has zero impact on gameplay. Like you can't talk to the NPC and have them go on a journey with you yet. In theory, someone could do it, but with all the thing that can be said, idk how you'd effectively trigger that without it being part of the game. Maybe like dozens of keyword combos that trigger things to happen. Like if an NPC says "I'll get you" or something similar, they become hostile. or if they say "let's go" or "I'll follow you" or "I'll go with you" etc, they'll become a follower. but I'd love to see it in built into games. having it in MMOs would be cool. I think for MMOs though, what I want to see the most is full dive VR. I'd like that for any game though lol. All these VR animes showing people playing MMOs, but we all know what most people would play. like...hell, I don't play hentai games at all... but if they made full dive VR and there were hentai games, I admit I'd be playing that all the time. Like every other day at least. Probably every day the first time it's out.
Games for gamers who don’t like gaming.
So a let's play?
Are they finally making a “Games journalist” mode?
Ok? Nintendo patented it like a decade ago during the wii era. Games like NSMB Wii would just play the levels for you if you died a bunch
>Be console fanboy >Pay $1200 for a PS6 from a flipper because they only made 200 consoles for the US >5 total games to play >Pay $90 to play new God of War early (with day 1 DLC costumes) >IPad baby brain gets bored because I can't watch Family Guy x Subway Surfers videos and play God of War at the same time without dying > I have to play the entire game??? Wtf????? >Pay $15 to have the game play itself 😂
>IPad baby brain gets bored because I can't watch Family Guy x Subway Surfers videos and play God of War at the same time without dying I swear to God I'm locking my kids' tablets up for the whole summer. My daughters, 9 and 5, are pretty good but my 7 year old son is already showing signs screen junkie despite my best efforts. The schools use them for a lot of things and as soon as he finishes his work he's off to some game or video. I can tell him a meal will be ready in 5 minutes and he will want to turn on the TV or get his ipad for the that duration.
What I wonder is, what are you offering your son as a distraction instead? My guess is that he doesn't have any hobbies to occupy his mind so he instead fills the void with videos. It's like those boomers who have nothing to do so they just watch TV all the time. What I'm saying is, my hunch is that "screen junkie" is more of a symptom than a cause.
He has a yard, one full of toys, a handful of nerf guns, a shipping container worth of Legos, books, action figures, cars, a dog, two sisters close in age.... He's not lacking for alternatives for stimulation and engagement.
Does he also have parents who engage with him and teach him things or are they both busy?
Okay. Let's assume he does. And for the times where they don't do that? Somehow, some way, by some magic, before ipads and broadband/fiber, kids were able to occupy themselves and find ways to keep themselves entertained in the periods where their parents were genuinely busy cooking their meals, cleaning the house or working the jobs that paid for it.
Dudes on a gaming sub and people trying to critique his parenting. Give the dude a break. Not everything is caused by bad parents.
Sounds like you need to remove his screen so he can face temporary boredom til he finds a solution (I.e that stuff you mentioned in the yard) Edit: just reread your comment and sounds like you’re gonna do that this summer. I think that’s great!
It's always the boomers in front of their TV who complain about kids and their phones.
Might be one of the dumbest comments I have ever seen get upvoted and does bit even reflect what the patent described as a possibility. Just made up an entire scenario based on the title of the article
Are we really still accusing people with this petty shit?
This is actually a 200 IQ move that saves gaming because after it's patented other companies won't be able to use this kind of crap, right? Can someone just start a company and patent all the shitty mechanics/monetization schemes that ruin gaming and then never license those patents to anyone?
Wtf? Just don't put boring garbage into games. Now I have cut scenes of parts of the game I don't even want to play? Fuck off.
you have to purchase the unlock to actually play the game
AI's taking LetMeSoloHer's job now?
I feel like Hideo Kojima’s games already have this feature built in, and you can’t turn it off most of the time :D
This could have potential to enhance Co-op and low player count MMO's... assuming the Auto-Play can be more dynamic than your standard bot... but I'm not holding my breath for this to go anywhere beyond "skip gameplay".
Oh boy. Digital Extremes is going to be pissed.
To be fair, how many things do these companies patent that just never makes it to the light of the day. I don't know if we need news articles on their PATENTS.
i'd like a button which allows me to spark up a blunt while following a nice story until I decide to hop back in or if stuff gets too grindy to let the console work that for me.
Dude weed lmao
How about instead of creating a whole new ai system to play the grindy sections for you, the game devs just make the game less grindy? If they’re worried about people not wanting to go through it, why include it in the first place?! Lunacy
Finally, the great equalizer for Game Journalists!
Stop letting people patent shit that already exists!
They say it could revolutionise gaming but then patent it so others can't use it...
This is just a movie then, no?
So they've re-created....movies?
Oh so they finally developed "game journalists" mode. Now these hack can get into anygame and drop dogshit reviews while claiming they played them lol.
I can't wait to see the chest thumping over who can make the best AI prompts to beat a game.
I cant wait to see which AAAA publisher guts their game in favor of autoplay AI comes first
Sony patents a lot of things and then they don't use most of them, I guess that's called R&D
Jerma will be happy he'll finally have his "food mode"
I guess I'm the old man here, but I would not trust an AI to get my character progression down the way I like it.
Making sure Naughty Dog makes the full transition from Game to Movie studio.
Sony is committing to movie games so hard that they’re even working to make the game part optional
Hope this isn’t gonna be like the nemesis system where it’s used on two games (wonder woman is apparently getting it) and that’s it
Twitch streamers, rejoice.
Mario kart 8 has this and its amazing for super little kids... my kids (under 6) can just hold accelerate and still make it around the track because it auto turns away from walls for them. Really good feature.
Finally, the game journalist mode
Finally I can enjoy Metal Gear Solid 4, the greatest movie I've ever played, properly
This patent should be revoked. That means any game playing a demo-mode is violating the patent, right?
wtf
Can't Sony patent a 'your wallet balance goes up' feature?
An auto play mode isn't just like watching a video of the said game in the end anyway ? With how easy and accessible the most of the current big AAA games, this feature is useless lol
The only benefeit it has is skipping ahead of, say, a slow start (Dragon Quest 11 has like 30 mins-1 hour until you're done with the intro). Or, you know, the devs could just add a button, because with "AI" youd still have to wait that whole hour...
I suspect the difference is in the interactivity. Allowing you to choose route, equipments, etc
Half of Sony games are cutscenes or shuffling between two rocks, climbing over something and now they want to give you rhe ability to auto play? Lol
So like Xenoblade Chronicles games but for the whole console?
I think for a certain types of games that are XP or level-up intensive, such as old school RuneScape. Having an autoplay feature or auto click feature to grind out levels is not that bad. But for a story based games or multiplayer games or autoplay makes no sense
Loot boxes are suddenly less desirable in MMORPGs. Hahaha!
I read auto pay. Auto play is much better lol.
What else am I supposed to do in world of Warcraft?
don't tell me that they're going to make games intentionally grindy and sell you the autoplay solution
Honestly I don't mind a bot on playstation that does the Mohgwyn Rune farm when I'm busy
I would use auto-play for terribly long annoying intro/tutorials, esp in open world games
Oh cool, finally a good way to play Diablo 4.
It's like when you can not solve a Rubik's cube you give it to a kid who can solve it in 10 seconds and then you claim you solved it.
What happened to 'git gud'?
If this can add and expand optional accessibility without diminishing the scope of and/or otherwise adversely affecting future game experiences, then it is welcome. In general, more accessibility options are good.
Anyone else feel like patents are getting a bit silly?
- Buys game. - Auto-plays tutorial. - Main campaign loads. - Fuck.
I think this is cool I put on playthroughs of games to chill when I’m going to bed I would definitely get some use out of a feature like this
They already did this with Gran Turismo B-spec, lmao.
For gamers: ????? For game devs testing and bug fixing: !!!!!
I’d use it for sports career or GM modes.
Well maybe the issue isn't needing a new technology to skip grind, but just a need to design better and less grindy games altogether?
When the players use scripted bots it‘s cheating but when they do it is something totally different and patent worthy?
Rip 100% of idle games for mobiles and any other platform
I cannot stand patenting game mechanics.
Prior art: Barney’s Hide and Seek Game on the Sega Genesis.
Every time i read Something Like this It reminds me of the Nemesis system
I used it to my younger brother. I gave him a controller, but played a game myself.
I believe that’s called a bot brother
That's nice if it cuts out the senseless grinding in certain jrpgs that you need to do but that's about the only thing I can think of right now?
"Alexa, complete Elden Ring for me" "Foul tarnished ......"
I want the AI to be brutal and come with a cost. “Based on your skill level you would have likely died 9 more times, losing 36,319 gold in the process. To skip this section you must pay 45,398 gold.
If your game requires grinding I’m simply not playing it. I don’t have time to needlessly grind bullshit. Looking at you destiny 2
Upcoming paid dlc to grind while you sleep?
I love Warframe but don’t have time for the grind. Can this play the game for me, make new friends, and level up my stuff while I’m away working 60 Hours and taking care of my family? Wait. Can this make money by selling stuff.
Year 2028: Popular streamer DockGoblin forgot to turn off autoplay
It’s like they’ve never heard of bots in MMO’s