Modelling Player Combat Behaviour For NPC Imitation And Combat Awareness Analysis

NPC [non-player characters] have progressed over the past two decades, they fulfil a number of different roles, each with different problems and development techniques. When fulfilling the role typically reserved for human-players, a problem occurs because they can be identified as NPC by observing their gameplay behaviours. This has negative consequences when deployed in a team-based game where eliminations impact game objectives. This research investigates the key combat characteristics exhibited by players during certain scenarios, analysing the data acquired through experiments to determine where generalised patterns emerge. It also explores the combat awareness of players when NPCs have overly tuned combat skill, and determine how effective standard game industry techniques are for creating believable NPCs.