Yeah, Let’s Hope That NVIDIA’s New “AI Boss” Tech Doesn’t Catch On, Because It Sounds Miserable

Do you know my least favorite thing about Raids? Learning patterns, finding out exactly what I should do to help my team kill a boss, and becoming a better player for it. You know what I do want to see in my future Raids, though? A boss that learns how to overcome these patterns, making every encounter with it extremely miserable and turning what could be a 20-minute run into an hour or more because we keep getting wiped. No, those words are definitely not dripping with sarcasm right now. NVIDIA’s new AI Boss tech could do just that, however, and I hate it.

Ah Yes, Manmade NVIDIA Horror Beyond Our Comprehension Sounds Very Fun

Alright, so, picture this. You and your friends are looking to settle down after a busy day at work. Sitting down, you log into your favorite MMO or RPG — or whatever you’re currently playing. You rush through a dungeon, fighting the same enemies you have many times before. After arriving on the doorstep of the final creature, you realize something feels a little… different than it did before. That’s because this boss is now powered by NVIDIA ACE, AI technology that helps the boss learn player patterns and changes how it reacts.

On paper, this sounds like a kind of cool idea. But after the game has learned what players do and how they do it, it seems like it would become the biggest mess possible. Look at Chessbots. These AI anomalies turn a game of wit and strategy into a nearly unwinnable mess. And if there is one thing we know about gamers? They like to win. Playing against a boss, especially one they’ve fought before, feels like a treat.

People don’t go into dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV to face off against Good King Moogle Mog with an advanced AI mindset. They go in because they want to punch the shit out of a giant Moogle while the most Danny Elfman/Tim Burton-ass music plays in the background. It sounds like a solution to a problem people don’t have. Maybe something like this could be cool in a single-player game. But, online gaming?

Don’t let this get anywhere near our favorite games, please, and thank you. Maybe I’m glad I went to AMD over NVIDIA now, for real.