Are AI trainers too dumb?

[Warmmedown]

Everything electrical is AI, ok? Zapdos used AIbolt.

But are they too dumdumhead? Like when you run out of moves and they still use moves that lower your accuracy or your attack stat.

 

[Kyo]

There are different levels of AI. I don’t remember what all of them are, but basically most bosses and ace trainers/veterans have “good” AI where they click the highest damage or killing move, but this also makes them predictable/abusable. Wild Pokemon have random AI, and everyone else has something in between. There’s other stuff, like “risky” AI which prioritizes moves with high crit chance and other secondary effects. Most of the time you see a trainer doing something stupid, it’s because they have one of the worse styles of AI, though I think some of the later games in general have very little “good” AI just speaking anecdotally.

The AI in Gen 1 cheats by seeing what move you click/what you’re switching to that turn before making its move, but it has a bunch of other problems like clicking “super effective” status moves thinking they’ll kill. This is removed in later games but the AI still cheats a little by looking at your stats and moves to see how much damage you can do to each other (this only really matters for trainers with “good” AI).

The amount of logic behind the AI’s decision-making varies by game. Like Gen 4 has more complex AI than Gen 3, most notably for its switch-in AI.

Are they too dumb? Maybe, but maybe that’s fine. There are romhacks with harder AI, notably any of the CFRU-based games, that prey on the casual player in a way that many people find unfair.

 

[Warmmedown]

Wtf, Gen 1 reads your inputs?! I'm thinking what the consequences of that are. So you could do Tackle and they do Harden and if they're quicker than you you do little damage. Or you do Rock Smash with Nidoran but they switch to a fighting type. Or you do Reflect and they do a stat boost move rather than attacking. Or you do Counter and they do a non-normal/non-fighting attack (just learnt Counter requires those types).

That's part of the SNK boss syndrome meme. The KoF AI at the highest level reads the players inputs and reacts to those instead of to the animation, so it can react with an input for a block or counter the frame immediately after the input, whereas a human player would need to either guess or wait until the move's startup animation frames and react to that. I think Street Fighter does it too. So if there are like 7 startup frames for a medium punch, if it's close enough the AI can press Throw that has 5 startup and it'll beat the punch. Whereas a human would might only react after 3 frames and would have to block instead (or just guess and risk trying a throw, which is more of a risk cuz say it was a light punch with 4 frame startup, they'll lose). I guess it may be similar in Smash Bros. Or usually if I knock you down, I'll have a frame advantage so when you get up you need to guess what I'll do. If I throw you need to either jump (can counter me) or do a throw to block it. If I do a an overhead you need to block standing. If I do either a low or non-overhead attack you can block low. If you jump or throw to avoid a throw, but I punch, you'll get comboed (assuming I know a combo and mess up the inputs). You could also do a dragon punch (invincible on startup), which'll hit me if I do anything but block, but leave you open to a big counter if I blocked. But the AI reading your inputs doesn't have to guess.
It also does stuff like only needing to block one way, whereas if you jump directly on top of a human player they have to make sure to block the correct direction.

The Pokemon stat dampening when I have zero pp was the worst, because it's like PLEASE KILL ME.

 

[Kyo]

Here’s a basic video on the subject for the early gens:

Wtf, Gen 1 reads your inputs?!

There are a couple of examples of this similar to what you described in KoF and Street Fighter (obviously it’s a bit different in turn-based games but yeah), if I’m remembering correctly anyway. One is that if you’re fighting Brock, are faster, and afflict his Pokemon with a status condition, he will use a Full Heal that same turn. The other more common example is good AI clicking moves that are super effective against your switches instead of what you have out in the front, which is no longer the case in Gen 2+.

Enemies in Gen 1 also have infinite PP for their moves so PP stalling is not an effective tactic like in Gen 2+.