Tekken 8 using AI for balancing, VF Reboot next?

I've heard rumors from somewhat reliable sources that the reason the Tekken 8 balancing has been so F*cked up is because Harada is using AI to do the balancing. Supposedly they're using player data captured from tournaments and online to try to train the AI to do the balancing automatically There is word that even single player data is being used to train the AI

The problem is fighting game character balancing is a skill that requires human insight, deep game engine knowledge, familiarity with the particular fighting game community and a long history with the fighting game title (amongst other things) Fighting game balancing is typically done by the most experienced and skilled people available, (those with a very intimate knowledge of the fighting game engine) because if poorly done it can kill the game. However many of the old-timers for the Tekken development have retired and moved on. The word is not many are left on the team who even know how to do the balancing, so they're turning everything over to the AI. That's why the balancing is $h#t and will probably stay that way. I repeat I don't know this for a fact, this is what I'm being told by someone I more or less trust

This raises concerns for any Virtua Fighter reboot. The original AM2 team are probably long gone at this point. Nobody has wanted to touch the VF balancing for years for this very reason! RGG didn't touch rebalancing for VF5US (they know it would have been a disaster) because they don't have the skill set. So will the Virtual Fighter reboot use AI for rebalancing? Was this part of the motivation for releasing VF5US initially free-to-play for PSN subscribers to get enough player data to use to train the AI for rebalancing?

Balancing seems to be a problem for Tekken 8, SF6, and MK I. Are they all trying to switch to AI balancing because the original devs have mostly moved on and retired, and rather than retrain the manual skills they're trying to use AI to save money and make the game more casual friendly

If somebody knows for sure what's going on, speak up

 

The guy I've never seen in nearly 2 decades ever talk about any sort of character tech or match-ups brings up game balance and somehow still ends up making it an inane ramble with too many emojis and very little meat.

"I know a guy" has about as much weight as "my dad works at Namco so I'd know". Let's just assume for a zeptosecond that I'd place any weight on this. How is AI used to balance then? Surely you can answer that without exposing your sources since you know a guy.

T8 just had it's first balance patch ever. What data did that AI gleam and how did it come to the conclusions that it came to? Was normal data analysis completely thrown to the side and just going surely HAL9000's got us. I'd also be extremely interested in knowing how the AI was trained to do those balance changes. Come on, throw me a bone, oh knowledgeable one.

EDIT: Oh by the way I googled "AI Tekken balancing". Seems you're the single source of this leak since you're the number 1 google hit for that. Probably your first time placing first in anything fighting game related.

 

@Combolammas you're right I should not have posted anything about this

After all, there's no way that Bandai-Namco would have used machine learning and predictive analytics against Tekken 7 data to come up with approaches for how to make Tekken 8 balancing decisions. I probably heard it all wrong anyway, and the individual(s) that I heard it from were probably just throwin shade Everybody knows that anybody really working on that kind of project would have signed a NDA and would definitely not be talking about it.

I won't say any more on the matter unless I have proof positive, and I'm sure no one will loose their jobs.

BTW at the start of my post:

 

Alright, let's assume they are using AI balancing. It's not like I couldn't believe it but... so what? The devs are using a tool. If you don't have any insight into what parameters it's taking into account and what kind of decisions it's making based on those this is just a nothing burger.

Hell, it's not like it's that long ago when fighting game balancing across the genre was just throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks.

 

AI balancing sounds worrisome/interesting.

Wonder how it was done in the past for vf and tekken. Is it just a few people in a room playing a bunch of round?

 

Using AI for balancing is kind of a silly idea.

The problem with using AI for balancing, is that the coder behind the AI, has influence over how the AI behaves or thinks. If the coder finds Akira to be overpowered, the AI he programmed, will balance the other characters in the game, off of his preferences and opinions of Akira. That is why you can't put your trust fully in AI. Its opinions are based on the person, who created it, or the people it's studying.

 

And you know that to be how it works based on... what? How do you know it wouldn't look into tuning Akira down more towards the middle instead of tuning everyone else up?

Again, if there's no insight to offer on what kinds of things the AI is looking at, what it's taking into account when making it's decisions, whether or not there's a human factor in looking into the suggestions it's making etc, etc, there's no information of value to consider here.

Without any knowledge of how it's being used to tune the balance all we can assume that's it's being used on the side of the usual things like tournament results, character usage in ranked, character rank position spread etc.

If someone in the industry doesn't break their NDA and whistleblow some insight into this I'll continue to think this is a non-issue and the AI is just another tool amongst many when it comes to balancing.

Hell, even if it is being relied on more than I'd imagine, there's this thing called feedback that fighting game devs seem to be a bit more susceptible to these days than they were a decade or 2 back.

 

Lol!
Based on being a programmer, who uses 3rd party game engines.
You're not dealing with a silly console warrIor/tekken evo fanboy, bench mark shill warrior analyst, on this forum. Even though unfortunately, a few of them visit this forum, once in a while to troll.