[stagbeetle]

> You're wildly swinging between advantageous and not.

What?

> The ground rules must be clear: you get the screenshots and keyboard input in every frame, as a normal player.

Perhaps if you want to start from flawed assumptions/ want to create an AI that's tweak-able to appear as human. Which would be pretty useful and practical for other applications, but not competitive play.

We could go on and on about digital vs. analog, but digital is good enough for your argument and doesn't require you to spend enormous resources on a trivial pursuit.

This going in the direction of nonsensical handicaps. You don't give AlphaGo stamina parameters that artificially slow down processing speed. You give it all the tools it needs to beat a human player.

[erichocean]

> You give it all the tools it needs to beat a human player.

Okay, why not allow an NPC to just mess with the human player's actions then (blocking or delaying button clicks, for instance)? Surely, that falls into "all the tools", no?

IMO, the way you went about things isn't particularly compelling—your human opponents don't have white-box access to game internals, and if they did, guess what? They'd play better too.

So I agree with the GP: this is just playing games.

[stagbeetle]

> Okay, why not allow an NPC to just mess with the human player's actions then (blocking or delaying button clicks, for instance)? Surely, that falls into "all the tools", no?

Are you talking about physically delaying their inputs? As in from the controller to the main board? This would fall under the same category as a player hitting the controller out of his opponent's hand -- foul play.

> IMO, the way you went about things isn't particularly compelling—your human opponents don't have white-box access to game internals, and if they did, guess what? They'd play better too.

I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to here, but I'll respond to how I think you're trying to take this.

Source code wise: Yes. If the players had access to the source code the learning curve would be significantly shortened. Though, in due time, most would have figured out the mechanics fully, or within a short deviation, in closed source. A part of competitive play is this exact aspect. Players experimenting, sharing, and building up their understanding of the game. If the source was freely available to explore, most players would stick to the "show" part of the process, i.e working reflexes and learning combat -- what most elite players focus on (since they've mastered the science of the game already).