Mastodon Icon RSS Icon GitHub Icon LinkedIn Icon RSS Icon

Tag Behavior Trees

Choosing between Behavior Tree and GOAP (Planning)

Header image for Choosing between Behavior Tree and GOAP (Planning)

I would like to expand the answer I gave on /r/gamedesign some days ago. The main point of the question was: how can I decide if it “better” to implement the decision-making layer of our game AI with Behavior Trees (BTs) or with more advanced plan-based techniques such as Goal Oriented Action Planning (GOAP) or Simple Hierarchical Ordered Planner (SHOP).

First consideration: this is not a technical problem

The first thing to know is that writing game AI is not a race for the best technology. Instead, it is just about choosing the right tool for serving the gameplay as well as possible. So, there is no urgency to select the most advanced algorithm. You need to choose the simplest one that is good enough for your game. Remember Pac-Man. The AI of Pac-Man is still utterly challenging, and yet it is exceptionally straightforward.