Will AI ever be implemented

Kelenan7368 · December 23

I was curious if the ZOS team has any plans to implement AI for development of new content and also to help solve some of the illusive bugs like the game crashing or combat bug?

Maitsukas · December 23

There's no need to force AI into every piece of software.

Vonnegut2506 · December 23

God willing, no.

SaffronCitrusflower · December 23

ZOS is already relying far to heavily on AI for other tasks, and it's failing them badly at those tasks already.

Kelenan7368 · December 23

We AI is a wonderful tool. They could put the entirety of the game into it and it could far quicker than a human decern were the bugs first started. And run simulations to see what addition actually caused the bug. Testing is still a must, and humans still needed.
What examples of AI doing poorly in this game do you have to share? Could you please share some examples.

Because ZOS has recently admitted they are perplexed with most of these bugs and have no timeline if any for a fix.

Do all of you wish the bugs just go unresolved?

AI could also help speed up development, True it's only as good as its source information given but it learns quickly and is capable of self learning.

GloatingSwine · December 23

You mean like in Where Wind Meet where someone managed to convince the AI chatbot running the NPCs that it was pregnant with his child?

And someone got it to give him a recipe for chips and ketchup then admit that neither potatoes or tomatoes would be known to Song dynasty China?

AI will not fix bugs, it will make even dumber ones and slop.

LootAllTheStuff · December 23

I don't think AI works the way you think AI works...

Soarora · December 23

If the team uses AI as a tool for assisting coders and concept artists then that’s none of any of our business. It should not be used for community-facing aspects such as moderation or full development of game additions.

I don’t know if it’s AI or an upgraded profanity filter but I will note that as of this year, you can be banned for what you say in private messages.

SeaGtGruff · December 23

I think the specific example of AI already being used may have referred to the monitoring of in-game chat for COC and TOS violations, or monitoring other in-game activities to detect the use of cheats and exploits, but I'm not sure.

Xarc · December 23

It depends.
These days, even the simplest algorithm is called AI.

Syldras · December 23

Xarc wrote: »

It depends.
These days, even the simplest algorithm is called AI.

Not only these days. Remember what they called enemy combat behavior in video games in the 1990s?

edward_frigidhands · December 24

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

I was curious if the ZOS team has any plans to implement AI for development of new content and also to help solve some of the illusive bugs like the game crashing or combat bug?

I hope they stop using it to review complaints and maybe instead start using it to investigate the many unaddressed bugs and issues with the game's engine and server code.

Joe_90 · December 24

Please Santa NO!

Turtle_Bot · December 24

No, just No!.

There's already far too much AI, or AI adjacent software, being forced into every aspect of our lives where it's not needed, nor wanted, no need to force it into key aspects of ESO such as actual development of the game itself as well.

AI is a tool intended to help find trends within massive data samples, which is what it is good at, not to create artistic visions which it really cannot do without a large dedicated team to fix what it creates.

Also, the way AI is heading, is looking like a repeat of the "dot com" bubble of the 90's that caused wide spread massive financial impacts, so why anyone would want to expose a popular game/intellectual property even more directly to such volatility and risk is beyond me.

Cooperharley · December 24

They've already got AI rocking and rolling with their chat moderation in game and in their customer service lines & they're not exactly functioning well. I think the future of gaming will have more AI implementation that helps scan code for bugs, absolutely. Whatever ZOS is using ain't it though

moderatelyfatman · December 24

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

We AI is a wonderful tool. They could put the entirety of the game into it and it could far quicker than a human decern were the bugs first started. And run simulations to see what addition actually caused the bug. Testing is still a must, and humans still needed.
What examples of AI doing poorly in this game do you have to share? Could you please share some examples.

Because ZOS has recently admitted they are perplexed with most of these bugs and have no timeline if any for a fix.

Do all of you wish the bugs just go unresolved?

AI could also help speed up development, True it's only as good as its source information given but it learns quickly and is capable of self learning.

The AI monitoring of the chats has been horrific:
How about all the players who got auto banned for private messaging fellow team mates?
There have been players banned for privately messaging another player and using crude (not racist) language.
Another raid leader in Cyrodiil tried to type 'flag' to direct to their group but hit the key to the right of the 'l' key and got banned for slurs.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.

WuffyCerulei · December 24

I don't really care if they use assistive AI to streamline things like spreadsheets and whatnot, because it should only be used as a tool to make their lives easier (outside of support, AI support screws so many people over). AI should never replace people or their work though. AI should NEVER be used to generate things like models, art, concepts, voice acting, animation, and whatnot. Excluding the decades old AI used in things like NPCs, AI should never be used in gaming in the way most tech bros think it should be. Nothing will compete with human-made soulful games.

Syldras · December 24

I'm not even sure if chat monitoring in this game is AI. Didn't some thread some time ago reveal it's just a word filter sending detected slurs (or what it believes to be slurs, contextless) to probably outsourced mods who don't see the context of the conversation and/or possibly don't have the best grasp of English either?

Last'One · December 24

Bro… we don’t even have complete systems in ESO. All the systems they add are incomplete:

Group Finder → broken for years, still queues wrong roles
Group Finder → “tank” with 18k HP and a bow
Companions → cool idea, zero depth, abandoned
Antiquities → great launch, then… nothing
Trials accessibility → zero in-game tools to teach mechanics
Endgame progression → once you clear vets/HMs… that’s it
etc...

and you’re asking for AI?
Why? For what? So I can ask AI to queue me for a fast dungeon as a tank, and then it puts me in a damn trial as a healer?!?

EDIT:
And btw, ESO already has AI in support tickets. And of course, it’s 100% incomplete or broken, just like the game and the systems inside it.

"We ask support about houses… AI replies with items you can use on your pets. Amazing!" I'm Lovin' It

LootAllTheStuff · December 24

For those who seem to think that AI could take over bug fixing and developing, this article provides some useful background.

The short version is: coding AI tools are just that - tools - and they are not a replacement for experienced developers. They can be very helpful to new programmers for relatively simple problems but, if you want them to do real work they need to be trained on the specific code base and data structures they will be modifying, and this gets expensive.

SummersetCitizen · December 24

This game was created over 10 years ago.

Trying to integrate AI seems like it will break more than it fixes at this point.

I prefer my game being AI free personally.

SilverBride · December 24

AI is not accurate. Type a question into Google and check what AI has to say about it. Then type the same question only worded slightly differently. We often get a very different answer.

whitecrow · December 24

The only "AI" I would want to see in a game is for NPCs so you could have conversations on the fly with them.

LootAllTheStuff · 12:04AM

whitecrow wrote: »

The only "AI" I would want to see in a game is for NPCs so you could have conversations on the fly with them.

While nice in principle, given both the computational costs and the problems toy makers have had preventing their AI chatbots from generating inappropriate content, I'm not sure this is the time to do that. At least, not in ESO.

Syldras · 12:23AM

whitecrow wrote: »

The only "AI" I would want to see in a game is for NPCs so you could have conversations on the fly with them.

I could imagine something like this for TES some time in the future, but with a clear, restricted database. Basically feed the bot with TES lore only; plus an appropriate language style, of course, and info on who a character is supposed to be, what knowledge they might have, how they should speak - you'd need to have differences between talking to a random beggar, a merchant and a scholar, for example. It would be nice if the player could just ask about any lore topic and the npc could reply - from their in-character knowledge and point of view, including their character traits, their beliefs, their culture, etc. Maybe even some reactivity to the surroundings. You could have a travel companion who comments on the places you pass by. No repetative sentences as with the current companions either, as the lines would be newly generated every time. This would be awesome - as an extra, and not under any circumstances, replacing all human creativity and art.

But unfortunately we know that things aren't ideal and AI would probably be utilized replacing actual artists for cost reasons. And the risk to get cheap mass-produced slop instead of a well-thought-out implementation is also there, of course. It's a bit sad, thinking which great things could be done with the technical means, but the actual outcome would most probably be different, worse.

karthrag_inak · 1:06AM

Kelenan7368 wrote: »

We AI is a wonderful tool. They could put the entirety of the game into it and it could far quicker than a human decern were the bugs first started. And run simulations to see what addition actually caused the bug. Testing is still a must, and humans still needed.
What examples of AI doing poorly in this game do you have to share? Could you please share some examples.

Because ZOS has recently admitted they are perplexed with most of these bugs and have no timeline if any for a fix.

Do all of you wish the bugs just go unresolved?

AI could also help speed up development, True it's only as good as its source information given but it learns quickly and is capable of self learning.

As someone who works at Meta FAIR with some of the largest models in autonomous environments, and in a fully AI-assist coding environment, khajiit only has this to say :

tee hee... hee...heh...heh...

-sputters-

BWHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!

oh, bright moons indeed. happy new life, khajiit really needed that. Many thanks!

Horny_Poney · 1:49AM

AI doesn’t fix bugs, it creates them.

Gadamlub14_ESO · 4:02AM

considering the past 5 odd years. would it really be worse if chatgpt was in charge instead?

Wereswan · 10:06AM

https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/

Sarannah · 10:24AM

AI was already implemented into ESO, but many things went wrong in 2025 so they did it backwards and now we have the IA.

Mathius_Mordred · 10:27AM

Hell yeah, I wanna see Greg from Honeywood with that level of interaction!