Higher Order Input

Depending on the context, higher order input can be referred to as 'macros' or 'bots'; 'macros' being holding a more positive connotation and 'bots' holding a more negative one. Generally, though, tree searching and other conditional handling is what separates a bot from a macro.

Favor is often inversely proportional with the level of functionality of automation, and while a bot is generally going to operate on a higher order than a macro, sufficiently expansive and/or sophisticated macros are held in the same light. Why is this? Because automation reduces the game.

But, we have to consider...if a non-AI is sufficiently able to reduce the game as to make it less than the author's intended experience, just what was the intended experience? It's not as if we have Skynet playing the game; true A.I. is to be celebrated. So, if nearly/actually mindless input reduction trivializes the game, was not the game a trivial task of input production?

Technically, not always (though far more often than one should hope for, especially in a market of time gates upsold as 'gameplay'). A first person shooter can be a deep strategic experience, when the players are limited to and must rely on limited human reflexes and perception. What allows a bot to reduce the entire game is the lack of limits on the player's input and the client having access to more information than they are supposed to have.

Automation can solve both of these issues, as well, while adding a whole new layer to game mechanics. By building a more complete simulation governing the player's possible actions in the world, and including in that a model of the information the player is supposed to have, one can make the higher order game irreducible.

Daring to marginalize 'twitch' gameplay, it can be taken a step further. Character intuition and mental skills separate from the player's can be made concrete; and dexterity gates can be reduced, removed, or pushed into a higher order of play.

TODO: Do go on...