History ArtificialStupidity / FirstpersonShooter

*** ''Machinima/FreemansMind'' has many shining examples of the above. Highlights include Alien Grunts forgetting how ambushes work, killing themselves dropping from aircraft, not noticing Freeman even when he's shooting at them, Alien Controllers following Freeman into cramped hallways (and acting like "dogs strapped to jetpacks who can shoot ball lightning from their paws", in Freeman's words), Security Guards standing out in the open to fire, and soldiers taking UnfriendlyFire and LeeroyJenkins behavior to new heights — blowing each other up with grenades is the most common, but they've also bombed each other, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard fallen into their own traps]], and chased Freeman around corners even after he shot others who also ran that way.

** These are lampshaded in the Machinima/TeamServiceAnnouncement ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYN7RxpumU8 Fake Players]]''. All the bots can be told apart by their frequent idiocy, such as running into walls, not seeking health when weak, and using the wrong weapons for the wrong situation. The vid intends to educate about "bot servers" that fake having people in the server, thus attracting more actual players, by having bots play using fake Steam accounts (rather than the server-based bots they're supposed to use, which stopped counting toward the player count displayed on the server list shortly after bots became available).

* In ''VideoGame/GhostRecon Advanced Warfighter'', support choppers will wander into enemy hot zones and get ventilated by AAA fire, your teammates will bum rush the enemy in attack mode, and [=NPCs=] wielding the rocket launcher tend to [[ExplosiveStupidity frag themselves]] on obstacles.

** An average Soldier: 76 bot life goes as follows: The bot uses his sprint to [[LeeroyJenkins charge ahead of his allies]], then engages the enemy alone, firing wildly at them. When he inevitably gets shot and notices he's at low health, he'll throw down his biotic field on the spot instead of retreating, and promptly get sent back to spawn to do the same thing over again,

* ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'''s AI wasn't exactly what you'd call Mensa material to begin with, but the ObviousBeta expansion ''Painkiller Resurrection'' takes this trope UpToEleven, where enemies who can't deal with the erratic level design get hung up constantly on corners, curbs, and other random bits of scenery as they try to charge the player.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefront'':
** It bears mentioning that the entry for ArtificialStupidity on the game's own page had all its examples removed and replaced with simply "a lot", because it was probably ''one-sixth'' of the page itself. And that's not counting the (un-deleted) entries for other tropes that relate to it, like LeeroyJenkins, SuicidalOverconfidence, and TooDumbToLive. Seriously, it wouldn't be ''Battlefront'' without dumb AI.

*** Lynchwood has train tracks running through the center of the town there. Enemies will hop from down from the embankments onto the tracks and back up to try and outflank the player. They will do this even if there's an oncoming train, which is a OneHitKill to anything for self-explanatory reasons. It's not uncommon to lose count of how many enemies you've killed and come up short, only to discover one to five twisted, pathetic bandit corpses mangled on the tracks after the fighting dies down.

* The fanmade mod Team Fortress 2 Classic makes several tweaks to bot AI, making them a very different, yet still quite imperfect experience:

--->'''WHO WOULD DO THIS'''

*** Civilians are equally as dumb, running around like headless chickens instead of being in an area both unlikely to be scripted for a Covenant dropship to unload its troops or safe from scripted spawning enemies. Nope, they just absolutely '''love''' being idiotic retards, running '''right''' into your line of fire when fending off Covenant troops.

** Here's a fun experiment: Play Bagtag/Gladiator on the Zeppelin level in ''Future Perfect'' with all weapon slots set to Unarmed or Baseball Bat. Once you've secured the Bag/Gladiator's Armor, head to the roof and climb up one of the ramps the propellers are attached to. The AI will march single-file down the center of the zeppelin as if on a track before reaching a point where they turn and head [[TurbineBlender directly into the propeller you're standing behind]]. The bots coming from behind you go ''past the ramp'' to do so, and if you manage to position yourself ''just'' right, they will actually traverse the entire length of the zeppelin before joining the rest of the line.

*** Civilians are equally as dumb, running around like headless chickens instead of being in an area both unlikely to be scripted for a dropship to unload its troops or safe from scripted spawning enemies. Nope, they just absolutely '''love''' being idiotic retards, running '''right''' into your line of fire when fending off Covenant troops.

** Engineer bots are prone to some serious problems concerning placement issues for their gear and ''their own survival.'' This is most obvious when, for instance, an Engineer sets up his sentry overlooking an important area with its main firing arc facing a wall or pylon, obscuring a good 90 degrees of its targeting arc. Furthermore, some engineers will alternate between forgetting to wrench their machines to repair them, and forgetting to do anything ''but'' whack their sentry with the wrench. This ties back to their placement problem issue, in that they will often sandwich themselves between their sentry and their dispenser, [[TooDumbToLive leaving their sides wide open to enemies]]. This leads to scenarios where even the laziest sniper can simply peer across the map at them, line up the LaserSight, and hollow out that apparently already-empty hard hat. They also have an apparent blindness to Spies, continuing to bash a sapped machine even after the sapper is removed, leaving their spines [[BackStab open for surgery]].

* The AI survivors in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' can be like this.
** They usually wait a few seconds before actually deciding to catch up with the player, and if you get attacked by any special infected other than a Tank, they may prioritize shooting regular zombies instead of trying to free you. Made worse in Survival and VS mode, where the modes have a melee attack cooldown effect and the computer keeps trying to melee zombies off them when they have to recharge. Most likely a programming oversight by Valve and has yet to be fixed.

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' seems to be much worse with survivor AI compared to the first game.
** The AI will now usually leave you to die if you are strangled by a Smoker 2 feet away from them if there are common infected near them, and even if you are perfectly several feet away from the AI in a straight line and are being pounded by a Charger, don't expect the AI to start shooting until they are at least in half the range from them to you. Also the same problem with Jockeys, but made worse since Jockeys can move you and Survivor AI seems to be incapable of doing more than one action at a time when they move. If you get ridden by a Jockey, Survivor bots will opt to shove the Jockey off when they are not close enough to do so instead of, you know, shooting it.

** They also will never learn the concept of "Fire = Hot" and will gladly attempt to run through a fire to get to you. Problem is, they ''do'' know to run back when damaged by a level hazard (such as, say, fire), so they will just run back and forth into the fire until either the fire dies or they get incapped if there's no other way around, instead of just waiting for the fire to disappear. They are also oblivious to a Spitter's acid pool and will stay in the puddle until they start taking damage instead of running out of it as soon as the acid begins to form on the ground or other surface.
** The Bots are actually quite intelligent when you're nearby, being practically aimbots. However, once you are a good distance away, they will forgo all other common sense and try to keep up with you, including but not limited to: Forgetting to shoot, forgetting to use a bridge, forgetting they're being chased by a tank, and forgetting pounced/snagged comrades.

** Bots will also shoot any Infected on their sight. Even if said infected is in front of hazards like a Crescendo Event that is triggered by shooting something, or in the worst cases, when an Infected is near ''a Witch''. Fortunately, they can't anger Wandering Witches when they shoot them, but good luck with normal Witches.

* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} 1942'':

* ''VideoGame/FarCry'':

** In the original game, if you somehow manage to lure a merc into the water, he'll just stand there, trying to fire his jammed gun ([[GoodBadBugs even if he's only knee-deep]]). You can keep throwing rocks at him until you get bored, and then leave him behind.

* It's been found that the AI in ''VideoGame/AliensColonialMarines'' flat-out didn't work as intended due to a coding error, and man, did it ever show. Any tactic beyond "run at player and attack" was beyond the xenomorphs, and frequently they ran into walls. AI teammates aren't much better, as [[WebVideo/TheAngryJoeShow Angry Joe]] demonstrates in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGX2WE4QUw8 his review]]. O'Neil, especially, is prone to either standing around doing nothing rather than firing his smart gun, or getting in the way when you need to do something.

* Your squad in ''VideoGame/BrothersInArms'' tends to stand in the open a few feet from cover unless prompted to move, apparently prefering to let jerries ventilate them.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', during a mission with an escort (such as the Slab King escort quest around level 20), if you are in Fight for your Life (meaning you're crippled, but you can get back up if you kill an enemy), the escort NPC is likely to continue killing mobs you might be aiming at, and even more likely to [[KillSteal steal your kill]] and leave you for dead.

** When they're not shooting each other in the back, AIs, friend and foe alike, will stand around doing nothing besides, perhaps, jumping, [[strike:often conveniently out of your line of sight just to give the illusion that they're off doing something important]] or trapping themselves in a corner until you shoot or kill them (this tends to be more common the less AIs you have running around on the map).
** Depending on the mini-game, the AIs will also be focused more on shooting (with actually ''aiming'' [[ATeamFiring being an afterthought]]) than the goal they're supposed to accomplish, such as how the weasels in Heist will focus more on killing each other than the money bags, and the only time the money matters is by making whoever's holding it Public Enemy Number 1, or how War!Colors will have the troops more focused on sniping at each other than either side bothering to grab each other's flags. On the other hand, it works in your favor at times; your foes are no smarter than your own teammates, and can even commit [[TooDumbToLive stupicide]] trying to kill you. A common scenario involves you being in an area where you're invulnerable (or not entirely in range of an attack), leading to your foe, armed with a grenade launcher or bomb, trying to fire at you, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard only to obliterate themselves by being too close to their own blast]]. This will, at worst, knock you up into the air and stun you for a while.

[[folder:General]]
* Let's get this out of the way first: any FPS game using a waypoint-based navigation system (especially [[CompetitiveMultiplayer multiplayer-oriented ones]] such as ''VideoGame/{{Unreal|I}}'', ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'', ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004'', ''VideoGame/{{Nexuiz}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Xonotic}}'', and AI mods for ''VideoGame/{{Quake|I}}'' and ''VideoGame/QuakeII'') is bound to have a predictable and boring-to-play-against AI, no matter how well-placed such waypoints are, and how good the system is. There's a reason why most of the CompetitiveMultiplayer games' pro communities have as a recommendation "don't practice with the AI".
* Many {{First Person Shooter}}s feature a quirk known as "[[SetAMookToKillAMook monster infighting]]" wherein [=NPC=]s, if they accidentally fire on each other, will then proceed to battle it out while the player either slips away quietly or waits for the carnage to end and picks up the spoils. The original ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' is the standard-bearer for this.
[[/folder]]


[[folder:Specific Games]]

[[/folder]]

** Bots tend to [[https://youtu.be/3PRqmz3vcQQ?t=190 commit mass suicide]] at the start of every round in koth_nucleus because they don't recognize that the bridges that lead to the control point only extend until the control point is enabled.

** One very common mistake (and often the only reason you're able to take them down on higher difficulty levels) is using cover from irregular-shaped objects or structures of the wrong size, which often leads to an entire squad of Replicas either with their bodies half-exposed or hitting their own cover while trying to shoot from their positions. And they don't always move when injured, meaning you can kill a Replica by gunning it from afar with the RPL, ''and he will not move to protect himself properly''. That's not to mention the fact that they don't take explosive props into account at all — a perfect strategy to deal with groups is to lure them into a place you've cleared and let a barrel/extinguisher/fuse box behind. When they come, shoot the prop. [[TotalPartyKill Instant squad kill.]]

** Revolutionary at the time was the ability of enemy soldiers to make informed use of cover and grenades, running around corners to escape explosions and throwing grenades into the player's cover. One other thing they could do was set grenades as traps while retreating; however, more often than not, they would be distracted by the approaching player's gunfire ''while setting the trap'' and return in kind — [[ExplosiveStupidity immediately forgetting that they were standing above a live grenade...]]

** Many of your allies don't seem to understand the concepts of "I'm blocking Freeman's way" or "maybe I shouldn't stand in the narrow hallway". The enemies with guns frequently run out, aim at you, and stand still while shooting, frequently in the open in a hallway or a similar location. And then there's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0WqAmuSXEQ this.]] "If I can't see you..."
** Your squadmates don't seem to understand that stealth and evasion are sometimes important. They will run headlong into sniper fire every time without a moment's hesitation, and upon encountering a strider, the black guy you join up with toward the end of "Follow Freeman" started shooting at it with his ''submachine gun'', drawing its attention to both him and the equally ill-armed player.
** Apparently, Combine soldiers will only fire at you if they can see your head, meaning any object between your head and a Combine soldier acts as cover, ''even a tin can held in front of you''.
** In ''Episode One'', you have to escort several waves of them safely past increasingly thick Combine fire. If they were just smart enough to run full tilt along the predetermined path, they'd probably all make it, but it wouldn't be a proper EscortMission without suicidal [=NPC=]s.
** It is possible, through unusual circumstances, for an entire group of resistance fighters to kill themselves if you leave them in a bathroom alone, since they can ''[[DeathByFallingOver trip over the bathtub and break their necks]]''. To be fair, it's [[TruthInTelevision totally possible]] for people to die from the blunt force trauma of falling over, but it is ''highly'' unlikely for a group of people to simultaneously die this way through sheer clumsiness, ''especially'' when said people are not drunk, sick, or otherwise compromised.[[note]]One also has to wonder how something like this happens in a game that isn't programmed to deal FallingDamage to an entity that is merely knocked prone; most likely, they somehow clip into the ground and the game considers them crushed to death.[[/note]] This is also more common in ''Garry's Mod'', but can occur in ''Half Life 2''.

** Special Infected Bots also have no concept of [[FallingDamage fall damage]]. It's not uncommon to hear AI Boomers or Smokers leap to their deaths and explode behind you. It's even more hilarious when you see it for yourself.

* Your RedShirtArmy allies in the ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' series tend to suffer from this, eg running blindly into the enemy's line of fire, not taking cover, or allowing themselves to be melee'd to death. This frequently results in mission failure during {{escort mission}}s.

** The Dark Sims are meant to be ArtificialBrilliance, and for the most part they are — they know exactly where you are and will usually hit you when you're moving. The Meat Sims are meant to be the absolute in ArtificialStupidity — they're lucky if they hit you when you're standing still, and an explosive-centered game against a team of Meat Sims will invariably end with their team's score deep in the negatives. Unfortunately, "always hit" and "shoot to miss" mean "with bullets that [[{{Hitscan}} hit almost instantly]]": rockets are slower. This means you'll run ''away'' from the Dark Sims' shots and ''into'' the Meat Sims'.

** It's also ''very'' common for your A.I. teammates to [[TooDumbToLive walk directly into your line of fire]] ''while you're standing still,'' hurting your kill/death ratio by pretty much giving you a negative kill, and removing one unit from your team's reinforcements. If you intentionally moved behind them to shoot them in the back, it'd be one thing, but your teammates are being suicidally stupid by deliberately walking in front of you ''as you're clearly shooting an enemy'' is something else entirely. As a final insult, unlike in the [[VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefrontII second game,]] you can't turn Friendly Fire off in the first one.

*** A hilarious tactic in space battles goes like this: infiltrate the enemy's hangar, then proceed to use your free time to get in the enemy fighters. Don't leave the hangar, though; just get in long enough to turn the ship around, then immediately exit the fighter. The next time some AI schmuck comes along, he'll enter the ship and bravely fly forward...[[HilarityEnsues directly into the hangar walls.]] If you wanted to earn the points for that kill, keep your eye on the enemy's [[FragileSpeedster lightweight fighter]] (the A-Wing, in the Rebels' case), and simply plug a rocket into its backside every time someone goes to enter the fighter.

** If you play as the Ewoks on the Endor Hunt, the Stormtroopers struggle to hit you at close range; you can be so close that you are literally touching them and they ''still'' can't hit you because they're programmed to shoot at a man-sized target's chest but lack the ability to adjust if the target is half the normal size. They also can't hit you with their sniper rifle because the foliage seems to confuse them and make them simply stare at you, unable to do anything. In the same vein, if you decide to play Mos Eisley Hunt, you'll be pitting Tusken Raiders against Jawas. The Jawas will win almost every single time, because the Raiders cannot comprehend that Jawas are half the size of a normal human, and will consistently shoot over the Jawa's heads. It is possible to win as a Tusken Raider, but you're going to be doing basically all the killing.

*** The NPCs also can't drive any vehicle for cookies and their entire battlefield strategy is to walk left and right while shooting unlimited ammo at an enemy. If they weren't invincible, they would be dead in seconds.

** In ''Doom'' and ''Doom 2'', the whole reason the Cyberdemon was given immunity to splash damage was because the simplified AI would likely damage itself accidentally by firing rockets into nearby obstacles.
** The [[SetAMookToKillAMook in-fighting system]] in classic ''Doom'' and ''Doom 2''. In this case, it's a deliberate bunch of clever programming rather than bad coding, with a number of rules determining how monsters are able to inflict damage on each other, and whether they'll retaliate. Also, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VzBaUW0I64&t=760s this video]] humorously demonstrates, if two monsters are in-fighting and one teleports into another part of the map, the unteleported monster will, rather than attack you, just idly move about searching for the teleported monster.
** Also from ''Doom'' and ''Doom 2'', Pinkies will always charge straight at the player, regardless of what's in their way. Even if you have your chainsaw out, they'll happily charge right into it and get shredded.

*** Borderlands also has randomly generated weapons, many of which [[https://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/beyond-the-scope-of-design leave players asking]] (in the words of WebComic/AwkwardZombie):

** In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', during a mission with an escort (such as the Slab King escort quest around level 20), if you are in Fight for your Life (meaning you're crippled, but you can get back up if you kill an enemy), the escort NPC is likely to continue killing mobs you might be aiming at, and even more likely to [[KillSteal kill your kill]] and leave you for dead.
** VideoGame/Borderlands3 has numerous moments where you team up with an AI partner. They're effectively immortal, but can be downed temporarily (and will return to their feet quicker if you revive them). They can also revive ''you'', so logically the best course of action is to stick close to them so they can save your butt if you're dying... on paper it is. In reality, if ''anything'' shoots them during their revival attempt, they will immediately reset their revival, or disengage from helping you entirely until the target dies. The AI also makes zero attempts to move while reviving you, or to put itself behind cover (heck, it won't even crouch to reduce its size), so it's best to aim for second winds.
*** Lynchwood has train tracks running through the center of the town there. Enemies will hop from down from the embankments onto the tracks and back up to try and outflank the player. They will do this even if there's an oncoming train, which is a OneHitKill to anything for self-explanatory reasons. It's not uncommon to lose count of how many enemies you've killed and come up short, only to discover a twisted, pathetic bandit corpse mangled on the tracks after the fighting dies down.

*** ''Machinima/FreemansMind'' has many shining examples of the above. Highlights include Alien Grunts forgetting how ambushes work, killing themselves dropping from aircraft, not noticing Freeman even when he's shooting at them, Alien Controllers following Freeman into cramped hallways (and acting like "dogs strapped to jetpacks who can shoot ball lightning from their paws", in Freeman's words), Security Guards standing out in the open to fire, and soldiers taking UnfriendlyFire and LeeroyJenkins behavior to new heights — blowing each other up with grenades is the most common, but they've also bombed each other, [ [[HoistByHisOwnPetard fallen into their own traps]], and chased Freeman around corners even after he shot others who also ran that way.

*** Borderlands also has randomly generated weapons, many of which [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=041110 leave players asking]] (in the words of WebComic/AwkwardZombie):