We introduce TextWorld, a sandbox learning environment for the training and evaluation of RL agents on text-based games. TextWorld is a Python library that handles interactive play-through of text games, as well as backend functions like state tracking and reward assignment. It comes with a curated list of games whose …
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48 results for “challenging games”
The game of Chinese Checkers is a challenging traditional board game of perfect information that differs from other traditional games in two main aspects: first, unlike Chess, all checkers remain indefinitely in the game and hence the branching factor of the search tree does not decrease as the game progresses; second,…
Proposes CoPO, a new policy optimization method for competitive games.
problem Designing efficient optimization methods for competitive Markov decision processes.
method Competitive policy optimization (CoPO) approach that exploits game-theoretic nature of competitive games.
result Stable optimization, convergence to sophisticated strategies, and higher scores compared to baseline methods.
Recent breakthroughs in AI for multi-agent games like Go, Poker, and Dota, have seen great strides in recent years. Yet none of these games address the real-life challenge of cooperation in the presence of unknown and uncertain teammates. This challenge is a key game mechanism in hidden role games. Here we develop the …
Gradient-based methods for games suffer from discrete update steps that cause drift, affecting performance.
problem Gradient-based methods for two-player games suffer from drift due to discrete update steps.
method Derived modified continuous dynamical systems to closely follow the discrete dynamics of games.
result Identified distinct components of discretization drift that can alter or destabilize game performance.
Unified framework for estimating reward functions in competitive games.
problem Estimating unknown reward functions in competitive games.
method Unified framework with entropy regularization for reward function recovery.
result Strong theoretical guarantees and practical effectiveness demonstrated.
Replication confirms CGD's effectiveness in competitive games.
problem Reproducibility of a novel Nash equilibrium algorithm.
method Replicated experiments and provided Python implementation.
result CGD avoids oscillatory and divergent behaviours.
Paper tackles hidden game problem in AI alignment and language games.
problem Hidden game problem in AI alignment and language games.
method Developed a composition of regret minimization techniques to discover and exploit hidden structures.
result Achieved optimal external and swap regret bounds for rapid convergence to correlated equilibria.
LeDeepChef learns to play multiple cooking games well.
problem Designing a general RL agent for multiple games of the same family.
method Actor-critic framework, action-space pruning, hierarchical RL, specialized module.
result LeDeepChef outperformed competitors on a diverse set of cooking games.
Deep reinforcement learning has shown its success in game playing. However, 2.5D fighting games would be a challenging task to handle due to ambiguity in visual appearances like height or depth of the characters. Moreover, actions in such games typically involve particular sequential action orders, which also makes the…
MuZero learns models to master complex games without domain knowledge.
problem Mastering complex, real-world domains with unknown dynamics.
method Combining tree-based search with learned models.
result Achieves superhuman performance in diverse domains.
Graphon game model simplifies stochastic interactions among agents.
problem Complex interactions among heterogeneous agents in stochastic games.
method Introduced a discrete-time graphon game formulation with a representative player.
result Existence and uniqueness of graphon equilibrium proven with mild assumptions.
Deep RL fails on deceptive games, revealing algorithm weaknesses.
problem Characterizing and understanding failures of deep reinforcement learning.
method Testing A2C on four deceptive games using a game framework.
result Deep RL fails in specific ways that differ from planning-based agents.
The emergence of mobile games has caused a paradigm shift in the video-game industry. Game developers now have at their disposal a plethora of information on their players, and thus can take advantage of reliable models that can accurately predict player behavior and scale to huge datasets. Churn prediction, a challeng…
New algorithm reduces risk in online games with limited feedback.
problem Risk-averse learning in repeated unknown games with bandit feedback.
method Proposes a momentum-based algorithm to estimate CVaR using historical cost values.
result Achieves sub-linear regret and outperforms existing methods in numerical experiments.
Study shows Elo models fail to accurately measure transitive strength in competitive games.
problem Elo models fail to correctly identify the transitive component in real-world competitive games.
method Investigated the challenge of identifying the transitive component in games, proposed an extension of the Elo score.
result Disc ranking system assigns two scores: skill and consistency.
New approach tackles non-stationary multi-agent games with black-box methods.
problem Challenges in learning equilibria in non-stationary multi-agent systems.
method Versatile black-box approach applicable to various games, including general-sum, potential, and Markov games.
result Achieves optimal regret bounds for non-stationary games, with or without knowledge of total variation.
A game-theoretic approach simplifies MBRL design and improves sample efficiency.
problem Designing stable and efficient MBRL algorithms using rich function approximators.
method Develops a game-theoretic framework where MBRL is modeled as a Stackelberg game between policy and model players.
result Proposed algorithms are highly sample efficient and match asymptotic performance of model-free policy gradient.
Gradient methods converge better for alternating updates in bilinear zero-sum games.
problem Understanding the dynamics of gradient algorithms for bilinear zero-sum games.
method Systematic analysis of popular gradient updates for simultaneous and alternating versions of bilinear zero-sum games.
result Alternating updates converge better than simultaneous ones, with optimal parameter setup and rates.
Deep Reinforcement Learning has shown tremendous success in solving several games and tasks in robotics. However, unlike humans, it generally requires a lot of training instances. Trajectories imitating to solve the task at hand can help to increase sample-efficiency of deep RL methods. In this paper, we present a simp…
Study analyzes player churn and purchasing behavior in games.
problem Retaining players and predicting churn in video games.
method Deep behavioral analysis and ensemble learning models.
result Discarding certain churners improves prediction models.
New method accelerates smooth games using spectral shape analysis.
problem Accelerating optimization in smooth games with complex numerical challenges.
method Matrix iteration theory and spectral shape analysis to characterize and manipulate acceleration.
result Identified a continuum of optimization strategies from convex minimization to gradient descent.
Framework for multi-agent RL with human feedback in a Snake game.
problem Improving multi-agent reinforcement learning with human feedback.
method Developed a simulated game environment for offline model training and online competitions. Introduced HILL methods and reward manipulation heuristics.
result Agents with HILL methods outperform those without in online competitions.
The paper evaluates various bonus-based exploration methods in the ALE and finds limited improvement in performance.
problem Improving exploration in reinforcement learning algorithms, especially in challenging games.
method Empirical evaluation of different reward bonuses on the Arcade Learning Environment.
result Recently developed bonus-based exploration methods do not significantly improve performance in challenging games.
New algorithm solves minimax games with linear constraints.
problem Nonconvex minimax games with coupled linear constraints.
method Primal-dual alternating proximal gradient (PDAPG) algorithm.
result Achieves ε-stationary solution within O(ε^(-2)) iterations for strongly concave settings.
Neural MMO v1.3: A Massively Multiagent Game Environment for Training and Evaluating Neural Networkscs.LG
Neural MMO simulates MMOs to study multiagent intelligence.
problem Limited research environments for multiagent intelligence.
method Developed a new game environment inspired by MMOs.
result Standard methods can learn interesting behaviors in MMOs.
We introduce a new virtual environment for simulating a card game known as "Big 2". This is a four-player game of imperfect information with a relatively complicated action space (being allowed to play 1,2,3,4 or 5 card combinations from an initial starting hand of 13 cards). As such it poses a challenge for many curre…
Agent57 beats human average on all Atari games.
problem Atari game benchmark's poor performance in challenging games.
method Trained neural network with adaptive policy selection and novel architecture.
result First deep RL agent to outperform human average on all 57 Atari games.
Despite significant advances in the field of deep Reinforcement Learning (RL), today's algorithms still fail to learn human-level policies consistently over a set of diverse tasks such as Atari 2600 games. We identify three key challenges that any algorithm needs to master in order to perform well on all games: process…
Bayesian model improves win probability estimates in soccer.
problem Technical challenges in estimating win probability for soccer.
method Bayesian statistical framework using contextual game state features.
result Well-calibrated win, tie, and loss probabilities demonstrated.
From the early days of computing, games have been important testbeds for studying how well machines can do sophisticated decision making. In recent years, machine learning has made dramatic advances with artificial agents reaching superhuman performance in challenge domains like Go, Atari, and some variants of poker. A…
Negative momentum accelerates convergence in minimax games but at a suboptimal rate.
problem The convergence rate of negative momentum in minimax games is suboptimal.
method Extending variational inequality formulation, connecting momentum method with Chebyshev polynomials.
result Negative momentum accelerates convergence locally but at a suboptimal rate.
IGGP learns game rules from varying quality game play, finding no overall trend.
problem Learn game rules from varying quality game play.
method Used Sancho's intelligent game traces and ILP systems (Metagol, Aleph, ILASP) to induce game rules from traces of varying quality and volume.
result No overall trend in accuracy of learned game rules from varying quality and volume of training data.
Paper tackles multiplayer symmetric games, securing equal share for n players.
problem Multiplayer games lack unique equilibria, making guarantees unreliable.
method Identifies conditions for equal share, designs efficient algorithms inspired by no-regret learning.
result Proves algorithms achieve approximate equal share across various settings.
Scaling up model and data size improves imitation learning in single-agent games.
problem Limited recovery of expert behavior in single-agent games using imitation learning.
method Investigate the effect of scaling model and data size on imitation learning performance.
result IL loss and mean return scale with compute budget, resulting in power laws.
Study online learning in unknown Markov games with sublinear regret.
problem Online learning in unknown Markov games with unobservable opponents.
method Introduced an algorithm achieving sublinear regret against the minimax value.
result First sublinear regret bound for unknown Markov games, independent of action spaces size.
This paper tackles learning Stackelberg equilibrium in asymmetric games efficiently from noisy samples.
problem Learning Stackelberg equilibrium in asymmetric, general-sum games efficiently from noisy samples.
method The paper initiates the theoretical study of sample-efficient learning of the Stackelberg equilibrium in bandit feedback setting.
result Sharp positive results on sample-efficient learning of Stackelberg equilibrium with value optimal up to a fundamental gap identified.
Action Guidance: Getting the Best of Sparse Rewards and Shaped Rewards for Real-time Strategy Gamescs.LG
Action guidance helps agents learn true objectives in games with sparse rewards.
problem Training agents in games with sparse rewards requires significant exploration.
method Action guidance, a novel technique that combines exploration with reward shaping.
result Action guidance enables agents to optimize true objectives efficiently.
Deep reinforcement learning has achieved many recent successes, but our understanding of its strengths and limitations is hampered by the lack of rich environments in which we can fully characterize optimal behavior, and correspondingly diagnose individual actions against such a characterization. Here we consider a fam…
Churn Prediction in Mobile Social Games: Towards a Complete Assessment Using Survival Ensemblesstat.ML
Reducing user attrition, i.e. churn, is a broad challenge faced by several industries. In mobile social games, decreasing churn is decisive to increase player retention and rise revenues. Churn prediction models allow to understand player loyalty and to anticipate when they will stop playing a game. Thanks to these pre…
Modelling Early User-Game Interactions for Joint Estimation of Survival Time and Churn Probabilitycs.LG
Data-driven approaches which aim to identify and predict player engagement are becoming increasingly popular in games industry contexts. This is due to the growing practice of tracking and storing large volumes of in-game telemetries coupled with a desire to tailor the gaming experience to the end-user's needs. These a…
AI agents beat previous best on NetHack, but symbolic bots still outperform.
problem Developing AI agents that can ascend in the NetHack game.
method Used a procedurally generated NetHack Learning Environment for reinforcement learning.
result Symbolic bots outperform neural approaches on NetHack.
A Semi-Supervised and Inductive Embedding Model for Churn Prediction of Large-Scale Mobile Gamescs.LG
Mobile gaming has emerged as a promising market with billion-dollar revenues. A variety of mobile game platforms and services have been developed around the world. One critical challenge for these platforms and services is to understand user churn behavior in mobile games. Accurate churn prediction will benefit many st…
Achieving efficient and scalable exploration in complex domains poses a major challenge in reinforcement learning. While Bayesian and PAC-MDP approaches to the exploration problem offer strong formal guarantees, they are often impractical in higher dimensions due to their reliance on enumerating the state-action space.…
Cross-dimensional neural networks improve AI in Catan game.
problem Challenging to build AI agents for Catan game using RL.
method Introduced cross-dimensional neural networks to handle game complexities.
result RL agent outperforms best heuristic agent in Catan.
This chapter reviews recent advances in multi-agent reinforcement learning.
problem Theoretical foundations for multi-agent reinforcement learning are lacking.
method Selective overview of MARL algorithms with theoretical analysis.
result Identification of new research directions in MARL theory.
CausalGame benchmarks LLM agents' causal thinking in games.
problem Evaluating causal thinking in AI Scientists with LLMs.
method Interactive games with 14 scenarios incorporating selection bias, measurement error, and hidden confounders.
result None of the 30 LLM agents demonstrated reliable causal thinking, with the best model achieving only 68.0% survival.
Video-game players generate huge amounts of data, as everything they do within a game is recorded. In particular, among all the stored actions and behaviors, there is information on the in-game purchases of virtual products. Such information is of critical importance in modern free-to-play titles, where gamers can sele…