Senior Combat AI Designer

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At Blizzard, we craft genre-defining games and legendary worlds for all to share. Through unparalleled creativity and storytelling, we create immersive universes and iconic characters that are beloved across platforms, borders, backgrounds, and generations - only made possible by building a work environment that nurtures the artistry of game development and unleashes the aspirations of our people.

We are looking for a Senior AI Designer to help craft a new, unannounced game for Blizzard . The bots you design will need to join the battle as both player allies and enemies, offering a carefully balanced challenge for players as they improve their skills.

If you are passionate about creating Combat AI that offers great gameplay and experiences that delight millions of players, then this is the ideal role for you.

Sound like your next challenge? We can't wait to meet you!

Responsibilities

• Design and implement NPC AI behaviors and systems to deliver dynamic, engaging gameplay experiences.
• Maintain concise and clear documentation of Combat AI designs, systems, and behaviors to ensure smooth development and collaboration across teams.
• Participate in cross-disciplinary meetings to review designs, gather feedback, and collaborate on improvements to Combat AI systems.
• Collaborate with game designers, level designers, and engineers to ensure Combat AI systems can always react to new maps, modes, player objectives, and changes to constant gameplay balancing on an expanding live-service title.
• Work with our technical team to implement the Combat AI using the tools and systems you help design.
• Balance Combat AI difficulty and capabilities to create challenging but fair experiences for players.
• Integrate feedback from playtests and user data to fine-tune Combat AI behaviors, adapting to the needs of diverse player bases.

• Stay up to date on industry advancements and innovations in Combat AI to improve the intelligence, realism, and performance of in-game Combat AI systems.

Minimum Requirements

• Professional experience designing and implementing Combat AI systems in games (preferably with shipped titles).
• Experience creating and working with user stories that determine the “what” and “why” of AI behaviors.
• Strong technical skills, including visual scripting and an advanced understanding of Combat AI decision-making systems (e.g. utility AI, state machines, pathfinding, behavior trees, etc.).
• Strong communication skills with the ability to communicate with both highly technical and less technical collaborators.
• An understanding of gameplay balancing, AI tuning, and creating compelling player experiences through AI agent behaviors.

• A collaborative attitude with the ability to give and receive constructive feedback.

Pluses

• A technical background with experience working closely with engineers.
• Familiarity with agile project environments and iterative design processes.
• Experience with combat AI, non-combat AI, or procedural AI generation.
• Knowledge of tactical/spacial queries.
• Experience working with Unity and visual scripting languages.
• Knowledge of optimization techniques to ensure efficient AI performance in-game.