Artificial intelligence, abbreviated as AI, is the intelligence of a computer-controlled character (referred to as a computer player or CPU) in the Super Smash Flash series and Fraymakers. It is mainly represented by difficulty levels, with higher levels leading to more intelligent computer players, creating the illusion of skill.
In Group modes and Training, players can assign a level to any computer player on the character selection screen by either pressing on the level bar to increase it by one notch or dragging it to the desired level. In Classic, Adventure, and All-Star, the level of each computer player generally depends on the difficulty level set, with higher difficulty levels often using higher computer player levels. In Events and Multi-Man Smash, the computer player level depends on what particular event or mode is selected.
Difficulty levels[]
In both games of the Super Smash Flash series, artificial intelligence levels range from 1 (lowest) to 9 (highest), with 1 being the default. In Fraymakers, these levels instead range from 0 (lowest) to 9 (highest), with 0 being the default. As mentioned, the difficulty levels affect the reaction speed and creates an illusion of more skill — both a low-leveled and a high-leveled CPU will decide to do something such as input an attack, but the high-leveled CPU will likely do it much more quickly. Similarly, lower-leveled CPUs are less likely to shield, dodge attacks, chase opponents, or recover effectively. CPUs at the highest levels are often able to perfectly land attacks against opponents when at the appropriate range from them, and sometimes, albeit still rarely, they can manage to perform an effective combo.
Training against CPUs[]
Players commonly fight against CPUs to train when there are not other players around to play. This is a practice that is criticized by some, as besides even the highest level CPUs being of a lower level of skill than a typical casual player, CPUs do things that human players never do (and will never do things that are common for human players to do), as well as having several exploitable flaws and being completely incapable of mind gaming, or even learning from their mistakes and changing their tactics accordingly.
Training against CPUs is said to not adequately train one's skills beyond basic offense and defense (such as the ability to read and bait opponents), and it is often argued that excessive CPU training may cause a player to actually become slightly worse by developing habits that only work against CPUs and will be heavily exploited by human players. For example, if a Marth player persistently used Counter as a CPU got close to attack, it would fall for it most of the time especially at higher levels, without trying to instead bait the counter or use grabs more often, using even powerful attacks that might result in the CPU being fatally KO'd when countered. However, a competent human player would easily avoid the move by feigning an attack in the cases where Marth would commonly use Counter, and then punish him with a grab or delayed powerful attack such as a charged smash attack.