AI Improvement

[DMarkwick]

If they switched it off why does it run around and shoot at enemies killing them incl. Buchta at E3?

Are you sure it was within same session? I haven't seen any of them so I can't say whether the behaviors you're describing are from the same session.

"Switching AI off" seems plausible to you (even though it makes zero sense) but not turning on the invulnerability (which is actually the standard practice)?

I'm sure I don't know what the standard practice is for BIS and switching off AI can mean switching part of it off, look up disableAI, BIS might well have more params than the ones we see.

What breaks a presentation to journos more - AI acting smart or your demo being awkwardly cut short in the middle?

Since you ask I should say your demo being awkwardly cut short in the middle...

Hey I know you want to be optimistic and all but I'm pretty sure you know that when BIS decides to change something there's nothing in the world that will ever make them reconsider when it's finalized.

Really? So all the beta patches where things are fixed, changed & added do not represent reconsideration? I know you like to be pessimistic and all but I think you're overdoing the act trying to gauge actual AI behaviors from videos where you don't know the parameters is a losing game. This is why we'll be getting an alpha, so that we can know the parameters.

Better have a dosage of paranoia (which is supported by many presentations) now than when it's already too late.

To what end? Paranoia without backup is just noise. Pointing to a video and calling that evidence is not really helpful. I suggest waiting until the alpha is released, and real evidence can be achieved.

[^Th0mas^]

But even if the AI is terrible in the alpha demonstrations, you must keep in mind that the game is not done. They still have a half year or more to fix this.

[-Coulum-]

Gotta say the latest vid did not show the ai in a good light. It looked like they had their behaviour set to careless or safe the entire time. Maybe fsm's were disabled? I mean they don't even do their usual prone stuff, even when their two buddies get wasted beside them, let alone find cover. And then the guy with the pistol at 4:14! Is he paralyzed with fear or something? I'm am not sure if the ai is maybe disabled (which doesn't make sense to my mind), being worked on (maybe they haven't fully taught ai to use new animations?) or BI has really dumbed them down, but I think it is safe to say that they are pretty moronic in that vid. My hope is that BIS has disabled the ai just to fuck with us - living up to "Bohemia Introllactive", but i doubt this is the case. The only thing I did like is that it appears ai will be able to utilize the new stance stuff, as the petrified pistol man modeled for us before Jay finally saw him standing in the middle of road, with cover and safety no more than 10-15 metres away, and blew him to oblivion.

But even if the AI is terrible in the alpha demonstrations, you must keep in mind that the game is not done. They still have a half year or more to fix this.

Mmm I don't really think so. I believe the goal of the alpha and beta after it is to test for bugs and performance issues. Possibly also to tweak numbers, like how fast you ge tired whether ragdolls look realistic, whether factions are balanced etc. But really changing the ai behaviour would go against that, by introducing more bugs and glitches. If there are any ai improvements to be made I think they are going to be made now or in patches after arma 3. I am thinking that BIS is leaning more towards the latter, if they plan to improve the ai at all...

[^Th0mas^]

Yeah I think the AI i final. Wasnt the main reason for the delay to upgrade the PhsyX?

---------- Post added at 06:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------

But if they disabled the AI in the E3 demo they probably would have told us by now. I dont think they said a single thing in this thread at this point.

[Ekko]

So what everyone is saying is that its gonna be worse than ArmA 2!? Well, thats it! I was hoping for ArmA 3 to be fun and realistic but it seems as if the AI is dumbed down for no freaking reason!! Dumbing them down makes it a whole lot worse since ArmA 2 AI can't do shit right! ArmA 2 was like: Team leader: "Find cover guys!" AI: "allright, I am gonna stand here in this backyard with everybody else facing some random direction"(yeah I know, bad example right? they do a lot of weird stuff though). And combat! whoo! that was pain in the ass!

I am that kinda guy who hates to download mods, so yeah! I don't want any! I just want the freaking AI to be more responsive, able to take effective cover facing the direction the enemy is spotted, have a decent reaction to suppressive fire and also be able to drive like a human being in the vanilla version!

Dont get me wrong though, I love playing ArmA 2 and I love all the things one can do with it! But if ArmA 3 will be the same bullshit of frustration, then im not gonna waste my time on it! Why must so many things be fixed but not the AI!?

[Cwivey]

I wouldn't be so hasty there, Ekko, it's all speculation until we hear some offical word on it.

[-Coulum-]

Yes I don't think that we can really confirm anything as concrete until we are shown a demonstration specifically meant to show off the ai (unlikely) or until the alpha. The idea that I get from the devs is that the ai is going to be fundamentally the same (no tweaking in behaviour) but will have "improved" tweaks to their numbers. Ie. accuracy, spotting, engagement distances etc. Otherwise I beleive they are the same as arma 2/oa. I do not believe they will be "dumbed down". I just set up a test with me in a stryker and ai patrolling on safe mode in the hills of takistan. The only difference between that and the gamestar vid is that the ai ran or went prone after their buddies where shot and nobody stood 10 metres away from me pointing their pistol at me. And when I say they ran after being shot at, I don't mean they ran to cover. They ran like chickens without their heads, some towards me some away and some happened to run behind a rock or bush but kept running right past it. The ai in arma 2 is not that much better than what we saw in the video, and though I am disappointed in the lack of improvement I seriously doubt there is going to be any degregation to the ai behaviour. too much work has already been invested in them to just throw it away without improvement.

Dont get me wrong though, I love playing ArmA 2 and I love all the things one can do with it! But if ArmA 3 will be the same bullshit of frustration, then im not gonna waste my time on it! Why must so many things be fixed but not the AI!?

I have similar feelings, although I always come back to arma even despite the ai. They're still better than what any other game has got. My guess as to why the ai is not fixed is because ai improvements are the hardest to do with the most unpredicatble results and least impact on "expanding the playerbase". By this I mean that there is no sure way to improve the ai. You might try to fix one thing but than break another and actually end up worsening their behaviour. And even after you do get an improvement you just can't win with the customer. In 1.59/1.60 BIs put tons of good stuff in for the ai. People still complain they're shit. And to a certain extent they are. Tons of work just for more complaints. Now if you compare that to something like lighting improvements - Lighting is much easier to do and improvements are obvious and hard to screw up. And further more for some strange reason many people these days are more concerned with the graphics of a game rather than its gameplay... so something like lighting is relatively easy for BIS to and results in more customers, whereas Ai is harder and doesn't really guarantee any new customers. In fact it could result in people disliking the game even more. Therefore BIs decides to fix things other than the ai.
Thats my take on it at least. I really don't know much about being a Dev though.

[metalcraze]

Are you sure it was within same session? I haven't seen any of them so I can't say whether the behaviors you're describing are from the same session.

It was any infantry E3 showcase video. Buchta was getting whacked pretty much all the time. And never I saw AI trying to lean from around objects or hug a wall like they do in ArmA2.

Come on man, BIS programming AI just for E3 is not plausible.

I'm sure I don't know what the standard practice is for BIS and switching off AI can mean switching part of it off, look up disableAI, BIS might well have more params than the ones we see.

So why would they do that and not switch on invulnerability instead? Do they want to specifically impress journos with dumb AI? This is kinda... ridiculous. The only thing their videos with AI do so far is produce comments in Eurogamers and Gamestars a la "why is AI so dumb"

Really? So all the beta patches where things are fixed, changed & added do not represent reconsideration?

Of course BIS fixes, changes and adds something - but once it's done they will never get back to it. Sometimes it's a good change (recoil in 1.54, driving), sometimes it's a bad change (possible to easily clear out buildings with M240 - no weapon collision, more arcade-ish rocket ballistics compared to even OFP) but once it happened it's here to stay.

To what end? Paranoia without backup is just noise. Pointing to a video and calling that evidence is not really helpful. I suggest waiting until the alpha is released, and real evidence can be achieved.

You don't know parameters either yet you are 100% sure the AI was dumbed down for presentation purposes (does it even make sense?)

[maturin]

This is all easily answerable. Stratis is a brand new island with all new objects. It's entirely possible that they rushed it to be presentable at E3, and that none of the objects are yet visible to the AI. They won't take cover behind a soda can in ArmA 2 because the engine doesn't tell them that it's a cover object. Perhaps none of these Stratis objects have viewblock geometry either, or any number of things that are invisibly vital to the AI. If the AI perceive only blank and empty space around them, their behavior is quite understandable, and they showed some logical choices by just running away from Crowe's vehicle.

This is just a guess, but it is a logical possibility.

Unlike the other floated guesses of custom-built E3 AI that looks and plays like shit (seriously, it would take tons of work to even make a new AI that was dumb), or the outrageous paranoid nightmare that BIS have stripped out all the progress since ArmA 1 so as to deliberately have the most un-fun and useless PvE gameplay in all of action gaming (if you believe that, take a break from your computer and get some fresh air).

[-Coulum-]

This is all easily answerable. Stratis is a brand new island with all new objects. It's entirely possible that they rushed it to be presentable at E3, and that none of the objects are yet visible to the AI. They won't take cover behind a soda can in ArmA 2 because the engine doesn't tell them that it's a cover object. Perhaps none of these Stratis objects have viewblock geometry either, or any number of things that are invisibly vital to the AI. If the AI perceive only blank and empty space around them, their behavior is quite understandable, and they showed some logical choices by just running away from Crowe's vehicle.

Yep, Entirely possible. I would think that it would be better practice to make the ai parts of terrain and objects when you make the object themselve but what do I know. I hope that if this is the case, BIS takes their time to really fine tune these things so the ai is able to determine what is good cover, isn't overly hampered or overpowered by grass etc. etc. Even if there isn't any change to the actual ai behaviour I think we will still see improvements if BIS creates a environment for them that is easy to navigate and interact with.

And for the love of god, when you're making those "sticky cover points" on objects where ai can take cover, please "attach" two stances for each one - one that is a totally safe stance that makes it so the object covers the entire body of the ai (ie. prone behind a low wall), and a firing stance that exposes as little as possible but still allows the ai to see/shoot over the object. Then have them switch between those stances when under fire/not underfire/facing a threat they can't handle. Combined with the new animations this would be absolutely amazing for gunfights and make cover actually useful for the ai. The way they use it now they are actually better off going prone in the open as it leaves just as much or less exposed but provides better accuracy. Pretty Pretty please? You're so close to making the perfect ai...