AI Improvement

[giorgygr 61]

I've always had a test mission of a BLUFOR squad assaulting an OPFOR squad defending the town of Kamenka at Utes (the northern town). usually I put the blufor squad attacking the town from the east along the main road into the town. Before the patch, the OPFOR almost always got killed. With recent patch, the OPFOR almost always win, because of cover from buildings in the town whereas for the blufor, they have no cover whatsoever... but the firefight does take a bit longer... with a brief period(s) of lull moments. (I kinda like that atmosphere, before if there were no more shots, that means the enemy are already gone)

But if I make an aproach from the southeast through that lonely barn and a few stonewalls, the win ratio is 50-50... They take cover effectively, advance carefully... overall smarter AIs.

I like it a lot. Cant wait for ARMA 3, with ragdolls, smoother animations etc... 2013 will be the best year ever :)

Really nice to hear :)

[Shagulon 1]

Look..

I really haven't tested the behavior you describing but..

..IF A.I. does always "what is have been told to do"..THAT'S_DA news. :cc:

On the other hand the "anything can happen" (aka sandbox feel) ..should happen if the mission maker haven't given enough "specific" directions on "what-AI-does-next" and under "What-circumstances"

So in example..

If mission maker just puts an OPFOR group idling and during tests he constantly changing BLUFOR groups composition and/or approach-and as result the OPFOR behavior/reaction would be the same then YES..it's fail :q:

Can't deny the theory, as I have no idea how the campaign missions were set up, but you may be right.

After a day of testing, mostly on Good morning T-Stan, but also the first few missions of red harvest, swapping in different AI mods, I really the the current beta is better on its own.

It takes many attempts to do the missions now, and this is with aiming set at 70% for both opfor and blufor. Firefights last longer and feel more realistic - if still a little short. Perhaps I will reduce accuracy further.

Overrall the future does look brighter though :)

[steele6 0]

you know what would be a great AI improvement, is make the AI more human-like. they should act more like humans than AI. I know the radio system is certainly the main cause of it, its difficult to believe a soldier that speaks to badly like in arma, but if the AI was more human like it would make a world of difference. couple of soldiers breaking down in combat, or screaming or showing fear in the voices or with facial animations, or questioning your orders, or adding characters to the AI we see in the game. hopefully, the AI animations will not be terribly stiff and repetitive like in past arma games.

[metalcraze 290]

Bro. This is a game. The last thing I want to see is some idiot AI refusing to execute my order because he's supposedly in a bad mood. Current AI behavior of disregarding hold fire order when AI thinks he's in danger is already questionable at times.

Leave amateur dramatics for Call of Duty.

[steele6 0]

hmm, I see, I agree, but I think the point I was trying to make gets across :)

[giorgygr 61]

@steele6

The happiness lies in simple things (or something similar the Chinese people said)

Emotional A.I. really does not really help either A.I or you (the TL) to achieve your goal more efficiently..and for sure i don't want after the mission to go out with the A.I. for a coffee (or Tea for Engl. :P ) for being friends. :)

[dmarkwick 261]

you know what would be a great AI improvement, is make the AI more human-like. they should act more like humans than AI. I know the radio system is certainly the main cause of it, its difficult to believe a soldier that speaks to badly like in arma, but if the AI was more human like it would make a world of difference. couple of soldiers breaking down in combat, or screaming or showing fear in the voices or with facial animations, or questioning your orders, or adding characters to the AI we see in the game. hopefully, the AI animations will not be terribly stiff and repetitive like in past arma games.

I think the vagaries of the current AI seems to already do this :) we all know human player do stupid things, we stand around, we cannot decide what direction fire is coming in from, we cannot fathom that hiding behind a bush doesn't protect us :)

The AI also have their foibles, they stand around sometimes when they should be doing something, they cannot decide where fire is coming from, and they often hide in plain sight. Also there is often a delay in their logic so often things go wrong for that reason. I'm thinking here about various medical aid scripts & logic, where often the medic will dither around a lot. I equate this activity to the vagaries of a hectic situation, where a medic might be confused or frightened or something. People complain about the AI not being human-like, but I think these shortcomings, while not the same shortcomings, roughly equal the battlefield.

Edited November 15, 2012 by DMarkwick

[metalcraze 290]

You forgot to add that AIs also have morale and when it gets too low (like from a lot of friendlies dying) AI starts to run away in panic.

This is however disabled for player's teams - for obvious reasons. Although I wouldn't mind having an editor module to enable this - would be interesting to test them commander skills. And adding "panic" symbol over soldier's portrait when his morale is too low.

Plus if a soldier on the battlefield can't just shut up about his feelings and must show how deep his inner world is - the army of his does a very very lousy job at making him a properly working cog in a big warmachine.

Edited November 16, 2012 by metalcraze

[steele6 0]

look, I'm not saying the AI should be wussies or cry in combat, or run away in fear or nag you to being them hot tea, on the whole real soldiers don't. I just wish ARma AI was not so robotic. with the voice commands and radio responses, the long rotation times, the poor handsignals, and when getting into cover, they dont hug the walls like its their last thing they ever will do, or add other different styles of animations so that soldiers do not use the same animations each time, add some dynamic movements/animations/ hand signals/ voices etc.

im not asking them to be soppy and cry and ****, as soldiers, they are fine as they are in terms of tactics and so on, but make them more dynamic so we feel like they are human, not like some dull robots.

[mr_centipede 31]

I think the ARMA 2 AI is great as it is, but it does needs some better visual representation of what the AI does/think. For example, when you're suppressed, you got blurry vision, your weapon shakes more and you breathe heavily... those are visual/auditory represention of being suppressed for the player.. how about a visual representation of an AI being suppressed (for the player to see) so that the player actually know the AI is being suppressed. (face down with hand over the head covering would be nice). That is just one idea

The robotic radio command I think is good enough. military radio comms supposed to sound robotic. Just like the original OFP (not elite). Simple and short. eg is "All,<pause> MOVE TO,<pause> TREE,<pause> 12 o'clock." it's in a format of <group/unit> <command> <target> <direction> <range>. Dont need to put emotion in it.

But if it's something like battlefield shouts like in DSAI, that's a different matter. That mod really increase immersion. And they dont speak nonsense either, they actually speak what's pertaining to the battlefield, Like if they spot a tank, reloading or whatever... I dont know exactly how the mod does it, but I'm sure it picks from the vanilla AI, and attach an audio to it, to make the environment more lively.

So yeah, my point is the AI improvement is not really on the AI itself, but representation of it... that will make them seems 'smarter' and more alive

[steele6 0]

So yeah, my point is the AI improvement is not really on the AI itself, but representation of it... that will make them seems 'smarter' and more alive

yep, thats the dream AI I would like, one that yells out a bit more about what they are doing, and some visual representation of what they are doing.

[metalcraze 290]

Animations are greatly improved in ArmA3. I don't think you should worry about that. BIS also confirmed they will record most common phrases used by AI as a single sentence.

But if I was to choose between a robotic but informative phrase generator and generic stuff like "zomg enemy 5 o'clock." I'd pick the former.

Making phrase generator sound humanlike is not as easy as it seems.

Edited November 16, 2012 by metalcraze

[rdrake817 1]

It would be a breath of fresh air to have AI that did not have super powers on every vanilla server I play on.

[looter 10]

One of the biggest problems with the ArmA AI for years has been that they do not turn corners properly at all when in a convoy, hell most of the time even on their own. They freak out when they try to cross a bridge even in a formation favoring convoys, just the other day I was playing a mission where some T90's tried to cross a bridge by going around it and straight into the ocean lol.

I hope the "AI Improvements" aren't like the one introduced a few months ago that basically made the AI incredibly accurate at every difficulty except Recruit, basically the reason we had to start using asr_ai on our servers atleast. Some people complained and were told the change would not be reversed, as far as i can remember - wish I still had a link to the thread.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Looter

[-Coulum- 35]

So yeah, my point is the AI improvement is not really on the AI itself, but representation of it... that will make them seems 'smarter' and more alive

I don't exactly prefer these types of ai improvements, as they are purely aesthetic, but they do really make the ai seem smarter. I think there was actually an experiment done, where a group of people played 2 identical games with identical ai, but one ai described what it was doing as it was doing it. The testers were then asked which game had the better ai. The majority of the testers thought the latter ai was much better, even though they were infact identical, simply because they could understand what the ai was trying to do.

This is also why some games get more credit for their ai even though it pales in comparison to the complexity of arma ai. In other the game the ai might be super dumb, and die by the dozen, but they do it with style so people think they are better than they really are.

I think the vagaries of the current AI seems to already do this we all know human player do stupid things, we stand around, we cannot decide what direction fire is coming in from, we cannot fathom that hiding behind a bush doesn't protect us

Ha, I agrethats actually pretty correct. Right now the ai is pretty much the equivalent of a noobie player with extremely good shot detection and communication. The problem is, sometimes it gets boring killing noobs, and the ai is not yet capable of playing at a regular/veteran level. The main thing holding them back is reaction times, using proper stance and most importantly using the terrain to its maximum potential. Even a noob knows that if you come under fire from an unknown position and there is a building beside you, you don't go prone, but rather hide in the building.

you know what would be a great AI improvement, is make the AI more human-like.

I agree that anything done to make the AI appear/sound or even better behave more like a human is good. But one question I have is what kind of human should the ai be like - should the ai act like a human in an actual war/battle or a human playing a video game about battle/war (like the player does). The former would probably make the game more immersive, and make realife tactics more viable, but the latter would probably offer more challenge since the ai and player are playing the same game on an equal playing field. The two different behaviours could produce drastically different situations and playing style - for example an ai who actually thinks like a soldier in war, might surrender when odds are against him, yet an ai behaving like he is playing a video game would fight until his last breath. Another example could be, an ai behaving like he is playing a video game might put himself in suicidal positions if it benefits his side or it allows him take down a disproportionate number of enemies down with him. The ai thinking he is in a real war however probably wouldn't do this preferring to stay alive than be a martyr. I wonder what BI is trying to aim for with the ai. What do you guys think?

Edited November 17, 2012 by -Coulum-

[NeMeSiS 11]

I don't exactly prefer these types of ai improvements, as they are purely aesthetic, but they do really make the ai seem smarter. I think there was actually an experiment done, where a group of people played 2 identical games with identical ai, but one ai described what it was doing as it was doing it. The testers were then asked which game had the better ai. The majority of the testers thought the latter ai was much better, even though they were infact identical simply because they could understand what the ai was trying to do.

I thought it was HALO 1(Which has a rather theatrical display of emotions), however i havent been able to find a source in years. I just tried again and my search terms gave me the Turing test wikipage. :)

[Tonci87 163]

I thought it was HALO 1(Which has a rather theatrical display of emotions), however i havent been able to find a source in years. I just tried again and my search terms gave me the Turing test wikipage. :)

Ahh Halo 1. Never has it been that fun to attach grenades to enemys^^ (those little Grunts were super funny)

[metalcraze 290]

I hope the "AI Improvements" aren't like the one introduced a few months ago that basically made the AI incredibly accurate at every difficulty except Recruit

Have you tried not putting 10 AIs versus 1 player?

Because 1 vs. 1 AI has a much worse aim than even moderately skilled player.

And don't forget in reality it takes 3:1 advantage for the attacking side to not get wiped by defenders.

I'm really happy that BIS made missions like "10 players wipe out 100 AI soldiers" impossible with that accuracy fix.

Edited November 20, 2012 by metalcraze

[NoRailgunner 0]

Don't use highest AI skill=1 and precision=1 or ultraAI=1 for playing. Cross fingers that BIS will make a "AI options/menu" so adjusting/config A3 AI will be more userfriendly.

[-Coulum- 35]

Hopefully they really nail the configs and get it so that aiming and spotting for ai is as close to reality as possible. Then give people in the editor and difficulty options to scale down/up those skills. As it is, one can neither say the ai's spotting or shooting is too good or too poor but it can definitely be said that it isn't very human. I especially noticed this when trying to set up real life scenarios with the ai. Ie. US marines were taking sniper fire in Marjah. They took several casualties(4) and several days before they could find the snipers position, by which time he was long gone. It was only 400 metres away. In arma the ai would have pinpointed and killed the sniper within a matter of seconds of him getting a hit/getting off his second shot. And if they had remained unaware of the sniper's position he would have been able to pick the whole platoon off within minutes (albeit this is partially due to poor cover usage).

[froggyluv 2136]

US marines were taking sniper fire in Marjah. They took several casualties(4) and several days before they could find the snipers position, by which time he was long gone. It was only 400 metres away.

Now that would be taking SIM to a whole new level. I'm game, but what would the AI do in a period of a couple days game time -we'd need a whole slew of new animations and idle nervous behaviours. Smookie!!!

[panimala 25]

Hopefully they really nail the configs and get it so that aiming and spotting for ai is as close to reality as possible. Then give people in the editor and difficulty options to scale down/up those skills. As it is, one can neither say the ai's spotting or shooting is too good or too poor but it can definitely be said that it isn't very human. I especially noticed this when trying to set up real life scenarios with the ai. Ie. US marines were taking sniper fire in Marjah. They took several casualties(4) and several days before they could find the snipers position, by which time he was long gone. It was only 400 metres away. In arma the ai would have pinpointed and killed the sniper within a matter of seconds of him getting a hit/getting off his second shot. And if they had remained unaware of the sniper's position he would have been able to pick the whole platoon off within minutes (albeit this is partially due to poor cover usage).

That's a big chunk of wishful thinking. I'd be more concerned with AI performance rather than improvements in their behavior. Right now all AI calculations are offloaded to a single core and it puts ridiculous strain on even the most powerful servers. Due to the way the AI has been handled since OFP theres no way it can be upgraded to the extent you're hoping for, though I wish it could.

[-Coulum- 35]

I doubt that changing configs so that ai spot and shoot more realistically would cause performance problems. But I agree that handling ai more efficiently is very important because behavioural improvement and reaction times are limited by the cpu. Thus if we want those to improve we first need a better way of handling the ai or a more powerful cpu. I think BIS is trying to stay away from the latter. The headless client stuff looks promising in this regard.

[Scoggs 1]

I doubt that changing configs so that ai spot and shoot more realistically would cause performance problems. But I agree that handling ai more efficiently is very important because behavioural improvement and reaction times are limited by the cpu. Thus if we want those to improve we first need a better way of handling the ai or a more powerful cpu. I think BIS is trying to stay away from the latter. The headless client stuff looks promising in this regard.

https://developer.nvidia.com/gpu-ai-path-finding

[Serclaes 0]

Damn, I really should start patenting stuff I come up with when I'm drunk or bored.

Unfortunately this would exclude the ATI owners. If we take the steam playerbase as reference it should be about 30% of players...

Edit: Oh and most servers do not have graphics cards.