Artificial Intelligence, is still being frustrating. (AI, NPC's)

[cradboard 1]

I am super excited for up-coming player made missions. Arma 3 has more potential than any other game and I was hoping for some tweaks. The AI is acting almost the same with their super aiming. They can hit us on every shot from 300~400 meters. They mostly hit us in the heads too, and seem to rarely miss. I don't know if this is just an alpha problem but it's starting to annoy me. I'm very happy with the game so far, I just hope the developers can work into a 'missing' system.

Thanks

Cradboard

[^Th0mas^ 10]

I am super excited for up-coming player made missions. Arma 3 has more potential than any other game and I was hoping for some tweaks. The AI is acting almost the same with their super aiming. They can hit us on every shot from 300~400 meters. They mostly hit us in the heads too, and seem to rarely miss. I don't know if this is just an alpha problem but it's starting to annoy me. I'm very happy with the game so far, I just hope the developers can work into a 'missing' system.

Thanks

Cradboard

New game engine means new challenges for the game developers. It`s not like they can click a button, and everything that was good about the AI in ArmA 2 will tranfer flawless over to this game. Hopefully AI mods like "ASR AI skills" will be ported over to ArmA 3 meanwhile.

[mr_centipede 31]

Change their skill in difficulty settings, I played veteran and the default value is 0.85, I toned it down to 0.7, much more survivable for me. They're not as accurate and not as 'responsive'. Though by no mean dumb.

[spamurai 3]

Actually...

There is an even more refined method of tweaking the AI beyond the blanket Skill Setting under options. You'll need to do some tweaking, but if you roll up your sleeves, and spend a little elbow grease, the results pay off dividends.

AI Difficulty

One of the settings you can adjust for both Cadet and Veteran modes is the AI difficulty. You can separately adjust the difficulty of friendly and enemy AI units.

Adjusting the AI skill level will affect a number of AI characteristics simultaneously. Factors that are known to be affected are:

Aiming Accuracy

Aiming Speed

Endurance

Speed and range to spot opposing forces

Morale

Speed of reloading

Tactical ability

Most of these attributes scale linearly from 0% to 100%, corresponding to the value you set of the skill slider. A few are limited; for example, aiming speed is never less than 50%, while spotting speed is never greater than 70%. It is the CfgAISkill settings in Config.bin, buried in the ArmA PBO files control how these atttributes scale.

Tweaking AI Difficulty

The fact that the AI skill level sliders adjust all settings at once is a limitation that makes it harder to tune the game to your liking. Luckily, there are at least two additional options for AI tuning available.

Adjusting Accuracy Separately

One key factor that can be adjusted individually is the AI shooting accuracy, separately from their other skills. This can be done by modifying your Profile file.

To do this, you must first ensure that the necessary settings have been written to your Profile file. Go into the ArmA interface, Difficulty section, and set the AI skill levels to 'Custom', and adjust the slider bars slightly. This will ensure the necessary entries are written into your Profile file.

You will find your Profile file in your My Documents, ArmA, folders. Open the Profile file in Notepad, and look for the settings 'precisionFriendly', 'skillFriendly', 'precisionEnemy' and 'skillEnemy'. You will find these settings twice; once for Cadet and once for Veteran. Changing the numbers here is equivalent to adjusting the sliders in the Difficulty screen, but you will see that you can adjust the precision setting separately from the other 'skill' setting.

What values you choose depends on your personal preferences and ability. To make the game less difficult, you can generally leave the 'skill' settings at their default values, but lower the 'accuracy' values. To be fair you should set both the friendly and enemy accuracy to be the same, and adjust it so that the AI's accuracy feels about the same as your own. A value of 0.2 is a good starting point for people new to ArmA.

Adjusting Individual Characteristics

To go further, and start adjusting individual characteristics such as morale, tactical skill, etc, you will need to delve into the Config.bin file and modify the CfgAISkill settings.

[tedbell 0]

Despite the tweaks listed above, there is a fundamental error in close-range AI behavior - please read and upvote the missing AI behaviors in close range Arma3

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=3888

[Freighttrain4 1]

I don't know what you're talking about brother. It seems like AI is shit in terms of everything. I've not gotten a single challenge by them yet. I've never been killed by an AI. I've only been shot at my AI maybe.... twice? I just want faster acting AI that does look at me and then turn away or something.

[lugiahua 26]

I don't know what you're talking about brother. It seems like AI is shit in terms of everything. I've not gotten a single challenge by them yet. I've never been killed by an AI. I've only been shot at my AI maybe.... twice? I just want faster acting AI that does look at me and then turn away or something.

interesting, what's the difficulty/AI level you use?

[mr_centipede 31]

And what CPU are you using? AI can turn into be idiots when they're low on juice (CPU power)

[metalcraze 290]

Dude just because you get killed with 1 bullet doesn't mean it's a headshot. It's ArmA.

AI is too precise right now because it can handle recoil well compared to its ArmA2 counterpart which shot at birds with anything automatic. They will tone it down sooner or later.

What you can do now is open your username.ArmA3profile in my documents and set precision to 0.15-0.2

[cradboard 1]

Thanks for all the replies, some helped and some were discussion answers. I hope the developers look into an easier way to edit the AI level, such as an in game setting or something. I wouldn't say I'm new to Arma but it's just wanting to get used to the game without getting thrashed in the beginning. I started a mission with 3 players less than recommended and we are all decent vets, and we would just get picked off by MG gunners. It might be our tactics but I think their aim is 200% better than ours. I'll look into editing their difficulty, thanks guys.

[spamurai 3]

I think that when discussing the AI, it's important to note that their behavior is unrefined at the current stage of Alpha. No effort to polish their routine has been invested yet, they are simply made functional for now.

They are a bit "dumb" at times and tend to act a bit aloof in various situations. I've made quick missions to skirmish with the AI and found them to range in effectiveness. On the one hand they are often good at reacting to players and suppressing an area, like a window or a building corner.... and then at other times they move as if oblivious to the player. I've literally had AI run up to me, stop then walk by and carry on as if I was scenery and not their target objective.

So.... clearly a work in progress.

Also assigning a unit a "RANK" makes slight differences. Especially in group AI situations. When in a group, the AI treats the group as a single entity made up of many parts. The highest ranking AI in the group becomes it's "head". It's his Skill level that determines how well the group performs overall. The higher the Rank of an AI unit, the more complex his behavior and general tactics become. Thus, the smarter the group overall appears to be. However, if the leading AI is killed, the next highest ranked AI assumes charge as head of the group. Being of a lower rank, naturally the group's ability suffers. As attrition takes it's toll.... the group of AI tend to exhibit notable "Brain Drain" at times.

On the subject of Group AI... if you are making missions, AI tend to be more efficient in smaller groups then large unified ones. Remember that AI in a group are effectively treated as 1 entity when it comes to broad tactics. The mission editor will allow you to place a group of 10 AI to represent a "Squad".... but this can make them cumbersome in situations. They take up more space, and when thy move, they usually do so as a group. In confined areas they can take longer to reach waypoints as they get hung up on each other. It can be difficult to find cover and situations of individual members of the group standing out in the open or running into gunfire to maintain formation (AI love their formations) result. In these situations, as a designer, it can be better to divide the squad into smaller groups, each with their on leader and then sync and coordinate their waypoints to appear as a unified squad. This will tend to make the AI appear more flexible. This can be especially true of formations of vehicles.

So, TL: DR

Assign Rank to the units suitable to the desired challenge.

Make sure that a group has sufficient Rank redundancy to avoid "Brain Drain" from attrition.

Adjust the overall Skill Level of units appropriately. Set the skill level higher on individual units, rather then lower, to keep their base attributes like reaction time, spot distance, courage and tactics from suffering adversely.

Use the "precision" skill slider to tailor the overall challenge of the AI rather then the base Skill Level slider. That way the AI can see the player and react, but are less likely to assassinate you on the first shot like SkyNet Terminators.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Spamurai

[MissionCreep 12]

You can adjust the AI with a slider tool in the Options menu.

[smacker909 3]

Spamurai: I thought they did away from the options / precision sliders? I'm at work now, so can't check, but are they back?

[Jex 1]

The AI has always been a problem with arma. By now it shouldn't need scripts to make it acceptable. Getting engaged from 800m is ridiculous and when you fire a rocket launcher at a vehicle it shouldn't instantly turn it's turret and kill you in under a second. The AI has always been godlike, BIS know this and yet do nothing and people should not have to mess with .ini files to make the game playable. Since the AI is the core of the game here (we're not going to be fighting bushes), BIS really should get their act together by now and address this. Yes I know it's alpha but all their releases to date have had this issue and they still have the AI set at .7.

[SteelSampson 1]

I completely agree... Please! Please! BI at least fix the ridiculous accuracy that all AI seem to have.

[spamurai 3]

Spamurai: I thought they did away from the options / precision sliders? I'm at work now, so can't check, but are they back?

Sorry, I misspoke... I meant; adjust the Precision variable in the config files. There isn't actually a slider in the options for it (yet?). Only an overall Skill Slider. The problem with reducing the Skill slider (in the actual options) to fix the AI being too accurate when shooting at you is that it also reduces all their other attributes and they become dumber overall.... slower to react to you, nearsighted and generally less aggressive.

High Skill Level, but lower Precision level means that the AI will be more forgiving when they engage you. They will be less likely to kill you on the first shot and instead give you an opportunity to react, take cover, fight back. Instead of being shot dead before you can react, they're more likely to suppress you first... then kill you.

[instagoat 133]

How about people stop complaining and actually supply data.

What is wrong, and why. How to address it?

For example, the AI has too high first shot hit probabillity at large ranges, as a claim. Show numbers on first shot probabillity in stress situations for people, studies, documentation, anything that is verifiable. Anecdotes do not count as they cannot be verified.

I agree with the Ai being able to see too good, and being too good at hitting things first shot (this is realistic for red-dot sighted people at ranges around and below 100 meters.) especially at large ranges and with scopes or ironsights.

AI using Ironsights or Scopes should be slower, and have much lower first hit probability at large ranges, especially ironsights since they are easy to misalign in a stressful situation, plus, you may not notice how far off you are, especially in bad weather when bullet strikes are practically invisible. AI should not see you at 1 km distance just standing up behind a rock, not moving at all, and then fire a single burst that immediately sends you to the "you dead" screen.

Another idea would be to count player hit probability values, and use that to scale the AI's own accuracy. They are supposed to emulate humans: right now, they are robots that are cheating by exploiting their integration with the engine, ie, they can literally point and shoot, and hit every time. This appears to be true especially on high AI settings. I am going to do tests as the alpha continues to evolve, and collect everything in a thread and ticket on the tracker for people to vote on, detailing all the issues.

[^Th0mas^ 10]

Robalo has confirmed that he is working on porting the ASR AI skills mod over to the ArmA III alpha. Hopefully we get better AI very soon.

[Welch 1]

Reminds me of this:

[-Coulum- 35]

How about people stop complaining and actually supply data.

What is wrong, and why. How to address it?

For example, the AI has too high first shot hit probabillity at large ranges, as a claim. Show numbers on first shot probabillity in stress situations for people, studies, documentation, anything that is verifiable. Anecdotes do not count as they cannot be verified.

I agree with the Ai being able to see too good, and being too good at hitting things first shot (this is realistic for red-dot sighted people at ranges around and below 100 meters.) especially at large ranges and with scopes or ironsights.

AI using Ironsights or Scopes should be slower, and have much lower first hit probability at large ranges, especially ironsights since they are easy to misalign in a stressful situation, plus, you may not notice how far off you are, especially in bad weather when bullet strikes are practically invisible. AI should not see you at 1 km distance just standing up behind a rock, not moving at all, and then fire a single burst that immediately sends you to the "you dead" screen.

Another idea would be to count player hit probability values, and use that to scale the AI's own accuracy. They are supposed to emulate humans: right now, they are robots that are cheating by exploiting their integration with the engine, ie, they can literally point and shoot, and hit every time. This appears to be true especially on high AI settings. I am going to do tests as the alpha continues to evolve, and collect everything in a thread and ticket on the tracker for people to vote on, detailing all the issues.

Yes I like hearing more scientific results rather than "ai headshots me at 1km!". It annoys me how many useless tickets there are about ai that see through bushes yet absolutely NONE of them have test results, demonstrations or steps to reproduce.

From my brief testing, at 1.00 skill, the ai basically has a 100% chance of hitting you at 100 metres assuming they are prone and you are standing stationary. Obviously this is pretty damn good but this is why you should be setting the skills lower. They are somewhat effected by recoil - the problem is they are much better/quicker at handling it, and even worse, they would rather slow their rate of fire rather than miss their target - So instead of them spraying and having bullets land all around you, you get the 1 shot 1 kill we are all so familiar with. So as well as making it so the ai are generally less accurate (which can be done via scripting) I think its really important that BIS makes the ROF not just depend on what is required to get hits -

There should be a bit of a random factor - better yet it should be based on knowledge/LOS of the target and the situation the ai is in (under fire/ taking casualties etc.) That would make for some much more interesting firefights.

By the way, if your making your missions/playing in the editor using

{_x setSkill ["aimingaccuracy", 0.13];_x setSkill ["spottime", 0.05];} forEach allUnits;

in an init, is a good way to lower ai accuracy/spotting ability etc. without making them dumber. Of course you can sub in your own values.

Reminds me of this:

Haha! I think this has to do with the ai's slow turn rate. See this ticket: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=3877

Edited March 13, 2013 by -Coulum-

[metalcraze 290]

Yes people should post a proof of AI one shotting them from 800m instead of just constantly whining.

AI has problems with accuracy but that's just a gross exaggeration.

[Freighttrain4 1]

In response to what difficulty I play on.

I play on veterans if I'm by myself. But I'm always on a server.

I've noticed my buddies around be drop like flies, I go grab them(even if they're in the open) and patch them up. I play Medic primarily. if I'm on an MSO server I go by myself and take out outpost and such by myself. I like to think I'm really good at ARMA but I'm no the one who decides that.

[MaxiM_PL 1]

What bothers me the most with the current AI is their ability to precisely track you through walls and shooting you with merciless accuracy through thick bushes. AI just doesn't give a flying fudge about low visibility and obstructions. They just have full on wallhack implanted into their binary brains ;)

[bigshot 62]

The AI has always been a problem with arma. By now it shouldn't need scripts to make it acceptable. Getting engaged from 800m is ridiculous and when you fire a rocket launcher at a vehicle it shouldn't instantly turn it's turret and kill you in under a second. The AI has always been godlike, BIS know this and yet do nothing and people should not have to mess with .ini files to make the game playable. Since the AI is the core of the game here (we're not going to be fighting bushes), BIS really should get their act together by now and address this. Yes I know it's alpha but all their releases to date have had this issue and they still have the AI set at .7.

I agree with this completely...it's been too long now and it's still being ignored, and as far as I can see it has nothing to do with alpha...with each and every patch for a couple years now BIS makes the AI more and more precise in aiming and shooting ability...to the point where you have to set things down to 0.10 to get any enjoyment out of most missions...and then the other issues is that after SO many years of complaining and asking and wishing...the AI STILL cannot keep up well in formation...they always lag behind and get lost, or stop responding altogether...oh and good luck everytime they go into danger mode because at that point you are on your own just like Rambo.

All these cries have seemingly gone ignored by BIS since they have not fixed it and have not made any official announcement that they even recognize the issue, yet they keep ramping up that aiming/shooting ability...jeez.

Why do they ignore this? Afterall it's at least 50% of the core gameplay and what Arma is all about...it's the basis for everything else that's not PvP oriented... are they heading to the PvP side of the camp after all these years?

Edited March 14, 2013 by BigShot

[down8 30]

By the way, if your making your missions/playing in the editor using

{_x setSkill ["aimingaccuracy", 0.13];_x setSkill ["spottime", 0.05];} forEach allUnits;

in an init, is a good way to lower ai accuracy/spotting ability etc. without making them dumber. Of course you can sub in your own values.

Testing AI with 1.0 skill, I think that aimingaccuracy value (0,13) is very low. With ACOG sight the AI will fail a lot of shots to you being stationary at 400 meters, and that is not fair, because you will engage him very easily and fast (of course you will fail sometimes a shot) at that distance with that sight and no wind implemented. At 100m with Iron sights or red dot/holo sight he will err to many shots an human won't.

Better values I have find wit that skill, although not perfect, are 0.25-0.35. With these values AI with fail some shots like a person would do, but maintain a solid accuracy so they don't feel like they are intending to fail shots.

I would like not to be a little noob and know more about the script language to help more in this subject. I hope the devs or Robalo with ASR, tweak the AI accuracy soon.

With that and faster body turning times in some situations in CQB, I think the AI would be quite good, althoug not perfect,of course.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Down8