A.I needs a lot of work

[Avean 1]

I think this has been an issue since the start of Arma games and is still bothering me now in Arma 3.

AI controlled units are behaving very weird in general. Just to take an example we were playing the "Defend Kamino" co-op mission and most of the time the infantry would just clump up together in a group and stand still outside the wall of the base, doing nothing. This happens in every co-op mission ive tried and also in past Arma games this would happen alot. Its not until you start shooting that the enemy will react, often in a very similar way, like if you engage an enemy group they will suddenly all go to prone together and fire automaticly at your direction, even though you are in a ghillie suit laying in a very covered position.

Really seems the A.I is very basicly scripted and not a proper system behind it. Even vehicles will just drive somewhere that doesnt make sense. Often i find myself in missions where there is an enemy soldier just laying prone for 30 minutes long away from its objective, or a vehicle just driving or staying put until we make any sound or movement.

Cooperative play in a game like this should be amazing and fun, yet due to the simplistic A.I i cant find any fun with it .

Everything about Arma 3 is rock solid and really amazing, but the A.I needs a lot of work. I really really hope this is beeing looked at.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Or maybe as a group leader, you should learn how to command ai.

[Avean 1]

Or maybe as a group leader, you should learn how to command ai.

This is cooperative missions where we are fighting the AI, not controlling it.

[GottyPlays 10]

I think this has been an issue since the start of Arma games and is still bothering me now in Arma 3.

AI controlled units are behaving very weird in general. Just to take an example we were playing the "Defend Kamino" co-op mission and most of the time the infantry would just clump up together in a group and stand still outside the wall of the base, doing nothing. This happens in every co-op mission ive tried and also in past Arma games this would happen alot. Its not until you start shooting that the enemy will react, often in a very similar way, like if you engage an enemy group they will suddenly all go to prone together and fire automaticly at your direction, even though you are in a ghillie suit laying in a very covered position.

Really seems the A.I is very basicly scripted and not a proper system behind it. Even vehicles will just drive somewhere that doesnt make sense. Often i find myself in missions where there is an enemy soldier just laying prone for 30 minutes long away from its objective, or a vehicle just driving or staying put until we make any sound or movement.

Cooperative play in a game like this should be amazing and fun, yet due to the simplistic A.I i cant find any fun with it .

Everything about Arma 3 is rock solid and really amazing, but the A.I needs a lot of work. I really really hope this is beeing looked at.

ai needs a lot of work indeed, expecially when driving

[victim913 10]

The ai in this game is bad ass. This is the best I've seen. You need to play the game a while before you complain. Learn how it works. The AI here isn't like other games. There is a lot to get used to. There will always be some things AI do badly. They really can't drive ANYTHING well. They over compensate when they turn the wheel. They always start driving by making a right turn, making it a pain in the ass to make any mission that requires driving with more than one vehicle. But the AI infantry does way more than they ever did. They hunt you. They move more when they know where you are. Yes, sometimes they stand still. There can be a battle going on inside base perimeter, while a unit or 2 stand outside like nothing is going on. They don't see any enemies, so they stand. You expect them to join the battle since its just a few meters away, but god didn't make them with free will. Bi needs to continue to make the AI better. Those AI outside should join the battle, but the same programing that would make them join the battle will make them leave their post when they shouldn't. There is a sacrifice in the AI in arma, You have units that take orders. Find that in any other game. IF you find that, then find where you can set combat behavior, formations, how to engage, tell them to move somewhere and tell them what to do when you get there. It will get better.

Also, the mission maker needs to keep these things in mind too. A lot of problems happen when AI squads get reduced to 1 or 2. Size makes them good. That guy standing out listening to fighting won't do anything by himself but if joined to another, the other might see someone, and that will make the guy stop standing around. The mission maker should make them join together when only few remain, cause that's when you get guys laying down for 30 minutes. They have no orders and don't see enemy so they stay there.

One bad thing that I wish bi would fix is proximity to objects. This might be one of the problems in your mission. Huge rocks. There are 2 types I've noticed so far. The new flat ones that AI will walk on (well mostly walk through and get stuck inside) then there are the huge ones like in previous armas. AI will not go near them. There are a lot of places in Stratis where most of the rock is underground and only a small part is above land. AI will not walk above the underground rock. They avoid it. There is an area of road near Girna where this happens. Have a squad walk on the road in column formation or compact column to see it better. Set the waypoints to follow the sides of the road. There are a few occasions where the AI will cross to the other side of the road then cross back a few meters further. It's because of the underground rocks.

I personally don't see why BI can't make every obstacle solid so AI can't walk through. And as long as nothing is on the ground they shouldn't stop until hitting an object not because the object is underneath the ground.

Make sure you have super AI turned on. I personally don't understand why this option is there. It should always be on. Without super ai, you have no war. Ai won't even see you until 20 meters away They aren't interested in war. Super AI is not going to make their shots any better, it will only turn them into soldiers who want to fight.

If you play a little longer youll see what I mean. The biggest problem is probably playing online. This seems like a SP only game. BF3 is good for MP. But this game requires everyone working with eachother to make it fun. At least, that's how I see it.

LASTLY, this is beta. So don't get too upset yet. There is a lot bi needs to do to their AI, but don't complain that it's like previous armas. The new AI is really a whole lot better. And before complaining (anyone) make sure you set your AI to highest level. You can't complain when you have your AI set to novice or normal. crank it up and see how evil you can make them.

[sbua16 19]

My Problem with the AI is that a lot of the time.. yeah, maybe they are doing something cool, but it's all very 'behind the scenes' and a lot of the time it just comes off as just plain random.

There's no real sense of cohesion, even sticking together as a squad is sometimes an issue. There's a lot of randomly going prone (not as bad as previous ArmA's, OFP's) a lot of movement into random directions, and a hell of a lot of shouting that doesn't really reflect what the AI is actually doing. "Covering Fire!" I hear them cry, but no ones firing, there's a sense of bounding over-watch from the verbal spiel that's being put forth but non actually being done.

It all just seems a bit random.

I won't even mention how AI treats buildings.. which is not at all.

I've been making SP missions since the original OFP, and I love playing with AI, I really do, but I just don't get a sense that we've really moved on all that much in the last 12 years. Sure, AI seem to take cover (or occasionally they'll stand next to a wall and lean the wrong way) but the haphazard nature of it all just makes it seem as though they've just accidentally done something cool rather than legitimately made a smart tactical decision. If I was sitting here back in 2001 being asked what I'd be expecting from OFP 2013, I wouldn't be describing what we have today. I would've hoped for tactical cohesion not only between individual members, but at platoon level and possibly higher, vehicles that can actually travel one behind another without having a 75% chance of crashing into something on their way to their destination, and aircraft that provides effective over-watch of the battlefield without diving head first into the nearest mountain. As we stand now, put a couple of squads of opfor and blufor on opposite sides of a town, and we just end up with a gangfuck that, although they sometimes look cool, doesn't seem to make much sense.

I mean, I don't even care about bugs: AI walking through rocks, phasing through walls, getting stuck on tufts of grass.. I just want the semblance of a realistic battlefield scenario using AI. Sure, I can look to MP for that, but sometimes (most of the time really) I just want to play Soldiers by myself and reminisce about that one time I was in the Army, You know.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Sbua16

[freddyk83 10]

The AI does have its little issues I will admit, but for the most part I think their AI is good.

I think you have to know how to effectively order them, form them, target them etc. to get the most out of them.

However, there are definitely issues with the Diver AI. Seems to me their 'land' AI might be very early stages as they don't seem to handle buildings or other upper land geometry like the Squad mates do.

I sent my Diver squad into a house and they clipped through every door and staircase.

[Masharra 10]

The ai in this game is bad ass. This is the best I've seen.

I take it you havent played with modded ai from arma 2?

OT

The AI does need a lot of work. IIRC they dont use most of the additional stances that were added, they dont use smoke, their imitation fear of death is laughable at best.

One should remember though for a game of this scale the AI is quite exceptional and I dont think there is another that does better but that is no excuse for "mediocrity".

[ghostnineone 10]

The AI pisses me off, I don't think they react well or "think well at all. They require too much micro managing. If they get shot at they should all go to whatever cover is closest and start shooting back, instead they just kind of...lay prone and shout things. I've seen them do lots of dumb things like have three people stand in the entrance to a gate and not shoot back at me, they just looked off to the left and sat there while I shot them all. Yes it's kind of nice having to worry about if they will flank you, but I've noticed they don't really do that very much or that well. Sometimes I'll notice like 2 or 3 guys sprinting towards my position to try and flank me, other times I can fire at an entire squad and they will all just lay prone on a hill while I pick them off one by one (I did this yesterday, it was at least 15 people.)

I wish they could handle CQC better as that's far more interesting than "this dot 500m away is firing at you, you better shoot back until one of you dies". ARMA would be much better if it was truly flexible in the types of situations you could do. If you want standard outdoor combat at medium ranges using the sparse rocks and trees and cover then ARMA is really good at that. If you wanna do house to house CQC? Not so much, you'll probably get caught on a door and die or the AI will aim bot you before you even clear a threshold. If they shoot at you from inside a building they might shoot at you, or they might just lay prone in the building the entire time.

Wouldn't it be cool to have missions like in CoD 4 where you fast rope onto a ship and clear it? (Like we do in real life) You can make a scenario like that, but it will probably feel clunky and pretty lame.

Also, I swear everyone says this but the AI can definitely pull some bullshit when shooting at you, like through tiny clearings in a tree or through bushes (yes I know bullets go through tree leaves and bushes but I think it's safe to say a normal person would not be able to shoot at someone through a tree canopy or bush without really seeing them with any semblance of accuracy)

One more thing, do entire groups of AI consistently fire at you? Because a lot of the time it sounds like one person is shooting at me but there are like 5, or there are 5 people and they all take turns trying to kill me.

[GottyPlays 10]

ok i just tried for 2 hours some sp missions, there's definetly something wrong with ai, sometimes they act human, sometimes they act stupid...they get stuck by themselves, team members sometimes get totally unresponsive, they will NEVER use cover effectively, they will never use smokes, sometimes they will start walking even if there is no enemy in the area, they wil start shooting the first enemy they see without positionig themselves, mix all of that with clunky command control menus (i don't get how someone can use that menu during combat without dying, voice recognition could help A LOT) and one save per mission...yeah i got pretty much frustrated tonight :P

i seriously hope that they fix ai, it's the N.1 selling point of arma, if they improve this,im sure they could go from indie to serious business in no time

[afp 1]

I don't think "super AI" option make it smarter, this only turns its skills to maximum in terms of accuracy, reaction speed, spot distance etc. Actually I think this is bad, making it unrealistic and not improving the pathfinding or behaviour at all. What makes the AI "smarter" is some proper AI behaviour set by waypoints in mission or programatically in scripts.

Forget about AI in your team, they were never good and probably never be. What you can do in single player mission is to switch to them time to time and arrange them as you want.

[Anachoretes 10]

Super AI teach your nervous system to be in peacefull lounge room when you come to play with humans. :)

Edited June 27, 2013 by Anachoretes

[becario 1]

Strangely, when I played Defend Kamino I saw an improvement in AI. They were looking for cover constantly, shooting from behind cover while leaning, moving as much as they could through forest area, and they did not just go out in the open and stand still while looking through their binocs or shoot.

Also they had some difficulties to pinpoint you if you only shot them once or twice and you were behind some cover.

[TSAndrey 1]

AI in Arma has 2 problems:

1. Sometimes they are too stupid: go prone in the middle of a field with no cover, don't spot you even though you're next to them, don't react to anything and etc.

2. Sometimes they are insanely OP: Spot you 300m away on a hill, never miss, oneshoot you everytime....

[Mansen 10]

AI in Arma has 2 problems:

1. Sometimes they are too stupid: go prone in the middle of a field with no cover, don't spot you even though you're next to them, don't react to anything and etc.

2. Sometimes they are insanely OP: Spot you 300m away on a hill, never miss, oneshoot you everytime....

This sums them up quite nicely at the moment - I remember a particularly bad example of 1 the other day in Insurgency. We came upon a camp of insurgents (10 or so of them) around a campfire in a valley below. They spotted us and immediately all went prone in a big circle around the fire.

Grand old shooting gallery from above that one.

[afp 1]

AI in Arma has 2 problems:

1. Sometimes they are too stupid: go prone in the middle of a field with no cover, don't spot you even though you're next to them, don't react to anything and etc.

2. Sometimes they are insanely OP: Spot you 300m away on a hill, never miss, oneshoot you everytime....

1. Going prone when they have no cover is normal behavior, running under fire it's bad. If they don't react at all it's either a bug or bad waypoints in mission configuration.

2. That's a matter of settings, the accuracy of AI should be decreased in server options.

I only tested AI long few months ago in Alpha and seems to be better then in ArmA 2, at least they didn't get up and ran away when at 5 meters from you, exposing their back. I might be wrong too or things changed.

[misterPIG 1]

An example of AI, you are welcome to try it.

I planted a satchel charge on a road and waited under cover and out of sight of the column of enemy walking down the road. They are in safe mode. As they pass near the explosive I detonate the charge, I am still hidden from view YET they begin to fire on my position. How would they go from not seeing me to 'seeing' me after I detonated the charge?

[TSAndrey 1]

1. Going prone when they have no cover is normal behavior, running under fire it's bad. If they don't react at all it's either a bug or bad waypoints in mission configuration.

2. That's a matter of settings, the accuracy of AI should be decreased in server options.

I only tested AI long few months ago in Alpha and seems to be better then in ArmA 2, at least they didn't get up and ran away when at 5 meters from you, exposing their back. I might be wrong too or things changed.

I meant to say "go prone when near cover". As for accuracy, it needs to be addresed by the devs. AI is just unreasonably accurate....

[sbua16 19]

I still feel as though we've taken baby steps since back in OFP days. The control method to control your AI is archaic, and there have been barely any improvements to the way AI engage in battle. Put some AI down in cold war crisis in the middle of a field, do the same in ArmA 3 and they feel borderline indistinguishable. Sure, they're taking cover in ArmA 3 (Sometimes) and they've got a fancy leaning animation, but I saw that shit in ArmA 2. Why can't we have proper coordinated flanking, actual bounding forward, or retreating in a cohesive manner. Right now it just feels like a bunch of loners loosely tied together with a piece of string prancing about the battlefield. I personally think BIS has neglected the AI to the point where their like "Meh, they look kinda cool sometimes by accident, that'll do guys, let's move on to fancy underwater environments", when in fact the AI could've been a really strong feature that could've immersed players into the game rather then leaving them confused as to what's going on.

[TacKLed 10]

I have played mostly SP since OFP, and I have to say that the AI hasn't really changed that much. A modded ArmA II is a much better SP experience in terms of AI than ArmA III which should not be the case. It's like AI improvement is an afterthought when compared to the other changes of the game. There is seriously no sense of unit conhesion. They don't even at least stick to two man buddy teams let alone fire teams and up. I guess I will have to wait for the community to improve the AI.... again.

The bad thing about all this is that nothing will change from now until release. The AI will still be terrible.

[metalcraze 290]

I meant to say "go prone when near cover". As for accuracy, it needs to be addresed by the devs. AI is just unreasonably accurate....

Funny thing is that it's unreasonably accurate only in Case 2. In Case 1 where you are within 50m they will often spray and pray, completely missing you.

I had AI just fire and fire at me, wasting a clip after clip even though I wasn't even moving - until I came within 3m of him. Only then AI was able to hit me.

If anything both cases should be the exact opposite.

[Tonci87 163]

I´m suprised that noone speaks about driving AI. It is still super retarded just like in Arma 2

[Masharra 10]

I am not. There are many things to speak about but "some of us" have shown that "we" are whipping boys for the future/ They have "wisely" chosen to keep silent and pray.

[ghostnineone 10]

I'm really not a fan of the AI or it's control system. I feel like there is too much micromanaging for them to even accomplish basic tasks. Why can't I order the AI to flank someone just by putting my crosshair over the enemies position and telling them to do it and they find the best route with the most cover to do so, or use smoke to do it. Instead I have to tell them to move to a certain position, tell them to deploy smoke (or do it for them) and I spend far too much time trying to just get them to do anything at all instead of focusing on the things around me.

If someone ordered you to flank someone in real life, you would be like "okay" and go do it.

In arma its like 2,3 MOVE to THAT ROCK AT GRID 855947 (who the fuck would even say that in real life?), the AI will take their sweet ass time getting there. Just commanding them to do that is slow and clunky with all the keyboard presses, and the AI are slow and clunky themselves.

[TSAndrey 1]

Funny thing is that it's unreasonably accurate only in Case 2. In Case 1 where you are within 50m they will often spray and pray, completely missing you.

I had AI just fire and fire at me, wasting a clip after clip even though I wasn't even moving - until I came within 3m of him. Only then AI was able to hit me.

If anything both cases should be the exact opposite.

Yes, AI is shockingly bad in close range.