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Second and 'why I complain about this' - AI rotation speed becomes worse based on its stance, load and movement speed which do clearly make it inferior to the player that has absolutely no such penalties whatsoever.

I think you are being wholly pedantic about this entire issue.

If the changes discouraging AI from prone stance in CQB comes through, rotation speed limitations won't really be an issue. They will simply make the AI act more human.

The same goes for movement speed. This isn't some horrible handicap or really very important at all.

Lastly, the AI doesn't really suffer from fatigue in the exact same way. When's the last time you actually recognized the difference in fatigued AI? It hurts the player more.

But really, you are just standing in the way of better, more human and balanced AI from some Quixotic idea of fairness. The AI and player will NEVER be equal. You are clutching at the most insignificant of straws when you know very well that no programming language now in existence can mimic the nuances of human situational awareness, marksmanship and spacial sense in a videogame environment. There are enormous discrepancies, and always will be. If we handicap the AI by a further 1% on the road to making them act more believably, it is worth it. But that is a completely hypothetical situation, since reportedly the AI just got so much deadlier that the devs are worried for our virtual lives. Your entire perspective here comes across as fundamentalist when it should be pragmatic.

Players will always outclass the AI, because innate advantages. And the few advantages that the AI have must be curtailed, because they make the game less fun. Raising a stink over these changes when the AI is getting MORE challenging is just perverse.

In coop or SP AI will carry heavier loads, travel bigger distances etc.

That is a baseless comment. Players are the ones who load themselves up like mules, dwarfing the default loads, and have to actually get to the AO. You're one of those people who have been bitching about that very loadout phenomenon for the better part of a decade. And if AI travel farther (which they usually don't), it is at a sedate walk. No problem there, and even if there was, it would be missionmaker-dependant.

Try coming up on AI who is crouched or prone and he will turn around literally like a turtle whereas the turn should be instant.

The prone turn shouldn't be instant. A questionable movement feature applied to players shouldn't be allowed to make the AI behavior worse as well.

And AIs do go prone or crouch in cover a lot and when they do they are a fair game.

Why don't you go see whether this actually makes a noticeable difference before rushing to judgment? Especially when the AI just got a huge boost in CQB, which is the only place this really matters.

Edited by maturin

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I agree with what was said above, from my observation they go prone too fast and suffer turn speed penalty, especially since they won't get up again. I could do the same game again where I run around an AI and he cannot hit me. When they are standing, or crouched, things are much better, but since they seem to go prone very often, there is a definite issue there.

Well, i personally can't comment on the frequency on which AI units go prone since i usually run a script managing their stance.

Just to better understand your thinking: you said " ... the AI goes prone 8 times immediately; the two times it didn't, I was instantly shot ...": sounds like the AI is improved for you, with just some issues related to the prone stance ?

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If the changes discouraging AI from prone stance in CQB comes through, rotation speed limitations won't really be an issue. They will simply make the AI act more human.

Do you want AI to act more human or play on par with the human?

Humans are supersoldiers in ArmA3 but AI should be sitting ducks just to look natural?

You do realize this is actually more like a Call of Duty SP design?

But really, you are just standing in the way of better, more human and balanced AI from some Quixotic idea of fairness. The AI and player will NEVER be equal. You are clutching at the most insignificant of straws when you know very well that no programming language now in existence can mimic the nuances of human situational awareness, marksmanship and spacial sense in a videogame environment.

So what you are saying is BIS limiting AI turning speed making it absolutely helpless in CQB when crouched or prone is due to programming limitations even though the player can rotate prone like a propeller?

That is a baseless comment. Players are the ones who load themselves up like mules, dwarfing the default loads.

Yep. And they suffer no consequences. But AI does. Why?

You're one of those people who have been bitching about that very phenomenon for the better part of a decade

It's clear that BIS will never fix this for humans so why nerf AI instead?

The prone turn shouldn't be instant. A questionable movement feature applied to player's shouldn't be allowed to make the AI behavior worse as well.

So it's OK for you to twitch-kill enemies while prone but not OK for AI to do the same? The game must be a shooting gallery when playing SP or Coop right?

Why don't you go see whether this actually makes a noticeable difference before rushing to judgment? Especially when the AI just got a huge boost in CQB, which is the only place this really matters.

I guess you've missed my previous posts where I've said that I can just waltz behind crouch/prone AI and they will never turn around fast enough to kill me whereas a human player will.

Edited by metalcraze

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sounds like the AI is improved for you, with just some issues related to the prone stance ?

Yes, unless they lie down, which they did 8 out of 10 times, and which is exactly the point Alwarren tried to make.

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sounds like the AI is improved for you, with just some issues related to the prone stance ?

Er... I don't know how you read that into my post. I said they go prone too often, and that they are highly ineffective if they are prone. IF they stay up or crouched, they turn much faster and are therefore must more effective, but they don't, which is why I said in my original post "since they seem to go prone very often, there is a definite issue there."

Edit: Ninja'ed :D

---------- Post added at 19:37 ---------- Previous post was at 19:35 ----------

Players will always outclass the AI, because innate advantages.

While I agree with this statement, I do think that no turn speed limitations for player widens this gap instead of closing it, which, as I see it, is metalkraze's point.

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@Sleeper: First of all I have AI skill set to 0.95 in my cfg and always test with maxed skill slider in the editor.
And did you? ...test that mission i posted link to?

Try it - set yourself a limit, lets say 30 kills, and lets see whether you get to that number sooner than some AI (it is doable, but rather hard).

But most importantly, the AI feels much less robotic than before, and that is GOOD.

The issue with AI rotating slowly while prone should be looked into, but the problem is not in "slow turning while prone", the problem is "going prone".

So, basically i see two options: limit player movements in similar way (no more 360' turns in 30 miliseconds), or tweak the AI in order not to go prone when it wont benefit them.

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Do you want AI to act more human or play on par with the human?

Humans are supersoldiers in ArmA3 but AI should be sitting ducks just to look natural?

You do realize this is actually more like a Call of Duty SP design?

You do realize you are talking utter nonsense on the level of an obsessive compulsive? You terms are so exaggerated as to appear hysterical.

Spotting and accuracy are 95% of human vs AI balance. In this regard, we have been fighting supersoldiers for years. (Yes, I know that player spotting and accuracy outstrips the AI in certain situations, so let's not start that shit.)

AI tactics will never be even 5% of human capabilities.

What you are getting your panties in a twist about are little tweaks along the edges of the human/AI arms race. The ones you object to will make a negligible difference, simply making the AI subject to real life human limitations, looking less like robots.

And really, this is a non-issue. AI turning speed while prone was already shit. Has it even gotten much worse?

So go complain to the devs who let the players go without these limitations, and stop trying to fuck with our AI!

So what you are saying is BIS limiting AI turning speed making it absolutely helpless in CQB when crouched or prone is due to programming limitations even though the player can rotate prone like a propeller?

For the last time, they are getting more deadly in the aggregate. I will not repeat myself. Player capabilities are not what I'd prefer, but I'd rather have the AI balanced right, than have both categories fucked up. We will always wipe the floor with the artificial men anyways. You know this.

Yep. And they suffer no consequences. But AI does. Why?

We have a fatigue system. ACE will heap it on even more.

It's clear that BIS will never fix this for humans so why nerf AI instead?

So mod the humans and stop trying to halt vital progress.

So it's OK for you to twitch-kill enemies while prone but not OK for AI to do the same? The game must be a shooting gallery when playing SP or Coop right?

No one actually spins on their bellies 180 degrees to get kills, you know. How are supposed to even see the enemy from behind you?

Would you like to go on record stating that the twitch-kill ability of the AI is NOT inhumanly good? Overall, accuracy and hit rate is about the same, but the AI can pull of one-shot kills a split second after target acquisition, after halting from sprint, while standings, with a high-recoil weapons at 200m against a prone target.

I guess you've missed my previous posts where I've said that I can just waltz behind crouch/prone AI and they will never turn around fast enough to kill me whereas a human player will.

I guess you missed my last post where I said that this is getting fixed. The AI is going to stop going prone in CQB so they don't handicap themselves.

And really, if you get the drop on a prone player and let him spin around to shoot you, it's your own damn fault. The high speed prone turning ability of players is lamentable, but it's not really relevant in CQB. The ArmA 2 speed was artificially low anyways. As long as I lower my gun in the meantime, I can flop around in a split second IRL. We just don't have the animations for it.

Edited by maturin

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So, basically i see two options: limit player movements in similar way (no more 360' turns in 30 miliseconds), or tweak the AI in order not to go prone when it wont benefit them.

BIS will not just go and limit human player movement because that will be a change making sense.

So how about AI doing 360' turns in 30 miliseconds when prone instead? Players can do it - why AI should not?

Real mission scenarios are not 1 versus 1 with equal conditions. AI may lay prone behind a house shooting at one guy and then an enemy will come at him from behind.

In case of human player - a human will just do an insta 180 degree turn and obliterate that enemy. In case of AI - it's AI's death in all cases.

You do realize you are talking utter nonsense on the level of an obsessive compulsive? You terms are so exaggerated as to appear hysterical.

Spotting and accuracy are 95% of human vs AI balance. In this regard, we have been fighting supersoldiers for years. (Yes, I know that player spotting and accuracy outstrips the AI in certain situations, so let's not start that shit.)

AI tactics will never be even 5% of human capabilities.

What you are getting your panties in a twist about are little tweaks along the edges of the human/AI arms race. The ones you object to will make a negligible difference, simply making the AI subject to real life human limitations, looking less like robots.

Who cares? We discuss AI turn speed limits. So let's discuss AI turn speed limits.

And really, this is a non-issue. AI turning speed while prone was already shit. Has it even gotten much worse?

Yes it did.

So go complain to the devs who let the players go without these limitations, and stop trying to fuck with our AI!

Calm down please.

I did complain. First through FT tickets as politely as I could. Then on forums. Again and again over 6 months. The only result was pettka writing an angry post on twitter and not fixing anything because his game is perfection and I'm just an annoyance.

So if that can't be fixed - why AI should be made worse? Why should SP and coop be made boring with the player exploiting AI slowpoke reactions in CQB to no end with player's own superhuman movement?

I don't want a natural AI behavior if the only result of it is AI getting killed. So AI will turn slow when prone? AI will die. AI will turn slower when encumbered? AI will die.

That's not challenging. That's not fun. So yeah it will look more natural but AI will still be dying like flies to players who do not look natural at all. I can dodge AI bullets by sprinting and instantly doing 180 degree turns yet AI will be turning like a slowpoke when running. AI will die.

See this ticket?, BIS didn't care despite overwhelming percentage voting yes. Yet AI gets related changes and they make it subpar as a result. Do you get what I mean?

Edited by metalcraze

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I'd bet that most players wouldn't even notice enemy behind them, until they hear bullets hitting their backs, so in my opinion this argument doesnt make much sense.

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I'd bet that most players wouldn't even notice enemy behind them, until they hear bullets hitting their backs, so in my opinion this argument doesnt make much sense.

Just so. Metalcraze, I think you're fixating on unimportant elements of AI capabilities that are being changed for mostly cosmetic reasons, while ignoring the changes that are actually going to let the AI kill you in CQB.

How is the AI supposed to know you are standing behind them at all? Your hypothetical game-breaking scenario is going to be a rarity at best.

And why haven't you responded to my point that the AI is going to start using crouch stance in CQB instead, making the discrepancy even less likely to be the deciding factor in encounters?

I think it is wrongheaded to obsess over what happens when unit A sneaks up on unit B. Unit B dies 90% of the time!

BIS is on top of the slow standing turn glitch. They have just rolled out changes akin to TPW's LOS mod. These are making the AI dramatically faster, affecting every firefight, not one out of every hundred where you might get in a moral panic about an unfair kill. Let's give it a week and see what the changes actually accomplish. Then you can post your compilation video of killing AI while they slowly swivel around to face you.

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I'd bet that most players wouldn't even notice enemy behind them, until they hear bullets hitting their backs, so in my opinion this argument doesnt make much sense.

So you will not try to turn around when you will hear footsteps behind, then shots, then see your buddies dying?

I can give you an example of a PvP game I was having on a random public server when alpha just came out. There was an enemy sniper in the tower shooting our guys in our spawn point.

So I decided to just rush the tower while he was facing away. I ran up the stairs and got a headshot before my weapon was even on the level with his body. The dude just heard footsteps and instantly turned around and shot me (FYI he was in a high-prone stance). I forgot that I can actually be heard.

AI would only start the rotation by the time I'd kill it.

How is the AI supposed to know you are standing behind them at all?

Standing? You mean moving at them shooting them? Why would I be standing behind an enemy?

And why haven't you responded to my point that the AI is going to start using crouch stance in CQB instead, making the discrepancy even less likely to be the deciding factor in encounters?

Because this is not a solution. You have a bunch of dudes shooting at you from one side and another bunch just flanked you and is very close. What will you do? Waste time going from prone to crouch so those dudes far away can have a better chance of hitting you instead of insta turning to closest enemies and shooting them?

Do I really need to guess?

BIS is on top of the slow standing turn glitch. They have just rolled out changes akin to TPW's LOS mod. These are making the AI dramatically faster, affecting every firefight, not one out of every hundred where you might get in a moral panic about an unfair kill. Let's give it a week and see what the changes actually accomplish. Then you can post your compilation video of killing AI while they slowly swivel around to face you.

And then they also added a bunch of unneeded gimmicks like making AI slower based on stance/movement speed/loadout completely negating improvements. Completely unneeded and makes AI slower than a player.

Edited by metalcraze

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The issue with AI rotating slowly while prone should be looked into, but the problem is not in "slow turning while prone", the problem is "going prone".

So, basically i see two options: limit player movements in similar way (no more 360' turns in 30 miliseconds), or tweak the AI in order not to go prone when it wont benefit them.

these are hitting the nail right on the head.

AI still are going too much prone. the conditions for that should be more limited. i could swear there was one dev patch that had them go crouch instead but for some reason (complaining?) it was removed again. they have to use prone almost never in CQB imho.

and i also agree that the player movement needs some tweaking in that regard. i think especially for prone the turning speed should be slowed down a lot. ideal would be a a dead zone, so small movements can still be fast. but i'm not sure what the future of aiming dead zone in general is. a good use of it (for AI too) could solve many problems.

for AI, turning speeds should always be fast in my opinion. the very latest changes are just glorious! the way they will just shoot you even when they are inside a house, without the painful slow turn or getting stuck overall. it's salvation for my tortured arma soul. we had to endure these annoying limitations for so long!

and i totally have to agree with maturin on this one (for once ;) )

Yes! Please overpower the AI in CQB! Force us to make realistic missions where you require 1:1 ration of forces to prevail. This should be the ArmA holy grail.

Just so long as their long-range spotting abilities become more human in the bargain.

CQB has to be deadly. and i mean totally deadly! like human player encounters. who has better reflexes? and it will make players play so much more cautious, checing every corner. i see a whole new dimension of gameplay being added that felt so forced and almost silly until now (clearing houses in arma 2 insurgency :rolleyes: )

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in my opinion the delay should be the same no matter if a unit gets killed hit or if you just suppress the near ground. anything else will always feel unnatural. i mean in the latest patches we finally had behavior added like AI "looking" for you. why would that suddenly not be the case and just be replaced by instant directional adjustment when someone gets killed? inconsistent and unrealistic.

The AI changes today made a huge difference, and I dare to say that I'm a LOT happier with this than with the "quickturn"-thing.

It feels so much more natural now.

I don't know if our pages long "battle" around this issue had anything to do with the changes, but the "quickturn" is gone.

Trying the repro again put a Big Smile on my face. :D

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Er... I don't know how you read that into my post. I said they go prone too often, and that they are highly ineffective if they are prone. IF they stay up or crouched, they turn much faster and are therefore must more effective, but they don't, which is why I said in my original post "since they seem to go prone very often, there is a definite issue there."

Ok, sorry for misunderstandment.

Forcing AI going less frequently prone in CQB should be feasible by BIS i think. At least it's scriptable.

That said i see better "peripheral vision" for AI, faster reactions.

So my opinion is ... 2 step forward, possibily 1 back. Not bad.

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I am happy to verify that the issue that Azzure mentioned yesterday and that i reproduced in video is not present in latest dev branch.

(Just uploaded you may have to wait a bit)

So congratz Bohemia, but also for the marvelous Altis island.

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I think you shouldn't make the tolerances too large, like skill 0 - completely dumb, skill 1 = super human. This will lead to more difficult tunings.

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I am happy to verify that the issue that Azzure mentioned yesterday and that i reproduced in video is not present in latest dev branch.

(Just uploaded you may have to wait a bit)

So congratz Bohemia, but also for the marvelous Altis island.

Hey Gammadust, could you upload that mission? I would like to toy with the AI myself.

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The AI changes today made a huge difference, and I dare to say that I'm a LOT happier with this than with the "quickturn"-thing.

It feels so much more natural now.

I don't know if our pages long "battle" around this issue had anything to do with the changes, but the "quickturn" is gone.

Trying the repro again put a Big Smile on my face.

and i, as the person having been most concerned with this, can confirm this 100%. i don't know if it's coincident that the latest changes addressed exactly that issue but i couldn't be happier with the results. to honest i feel a weird bond with you two now ;)

i used my repro several times now trying to reproduce the initial issue and it's save to say that it's gone. the results still vary a lot reaction time wise but i think that's a good thing. no more terminator behavior.

seems like not all heated internet debates are useless :p

combined with the new CQB capabilities these changes are, compared to what has changed over the years in the series AI-wise, almost mind blowing :yay:

if we now eventually get vanilla AI searching houses, if even only with a special waypoint just for that, i can say for the first time that there isn't much left to be desired from the AI. from there on it would just be tweaking.

i can confirm though what someone said here. they have a too hard time hitting me now. it's good that those accuracy influencing factors are in place but they need some tweaking still. i'd love a suppression system where teams suppression each other could end up fighting for long times due to decreased accuracy caused by being suppressed.

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The most exciting thing about these changes is that they came with an apology for how minor the tweaks are.

Great, great things are to come.

---------- Post added at 12:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 AM ----------

Because this is not a solution. You have a bunch of dudes shooting at you from one side and another bunch just flanked you and is very close. What will you do? Waste time going from prone to crouch so those dudes far away can have a better chance of hitting you instead of insta turning to closest enemies and shooting them?

In such a situation, the AI should be dead. They got pinned and flanked. They lose. If they heard you coming, tweaked AI will ensure that they weren't prone in the first place, so they greet you with a faceful of bullets.

The AI turning is optimum right now. I'm sure you'll install a movement mod and then won't have to feel guilty about taking advantage of imaginary men. Myself, I'd rather feel like I'm not fighting robots.

It's not like I congratulate myself for outsmarting brainless automatons, nor do I flatter myself with any notion that our contest is fair.

So tell me, do you advocate removing all the new stance adjustments simply because the AI can't use them?

And then they also added a bunch of unneeded gimmicks like making AI slower based on stance/movement speed/loadout completely negating improvements. Completely unneeded and makes AI slower than a player.

No, they fixed the AI and broke player movement earlier on. I say it again: please don't take your frustration with one element of gameplay out on another. Yes, it's all interrelated, but you are too purist about it by half. It's just not a realistic attitude.

If we leave the AI with turn speed limits it makes a lot of people happy, and we can mod the player movement. If we roll back the positive AI changes, then everything's wrong and we're just fucked. Which do you really want?

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There are positive AI changes of course. By default the AI turn speed is good now. But when additional conditions come into play it starts to become progressively worse.

In such a situation, the AI should be dead.

And this situation is actually a good example and flanking happens often in ArmA. Unless prone stance is removed completely you will not eliminate such condition. Because AI will be forced to stay crouched exposing itself whereas a player can just go prone making it 1/4 of a target and have exactly the same freedom of movement as a standing AI.

But you see AI will be dead but a player won't. That's the problem. However instead of nerfing completely unrealistic movement of human players BIS takes one step forward with AI turn speed and then immediately a step back with these limits.

Yes I completely agree with you that overall this is a correct fix BUT only by itself. As the player has no such limitations AI should not as well to stay competitive.

It's no different from another similar issue where players can easily run up and down steep hills (which is completely unrealistic) yet AI is forced to walk on those slopes making it fall behind a good hundred meters for every such slope.

It's realistic for AI but annoying for a player who now has to wait for AI to catch up after every single hill slope. And players won't wait for AI to catch up when killing them crouched/prone.

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I thing the term "nerfing" doesn't apply here.

The changes made were intended to make AI a little less robotic (in which it succeeded to some extent), not to make it easier for players to defeat it (which would be "nerfing" in my opinion).

So, let's now focus on how to make the AI work better while KEEPING these changes, not the other way around.

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It's no different from another similar issue where players can easily run up and down steep hills (which is completely unrealistic) yet AI is forced to walk on those slopes making it fall behind a good hundred meters for every such slope.

It's realistic for AI but annoying for a player who now has to wait for AI to catch up after every single hill slope.

Is it realistic for AI? I know that I prefer to run up slopes. The steeper than incline, the more tiring it is to keep up a slow trudge.

Perhaps we should suggest that the AI feel free to run up slopes, at least in combat mode.

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Regarding this issue the correct fix is in the middle. AI should be able to run up steeper slopes but it should be the opposite for the player so they kinda meet in between of how it is now for both. After all the player can run up what seem to be 70 degree slope while running backwards.

In fact that's a good solution for the current system too. If BIS wants to make AI behave realistically depending on loadout/speed/stance they should do the same for the player. But if BIS feels it's too limiting for the player then they should again make AI and a player meet in the middle of this. Simply limiting player's turn speed when prone and running will fix this.

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I'm all for making the prone turn speed downright glacial, if only BIS could implement a sort of 'flop' movement. I can simply push with my legs and hips and throw myself into another facing in a split second. I can't aim a gun at the same time, naturally.

But I guess we're off topic now.

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One thing I've noticed. AI will fixate on a direction (often completely wrong), but if enemies are spotted they turn and engage, before fixating back on the weird direction. This is an improvement because they used to just fixate and never turn and shoot. Until suddenly snapping around. Now they only snap to shoot, before looking back in that direction. They should probably scan the area where they were just shooting, and flick between threat areas. Rather than this weird fixating.

Other than that it's extremely good, these "minor" changes have huge impact.

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