AI Improvements that are tangible, observeable and more enjoyable?

[steele6 0]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to propose a few general "improvements" to the AI of the Arma series, based on a few general ideas, as policy.

1) a general decrease by accuracy, coupled with an increase in suppresssive/non-sniper fire.

currently, the AI only really fires if they are specifically targetting an enemy (ie: attempting to kill the chap)

if the AI could open fire in order to suppress or cause more general morale damaging fire at the enemy (and maybe increasing standard loadouts by a few mags to compensate)

generally, I'd like the AI to open fire more, at a general direction,

IE: say the enemy fireteam is hidden behind a wall, but have crouched down, you so can't see them. the AI knows they are there. surely the AI should be constantly firing at the wall ( not on full auto, but say, 3 bursts every few seconds)

AI should not be sniper's -as -riflemen everywhere they go.

you'll notice the Auto-rifleman (armed with an MG) is more suppressive in general in arma 3, what if his general "trigger-happiness" is given to all the AI soldiers?

2) an increase in movement time when moving from cover to cover. (this includes player ordered moves)

AI should be fast, keeping up with the (generally player led squad) not crouching down, waiting a 15 second time period (unless actively pinned down under point 1, during which time the AI unit should be shouting: underfire/pinned, so we know its state, see point 3) before moving. although there have been improvements in this area, if the general accuracy is lowered, it should make AI survive more.

one demonstration of this the medic, when called to assist an injured person, the AI moves from cover to cover, in a very slow way, taking along time until he finally goes to heal the injured person. please go try this out if ou arent aware of the problem.

3) Morale effects should be more tangible. and visible and gameplay emhancing.

(ie: generally, more aspects of what the AI is doing should be communicated to the player, in an obivous, unambigious way)

consider Operation flashpoint Dragon Rising (all negative stereotypes aside) had quite a nice moral system.: you fired at the AI, they crouched and returned fire. you achieved overwhelming superiority of fire( some thing you yanks advocate in warfare in general anyway.) * the AI would go prone, stop firing and try to withdraw. this was a very obvious system, and was wonderful. I'd advise you go fiddle in the editor of that game and try it out.

so: in general: faster AI waypoint movement when in cover/danger; less accuracy, more trigger happy, and more visible and obvious morale improvements.

you'll notice, I'm not asking for a hefty change in animations/ resources from BI,

although I admit the programming and changing of AI behaviours is difficult and tedious and expensive to change, I think it would be cool.

also, I'm not trying to "COD/Battlefieldify" the AI, where they can't shoot straight to save themselves or like in OFP DR, but I'd like a balance of default behavior between arma and COD AI stuff. (if you get where I'm going.)

thanks for your time!

also, I hope this is in the right forum, the "general" thread so its more debated, instead of buried in the AI dev branch thread, as thats specifically about the problems current with the AI BIS is changing/improving. whereas this is more about the general idea/future of the AI.

*I jest! I jest! yanks are agreeable fellows, in moderation :)

[LoneCrow66 10]

They do occasionally shoot a round every 3 seconds to suppress someone, I've seen it and been part of it dozens of times.

The dev version improved the ai slightly it seems. But there are still some major flaws.

Like I can drive a slammer right into a town and a guy will just lay down or stand right in front of me allowing me to all of them over. In fact if I can managed to take out most of the anti tank guys I can literally go through a town and run everyone over without firing a shot. They just don't run for cover when there is a tank nearby. Its seriously messed up you can mow over dozens of guys easily. I can literally drive right up to them and they won't move or try to get out of the way/hide. That is extremely annoying.

Last night though for the first time I caught an animation of an independent ai actually healing another squad member. I was shocked.

It seems in the dev version now if there is enemy fire within 50-100m they go into "danger" mode and will run around aimlessly like chickens with their heads cut off. But at least they don't stop moving. It makes it much more difficult to snipe.

I find this game is just too easy, you just get a thermal scope, a sniper rifle and you can literally pick off 50 people and need to go get ammo. With the new ai changes it seems I can only get about 20-30 now because they are harder to hit.

[steele6 0]

well, lets just get the basics right,

thats infantry on infantry combat. reacting to tanks/ snipers with thermal is a more difficult proposition, and beyond the debate here. I'm concerned about the movement in combat in general, suppression v accurate (yet infrequent) fire and tangible morale effects

[mamasan8 11]

1. AI should have same rules as we have. You run, you get fatigued, your aim sucks.

AI can run, stop, remain standing and shoot me in the head in the time it takes me to enter scope-mode.

Now you go try doing that. Run, stop, remain standing and try to hit anything smaller than the island.

[roni 11]

Posting anything about AI imho is pointless, devs don't care about them anyway. But they know it need much work, and still are working on it

[ProfTournesol 956]

Posting anything about AI imho is pointless, devs don't care about them anyway. But they know it need much work, and still are working on it

I don't get the sense of that sentence : they don't care about the AI but are working on it ?

[roni 11]

They don't care about threads like this, not AI :)