Disappointed after 13 years of 'Arma'

[bad benson 1733]

AI isn't the main problem (performance wise).

wouldn't be too sure about that. maybe not THE main but A main problem for sure.

[seba1976 98]

AI isn't the main problem (performance wise).

AI is the main problem, performance wise.

[papy.rabbit.08 0]

I'm ok with every opinions expressed here. But I noticed that since several weeks, people are shouting everyday that things don't work. Ok. But the point is that it's always the same: "I'm really angry, the MP performances are bad, I'm gonna leave", "I'm sooo angry, because I want that F35, I'm waiting sooooo much on, I'm gonna leave", "The AI is a stupid, oh you know what? I'm gonna leave", "The AI is driving badly, I leave the game". I even saw "Seriously have you see the bullet holes in the wall, they are so awfull, how is it possible??? I'm leaving that damn game now!". What, what, what? You want stop playing the game because of the bullet holes? I mean seriously. Not everything is perfect, but I think there's better way to communicate. Or leave, yes. Because most of the people standing here and there shouting, are still in the place! I'm almost sure the devs are not the absolut evil who want to make things complicate as much as possible for the players. :rolleyes:

[cpl_hicks 2]

Point is the devs do know about all this stuff, they are doing more than most others ever did or would. So you have 3 choices.

1. be patient

2. do something to help/contribute

3. play another game

This is dragging on and unproductive and repetitive....

[fabio_chavez 103]

i dont want to highjack the thread because its about AI, and i do not have the slightest intresst in AI, in fact, aside from the fact that i expect them to be working in the campaigns, i would rather have as few to do with AI as possible.

BUT:

100% of the people i know, that are not actively participating in the community, think the game is broke and left.

Some would give it another try, though from their perspective its exactly the same situation as in the alpha and they are perfectly reasonable because when you log in, you have to crawl through large amounts of junk server, to find a halfways playable mission... JUST AS IN THE ALPHA

BI helped established the situation by adressing the structual issues much too late (if at all) and let the community just grow wildly on top of a rotten core...

p.s. today, i recorded this, should i recommend my people to give it another shot? what do you think, when Zeus is out, should i ask my people to try it? :j:

Edited February 18, 2014 by Fabio_Chavez

[artisanal 22]

wouldn't be too sure about that. maybe not THE main but A main problem for sure.

Yep that's true. AI activity surely affects the server fps cap, but as long as the GM (N.B.: we're playing with VTS) doesn't go wild with the AI pops (I mean like overs 150 AI's), everything is quite fine and enjoyable (far from perfect, but still). But things go much more sour as soon as the first explosions go off, especially in CQB situations, and then it gets unplayable (<10 fps). Thus the connection with the "destroyed buildings which are hidden underground" matter.

So my point is, on the performance aspect, I think there is much more to win by optimisation of the different scripts (which also affects AI, but not only).

PS : proof that AI isn't the main problem to me, is that on exclusively PVP servers, the FPS aren't necessarly better than on PVE servers.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Artisanal

[Gudsawn 93]

so if you say, you are going to be less disappointed if you focus on MP, id say no, unless you are really into altis life 24/7 or coop, MP is a joke. :/

Not sure what game you're playing but for me MP has been bloody brilliant.

I'm not talking about Altis Life or Wasteland here, I'm talking about realism-style Insurgency.

To be honest I've not played much PvP, mostly PvAI. With the right adjustments to the AI (bCombat + ASR_AI) they are very challenging - not because they are any more accurate, but because they are clever. You move in to take a town and you'll find yourself getting flanked very quickly - it's intense!

Privately organised ops, now they're a different thing altogether. An operation involving 30+ players with organised teamplay, strategy, and tactics gives me much more enjoyment than any other MP game I've played.

[fabio_chavez 103]

Not sure what game you're playing but for me MP has been bloody brilliant.

I'm not talking about Altis Life or Wasteland here, I'm talking about realism-style Insurgency.

To be honest I've not played much PvP, mostly PvAI. With the right adjustments to the AI (bCombat + ASR_AI) they are very challenging - not because they are any more accurate, but because they are clever. You move in to take a town and you'll find yourself getting flanked very quickly - it's intense!

Privately organised ops, now they're a different thing altogether. An operation involving 30+ players with organised teamplay, strategy, and tactics gives me much more enjoyment than any other MP game I've played.

well hf, shooting at bots all tactical and stuff.

and thats only even the personal preference question... performance is undeniably the key issue here, even more so with AI missions.

[Gudsawn 93]

well hf, shooting at bots all tactical and stuff.

Your point? I'd enjoy throwing you in a field of bCombat AI and seeing how you cope :p

We do play PvP occasionally, but with our current numbers (around 40 active) it isn't as fun (although we'll be doing some unit vs unit stuff soon). Anyway the point is that MP is fun, I feel I've somewhat proved that point.

performance is undeniably the key issue here, even more so with AI missions.

I agree that performance isn't great at high numbers of AI (160-200+). However, isn't this expected? Plus, when should AI ever need to reach this amount? Even if 40 players were outnumbered 2:1 you wouldn't notice a huge performance hit (like I said, around 160+ is when you start to notice it).

[xx_fr0st-w0lf_xx 10]

Im slightly confused as to why mods such as bcombat (which I never tried but will soon), Zeus AI, coslx and so on are able to improuve the ai.

Sometimes I am baffled by the AI, sometimes I am in the same room as them and they dont even turn around to shoot me. And driving is expected, I have lost fate in driving a long time ago.

And sometimes bis (as someone said) tries it's very best to show off all the faults of the ai.

[lovemotion 10]

The AI sucks i like very much to play SP mission and its a real pain in the ass. Almost always the ai stuck and won't move for nothing.

Another example when they run out of ammo, it's like a miracle to make them rearm.

[mamasan8 11]

Far Cry 3 AI is pretty fun to play with, toy around with and snipe them. They do come after me, with jeeps, running, laying down suppressive etc.

I have found 1 weakness tho. I can't snipe AI from great distances, bullets just disappear after a certain range.

Friendly AI in Arma 3 MP is quite abysmal. I usually recruit 4 AI. Everytime I HALO somewhere, 1 or 2 decides to NOT follow any orders and run in the opposite direction to where I am going.

Another thing is when friendly AI detects enemy AI, do they stop and start shooting? Not always. (I have engage at will ALWAYS enabled) Once my AI just kept running til he got killed. Best AI? AI must be abysmal in other games if this is the best.

I played some Benny CTI offline yesterday. I could take out a whole squad without even 1 firing back. They just ran towards me. Or away from me.

Not once did they take cover.

[instagoat 133]

Your point? I'd enjoy throwing you in a field of bCombat AI and seeing how you cope :p

We do play PvP occasionally, but with our current numbers (around 40 active) it isn't as fun (although we'll be doing some unit vs unit stuff soon). Anyway the point is that MP is fun, I feel I've somewhat proved that point.

I agree that performance isn't great at high numbers of AI (160-200+). However, isn't this expected? Plus, when should AI ever need to reach this amount? Even if 40 players were outnumbered 2:1 you wouldn't notice a huge performance hit (like I said, around 160+ is when you start to notice it).

16 AI inside a town fully cut my fps in half. 160 AI drops me down to 8 fps. Without any AI on the map, I get 60 fps on stratis and 40~ on Altis. They are drains on the performance.

[shot 0]

Thanks for all your input. Again, I do not want to talk bad about the game in general - it has it's unique and also good things - but as quite some other people now also pointed out that the friendly AI is just not responding at all proofs that there is some major bug in there. I'm not talking about how smart the AI is fighting in a city or flanking you or flying a complex helicopter or whatever. All I'm asking for is my team members to MOVE when I tell them to. This is not such a high requirement. I'd say at the current stage it's impossible to play through the campaign without observing these issues. My friends do not even think about doing these normal coop/AI mixed missions we did in the past (A1 and A2) because they already have seen in the campaign that controlling friendly team members is a mess.

[Varanon 892]

16 AI inside a town fully cut my fps in half. 160 AI drops me down to 8 fps. Without any AI on the map, I get 60 fps on stratis and 40~ on Altis. They are drains on the performance.

Indeed. And it's not only their number, but also the environment they are placed in. AI in dense urban areas cause abysmal performance. We had a case with one mission that was unplayable, so we moved all units to another place on the map, adjusted some triggers and markers, even added some units, and the relocated mission was about twice as fast

[kremator 1065]

You can't have a sandbox game without great AI. There is too much work on little tweaks to the rubbish AI. We need a full overhaul of the AI system. If there are meant to be 50 people working on Arma3 then I would hope that 40 of them are working on AI !

[Gudsawn 93]

16 AI inside a town fully cut my fps in half. 160 AI drops me down to 8 fps. Without any AI on the map, I get 60 fps on stratis and 40~ on Altis. They are drains on the performance.

Hmmm, that's rather interesting InstaGoat. Do you by any chance have an AMD CPU? I've heard that apparently Arma 3 is very poorly optimised for AMD CPUs. I have a friend who has similar specs to my own PC except he has an AMD CPU and I have an Intel one - his frames are usually much lower than mine.

I've noticed that those with more powerful CPUs get much greater FPS. Although that sounds kinda obvious at least it proves that there is no hard limit to the amount of FPS you can get, it just means your hardware is not powerful enough/A3 is not optimised for AMD.

I've got a 2 year old Intel i7 and get very playable frames with large numbers of AI, I'm really surprised at how much your frames are affected even at such low numbers of AI.

[gonk 0]

Hello everyone,

I'm afraid this was the last part of the Arma series for me - I really lost hope that these 10+ year old bugs may be fixed once :(

Regards,

Michael

Probably best to have a break.... I am ... but I must admit I did have a laugh at Zues... asking for years for a 3d editor.... so they make a game out of a 3d editor.... and still no stand-alone 3d editor.. so funny....

[oggoeg 3]

Probably best to have a break.... I am ... but I must admit I did have a laugh at Zues... asking for years for a 3d editor.... so they make a game out of a 3d editor.... and still no stand-alone 3d editor.. so funny....

Well Zeus may get turned into a 3D editor, if not by BI, i'm pretty sure community will find it handy.

[Bee8190 10]

Again, what game does it better considering this scale and variety?

It will take time to bring to arma2 level.

The real fun is in multiplayer and good devs can work around this, why player inferior sp and campaign anyway?

Neither I know any other game that does it better

BUT this scale excuse is also ruining the major proportion of the game. What good are the massive maps when everything else suffers subpar performance and or other issues?

Other games may not be the scale of arma but at least the AI behave in more convincing way. That said I don't really care for AI all that much, all I know is they are holding back the game in a sense

[nikiforos 450]

Well 13 years is a long time and with all the ups and downs it's amazing this relationship is still active.

Right now I have a strong feeling to contact my lawyer and get a divorce but then again all the memories!!

Seriously BIS you must save this relationship it's up to you really. I give it one more month.:rolleyes:

Or maybe two months.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Nikiforos

[seba1976 98]

Other games may not be the scale of arma but at least the AI behave in more convincing way.

Other game's AI cannot even be ordered to board a vehicle...

[chortles 263]

There's some interesting AI talk in the latest OPREP.

[katipo66 94]

Other game's AI cannot even be ordered to board a vehicle...

Sums up my feelings... After a good month of taking a break from Arma and playing a whole lot of other games that I've never played before, some old & some new like crysis 3 (complete sh!t), farcry 3 (cheesy sh!t, but chur bro), doom 3 (completely ridiculous annoying dumb monster sh!t), f.e.a.r (Hollywood cheesy sh!t in a fun and scary way), penumbra (fkn scary twisted sh!t) I every now and then jump back into the freedom and beauty of Arma 3, setup a simple editor mission and think what an awesome fkn game (sandbox milsim thingy) :D

I fully understand the OPs frustration, my favorite frm A2 was the inability for vehicles to pass foot mobiles running along side the road, they would follow behind across the whole map if they could, although when thinking back I'm wondering if that was because of a mod? Something to test. anyway if the game is getting ya down, go get a cheap whore from steam and play around a bit, trust me it helps in the relationship

Ps, forums no help insomnia :(

[antoineflemming 14]

Other game's AI cannot even be ordered to board a vehicle...

AI behavior has little to do with the functionality of ordering AI to do something. What I've suspected, and I kinda get this vibe from the recent OPREP, is that the AI still is doing way too much. Like with selecting a certain weapon or item, such as binos. Why aren't the AI just taking out their binos? Why was that something that had issues? With stances, why should the AI need some complicated method of choosing a stance. If I order a stance, then they should just perform that action, and the accompanying animation should just come along with it. With AI movement, I've seen RTS games with better pathfinding. No one is saying that holistically, other games are better than Arma, it's just that for me, there are things that other games do better.

About this "It will take time for A3 to reach A2 level", with this game being a sequel, ArmA 3 shouldn't have to reach A2's level. It should have started from A2's level. I'm not talking about the modding community. Not every release should be like Arma 2 v1.0.