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Disappointed after 13 years of 'Arma'

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AI in general is the toughest part to develop, because there are zero frameworks and standards. Plus, the stack-and-tack way of developing it so far has led to it having become unwieldily complicated. I think this AI, by any standard is among the most complex and extensive AI systems in use in games today.

To my knowledge, there are no other games where the AI is asked to do this many things in such varied environments. Other games develop maps and gameplay to fit the AI, where it is used, and where it doesn't work they have it cheat. With Arma it is the other way around: the devs put down a world and open up gameplay completely, and then go in to make the AI work with that. Putting down a four room apartement is something the AI's of other games have been written entirely around, with each level meticulously designed to fit the capabilities of the AI to deliver the best player-AI interaction possible. Again, not so with Arma (I know I am repeating myself here, but this point needs to be emphasized I think.), where the world is placed with at best minor attention to the AI's ability to work inside it. (Alone changing the compass direction of approach can change a certain terrain's tactical significance so much that there is no benefit to trying to optimize the AI for any given location on any map.) Then the AI is built with the goal to make it perform good, on average, across the entire map and the entire range of situations that they might find themselves in.

Basically, they are attempting to make a non-random code that can address a completely chaotic, non-predictable environment with chaotic distribution of tactically significant points and avenues, and then make this system appear as if it is felling clever decisions in the situations it faces. And contrary to you, the human, this code has less brainpower than your average worker ant.

Consider the amount of different processes and filters you are running in split second timeframes when felling tactical decisions in gameplay. For example:

Cross a street: Enemies are nearby, none are currently seen. There is a wreck in the street, and open road left and right, with buildings and doors to backyards for a hundred meters in each direction. There are windows observing the street, and there is gunfire nearby.

As a human, you know all this, you will check your benefits of being on the other side versus the risks (Sniper observation, likelihood of enemy contact based on memory of enemy location, direction of gunfire, terrain knowledge and reasonable extrapolation of enemy movement, again based from memory and experience, mines, cover, different routes with similar cycles to consider, etc, etc, etc) and you will also be able to dynamically filter ALL of those information based on your training and mental threat response level down to things that only matter, right now.

Note that I am presupposing the posession of the knowledge, and discarding the fact that first you also need to -aquire- this information and sort it for what is relevant and what isn't relevant. In terms of AI, memory cycles.

At the end of all those processes, usually within one to five or so seconds, you will have felled your decision, either crossing the street and coordinating with your squad, or staying where you are. And you will reevaluate what you are doing at every moment from then on as your senses pick up new information.

Now imagine all this has to be done by a silicon chip incapable of simultaneous processing as our sensory apparatus is, that is using a very different way of analyzing and prioritizing this information (hand-written too!) and which has to do this not for one "person", but potentially hundreds of them, all at the same time, each with their unique tactical situation. That includes different weapons, worn gear, optics, protection, presence of friend or foe, vehicles, silencers, etc, etc, etc.

The more I learn about AI and also about both Human and non-Human animal perception, the more I respect the fact that the AI is functional at all. Maybe it even is easier than I imagine it to be now, but at this point the only hope I think is that somebody calls some important EU Universities AI departement and begins a doctoral work with developing a completely new and revolutionary AI system using cutting edge code and tech for the RV engine.

Because I fear that the limitations of the AI in many respects are not limitations of code and ability, but of technology.

This times a million billion

If anyone can find AI that do what ArmA AI do in the situation that ArmA AI are in, but better, then we can talk. Otherwise, ^^^^^^^^^^^

Anyway, to get back on track with the post, I agree unresponsive AI ("2, move to that tree, 12 o'clock!" *3 hours later* "negative") needs to be addressed, I mean, it can't be that hard to fix.

As for the driving problems, that might be a bit more complex. From what I've seen, ArmA ai can handle uncluttered terrain, particularly roads, just fine. But when you drop something as simple as a barrel in their way, they have no idea what to do and cause more damage to the vehicle trying to get around the blockage then if they rammed it head on T_T

I don't know how hard that pathfinding would be to fix, it seems like it may be pretty hard, because they have to gauge the size of the blockage, the objects nearby, and the amount of clearance they have between the blockage and nearby object, as well as the size of their vehicle. Then they have to plan a path through this that is within their vehicles limits... seems pretty complex.

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I am sure small changes are applied and experimented with all the time but I fear that the issues with AI might be much more fundamental
Pretty much what I got from the OPREP, that what's under-the-hood is so nightmarishly entangled together that in effect you can have changes done fast, comprehensively (that is, how big in scope) or well... but you can only have one, maybe two, of those at best.

Seemed to me like a programmer trying to say that changes to Arma (of the "legitimate engine support" unscripted sort) aren't nearly as "easy" as others claim.

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I still find that I cant totally trust the AI to drive from point A-B without getting stuck or worse popping a tyre (i always have a repair guy riding along).

Particularly when they are driving though towns and cut a corner to sharply and hit the wall on the inside of the corner.

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I think the most disappointing thing for me, is that Arma seems to have largely devolved into Wasteland and Life missions, I don't mind people playing what they like, but certain parts of the life community have really put me off the game with their attempts to monetize the game. I have been offered money or potentially be hired to do scripting for various Altis life missions on several occasions (I normally joke it off with the £65 an hour joke), and have seen it advertised on threads on this forums on a more frequent basis nowadays. Its pretty much come to the point where I solely make missions just for my clan.

Edited by [EVO] Dan

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Not only they did in OFP-Arma2, but it was a very common one.

AI in the past game often drawn their pistols and and stuck, the only solution was by not giving a pistol to them.

I am talking about getting stuck in environment as is happening in A3.

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I am talking about getting stuck in environment as is happening in A3.

If your talkin infantry arms 3 has far less pathfinfing problems than the previous iterations by far. Surprised that's even up for debate.

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Uh, well, thing is that the bots in CS are using pre-planned path nodes baked into the map by the developer. The AI does nothing but select which path to go along in which number, and then they aimbot without having to cope with bullet drop, or any weapon fancier than a shotgun. CS has no AI to speak of, and again, it has extremely restricted maps with not even a little bit of the complexity that Arma's AI has to cope with. CS:GOs AI couldn't walk down a street in this game.

Show me a different game that actually has an AI. The Cryengine AI is an example of a freeform AI, which is rather competetive but still not working with as much complex issues as Arma's AI, and also in more restricted environs. The combat distances are also much, much shorter in that game and the combat priorities are different. But on the whole, having not much experience with these AI apart from short stints in far cry and crysis, I think this is close.

However, is it really better than Arma's AI? I remember much complaint about the stupidity of the AI all the way through Crysis 1, its addons and Crysis 2. Again, a familiar story, and it should tell us that Crye's developers are probably not better off with their AI than BI's are.

So, what other games are there? OF:DR or RR? Both suffer from shortfalls, both have their advantages, but in no way is either a distinct improvement over what is offered to us with Arma 3s vanilla AI. FEAR? They even went so far as to remove clutter from their levels and designing the levels around the AI, rather than the other way around, to the point of being able to strip the AI down to bones and still have it work brilliantly. Not possible in Arma.

Just claiming that it is easy to find an AI "better" than Armas without putting forward any clear examples is rather cheap, don't you think?

Another spot on post. CS bots are good in their tight environments but there's also a reason they've been playing on 'Dust' for 15 years...Would love to see those bots bunny hop 5 or more miles thru the jungles of Nam without needing travel nodes.

As far as Cyengine, try playing with just 1 ai in their editor, you have to literally manually block out every wall you dont want them to walk into,every piece of furniture, and every possible travel path. I do admire it's ability to make objects cover material especially indoors but this would he a tough feat to resemble anything remotely autonomous ai needed for the scale of an arma. The enginevseems geared for very specific and controlled scenarios and firefights

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look, if you want to talk in a technical sense about coding AI and how the differences between games can afftect that, thats one thing....but if we are talking about things from just a gaming user's perspective your points are moot. You can turn that right around and say the arma AI wouldnt work in CS...and you'd be right.

Fact is that no matter what the underlying factors may be, if a game is heavily based upon and includes AI then that game's AI needs to work well within that environment, period. If it doesn't then you've created a sinking ship. If you don't get that then there's no conversation to even be had here.

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Kinda agree, the ARMA series have moved very slowly the past 13 years and mostly due to the lack of optimization, strange/stupid game mechanic and dumb AI. Of course you can justify the AI by saying that ARMA is a MP game but still you have the two other factors which makes the game feel very unfinished.

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Another spot on post. CS bots are good in their tight environments but there's also a reason they've been playing on 'Dust' for 15 years...Would love to see those bots bunny hop 5 or more miles thru the jungles of Nam without needing travel nodes.

As far as Cyengine, try playing with just 1 ai in their editor, you have to literally manually block out every wall you dont want them to walk into,every piece of furniture, and every possible travel path. I do admire it's ability to make objects cover material especially indoors but this would he a tough feat to resemble anything remotely autonomous ai needed for the scale of an arma. The enginevseems geared for very specific and controlled scenarios and firefights

The fact is Cryengine s and CS AI do what they are designed to do and more and more they progress to do it better , Arma AI not only cannot do what it is designed to do , it has taken several steps back anyone who wish to dispute that only has to look at the number of bridges in the modern game in comparison to OFP .

Just because you dont place FSM,s and Invisible pathways that are in buildings and roads and sidewalks doesnt mean that there are no pathway nodes in arma too. Just because in Crysis and other games you can switch off and on the ability for an object to block AIs path in a 3d editoror view doesnt make it worse than armas permanently non editable View geometry properties that perma block Ais paths and or vision ,it just mens the former method is more flexible and will help with resource in a dynamic scenario in a game world .

In addition many have noticed more and more scenario based sqf and fsm based scritping on Ai in recent campaign on top of the engine based fsm and cpp defined scripts it already has , so maybe even BIS recognise advantages of event and scenario specific AI too.

Edited by Sealife

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I do admire it's ability to make objects cover material especially indoors but this would he a tough feat to resemble anything remotely autonomous ai needed for the scale of an arma. The enginevseems geared for very specific and controlled scenarios and firefights

first of all. arma does that too but it does it way less effective. you can even see the preplaced points on walls when ordering your dudes around.

and second. what, considering the first pont, makes you think it's not possible in arma? what is that claim based on?

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Of course Arma's AI need travelway lod and nodes, all games do. Did you miss the autonomous? And of course there is no such thing as true autonomous AI, only relative to other gameplay experiences. My point was in reference to those espousing that 'Cryengine is the future' as implying, the future for the type of gaming we like here. Arma's AI pathways and nodes are built in over the entire Island so yes, they are more limited in fine motor skill type actions but are also drop, plop and play with potentially hundreds of AI that can go pretty much anywhere being only limited by the more intensive terrain that the series presents and terrible driving habits. I have yet to see any Cry titles capable of this and am waiting with credit card in hand...

And stating that CS AI is progressing is just funny, they seem eerily the same as that game I picked up all those years ago. Progressing imo, would involve extremely large terrain and having to compensate for things like, oh I don't know, actual bullets...? Wonder if you guys go to CS forums and cry about why can't it have x,y,z from Arma - doubt it as why complain about a Big Mac not having more variety?

In addition many have noticed more and more scenario based sqf and fsm based scripting on Ai in recent campaign on top of the engine based fsm and cpp defined scripts it already has , so maybe even BIS recognise advantages of event and scenario specific AI too

Yup. And that would be an utter shame and is one of the reasons I speak out and advocate a flawed autonomous AI over joining the legion of mediocrity and yawn.

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Did you miss the autonomous? And of course there is no such thing as true autonomous AI

comedy gold...

what are you even talking about? arma AI uses corners to lean from. it already does what you describe in a sloppy ineffective way. read what i wrote. walls have predefined positions. you definition of autonomous is solely based on your perception. which seems to be: ineffective = autonomous.

there is no inexpensive way to do this without predefined points or simply using the whole object no matter of shape. which can be seen when arma AI lean from "behind" street lights. this is a matter of setting things up more detailed. if all objects would be set up more detailed for the AI it could work better.

and we don't even have to talk only about "fine motor skill". there are countless AI mods for arma 1 and 2 that show how much of a difference it makes when AI actually take cover (trees etc for general concealment) into account properly when approaching a target area.

please stop just saying things like they are based on facts and knowledge. stop the vague mumbojumbo. you have no proof of a better cover mechanic being not possible because of scale. my guess is because it's bullshit.

the only outstanding part about arma AI is that it can use vehicles (if told so). so yea that's it, if you need to compare.

only limited by the more intensive terrain that the series presents and terrible driving habits.

what a joke. as if this was a minor issue when talking about the scale of the game. place an AI vehcile and give it a far waypoint USING ROADS (set proper behavior) and see how far it gets.

all the problems described in the OP are real persiting problems with the AI since the first game. AI is not arma's strong suit.

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I cannot believe I am seeing CS AI compared to A3's AI.

The Arma 3 Ai is far from perfect, hell it's far from playable, but CS AI is nothing compared to arma, hence why they are on dust everyday which is the size of what 1/1000 of Altis?.

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Of course Arma's AI need travelway lod and nodes, all games do. Did you miss the autonomous? And of course there is no such thing as true autonomous AI, only relative to other gameplay experiences. My point was in reference to those espousing that 'Cryengine is the future' as implying, the future for the type of gaming we like here. Arma's AI pathways and nodes are built in over the entire Island so yes, they are more limited in fine motor skill type actions but are also drop, plop and play with potentially hundreds of AI that can go pretty much anywhere being only limited by the more intensive terrain that the series presents and terrible driving habits. I have yet to see any Cry titles capable of this and am waiting with credit card in hand...

And stating that CS AI is progressing is just funny, they seem eerily the same as that game I picked up all those years ago. Progressing imo, would involve extremely large terrain and having to compensate for things like, oh I don't know, actual bullets...? Wonder if you guys go to CS forums and cry about why can't it have x,y,z from Arma - doubt it as why complain about a Big Mac not having more variety?

Yup. And that would be an utter shame and is one of the reasons I speak out and advocate a flawed autonomous AI over joining the legion of mediocrity and yawn.

Dont come in and shout all hail Arma Ai the only AI that does what it does and no other can come close and then make comparisons right after declaring Arma to be unique . AUTOMINOUS ?? Ha dont make me laugh , just because its already scripted for you as opposed to being able to do it yourself via java or lua or c in an sdk doesnt make it better , it means you have to add a 3rd layer of fsm when the stubborn AI goes to shit and create even more resource hogs .jesus do you know anything about what your comnenting on ?

The problem you dont see is or selectively ignore as I pointed out on many occasions is : Arma Cannot do any of the things it is designed to do efficiently or consistently , its flawed beyond comparison that is the only thing it is unique , all the others do what they are designed to do better so dont compare , its silly we here to state facts of inadequacy with Arma not other games .

Here is the one and only fix I ever saw since ofp regarding this games game breaking flaw :

Problem : AI cannot / will not drive over a bridge

Solution : Remove all bridges

Edited by Sealife

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I cannot believe I am seeing CS AI compared to A3's AI.

The Arma 3 Ai is far from perfect, hell it's far from playable, but CS AI is nothing compared to arma, hence why they are on dust everyday which is the size of what 1/1000 of Altis?.

People aren't saying that the AI in CS is better than the Arma AI at doing what the AI in Arma does, they are saying that the AI in CS is better at doing what the CS AI does than the Arma AI is at doing what the Arma AI does.

Essentially, the AI in CS isn't designed to operate in the same environment that the AI in Arma is, but it operates pretty well in the environment it is designed for.. By contrast, the Arma AI does not operate that well in the environments it is designed for.

Problem : AI cannot / will not drive over a bridge

Solution : Remove all bridges

This is the kind of thing that BIS does from time to time that just feels sloppy and unacceptable. It feels like problems are covered up rather than actually fixed quite often.

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LOL, what are you guys like an internet gang? No surprise here on who gets butthurt when the strengths of Arma are highlighted. Sorry to pour sunshine on your dismal, dusty basements but if you still have a bone to pick with me feel free to PM and we can settle this like gentlemen or not -Ill welcome either.

Back OT: Yes,Arma is autonomous RELATIVE to other games namely shooters. The only other game that had it was OPFDR in that, units can veer far from their respective points f origin and still retain pathfinding, cover nodes etc... Farcry, CS and BF cannot. Period. If you simply can't grasp the term of autonomous in these terms than I cannot help you. Though I suspect you doubt choose to lawyer up and play your little games of sematical acrobatics.

Frankly I could give two shits if you find Arma's Ai too rudimentary for ya -tough bananas and as grown men should feel a little silly with your crusade to complain on a VIDEO GAME ad naseum. Don't like it -tough beans and move on.

Benson. OFP's AI was good at what it was intended for, wide open medium to long range combat. Farcry and CS are good for what they are intended for -the difference, Arma has tried to move toward CQB by introducing smaller incremental pathfinding and yes, cover leaning-THATS progression. What Farcry has done is trap the player in smaller areas of operations Farcry 3, and CS is well, just CS...

So open your windows, let the sun in, eat some chocolate and maybe lower your soy intake a little..you'll feel better.

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listen. i personally talked about the bullshit you said about cover in that one post. cryengine's cover system is autonomous too. you simply set things as cover. so you are the one doing the acrobatics here. please read posts properly if you intend to respond to them. you seem to have the time to do so.

i will highlight the part i was refering to for you again

I do admire it's ability to make objects cover material especially indoors but this would he a tough feat to resemble anything remotely autonomous ai needed for the scale of an arma.

i don't know if you played the crytek games (i did farcry and one of the crysis briefly) but the AI moves freely in the game area and takes cover according to your position. you either haven't looked at it or you are trying to make it look very bad.

about the butthurt part: just read your last post again and you will see who's really butthurt here ;) no need to go to PM. you either make sense or not. i wasn't talking about CS or anything else. you should maybe start making specific quotes if you intend to go after threads like this. it's getting quite messy.

so much for the basement part btw. look at your post count in this thread. you are the one on a crusade here. :rolleyes:

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Wrong. The ai will ony respond/move in direct correlation to what was predetermined in Crysis. Have a go at the editor and see for yourself.

As far as my postcount, well I enjoy the series and have been here a while so it makes sense. To come here daily and get all estro bummed without relent is just beyond me. Hell I paid 10x the price for vbs, felt cheated, said my piece and left. Loved farcry 1, yet recently bought 3 and call out foul, barnyard odor...baby diaper. But would feel pretty childish to go complain on their forums everyday on why the AO are now so small and contained.

Simple mate, like it play it..hate it leave it. Life is short.

Correction, the ai in Crysis will always fire so they will respond in that. Google crysis ai editor and be prepared for a looong read on getting the ai to do the most simple of tasks. Granted they can perform admirably in their limited respective ways but simply aren't built to take on the role of an arma cti.

Edited by froggyluv

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Wrong. The ai will ony respond/move in direct correlation to what was predetermined in Crysis. Have a go at the editor and see for yourself.

As far as my postcount, well I enjoy the series and have been here a while so it makes sense. To come here daily and get all estro bummed without relent is just beyond me. Hell I paid 10x the price for vbs, felt cheated, said my piece and left. Loved farcry 1, yet recently bought 3 and call out foul, barnyard odor...baby diaper. But would feel pretty childish to go complain on their forums everyday on why the AO are now so small and contained.

Simple mate, like it play it..hate it leave it. Life is short.

Wrong , ive been chased by the AI in cryengine all week without any waypoints or anything stop trying to fuel a none existent Arma vs other game AI with bullshit .

They only react to a pre determined direction haaaaaaa what a weak lie .

Read it , hate it , dont reply to it , leave it . But never bullshit to deny it ;)

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A3's AI may be more complex then every other game's AI but isn't that part of the problem?

I'm not going to repeat all the common issues (AI not responding, etc.) as we all know them. Personally, I'd rather have AI that works properly and responds to commands properly then have AI that can pick up a weapon 2km away, that can line up in 10 different formation types, or that has 4 different awareness modes.

If the developers ever do decide to redo the AI, they should start with the basics. The AI should follow you when you say so, take cover when you say so, go directly to where you tell them to go, fire/hold fire when you say so, and enter vehicles when you say so. A more simple rotary wheel system like Brothers in Arms with the major commands on it would go a long way to fix the UI.

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Wrong. The ai will ony respond/move in direct correlation to what was predetermined in Crysis.

i was talking about how they take cover. you don't have to tell them take cover here at time X because they act autonomously under fire. so not "wrong". you can set shaped zones even in cryengine. seems like you didn't even bother googling yourself. even far cry 1 had AI you could have awesome hide and seek games with after they took notice of you. it was totally free and based on the environment.

just because you can restrict AI in cryengine to an area doesn't mean it's not autonomous. you can emulate what you define as autonomous in cryengine. on the other hand you can't make detailed behavior in arma for your mission :p

you are either misinformed, ignorant or deliberately talking bullshit. all of these make you pretty useless for this "discussion". yes. arma has a routine for each group to create waypoints when under fire. and that is pretty much what most game AI's do except maybe COD's/BF SP's shooting range morons. arma just has a bigger activation radius.

stalker is another example. AI patrol on their predefined waypoints until they take fire. then they hunt you down using "autonomous AI". again. same as arma. the difference in arma is that it relies less on predefined things which is insane considering that it would help the AI a lot.

i don't think you really know what you are talking about to be honest.

EDIT: sit down and read this http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC2/Advanced+AI+Behavior

then you may come back and make educated statements about cryengine AI

btw. i'm not a cryengine fan or something like that. i just don't you understand that predefining things doesn't make AI non-autonomous. hence why i brought up arma's predefined points. indoor is even more restricted in arma and works pretty much the same as in cryengine.

Edited by Bad Benson

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No need to get all heat up over game we share interest in fellas, would be shame to get this locked.

What I'd be personally interested in hearing is, what's the problem with BI cooperating with some of the already released AI mods that the general consensus is they have proven into delivering

much better experience over and over again than what vanilla arma has to offer? Is BI concerned about further performance drawbacks or is it matter of pride where BI will simply not use an external code?

I would think that if there's a solution ( hell, even if I call it a workaround that still does the job better ) why not just better the game and put it in? :confused:

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What I'd be personally interested in hearing is, what's the problem with BI cooperating with some of the already released AI mods that the general consensus is they have proven into delivering

much better experience over and over again than what vanilla arma has to offer? Is BI concerned about further performance drawbacks or is it matter of pride where BI will simply not use an external code?

The AI mods are just working within the same non-optimal framework that BIS is, except they are layering more scripts on top of it. So BIS working with AI modders or adopting their mods is just adding more hacky patches when what really needs worked on is the system itself.

I'd also say that people spend too much time on these forums debating whether or not other games do things better than Arma does. It doesn't really matter if every other game's AI sucks compared to Arma; Arma's AI still isn't very good.

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I'd recommend anyone interested in this AI topic to checkout the bcombat mod by Fabrizio themselves. Don't watch the videos, just download, install and play without any other AI mod enabled. This is not to excuse the engine issues or take away from any of the points made already. You may think differently about what's possible with infantry AI at least.

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