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Disappointed after 13 years of 'Arma'

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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.

Anything is possible, that's kind of the problem. Things are possible within reason, they just don't get done or fixed. Just look at what AI mods do. Bottom line is that the AI in ArmA when compared with their intended role or roles within ArmA itself are severely lacking, inefficient and overall rather buggy. We don't even need to compare to another game, simply ask yourself if the AI in ArmA does a satisfactory job. When they can't get past a rock in the road or ram each other constantly throughout the duration of a convoy or can't even tell there's an enemy 50ft from them rocking full auto etc... then you can't say they really do a satisfactory job for their intended purpose.

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As sttosin mentioned. Some of us are working on the AI to improve things. IMHO Arma is still the best simulation out there. Especially with the mods out there. Bcombat,TPW, FFIS and HAL to name a few make it worth it to me. Should BIS fix or improve on this... Definitely! But sense OFP till now nothing much has changed. Id bet not much will in the future without mods. In fact I'm seeing some of the same mistakes codemasters made with there OFP release few years back. Dont try to compete with Hollywood style games! Work on realism and immersion! That would include AI behavior and driving/flying more human like, Sounds from weapons to environment, and AI working like a team not like individuals(which I have seen a few improvements as far as combat goes in last few updates). There driving and flying is absolutely terrible though! JMHO

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Want to aplogize to sealife, Benson and community as whole for overall nasty tone. Got some rl upheaval right now so probably overreacted and considering I often long for the past days of cordial and fun to visit forums, am setting bad example with that attitude.

Reminds me of when my big brother got in a fistfight with his friend over whether Chewbacca kneeled or not after getting his medal in Star Wars...nothing funnier than a nerd fight :p

That said, I did indeed read that pdf as well as played around with the Crysis ai editor and as ibremember, you had to set all pathways and nodes as well as avoidance routines manually for each ai. My overall point was you couldn't make a cti with that editor even if twas sole infantry. Pretty sure you wouldn't be able to ai on ai to function outside of the player area in any meaningful way if at all either.

Hell, I'd check it out now myself if my pc were up and running :(

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Got to agree with the ai driving issue - They are absolutley appalling - I have made numerous MP missions for our clan and usually set up 4 or 5 "circular patrol routes with exact waypoints to avoid relying on bi spawn vehicles as they just act insane,

On our most recent mission out of the 5 circular routes only 1 could make a complete circut. I made a previous thread about but even in sefe / careless mode with NO enemy on the map I would find vehicles stuck on 12inch high walls or against a corugated iron shed.

This is really bad if the vehicles are getting stuck on small stone walls remove them from the game - there is nothoing more dissapointing in a realistic sim to come across a vehicle just driving back and forth repeatedly stuck.

Its the same with bridges and has been since arma 1 AI are just not "happy" driving over them. Please bi do something about this cos its really spoils the immersion. I dont expect human like abilities just the ability to rely on my convoy actually reaching its destination.

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Got to agree with the ai driving issue - They are absolutley appalling - I have made numerous MP missions for our clan and usually set up 4 or 5 "circular patrol routes with exact waypoints to avoid relying on bi spawn vehicles as they just act insane

yes! and this can't be brought up enough since it seems like some people still treat this like a "sacrifice we need to make due to arma being so ambitious". no! they can't drive on roads. it's broken. it needs fixing. much like every problem that the OP mentions. they are not wishes or feature suggestions. the OP is basically a bug report of very obvious issues that the series has from the start.

if that means more preplaced helpers for AI on roads (to AI roads should be like rails) then do it! people don't want intelligent driving or pursuit maneuvres. this is about AI simply reaching point B.

@froggy: it's all good. but i have to say something.

My overall point was you couldn't make a cti with that editor even if twas sole infantry.

you are making the mistake of comparing the cryengine editor with the arma mission editor. they are two completely different things. also CTI gives AI waypoints via script. you don't really think that there is an inbuilt AI general in arma giving them orders do you? someone made that game mode and all the "magic" behind it.

cryengine supports scripts aswell. why do you think it can't create waypoints dynamically? i don't get it. it's not a game with a mission editor. it's a fully fleshed game engine. the things YOU can do with the level editor are not equal to the things it is capable of. there are scripts available to have AI wander around on their own and do many other things.

again. i'm not trying to say that cryengine is what arma should be developed on but i feel you have some misconceptions about what things are and how they work. again!! i'm not saying cryengine can do the scale of arma without changes to it but it feels to me like you are underestimating the AI capabilities it has. people have this tendency of talking down to shooter AI like it's all the same and like arma does so much more. it's both not true.

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if that means more preplaced helpers for AI on roads (to AI roads should be like rails) then do it! people don't want intelligent driving or pursuit maneuvres. this is about AI simply reaching point B.

I agree that the AI should travel on the roads like rails (or a magnet underground keeping them on the road!) The only problem with this is what happens if they find the road blocked at some point. Are they allowed to deviate from the road then? What if the area immediately around the roadblock has a load of trees or buildings / walls. Do they just reverse (tricky if they're in a convoy but not impossible) until there's a clear space at the side of the road? They still then have to navigate off-road around the blockage, without getting stuck in trees/walls, until they can get back on the road again. Maybe they should just call in "Road blocked" and we should be able to take over the driver of the lead vehicle and lead the convoy safely round the roadblock and then hand control back?

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Probably you're gonna need to start with something like this. Perception should be a much easier task since you can spoon feed the AI with the exact parameters of the environment around him. He needs to learn how to respond to different stimuli by itself, in time, under different circumstances. Of course, BI would need to have the courage to go beyond what older computers are capable of (even running the AI in large numbers on dedicated hardware like a GPU - why not, one that has this only purpose, like PhysiX), however, it may the only real solution to the problem and it may require of them, to actually get in touch with people that work in the field. Should be viable since that AI can be "ported" to all of their games and it's not manpower "wasted" on a single game.

We can do quite amazing stuff, dedication is all.

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I don't understand the Arma team.

They are making a zeus dlc although the actualy game don't work properly and is not finished.

There is not attack planes for west and east, no transport planes, no ships, AI are always great sniper even with a pistol and it's impossible to aim correctly because there is too much shakiness.

And more...

If you run in all directions you will never end something correctly !

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I agree that the AI should travel on the roads like rails (or a magnet underground keeping them on the road!) The only problem with this is what happens if they find the road blocked at some point. Are they allowed to deviate from the road then? What if the area immediately around the roadblock has a load of trees or buildings / walls. Do they just reverse (tricky if they're in a convoy but not impossible) until there's a clear space at the side of the road? They still then have to navigate off-road around the blockage, without getting stuck in trees/walls, until they can get back on the road again. Maybe they should just call in "Road blocked" and we should be able to take over the driver of the lead vehicle and lead the convoy safely round the roadblock and then hand control back?

Nail hits head.

I believe in Arma 2 and earlier (or maybe it was in A1?) the AI did indeed "drive on rails" but it caused issues like you pointed out and as such they changed that behaviour. Yes in A3 the AI driving skills are dumb. In A2OA they are quite good so I expect eventually this behaviour will be fixed.

I can't believe people are still comparing other game AI to Arma's AI. There simply IS no comparison.

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Nail hits head.

I believe in Arma 2 and earlier (or maybe it was in A1?) the AI did indeed "drive on rails" but it caused issues like you pointed out and as such they changed that behaviour. Yes in A3 the AI driving skills are dumb. In A2OA they are quite good so I expect eventually this behaviour will be fixed.

I can't believe people are still comparing other game AI to Arma's AI. There simply IS no comparison.

as far as I remember, except for Opf, Ai was a truly a mess while driving on the road from Arma1

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as far as I remember, except for Opf, Ai was a truly a mess while driving on the road from Arma1

Hmm..perhaps you are right I'm getting old :p

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I agree that AI should prefer sticking on the roads strongly. The roads should be like magnets to driving AI like it was described above, unless they happen to be in stealth mode.

Could the AI scan their surroundings when they're driving on roads and have "memory" that would remember the last areas where there would be enough space to go offroad and intersecting roads that could be used to bypass the possibly upcoming obstacles? If there was an obstacle on the road, the convoy would go to "reverse" mode that would be otherwise like driving forward - bypassing minor obstacles and such - but just reversing, until they reached the point where they could use another road or simply go offroad to pass the obstacle. The reverse mode would be triggered primarily by unavoidable obstacle on the way and secondarily by proximity of other unit that's going to same direction in reverse mode (this would make the whole convoy reversing successfully possible even when there's intersecting traffig eg. at road junctions). There would be some free space between the reversing units in order to decrease the chance of bottleneck domino effect if an unit slows down temporarily for some reason. The reversing units in convoy would be like same magnet poles to each other - repeling each other the more, the closer they are to each other.

The AI could also prefer U-turn to reversing, if it was possible on the given area.

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as far as I remember, except for Opf, Ai was a truly a mess while driving on the road from Arma1

I believe the reason for this was the move from single lane roads to double lane roads. It blows the AIs mind and must have been implemented poorly at the time.

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First i had to accept then ArmA III it's complety another game,especially if i compare it whit the preview editions.

BIS wanted to deliberately choose another way about this title,and to think, or belive, then step by step, one day,i will see ArmA III like a evolution about ArmA II.....it's not definitely in BIS plans!

So,I get this choices:

Hope a divina patch for fix the most important issue and try to be enjoy whit ArmA III.

Hope for a impressive ACE mod for a giant replacement pack ArmA III.

Hope for an expansion,or DLC, to ArmA II in Arma III all inclusive vanilla!

Continue to play to ArmA II.

Or....if you like to play just in SP...install the All in ArmA and another 20 mods for come back in ArmA II edge but whit the engine of ArmA III.

[useless for who love play in MP for obvious reasons about servers!]

Arma III we all see then it's not a title free from defects of development,like always,and it's inherited old bugs whit the new one!

The thing that surprised me it's a general lack of attention,but especially concentrated, in MP mode!

Frankly, I hope to total conversion ACE Mods to improve and correct that long list then everybody know!

But I think this time it will be very difficult to accomplish.

Edited by j4you

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There won't be ACE3 for ArmA3.

How Chortles saied...if you are intresting about it,follow NouberNou [Devs] about ACE III progress:

http://www.reddit.com/r/arma/comments/1lu7c2/reality_check/cc33lzt

The Devs Xeno is out,it's true,but he was just one, of so many, devs in ACE Staff...not the only one!

ACE III it's in WIP ;)..and like the Fenice..ArmA III will rise to the his realization!:bounce3:

And even ,in just one shot,we could finally play whitout so many kids (without offending them but they are often misplaced and mortally chaotic in MP) thirsty for easy fresh blood around every corner and/or servers!..LOL!

I cant wait!

Edited by j4you

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There won't be ACE3 for ArmA3.

92% of the community reading this just suffered near fatal cardiovascular condition :butbut:

Good to see that ACE don't give in

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j4you correct if I'm wrong but that was 5 months ago.

Hi Nikiforos!

Yes you right M8!

But I highlighted my post just to break the news about that development ACE has not stopped for output by Xeno.

But I see that someone still likes to be funny and sarcastic .... but this is not a problem related only ACE argumentation, and I want to give food to nobody!:cool:

I prefer get a small illusion that a big disappointment ... in relation to the future of ArmA III!;)

Edited by j4you

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It's a sad state of affairs when everyone is hankering for a mod to make the game enjoyable.

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It's a sad state of affairs when everyone is hankering for a mod to make the game enjoyable.

I agree whit you but BIS is not interested in the simulation part, much less to the realism,......what other choice do we have now?:....may be Zeus?:rolleyes:

Edited by j4you

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I agree whit you but BIS is not interested in the simulation part, much less to the realism,......what other choice do we have now?:....may be Zeus?:rolleyes:

So, BIS tries to do something different besides just a few improvements and some new islands from game to game, with mostly recycled/upgraded content like OFP->A1, A1->A2.

Instead of being interested in how it turns out, people are still acting like the only saving grace for this game will be mods, and that BIS is now EA.

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