pathfinding of AI in cities is horrible

[kroky 1]

Do other gamers feel the same or am I the only one.

Pathfinding of AI in cities is worse than in OFP.

A medic can stand right before a injured unit and he does'nt find him. i.e.

AI is not able to use bridges even when they just have to walk a straight line.

AI mostly is not able to enter buildings, even there are predefined positions to send them to.

Sometimes AI would lie on reelings and don't move anywhere.

AI get stuck in cities like hell.

omg, it's really annoying...

BIS: extreme show stopper in ArmA.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Yes, i have to agree that the pathfinding needs some serious work.

Pathfinding problems do not only occur in city`s, it happens in open area too when the AI controls vehicles.

In the moment i`m so "happy" with ARMA that i don`t play it anymore, until the next patches fix this game.

The performance is good on my rig. But damned, there are a few weird bugs left.

[baddo 0]

In the coop mission of the demo I have noticed some things. I have played the mission on my own, with AI soldiers as team mates.

For two times now the enemy AI soldiers have surprised me by coming to get me through those buildings in the city which have a hallway to walk through the building. In both times I almost pissed in my pants because the suprise was so big. On the first one I was going to go through the building but quickly decided to "back up" because of seeing that I wasn't alone in the building. Using a pistol in such close combat situations seemed to be quite good strategy. Almost pissing in my pants is a positive thing at least for me when I play games. This could happen in OFP too but there it was very rare, according to my memory. I mean, the thing that AI's go through buildings without ordering them to do it.

On some of the sessions in the coop mission, I decided to use the pistol to my advantage and it worked quite well. I was behind a brick fence and shot the enemies from a hole in the fence. The enemies were running on the other side of the street and it was easy for me to use the pistol and take them out. To the point when 3 enemies came walking on my side of the road (close to the fence so that I could not see them in time) from that hole to my side of the fence and I had to reload the pistol and got shot. It wasn't the smartest route the enemies took. A much better route for them (which human players would have chosen) would have been to go round some buildings and surprise me behind my back because that side was not covered by my team, and also because I had killed their team mates into that part of the street so it is not the first idea that comes to mind that you walk right into a zone where your team mates are getting killed one after other. Now the AI had some serious casualties, when they could have had none in taking my character out.

A BRDM has got stuck in a fountain, or some other similar object in the city for two times now, in separate sessions. In both times the BRDM was positioned exactly similarly. That is a serious problem, even if the mission makers put not-so-good waypoints, the AI's should still be able to avoid objects which cause them to get stuck like that. I might go and get a screenshot of this problem if no one else confirms this (and if I can get such situation arranged again). It might have to do something with my team attacking their troops on the other side of the city and the BRDM decides to turn and come to help but does the turning in a bad location (no junction in that spot, just a little bit wider area with some fountain or similar object).

About the AI team mates: they have surprised me with their ability to follow me in between the buildings. I think they are actually quite good in making their way through a city (the city). I might not have seen enough but this far I am positively surprised of the AI soldiers' ability to move between the buildings.

It is clear that the AI could be much better when there are lot of AI soldiers close to each other, though. Then it can get too much time for them to figure out which way to go, and then they can take somewhat stupid looking directions when they start to move. I guess when there probably are not so many paths the AI can take, they get serious problems when many of those paths are already taken by someone else.

Offtopic, sorry. About the weapon selection in the demo coop mission: I noticed that the M4 is not a good choice for a weapon, I equip the team with sniper rifles and heavy machine guns + pistols and that seems to be the most playable choice, and most "productive". The M4 is simply too hard to use. Looking through its scope feels bulky and, annoying? The red dot is too big as someone said on some other thread (1024x768 resolution). Or then, if it is realistic then keep it that way.