Please fix the AI

[Maddmatt 1]

@Zombie_Mod: Have you tried tweaking the ArmA fsm files? Maybe get them to take cover instead of go prone. I haven't seen anyone mod them - I know I will have a look when I have the full game.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Unlike ArmA, the troops do not have psychic powers and don't know where the enemy are

They dont, hell, a few posts above we are discussing a problem where the AI doesnt see enemies untill they are right in front of them

They arent psyschic, if the enemy sees you->knowsabout value goes up, when it hits a critical number (0.105 in OFP, dunno about ArmA) the enemy 'knows' you and starts attacking you, when you are out of sight again the knowsaboutvalue lowers again.

'Then why does the AI shoot trough bushes?'

Well, you know that yellow box you get when targetting someone?

When that someone walks behind a bush that yellow box continues moving on on the same speed, guessing where that someone is, remember?

Now, the AI does exactly the same, however, the AI only fires when there is an enemy in front of him, so when you walk behind a bush, and the knowsaboutvalue is high enough, and the AI accidentally targets you (thanks to that 'yellow box effect', then he will open fire, and possible hit you.

This makes them psychic under certain circumstances, but they may as well be firing trough the bushes 'guessing' where you are. (with some imagination )

Quote[/b] ]They sit in one place, what do you want them to do, run out and get blown to bits???

I want them to attack and take out the enemy if possible, not waiting behind cover, return fire occasionally and basically just being there to die.

[tj72 0]

They can move from position to position. But once there they should aquire another element of cover intuitively. I allways thought this would be a better firefight scenario because its more drawn out and you dont have the "Clean Sweep" Effect where you have a whole glob of targets so close together you can kill one guy and then the next guy without even moving your crosshair. Meanwhile all they do is go prone out in the open when theres better places for them to be a few feet away.

Bullets may go through cement or brick and have all kinds of collision/friction values but a whole building will stop a bullet. A tank will stop a bullet. It still hides your presence from the enemy. would you rather fall back in the middle of the street or with a building between you and your attacker. I want them to take cover and then react. I dont want them to just sit there either.

[sniperandy 0]

Major issue I see with the AI is the AI leaders swamping the AI's with commands every second. If you have a good headset you will hear the AI being given commands every single second and I don't think that they can work things out that way. Left alone that there is no point in hearing the AI being given their commands. But I believe that the system is just blown with commands witch results in the behaviour we see in ArmA.

[funnyguy1 0]

Well, what's the difference between ArmA and ofp when It comes to those commands? Isn't that just a matter of ability to hear what other AI say?

Anyway, I played campaign a bit and I have to say that this "I'm the only one who can spot the targets, look around for threats, and who dies first because AI targets me first" thing is still there. I have AI on max skills, with the accuracy settings a bit lowered, but It's still crappy.

[Zombie_Mod 0]

Unlike ArmA, the troops do not have psychic powers and don't know where the enemy are

They dont, hell, a few posts above we are discussing a problem where the AI doesnt see enemies untill they are right in front of them

They do have psychic powers in some cases, try the "destroy convoy" single mission and then see if you can hide from the trailing BMP without running away too far.

It's a bug reported on the official list (by someone other than I) and confirmed by multiple sources.

As for the AI not seeing enemies in front of them, well Vegas and CoH don't have that problem

You think I really WANT to slate ArmA? I sat waiting for this game for months like everyone else. However, unlike my main antagonists on this thread though, I KNOW it's a substandard product WORSE than OFP:R in the most important ways, like AI

and physics. I didn't see trucks do somersaults and flip back onto bridges in Res.... (there's a video on this forum of that happening.)

I'm going to be blunt, compared to other arcade games, and ArmA is one, it is a dud. BIS are lucky to have fans like you who will stick with them thick and thin. Me? life's too short to wait for patches every month.

[Maddmatt 1]

Unlike ArmA, the troops do not have psychic powers and don't know where the enemy are

They dont, hell, a few posts above we are discussing a problem where the AI doesnt see enemies untill they are right in front of them

They do have psychic powers in some cases, try the "destroy convoy" single mission and then see if you can hide from the trailing BMP without running away too far.

It's a bug reported on the official list (by someone other than I) and confirmed by multiple sources.

As for the AI not seeing enemies in front of them, well Vegas and CoH don't have that problem

You think I really WANT to slate ArmA? I sat waiting for this game for months like everyone else. However, unlike my main antagonists on this thread though, I KNOW it's a substandard product WORSE than OFP:R in the most important ways, like AI

and physics. I didn't see trucks do somersaults and flip back onto bridges in Res.... (there's a video on this forum of that happening.)

I'm going to be blunt, compared to other arcade games, and ArmA is one, it is a dud. BIS are lucky to have fans like you who will stick with them thick and thin. Me? life's too short to wait for patches every month.

No response to my last post?

In the demo the AI seemed better than OFP, but as you say its a demo and completely different to the full game . I know I got flanked from both sides.

I'm not saying that there are no problems, but they are still better than the AI in OFP. As for the physics - at least you can't go through every wall like in OFP. It's not perfect I know.

[fabrizio_t 58]

Honestly i can't say AI in AA is better or worse than OFP. Except for minor differences - and for the LOS issue - AI is pretty the same.

For sure some work has been done on collisions, but that is only incidentally related to AI.

I'm still expecting at least major issues to be ironed out before 505 release. I hope BI developers will be smart enough to do that ...

BTW: i never played the demo though. There's the theoretical chance that v1.3 is including some kind of improved/fixed ai. Let's hope so  

[whisper 0]

I personnaly cannot say AI in ArmA is the same than OFP one. My personnal experience is that I've seen the ArmA one doing things I've never seen done by OFP AI : group movement, flanking maneuvers, by pairs, bounding overwatch, way better building management, cover finding (yes, it's better that the NON-EXISTENT cover use in OFP, even if it's far from perfect)

YES, there is bugs left, even in the cases listed above (AI does not always enter buildings properly, way too often stays in the open, etc...), don't make me say it's perfect, I never said that. But it's definitely improved.

Do not forget that now, your global game performance impacts AI behavior, you need to save CPU cycles for it.

In anyway, do NOT expect any major rework of it. They have way too much work on the game stopping bugs (I mean, performance, crashes, etc...).

They can tweak, I guess, not more

[NeMeSiS 11]

Unlike ArmA, the troops do not have psychic powers and don't know where the enemy are

They dont, hell, a few posts above we are discussing a problem where the AI doesnt see enemies untill they are right in front of them

They do have psychic powers in some cases, try the "destroy convoy" single mission and then see if you can hide from the trailing BMP without running away too far.

It's a bug reported on the official list (by someone other than I) and confirmed by multiple sources.

As for the AI not seeing enemies in front of them, well Vegas and CoH don't have that problem  

You think I really WANT to slate ArmA? I sat waiting for this game for months like everyone else. However, unlike my main antagonists on this thread though, I KNOW it's a substandard product WORSE than OFP:R in the most important ways, like AI

and physics. I didn't see trucks do somersaults and flip back onto bridges in Res....  (there's a video on this forum of that happening.)

I'm going to be blunt, compared to other arcade games, and ArmA is one, it is a dud. BIS are lucky to have fans like you who will stick with them thick and thin. Me? life's too short to wait for patches every month.

I know about the bridge, but this is a rare bug (i wasnt able to reproduce it)

But IMO the AI is better then in vegas/GRAW/CoH, all those games have decent AI for their type of gameplay, but id rather have the current buggy AI in ArmA then the GRAW AI, even though its bugless it cant do much more then taking cover and returning fire, which isnt really impressive. I prefer the moving/eachother covering/flanking/whatever AI from ArmA, even though there are still bugs left for BIS to iron out.

But it doesnt seem like we are going to agree on this, our opinion about this is just different, even after comparing all the facts.

So, lets go back ontopic and find a fix for the AI detection problem

[fabrizio_t 58]

Quote[/b] ]Do not forget that now, your global game performance impacts AI behavior, you need to save CPU cycles for it.

I have heard this thing many times ...  however since i have no clue on how this kind of system eventually works / scales and since no details are available i still have some doubts about its implementation.

Since AI seems to work quite well for you, can you please tell your specs (CPU / MEMORY / VIDEO CARD) ? Maybe we can eventually better evaluate AI taking in account also the hardware.

Thanks.

[Digit 0]

Why should confined areas AI be special?

The AI in vegas recognises cover, and they hunker down behind it, the AI in arma is TOO general, I wouldn't mind seeingthat objects in game are given cover values of which the ai recognises and then uses.

For instance, why lie in an open street when there's a wall he can lie or kneel behind?

Or why not have the ai move from cover to cover such as corners of buildings, that doesnt mean that the AI will knock over tables for cover or leap over stuff like in fear.

Such behaviour is scripted for effect only and is not really a part of any AI.

I'm not certain, as I've never had much to do with AI, but I believe that in smaller areas the developers can place nodes that the AI recognises as 'Cover Node', 'Destroyable Node' etc etc. I would imagine that the AI in Vegas has to be tailored to each level. We saw how the general AI handled levels in Rainbow Six, and it was terrible.

In AA the environments are so huge that using AI nodes is probably impractical due to the time it would take, plus it would also limit user made content as they would need to understand and include their own nodes. Currently you can whack anything down and the AI recognises cover and so forth.

That's my 2c anyhoo.

Cheers!

Digit

====

Forum fly...

P.S. In response to Latinmans post about AI levels. I know how this works in some other games, not sure if it is implemented in AA or not:

There are normally levels of AI and they each take orders and give orders to the different levels. So at the top you have the global AI. This AI sees everything in the level and the battlefield. It knows it's objectives as specified by the game rules, and orders units around. The unit AI receives orders from the global AI and complies with them within their own restrictions. What I mean is, that if the unit AI sees another enemy unit, it will take cover, or attack or whatever it's AI tells it to do, whilst still obeying the global AI's main command of 'Capture the Flag' or 'Guard Unit X'.

There could be more layers, or individual layers for vehicles, or tanks/jets etc. But this AI was used in Battlefield 1942, and it has it's drawbacks, as you may have noticed the AI in those games just standing around doing nothing. That's because there were not enough CPU cycles assigned to the AI routines at the start of the game (perhaps because the user had a low system spec or what have you) and the global AI just hasn't gotten around to AI#46 out of 64 yet.

[wamingo 1]

BIS have placed these "nodes" on buildings too. And the staircases are undoubtedly littered with waypoints so that they can find their way up. They could probably make nodes around the outside of the buildings, but bis haven't bothered making more than a select few positions on each building. You can't often make them move where ever you like. You get a line indicator to where you can order them.

I wonder what modders will be able to do with it though?

[r2101 0]

in order to get more "careful" defenders/attackers just disableai "target" and set "combat" and "open fire&engage" at will...

ai units try to stay in cover and won´t attempt suicidal attacks anymore... downside... they might even decide to wait it out instead of attacking *lol*

very nice for "static" defenders. works like a charm in opf

also nice as a mixed attack force. some "more active" units without disableai and others with their ai disabled.

ah...and don´t use stuff like seek&destroy... give em guard waypoints as targets/destination... should enhance the target spotting ability a bit (sharing informations ...)

don´t think that the basic ai got much enhanced in armed assault... but i have quite high hopes for more controllable parameters...

btw that non spotting bug in obvious situations is a tradition straight from opf

[NeMeSiS 11]

btw that non spotting bug in obvious situations is a tradition straight from opf

Not in my OFP, at least they didnt wait until 50m in front of them..

(I may remember this wrong though, the last few months of OFP i only played WGL which changed all those spotting values)

[mattxr 9]

i don't see why you guys are complaining.. the AI is perfectly capable of everything especially when you are team leader. You can tell them to hold fire, shoot at a certain unit, shoot at a certain vehicle tell them whats a good formation to go into, tell them to cover and everything. If your not commander and he cant see the enemy right click and he then will see and he will engage.. SO WHAT THE ^$%£ is your problem? happy now.. AI is good. and if you dont like it then go into the editor and place a unit on the map S1 dotarget E1; S1 Dofire E1

Problem sorted jesus.

[Victor_S. 0]

I think the AI is fine. I have the full game and the AI has not given me too many problems. For example, I got a sniper rifle and went prone in a bush on the big hill that overlooks the village on ramadi. I fired a shot at an AI and everyone in the area started running around and looking for me. When I fired another shot from the same position they zeroed in on me a bit more and I had 5 or 6 guys come running up the hill. I stayed in the bush and they didnt find me. they searched the whole hill including the backside before finally running back to the village. It was pretty intense when you have russians almost touching you and they can find you. I could hear them breathing as they ran by. Sure the AI has flaws but they do pretty well as they are. You cannot compare them to games like rainbow 6 las vegas because the AI in close quater shooters like that only have to deal with a small room were everything is made to hide behind. And if you really look at their AI they are not so great. They stand behind an object look over fire, crouch down, and repeat. They might change postions, but nothing too fancy.

[NeMeSiS 11]

i don't see why you guys are complaining.. the AI is perfectly capable of everything especially when you are team leader. You can tell them to hold fire, shoot at a certain unit, shoot at a certain vehicle tell them whats a good formation to go into, tell them to cover and everything. If your not commander and he cant see the enemy right click and he then will see and he will engage.. SO WHAT THE ^$%£ is your problem?   happy now.. AI is good. and if you dont like it then go into the editor and place a unit on the map S1 dotarget E1; S1 Dofire E1

Problem sorted jesus.

Ok thanks, i thought we just ended the whole AI is goooood! no it suxxxxx! discussion

The AI currently is more then decent (IMO.., those that disagree either have to live with it, wait, or find another game) and has quite alot of nice features, however there are a few bugs that could/should be fixed (properly making use of cover, AI spotting, *add something here*)

Looking at the topic title makes me think that we should try to fix these things (or report them and hope that BIS fixes things).

Btw, i increased the sensitivity (spotting ability) from 1.0 to 1.5, and lowered the audible (sound a unit makes when moving) from 1 to 0.6, i excaggerated the values a bit, but the AI really became better spotters. (Remember the AI vid i posted here?, i ran the same mission again, this time the RACS squad didnt even come close to the town,the SLA's swarmed all over them once they spotted the RACS, while in the vid with the old values the RACS where mostly fighting on the edge of the town)

If you want to play around with these settings: Open up the config.pbo and play around with the config.bin (look under class cfgvehicles)

[5cent_at_NY 0]

... it's just same FPS game like Delta Force or Spec Ops.

You must have thoose rose-tinted glasses on if you say that the AI in ArmA is the same as in DF

I mean come on... In DF 1/2 the AI was non existant and they just stood there like billboards looking stupid, i know for sure since we tried to play it co-op and IMHO it was a complete joke compared to both OFP/ArmA.

I'm not saying that the current AI in ArmA is perfect, there are still room for improvments. But the limited testing I've done shows that it at least it's better than OFP in several ways. Totally realistic? No, but ArmA is still the best title in it's genre and all we can do is hope for more AI improvements in the future.

Another related thing I observed last night when I was able to actually play some co-op missions on a dedicated server was that the AI seemed much more lame. Of course it could be the missions we played but the AI dind't act nearly as good as I've seen them do in the editor while testing? Was it my imagination or have anyone else noticed the same???

/KC

Hi there, KC. Sorry for too late reply, ive been busy this weekend.

Well, what i mean "like DF's AI" was how ArmA's AI act like they're totally braindead in Urabn Combat. Sure, there's a lot of improvemnts from OFP. As many ppl here knows, ArmA AI is suitable for this game itself. They do it right when they're in open field. Maybe it's unfair things that compare the AI in different games but, it's also "complete joke" to call ArmA AI as "realistic" or "tactical". ArmA AI act like they're robot. i mean, it's like im playing same other FPS game. There's no tactical elements.

When I prone and snipe some enemy AI squad from a hill, they comin towards my position, two guys try to flank me. so i got one of em. then one another guy try to retreat, but guess what happened next? he try to retreat by using the same way he came from!! he just run zig-zag, following the path that they followed when they're try to flank me. It was totally turkey shoot to me. It happens in OFP too. This means ArmA's AI need serious work if BIS try to make somethin so called "simulator".

i wonder why BIS doesn't care about AI and gameplay despite there's a lot of good idea about tactical gameplay showed by many "arcade" FPS...

[december 0]

I think the AI is fine. I have the full game and the AI has not given me too many problems. For example, I got a sniper rifle and went prone in a bush on the big hill that overlooks the village on ramadi. I fired a shot at an AI and everyone in the area started running around and looking for me. When I fired another shot from the same position they zeroed in on me a bit more and I had 5 or 6 guys come running up the hill. I stayed in the bush and they didnt find me. they searched the whole hill including the backside before finally running back to the village. It was pretty intense when you have russians almost touching you and they can find you. I could hear them breathing as they ran by. Sure the AI has flaws but they do pretty well as they are. You cannot compare them to games like rainbow 6 las vegas because the AI in close quater shooters like that only have to deal with a small room were everything is made to hide behind. And if you really look at their AI they are not so great. They stand behind an object look over fire, crouch down, and repeat. They might change postions, but nothing too fancy.

That is fine in the editor, try that on a dedicated server and the AI will just go prone or run around in circles. Ai are totaly stupid on dedicated servers.

[NeMeSiS 11]

I think the AI is fine.  I have the full game and the AI has not given me too many problems.  For example, I got a sniper rifle and went prone in a bush on the big hill that overlooks the village on ramadi.  I fired a shot at an AI and everyone in the area started running around and looking for me.  When I fired another shot from the same position they zeroed in on me a bit more and I had 5 or 6 guys come running up the hill.  I stayed in the bush and they didnt find me.  they searched the whole hill including the backside before finally running back to the village.  It was pretty intense when you have russians almost touching you and they can find you.  I could hear them breathing as they ran by.  Sure the AI has flaws but they do pretty well as they are.  You cannot compare them to games like rainbow 6 las vegas because the AI in close quater shooters like that only have to deal with a small room were everything is made to hide behind.  And if you really look at their AI they are not so great.  They stand behind an object look over fire, crouch down, and repeat.  They might change postions, but nothing too fancy.

That is fine in the editor, try that on a dedicated server and the AI will just go prone or run around in circles. Ai are totaly stupid on dedicated servers.

Well thats not an AI but a dedicated server problem isnt it?

[buddhiraja73 0]

The AIs in ArmA have quite a few unique features that I have not seen in any other games. At the same time a few key improvements are very much required.

PLUSES

- AI groups make STRATEGIC DECISIONS like whether to advance, stay put etc.

- AI groups use TACTICS like moving using bounding overwatch, trying to stay in formation and covering each other, pinning down and flanking etc.

- They use grenades in appropriate circimstances.

- They have REALISTIC ANIMATIONS and MOVEMENT SPEEDS.

- On seeing enemies they hit the deck and shoot back immediately. This is a very realistic reaction especially in open area combat, like fields.

- They try to hunt us down.

I think it would be unfair to say that it is almost the same as OFP. A lot of improvement has been done. At the same time an improvement in the above-mentioned qualities would be nice as they are far from perfect in terms of implementation.

IMPROVEMENTS REQUIRED

- The most important feature that this AI requires is -- whenever they identify any threat they should take FIRING POSITIONS NEAR EDGES OF COVERS ( like buiding corners, tree trunks, car bonnets etc. ) and expose as little of their bodies as possible. As the rules of engagement are fed to the AI using Agent technology, this might not be very difficult to do. This feature alone would solve many AI problems.

- The AIs should STAY NEAR COVER WHILE MOVING, when any are present, and in general, recognise and use cover better. They should move from cover to cover more objectively. They should be more SELF PRESERVING.

- They should have the ability to LEAN just like the player does. That way, they can check out the surroundings for threat before moving and would not run into a shooter.

- IMPROVED PATHFINDING is required. They attimes zig-zag in the same area, sometimes run down the centre of a cross-road and sometimes go prone facing a wall.

- Some improved COMBAT REACTIONS are needed.

- Sometimes the AIs go prone in unnatural places and this needs rectification.

- Improvement in URBAN WARFARE TECHNIQUES. Generally, they seem quite good in open area combat and often use the same in urban combat.

I am not expecting a perfect AI but having realistic AI features is necessary in a military sim even if they are not perfectly implemented. Currently, ArmA AI has some realistic features and others need to be added.

[funnyguy1 0]

When I prone and snipe some enemy AI squad from a hill, they comin towards my position, two guys try to flank me. so i got one of em. then one another guy try to retreat, but guess what happened next? he try to retreat by using the same way he came from!! he just run zig-zag, following the path that they followed when they're try to flank me. It was totally turkey shoot to me. It happens in OFP too. This means ArmA's AI need serious work if BIS try to make somethin so called "simulator".

Well, that's sad, but I have to agree with you. AI does try to be smart, but well, when you're sniping you can kill the entire squad when they run in your direction or try to flank by running either a bit letf or right.

So basically, people who say that they're amazed how AI reacts when they're sniping are right, but those who say that the AI just runs straight in your direction aren't lying either. Where's the truth then?

Imho, finding cover after being attacked, or before engaging enemies/during flanking, works, but It sucks at the same time. Spotting enemies sucks as many of you noticed.

There's no such thing like: *find cover first (and chose cover that will actually provide...cover), and do It as quick as you can, then engage targets, staying covered until they're dead.*

Would be cool If we could edit AI reactions on particular things, like making your own doctrine. Don't know If it's realistic or not, I would do something like that*...*

It's still possible to annihilate entire squads with an assault rifle. Place AI behind a hill and start shooting at them as soon as you'll see the first helmet behind It. It's like a turkey shooting indeed. They're appearing on the ooposite side of the hill and you're just picking them one by one. Sure, they'll try to flank you, etc. but well, gues who stays alive in most cases. And I really don't know If making them more robotic or predictable will be so bad when It force them to find proper cover each time they spot you.

Yeah, I know that those are just words, but well, why the hell an AI technology that's being advertised as "the most realistic blah blah" can not be fixed to meet the expectations of It's users. I had known that It will have to be moddet to be realistic before I even bought the game, but I didn't expect It to be as...ofpish as It is.

<trying not to pretend an "ofp-pwner">

Buy the game, but you'll really have to wait a little more to see really improoved AI. patches or mods, whatever...

edit: I totally agree with the post above, since facts can do more good than my whinnig

[Second 0]

So basically, people who say that they're amazed how AI reacts when they're sniping are right, but those who say that the AI just runs straight in your direction aren't lying either. Where's the truth then?

Imho, finding cover after being attacked, or before engaging enemies/during flanking, works, but It sucks at the same time. Spotting enemies sucks as many of you noticed.

There's no such thing like: *find cover first (and chose cover that will actually provide...cover), and do It as quick as you can, then engage targets, staying covered until they're dead.*

Would be cool If we could edit AI reactions on particular things, like making your own doctrine. Don't know If it's realistic or not, I would do something like that*...*

It's still possible to annihilate entire squads with an assault rifle. Place AI behind a hill and start shooting at them as soon as you'll see the first helmet behind It. It's like a turkey shooting indeed. They're appearing on the ooposite side of the hill and you're just picking them one by one. Sure, they'll try to flank you, etc. but well, gues who stays alive in most cases. And I really don't know If making them more robotic or predictable will be so bad when It force them to find proper cover each time they spot you.

To me those all are only mark of bad mission designing. Taking cover works, with engage-at-will+"_x disableai {target}" foreach units this or thislist (with trigger). Now AI has different order of doing things. NOTE: This is OFP-thingie as i don't have ArmA but it feels logical that it works in ArmA too.

1. Take cover (bit shady: some times taking very good cover and sometimes not. AI seems to value more of solid ground and cover it provies than objects) and target and shoot enemy if it's spotted.

2. Don't engage (aka. don't make suicide attempt to close in enemy)

Now we have different style of gameplay, battles lasts longer, even hours! But i've noticed it get boring to keep eye on bushes and forrest where you saw enemy units just 30 minutes ago, as they might be still there (If that is mission gesigners choice).

AI in ArmA/OFP is very much about mission designer. Does AI send tank to take care of that lousy sniper or maybe soft him up with mortars/airstrike. Or just stupidly charge against that sniper.

EDIT: I was overjoyed to read from scriptingcommands that we now have an enableai (this covers almost totaly the lack of suppression that i've been whining about)

[NeMeSiS 11]

They should be more SELF PRESERVING.

I guess thats the key, and its why the AI in both ArmA and OFP looks quite dumb at first glance, they seem to have no fear whatsoever. Even retreating looks like they are lost and dont know where to go, you really have to know that retreating is in the game and when it can be triggered, otherwise you would say 'look at that dumb ai! they just run the other way!'.

The AI in games like CoD seems to act more realistic because they seem to be afraid of bullets, even when that AI is completely incapable of doing anything beyond firing back, it still LOOKS like they are acting realistically.