How's ARMA2 AI shaping up?

[topeira 10]

Hey guys. im pretty new around here.

the thing that bothered me the most about ArmA1 was the horrible AI.

are there articles or, better yet, Vids that show the AI in ARMAII?

how is it supposed to be better? any proof in footage?

(for some reason searching "AI" yield no results :P. maybe i just dont know how to search.)

[Leopardi 0]

It's just as bad as ArmA AI. If you look at the videos, they're still total dumbasses in urban areas.

[sparks50 0]

The videos don't have the proper AI loaded Leo, so unless you have played the final version, theres no way you can know that.

[topeira 10]

so are there any vids that show off the AI well enough?

the "features" list in the AMRA2 website are bragging about cm precision of the AI in how they find cover compared to a meter precision in ARMA1 but the AI in ARMA1 didnt find cover. not in a meter precision and not in a KM precision.

[Deathstruck 375]

no more "Lie down-stand-up-lie down-shoot" :p?

Or "keep-running-in-the-middle-of-the-road-until-gets-shot" ?

[Scrub 0]

Hey welcome Topeira,

I'd say to look at some of the latest previews. As stated, they most likely do not have the new AI in them, though there are at least 3 that show the player's team finding cover and moving very well. But to be certain, I'd suggest you simply hang around and wait for the final word from BIS. You'll no doubt get very positive remarks from the fanboys (I'm in that group), and totally dismal responses from the impatient trolls. So look around and check the facts as release gets closer!

Cheers

[W0lle 1050]

It's just as bad as ArmA AI. If you look at the videos, they're still total dumbasses in urban areas.

How good that you can judge that from months old video footage, either that or you're one of the beta testers with inside view... (or you just spamming threads to raise your postcount) ;)

Edited April 29, 2009 by W0lle

[Red_Barron 0]

I think when the final game comes we will see some changes that will definitely improve the AI, but nothing that would be a "complete overhaul."

The Micro AI that is supposed to let them find cover within cm will be a huge improvement, and in Urban areas that will help greatly. Along with what I think they have done with "tracking" or something of that like, where object will have paths around them and in them close to walls/cover spots, you will see some improvement. Hopefully teams will then cover there sectors better (as seen in a few videos), and be able to engage quicker to threats, especially at close quarters. For things like this we should see some improvement.

In other areas things probably won't change. I doubt we will see the AI working as a team doing bounding over watch by squad, fire team, or whatever. Arma groups will still basically be autonomous units that do not work in concert with other units using any sort of military tactics (one group fire while another group maneuvers for example). While they may share information between groups, I doubt you will see them working together in that way. That sort of thing would probably be a massive overhaul in the engine to accomplish. When it comes down to it, I think the "old" AI roots will still be there, but some aspects (like micro-AI) will definitely makes some improvements on it.

End point, I think it will be better, but don't expect the basic tactics of the AI to change much.

[MATRA 0]

the thing that bothered me the most about ArmA1 was the horrible AI.

are there articles or, better yet, Vids that show the AI in ARMAII?

how is it supposed to be better? any proof in footage?

Hi welcome.

Can you give us an example of a good AI in a game you play?

[max power 21]

BIS has dedicated a whole core in multicore systems to AI. How this will change the appearance of their behaviour is unknown.

[PhilippRauch 0]

Most people dont see the big difference between the AI most egoshooters have and the one inside ArmA.

Most egoshooters have quite limited areas and as such can have easily any movement preplanned/preprogrammed into their AI, but with ArmA it seems the AI just has to 'think' too much to get along, which is just a matter of teaching them right, maybe there the game lacks, but basically i believe the AI in ArmA is more intelligent and much more flexible than any other AI in egoshooter out there.

Most gamers are used to that preplanned, preprogrammed AI that seems to react quickly but only because in most situations it just has to decide between two or three possibilities (if at all) whereas in ArmA the AI first has to think about how many possibilities are there and then which to choose. Sure its a bummer for some, but if its going to be as good as it can be most of the time, im fine with it... especially if i think about one whole core being available for the AI i am quite excited to see whats being possible with it.

Also, anyone who has been to some army will know... there ARE just some dumbnuts that are as stupid, well maybe even more stupid than even the old OFP AI...

[topeira 10]

i've seen some impressive AIs in games.

examples -

GRAW (PC) 1 - the AI was really good at finding cover, diving for cover, leaning in and out of cover, supressing the player. i loved them. they were very un-appreciated.

GTA IV - i bet no one thought that game will come in this category but in some PC mods where i could spawn enemy AIs u could easily see that their path finding was amazing - almost any place i would go to in that dense urban environment they find me.

the cover system in GTA IV is impressive since its systematic and the most surprising this is that the AI has the incerdible ability to find cover behind ANYTHING.

FarCry 2 - AI doesnt know how to find cover but path finding is really good and they react realistically to sound and sight. u can trick them the same way you can trick real humans by breaking line of sight, using silenced weapons, flanking them. they are also really good at flanking the player. they toss nades. they are pretty good.

STALKER - wonderful AI. also knew how to take cover very well and straf in and out of cover. they knew how to track the player. flank the player. they even knew how to sneak up behind him quitly and attacking only when really close behind. one of the best AIs i can remeber. period.

********************************************************

one of the things that make me enjoy a game the most is the AI. if it's good but not god-like, if it's human-like than it's fun. i expect OFPDR to have good AI (this is a big selling point for CM so i hope they deliver) but ARMA was a flop at that department. a very very big flop. its was embarrassing.

i really hope that armaII's AI will be good at finding cover and flanking. the rest is something i can live without (bounding and collaborating groups, for example).

I will probably wait for more previews, reviews and user's 1st hand opinions to hear about the AI since it's a deal breaker to me.

if anyone has lonks to vids that show decent AI behavior, please - link me up. i'd like to see the current state of progress.

also if u know of previews that talk about the AI, link me too.

im too new here to know and read of all the previews that were posted that veteran members know by heart. also going through every preview looking for info i want to read about might be a time waste...

EDIT: ok, it seems like they are discussing the AI here but i cant speak that language. i wonder if someone can translate or at least explain (in english) the main points discussed here):

http://n-joy.cz/video/arma-2-tiscali-gc-video-2/Ggxr7ID211nO3nYQ

Edited April 29, 2009 by topeira

[PhilippRauch 0]

yeah, good examples but i still bet the AI systems differ totally... i still believe those shooters dont have a 'real' AI more like prescripted set of AI-behaviours ... maybe thats the better way to do it, i am no AI programmer.

But to me it just seems the AI in ArmA is just overwhelmed by 'choices' and as such decides soo long new inputs override the running decision process and as such create somehow a, mostly, stupid/deadly feedback loop where they wont do anything..

I just simply cant shrug of that feeling the AI in most shooters is more like a 'baked' AI .. just like baking illumination to a model or so (hard to explain) .. You know they might react in their setting, which is limited by design&surrounding, seemingly intelligent but actually also very very repetitive... not really intelligent.. more like robots (albeit good programmed ones, mostly), but as such very fast...

I just cant catch that exact feeling i get with those 'bots' ... its totally different even from the ArmA AI ... as bad as it might be

[SASrecon 0]

hmmm i really hated fc2's AI, and you also have to bear in mind that they don't come in groups, they fight alone. if i were to give a lone soldier some waypoints in arma1 i'm sure he'd find his way around quite well.

[sparks50 0]

FC2 AI was crap, but it had something that Arma/OFP AI really lacks, a good representation. If it wasn't for their bad tactics, you could confuse them with humans in a MP game.

Edited April 29, 2009 by sparks50

[Crazyfox 0]

The best footage of the AI is in this

at 02:52 to 04:48. (Old footage btw.)

People jump to conclutions after seeing some video out there, not knowing if the soldiers were quickly placed out there through the mission editor by some reviewer or whatever.

In this video linked in my post you can see him giving the AI move orders and putting them in "danger-mode". And I think that as a group they move better than in any other game.

[privateguba 0]

Max Power posted:

'BIS has dedicated a whole core in multicore systems to AI. How this will change the appearance of their behaviour is unknown. '

Is this true/confirmed?

Maybe a little offtopic, but what is possible and what is not with multicores?

For games in general and ARMA2 in particular?

The first thing that came to mind was something like Max Power said. One core exclusively for AI, the other for physics, graphics, etc.

But then there would be need for a multiplication of more parts of the sistem, right? More memory controlers, memory banks, and everything has to work in sincronization.

So goes for more than 2 cores. So the work is equaly shared between processors instead of dividing different tasks/different cores?

Many thanks for people who write Hard/software for dummies

[Second 0]

i've seen some impressive AIs in games.

examples -

GRAW (PC) 1 - the AI was really good at finding cover, diving for cover, leaning in and out of cover, supressing the player. i loved them. they were very un-appreciated.

GTA IV - i bet no one thought that game will come in this category but in some PC mods where i could spawn enemy AIs u could easily see that their path finding was amazing - almost any place i would go to in that dense urban environment they find me.

the cover system in GTA IV is impressive since its systematic and the most surprising this is that the AI has the incerdible ability to find cover behind ANYTHING.

FarCry 2 - AI doesnt know how to find cover but path finding is really good and they react realistically to sound and sight. u can trick them the same way you can trick real humans by breaking line of sight, using silenced weapons, flanking them. they are also really good at flanking the player. they toss nades. they are pretty good.

STALKER - wonderful AI. also knew how to take cover very well and straf in and out of cover. they knew how to track the player. flank the player. they even knew how to sneak up behind him quitly and attacking only when really close behind. one of the best AIs i can remeber. period.

********************************************************

Stalker's AI wasn't bad. Mostly problems might have been that animations were slow. They slowly/jogged walked sideways and i had great opportunity to wipe them out, like some mods made Stalker to be pretty much one shot one kill (without additional bodyarmors), it became pretty boring. Movement speeds typically were way too slow for who one should move when bullets are flying. AI suffered typical syndrome that it's wasn't very good at maintaining good safe place to engage player, but had to change it's fireposition all the time. Yet it was pretty independent in a way that it wandered areas around and could meet contact in any where on map.

I liked GRAW's AI. On hardest level AI became pretty deadly. Players accuracy just made it pretty straight forward. If i got it into my sights it was dead. However Friendly AI's reveal that really AI wasn't that smart in dynamic situation. Getting into good firing positions was bit... Slow and odd. Issue them target order or cover order and they might get into middle of street instead of behind of car.

Haven't played FC2. Crysis2 was pretty fine, altough bit same as FarCry 1. Not good at keeping it's positions but moving like bunny after few mugs of coffee. Team work should have been there, but i'm not so sure. Sadly game had to mess aliens into game so early.

GTA IV... Dunno, it was nice. But i'm more interested about firefights, in those... Well it had few tricks which made it interesting opponent. Cover usage was pretty good in many cases. They weren't too eager to die.

Vietcong... :459: Still and game is pretty old, bit younger than OFP i believe. AI was bit too interested to change good firing positions. But used cover in quite good manner, formed interesting opponent able to use trenches and all kind cover in terrain. Pretty good with handgrenades. Wasn't too slow, so when it moved it wasn't easiest opponent to gun down. Overall games accuracy was pretty realistic in my mind, it wasn't sharpshooting fest but to me it seemed that small arms accuracy was pretty much what it would be in reality under such cases where shooter has to change his positions always and can't afford to build his proper shootingstance.

Also AI was pretty good at adapting into dynamically changing situations (like flanking manuvers), whenever map allowed it. Colored me impressed right from start.

MOH: Airborne and Pacific assault? Not bad if not too good either. AI was tuned to be suicidical, plus player was kept as flower in hand by game... well Pacific Assault was infact "ArmA/OFP" remorseless to player. Plus enemies (Japanese) in Pacific assault did use weaponry which usually didn't suit for junglefights at small distance, in other hands bolt locked rifles and carbines. German STG-44 and such to Japanese and game would have been much harder (which it was already on hardest difficulty level!)

[celery 8]

To everyone praising Armed Assault's AI because the game is "different" and the AI must do lots of brainwork in an open environment - stop looking at how it's done and look at the end result instead. It's a disgrace to even call it "intelligence" when you can practically see the one-line "if hear gunshot then go prone" algorithm when there are no scripts or waypoints trying to make up for its lack of brains.

[thaFunkster 0]

Celery - Was it that bad huh? I never got around to playing ArmA, lacked the hardware and still do (so although I loved OFP, I prob wont be able to play ArmA2).

I wonder how much they changed it in ArmA, because in my opinion, OFP had some of the most realistic AI I have seen. I often felt as though I was being hunted by real people, flanking manouvers were commonplace and usually the enemy would run to cover when fired upon. Why didnt they just keep the original AI when they made ArmA?

[Second 0]

Was it that bad huh? I never got around to playing ArmA, lacked the hardware and still do (so although I loved OFP, I prob wont be able to play ArmA2).

I wonder how much they changed it in ArmA, because in my opinion, OFP had some of the most realistic AI I have seen. I often felt as though I was being hunted by real people, flanking manouvers were commonplace and usually the enemy would run to cover when fired upon. Why didnt they just keep the original AI when they made ArmA?

AI is pretty much same. OFP's AI was just as dump without any "scripting" (Waypoints, scripts etc).

OFP as ArmA required quite much fine tuning in waypoints and scripts... It never has worked well without them (which is quite okay, we can't expect miracles from BIS). And it wasn't that good even with scripts and waypoints when we come to basics of shooter: AI behavior in firefights. Before and after that it might shine (as it indeed does in many aspects).

[PhilippRauch 0]

I still think most 'AI' in games shouldnt be called that, they are really just (unfortunately too often) badly programmed finite state machines. I have seen lots of stupid behaviours in other games too.

But in Arma i can now set my AI buddy as driver and click on the other side of the map and that little fella drives me there without problems, mostly as in 98%. This is something i couldnt do in OFP, so i am glad there is some progress being made and i am still convinced the inherent 'possibilities' of the RealVirtuality Engine aint really tapped yet.

Also some guys are looking into using the AI as a kind of 'guidance' for ordnance (you can put a driver into a shell or an missile!) and it seems to work quite nicely. They use their own FSM scripts additions though, leaving actual flight properties to the engine.

Edited April 30, 2009 by PhilippRauch

[maddogx 13]

In my eyes, the AI in ArmA1 was a mixed bag. I often compared them to confused toddlers with aimbots, but there were some occasions where they did some pretty interesting and unexpected stuff. I can remember playing around in the editor, putting something like 3 or 4 enemy groups into the village on Ramahdi with me leading a small fireteam. Of course, mostly the enemy AI would just drop to the ground and start shooting when the firefight started, but some of them would actually run away / behind cover. Two minutes later they would pop up behind me and kill my team, obviously having crept around us.

The only obstacle barring ArmA1s AI from being "good" is their reaction to enemy fire. If they were clever enough to run to any nearby cover instead of just dropping to the ground and sitting there, the AI would feel infinitely more realistic because it would seem like they actually "valued their lives". AI that are less concerned about their own survival than they are about killing you simply aren't very immersive.

From what I know about the AI in Arma 2, they at least know how to shoot from cover (i.e. they've learned to lean around corners). That already makes them infinitely more interesting, but the question remains: do they only use this feature when moving around, or will they actually take cover and do the same when under fire?

I'm really hoping for the latter.

[Balschoiw 0]

There seem to be problems with Arma 2 AI. It was listed as biggest issue to be fixed by testers who played the press-version. Unit controlled AI still expose themselves, run in the open while they are shot at, the healing mechanism is flawed, as player hardly won´t be healed by his AI comrades at all, supressive fire not implemented and things like that.

According to their tests BIS still has a lot of work to do in that compartement as it ruins gameplay if player has to heal his comrades constantly because of their inability to behave appropriate in combat situations.

I hope BIS fixes that before the release, I seriously do hope so. If not the game will get bad reviews all over the place and the buyers will once more think that they have bought a beta-version. With the tight timeframe I´m sceptical that it will be fully adressed, modified or fixed if they keep the current releasedate.

[PhilippRauch 0]

My experience with scripting is that the progress aint linear its more exponential ie. the further the progress the quicker all things come together. It seems slow at the beginning, but the more i come closer to the 'finish line' the more parts are also ready/finished. I hope its the same with BIS.