AI combat maze

[bluesilence 12]

After watching

video, I set up some AI behavior experiments.

The first one was like the one on the video, with a Russian AI squad, a playable civilian and an AI/playable US spotter. After shooting at the squad and killing a soldier, I changed to the civilian and watched how they reacted. At first they did the same as on the video, but then two soldiers (a sniper and a rifleman) broke formation and started flanking the spotter for a shot.

But they didn’t use the barricades or the covers. Instead, they ran to some houses and then started flanking from there. Although the way they covered each other as they advanced was quite impressive. Finally they ran into an open on the spotter’s flank, but instead of shooting from there, they kept running, and the spotter got them.

The second test was some sort of “rats in a maze†test. I set various kinds of covers (H-walls, sandbags and forts) along the runway and closed the zone with wires. Then I put a US fireteam on one end, a Russian fireteam on the other and give both leaders a Search and Destroy order on the center of the area using combat behavior.

Instead of moving from cover to cover, they ran along the wire, using no cover other than going prone. And when they ran along the H-walls, they stood next or in front of them instead of using them as cover. Somehow the US fireteam killed all the Russians with only a casualty…

Seriously, the more I play ArmA2, the more I feel I’ve wasted 30 bucks and a precious time of my life. This game’s AI needs a SERIOUS overhaul. It might be –barely- acceptable for a 2001 game, but for a 2008 game it’s useless. :(

[Rayers12 19]

Valuable lesson about this forum: Any concern that you voice for the game will make you a troll.

Remember: When it comes to BI games, you get a $10 game at release, a $20 game 9 months later, a $30 game 1.5 years after release and thats it.

Also, a very harsh but true note to BI: Only a select few really care that it is a small studio and team. If A2 is the price for a finished game ($50) then you better deliver. Sure, many people will take heart for a small studio in Europe. Most don't. I pay you money and in return expect a finished product. A2 at release was half-baked at best. It is not the gamer's problem that money ran out during the development. You guys have entered the big-boy major games list. Act like a company and not a start-up please. OFP came out 9 years ago and the series has barely advanced at best. Since then, recognition for the series has grown, but Jesus Christ! RV doesn't even have physics! Or any real new game-changing feature, not even good graphics! Peddling the same game again and again is not acceptable!

Oh, and before the forums go off like a bomb for the graphics: AA has horrible looking game assets (for the most part). Would maybe some parallax mapping kill you? Some wet surface technology? How about some DoF effects? Maybe some sort of technology that doesn't feel like the 1st term of George Bush?

Stop embarrasing yourself, do something and get some stuff fixed. How about making the game run smoothly first and foremost?

TL.DR rant about how BI delivers an unfinished product and expects to be compensated for a finished one. I'm sure it will be fine by a later patch, but this is unacceptable at the moment.

Serious recognition for ArmA II by the mainstream is wanted; this is mainstream attention.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Rayers12

[sick1 13]

All I can say is get the sand out of your vagina(s). There is no military game that can compare to what the AI in Arma2 does. If you feel that I'm wrong, let me know what 60$ (big-boy major games list) game does:confused:

Edited March 10, 2010 by Sick1

[Rayers12 19]

What exactly is so impressive about A2 AI at this patch level? I've never seen the AI use any sort of tactics at all. Notice how the helicopters almost always get shot down because they fly at a height of 50 meters roughly 500 meters away from the tank? Notice how when the APC disembarks the troops, at least one gets run over? Notice how frequently the helicopters dump your troops while flying away? Notice how the AI never throws a grenade? Notice how the AI simply drops to the floor during combat instead of taking cover?

Maybe you guys see something I don't with the Micro-AI. Still, it's a damn good 1/2 finished game.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Rayers12

[Scrub 0]

Please identify these mainstream games that have these features you speak of... with the numbers and scale of arma. You can't. There's a reason. The cost of the scale, which is what this series is about, leaves little for the 'dripping of dew off a leaf' effect. Name an open game that has groups of AI dynamically using cover down to the lightposts... again, all across the entire region. There is no other game that contains all this. Yes there is a price to pay, and that is the jewelers rouge level of polish.

[Laqueesha 474]

It might be –barely- acceptable for a 2001 game, but for a 2008 game it’s useless.

It's a 2009 game, and all the more reason to be worried.

[phaeden 0]

I think that there is also a lot of scripted "intelligence" from many other games. The player moves through a set "channel" in which the AI respond to a very limited set number of variables.

I also look forward to the day when AI acts more and more human like. That being said, I have seen many human players act nearly as lame as the game AI.

[Rayers12 19]

I personally am looking foward to the day I can't stand in front of an AI for more then five seconds without being shot.

[jakerod 254]

AI throws grenades all the time. What are you talking about? I've been killed by helicopter rockets from 1km away. The AI doesnt always just drop to the ground they take cover a lot.

[dmarkwick 261]

Seriously, the more I play ArmA2, the more I feel I’ve wasted 30 bucks and a precious time of my life. This game’s AI needs a SERIOUS overhaul. It might be –barely- acceptable for a 2001 game, but for a 2008 game it’s useless. :(

Is there any game out there that has all this flawless unscripted AI that I'm unaware of? If you watch an individual AI for long enough, it'll do something dumb. Always. It's not really a single-unit intelligence simulator, it's a squad intelligence game. So how do the AI react as a group? They flank, return fire, suppress, call in fire, broadcast targets etc right? And this happens simply by placing a group in the editor, NO OTHER ACTION REQUIRED.

Also, as observed, I often get pestered by grenades etc. I am willing to concede that the driving AI and weapons platform AI (tanks, helos etc) need work. They need some RL tactics built into their FSMs.

I don't believe there is another game that has this ability, in any map, any size, anywhere, with absolutely zero scripting by the player. I mean, if you know of one, please, say so. Otherwise you're blowing hot air about what is acceptable for a 2008 game, because when ALL 2008+ games show less ability than ArmA2, that means ArmA2 is the market leader as far as this sort of stuff goes.

If you believe you wasted 30 bucks on the market leading squad AI engine, then I guess you'll need to pack up and wait another 10 or 15 years for game technology to reach your high standards at your low price expectations :)

---------- Post added at 09:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:39 AM ----------

Valuable lesson about this forum: Any concern that you voice for the game will make you a troll.

Also, ranting makes you a troll :)

Remember: When it comes to BI games, you get a $10 game at release, a $20 game 9 months later, a $30 game 1.5 years after release and thats it.

Also, a very harsh but true note to BI: Only a select few really care that it is a small studio and team. If A2 is the price for a finished game ($50) then you better deliver. Sure, many people will take heart for a small studio in Europe. Most don't. I pay you money and in return expect a finished product.

...or, what you get is a game that then undergoes constant developer upgrading for the shelf life of the product. It's rather easy for the large publishers to pump out the same game over & over again with a few game patches containing minor tweaks to exactly the same gameplay as each other, but what other developer, regardless of size, shows as much concern over the state of the product as BIS? I'll tell you - most other small independent developer companies. It's the nature of a smaller company that makes them *actually* care about the product, instead of merely making sure that the most loud complainants are given larger weapons.

A2 at release was half-baked at best. It is not the gamer's problem that money ran out during the development. You guys have entered the big-boy major games list. Act like a company and not a start-up please. OFP came out 9 years ago and the series has barely advanced at best. Since then, recognition for the series has grown, but Jesus Christ! RV doesn't even have physics! Or any real new game-changing feature, not even good graphics! Peddling the same game again and again is not acceptable!

Well, to be sure, I've seen a steady improvement of graphical quality over the life of the game. If you have not, then I suggest loading up OFP again to see.

Oh, and before the forums go off like a bomb for the graphics: AA has horrible looking game assets (for the most part). Would maybe some parallax mapping kill you? Some wet surface technology? How about some DoF effects? Maybe some sort of technology that doesn't feel like the 1st term of George Bush?

Oh, I see. You want Doom 3. I was considering the notion that ArmA2 graphics were to be consistent with it's gameplay style, not with your wish to press your avatar nose against textures and marvel at their parallax abilities.

Stop embarrasing yourself, do something and get some stuff fixed. How about making the game run smoothly first and foremost?

TL.DR rant about how BI delivers an unfinished product and expects to be compensated for a finished one. I'm sure it will be fine by a later patch, but this is unacceptable at the moment.

I don't know what you're going on about, ArmA2 for me was always eminently playable. There have been some odd AI behaviors to be sure, but nothing that wasn't fixed or otherwise tweaked by someone. I've somehow managed to get great gameplay throughout it's life, but I suspect that might be something to do with my ability to enjoy stuff without concentrating on the negative.

Serious recognition for ArmA II by the mainstream is wanted; this is mainstream attention.

Personally I couldn't give a hoot for its mainstream popularity. I just desire that enough units are sold to make these guys continue their work, comfortably :)

Edited March 10, 2010 by DMarkwick

[jw custom 56]

I personally am looking foward to the day I can't stand in front of an AI for more then five seconds without being shot.

You still here :confused:

[ProfTournesol 956]

Seriously, the more I play ArmA2, the more I feel I’ve wasted 30 bucks and a precious time of my life. This game’s AI needs a SERIOUS overhaul. It might be –barely- acceptable for a 2001 game, but for a 2008 game it’s useless. :(

I've read the same rant a zillion times. You're the clever guy, we're all stupid here, playing these games for years. Thanks a lot.

[max power 21]

I'm confused at some of the ranting. ArmA 2 has parallax occlusion mapping and depth of field effects. When it came out it was usually praised for it's graphics, I think, and Blend games called it one of the best looking games ever.

[instagoat 133]

I´ve just built a maze of my own with a fireteam on each side, and the AI used the sandbags and barriers as cover, threw grenades, and suppressed last seen positions of the enemy.

I don´t see a problem here? The video is unfortunately too long, so I´m gonna reupload it once I´ve got it cut to the length youtube demands.

The only thing that I´ve altered was forcing AI skill and precision to 1 in the config.

The problems I see are that the AI prefers moving over shooting, that it can´t predict where an enemy is going to reappear, and that they´re really slow in reacting to contact if not set to combat mode. (And even then they take an awfully long time to actually do something according to the situation. If a tank shows up, they wait until half the squad has been killed before retreating. And especially in areas with cluttered cover, they often take cover on the wrong side of an obstacle.)

My two cents. Video will follow in a short while, or a long while, depending on my connection.

[walker 0]

Hi all

To the OP

May I suggest you try the same test with Zeus AI.

Kind Regards walker

[wamingo 1]

Of course wanting for more is fine and all, but I suspect we should be thankful for what we have really. BIS have said themselves they're just not a big company with big bankrolls.

And even if they were, there's a very simple reason why others aren't making simulation-like games -- The graphics-war. It's simply easier to make a sexy, super highly polished game with 50 meter visibility than one with 100 meter visibility... Nevermind then one with more than 1000 meter.

But in my opinion, the real answer to your criticism are: Stop trying to do what the game isn't capable of.

Instead throw down a few groups of ai in a forrest or a city with a couple of patrol wp's and let's see if you don't have some fun.

[Alex72 1]

Rayers: You say that stating something is bad in ARMA makes you a troll. Well thats not exactlly the truth and you know it. Its the way you say it. We are many that give our views on what could be better, but we do it in other ways - ways we know BIS take more seriously. I guess your so angry there behind your monitor that you missed where we do this. We dont tell BIS to do it or f**k off. And we dont make 3 year old kid style threats like "im outta here if this isnt fixed soon!!!". Ridiculous. And for the 3d time I remember you saying you were leaving this community and game but pop out now and then to puke all over the place. Why still here if you think this game is crap as you put it? Seems retarded to me. Im not calling you as a person retarded, but your actions are. Leave and buy that game that is better than ARMA2 in this genre and get a nice life without having to whine that its not up to your standard. Wouldnt that be nicer?

Do the rest of us liking this game want it to "stand still" and not evolve? Ofcourse not. But we dont whine like kids - at least not all the time. We try to enlighten BIS of our findings through the proper channel wich BIS actually looks at and have several times fixed or changed elements of the game thanks to it. Community members made this happen with the good will of BIS. We would never have the A2CIT if all of us behaved like you, and that might have resulted in not getting the changes we have got through it. So through gamers A2CIT reports BIS have fixed many things. Personally i find that pretty damn good. And im trying to have a relaxed attitude to problems in the game due to the fact that we have the A2CIT. If more people started to use it (and learned to use it properly) instead of whine in this forum the game could have come even further by now.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck finding that much better than ARMA2 game cause i suspect you will need all the luck you can get in that quest...

Alex out.

[instagoat 133]

Video is now up. I think I might be SEVERELY nitpicking in this... all these small problems I point out I don´t mind, 90 % of the time.

I think it shows both the good and the bad things. There´s lots of things that could be improved, but at the core the AI already does a decent job, I think. Before people complained about them being way too deadly, now some seem to be unsatisfied with the time they take to aquire targets as well as their precision.

They´re still set up for long range combat, I think. For Arrowhead, a lot of things need to be improved to bring Urban Combat to work fully in Arma 2. They need to stop clipping trough fences and user placed objects (when there are a lot of units on the map they also still warp trough buildings when the player is relatively far away) for example.

Just bashing the AI, the game and the devs isn´t really constructive, though. The only way things are going to improve is by giving BIS feedback on the improvements they have made and I´m sure will continue to make. Whining or Insults hardly classify as constructive criticism, though. One thing that makes BIS as a company special is that they listen to community feedback: instead of getting angry about things, it´s probably a better Idea to try and be part of the process of fixing the things you don´t like, instead of getting upset about them. There is the community issue tracker, as Alex72 said, so getting involved in that process is also easy.

Games today are massively complicated and expensive projects, and only the very largest of companies (such as Blizzard) manage to put out games that are mostly bug free, because they can afford very large Q&A processes. That Arma 2 was released in the state it was in was pretty disappointing, but things are improving, and they will continue to get better, and a large part of that improvement process is community feedback.

Wah, sorry for the rant. :v I sometimes just go overboard.

Edited March 10, 2010 by InstaGoat

[walker 0]

Hi InstaGoat

Excellent testing ground.

Can you make the mission available for download please?

Now try the following.

1) Give both sides ONE waypoint ONLY; Their start Waypoint.

2) For the West that way point is over the fire-team commander and set to Guard.

3) For the East set the waypoint over the group leader and set it to Hold.

4) Place a Guarded by West trigger over the eastern base area (this will cause the west side to contest that area).

Next try the same test with two West fire-teams, just copy and paste!

Next try with three West fire-teams.

It is generally accepted military doctrine that it takes 3 times as many attackers to assault defended and fortified position, where assault is channeled or otherwise known to the defender, narrowly channeled and defended sites may be harder.

Next try the same test with Zeus AI.

Kind Regards walker

Edited March 10, 2010 by walker

[mosh 0]

Rayers: You say that stating something is bad in ARMA makes you a troll. Well thats not exactlly the truth and you know it. Its the way you say it. We are many that give our views on what could be better, but we do it in other ways - ways we know BIS take more seriously. I guess your so angry there behind your monitor that you missed where we do this. We dont tell BIS to do it or f**k off. And we dont make 3 year old kid style threats like "im outta here if this isnt fixed soon!!!". Ridiculous. And for the 3d time I remember you saying you were leaving this community and game but pop out now and then to puke all over the place. Why still here if you think this game is crap as you put it? Seems retarded to me. Im not calling you as a person retarded, but your actions are. Leave and buy that game that is better than ARMA2 in this genre and get a nice life without having to whine that its not up to your standard. Wouldnt that be nicer?

Do the rest of us liking this game want it to "stand still" and not evolve? Ofcourse not. But we dont whine like kids - at least not all the time. We try to enlighten BIS of our findings through the proper channel wich BIS actually looks at and have several times fixed or changed elements of the game thanks to it. Community members made this happen with the good will of BIS. We would never have the A2CIT if all of us behaved like you, and that might have resulted in not getting the changes we have got through it. So through gamers A2CIT reports BIS have fixed many things. Personally i find that pretty damn good. And im trying to have a relaxed attitude to problems in the game due to the fact that we have the A2CIT. If more people started to use it (and learned to use it properly) instead of whine in this forum the game could have come even further by now.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck finding that much better than ARMA2 game cause i suspect you will need all the luck you can get in that quest...

Alex out.

Very well said, I was about to point out the whiny 'Im leaving this community' posts, but you took care of that. Not one post by this guy has been constructive... and I would suspect (hope) his time allowed on these forums will be cut short.

So many people work so damn hard to make this game and community what it is (developers, addon makers, mission makers, scripters, forum moderators, etc) and these worthless rants just piss me off... sorry.

[walker 0]

Hi Mosh

He is not worth the bother to kick out. He does not seem to be aware that his history is available to all to see when making assessments of his posts.

Kind regards walker

[TRexian 0]

I personally am looking foward to the day I can't stand in front of an AI for more then five seconds without being shot.

hehe

Then I have a mission for you! :D

I set up quick mission where the goal was to stay alive for 3 minutes. One single AI spawns within about 10 seconds of the start of the mission approximately 50m from you. He's pretty easy to kill if you find him quick. Every 10 seconds after that, though, another enemy spawns, up to 1 minute.

They definitely start shooting within 5 seconds.... :)

[bluesilence 12]

@Rayers12:

That's just what I'm talking about. I paid almost 40$ for this game, so I wanna play a game that's 40$ worth.

@Sick1:

That's true... sadly. There isn't any military game comparable to ArmA2 at the moment. ArmA1 is the closest thing, and Dragon Rising is just another Call of Duty.

@InstaGoat:

Very nice testing and very nice comments. You're right when you say that only big companies can afford the testing that a modern, complex game needs.

I have two things to say here:

The first Operation Flashpoint was a good example of game-making ,and how a big company with money and a small company with means can join forces and make an excellent game. Too bad that nowdays big companies care more about money and only release "one time" games. You will pass them, and that's it all, the only thing they will be useful is at occupying one place in the shelf.

I still think that ArmA 2 doesn't deserve 40$, speciall when there's gonna be an expansion which will be supposedly better and will cost another 30 or 40$. It's like paying for a demo! It's like I sell you a game and tell you "Ok, I will give you half of the game for 40 bucks, but it's not working. If you want it working, you'll have to give me another 40 bucks".

That's bullshit.:mad:

[ProfTournesol 956]

I won't feed the troll anymore.

[instagoat 133]

Hi InstaGoat

Excellent testing ground.

Can you make the mission available for download please?

Now try the following.

1) Give both sides ONE waypoint ONLY; Their start Waypoint.

2) For the West that way point is over the fire-team commander and set to Guard.

3) For the East set the waypoint over the group leader and set it to Hold.

4) Place a Guarded by West trigger over the eastern base area (this will cause the west side to contest that area).

Next try the same test with two West fire-teams, just copy and paste!

Next try with three West fire-teams.

It is generally accepted military doctrine that it takes 3 times as many attackers to assault defended and fortified position, where assault is channeled or otherwise known to the defender, narrowly channeled and defended sites may be harder.

Next try the same test with Zeus AI.

Kind Regards walker

Thank you for the compliments!

It´s just a really simple setup, with a double hesco barrier around the test area, and objects placed within. I´m really bad at scripting, so there are no fancy things going on besides a civilian with camera.sqs initialised.

I´ve set up three more testing areas, and uploaded the file here: http://www.2shared.com/file/12003120/2b8e3499/TestAreas.html

Anybody who downloads that mish, feel free to expand/alter it in any way you see fit. I think there´s people out there who can set up much better and detailed testing areas which are more telling than what I´ve produced here. I think setting up experiments like this is the only way to empirically test and verify what the AI can really do, and where it still needs improvement.

Science, it works!

I´m also looking to get Zeus AI at the moment, so I might post another video later this evening.

Cheers

Insta