sbua16

It's been the same deal for the last 12 years, I doubt we'll get any major overhauls for at least another 3 iterations of ArmA. Heck, even the inferior, ill fate OFP: dragon what's-it-called had better unit cohesion, and a semblance of squad/platoon hierarchy.

Having been running with an SA80 A2, in hand, across many-a-terrain in Afghanistan, under various circumstance. I can say, without a doubt that.. people run differently. From I can remember, I made as little movement as possible, kept my Rifle close to my side with one hand whilst 'pumping' the other hand.. but people get about quickly however they prefer. Arguing the realism of how people run with a weapon is silly, really. I do, however, prefer the animation in ArmA 3.. and that has no grounding on how it bears to the realism of running with a rifle, I just prefer the cleaner less kinetic approach to it.

Where's this sudden influx of Brazilians come from? haha. But yes, disposable AT weapons are a must for immersion. Especially PHYSX enabled disposable AT weapons that roll down the hill after you dispose of them :p

Yeah, thanks for the explanation RiE. I think that sometimes we, myself included, don't realise the complexities of the systems involved. Initially I thought "But.. it's simple, just place a couple of units down and test.. must take like 2 minutes.. jeez". But pointing out the different variables at play puts into the perspective the types of problems that you, as developers, face when fiddling around with these systems. I'm not a massive fan of the AI at the moment, but I hope it all goes well for you guys, and I trust that you'll pull it out of the bag by the time release day comes. Also, on behalf of us players, I'd like to thank you for taking the time out to come and interact with us, it's something that I, and am sure a lot of people, appreciate a lot.

Man, I just can't get any decent scenarios out of this AI, everything's always over so fast. Whereas I can quite easily get a good 20 minute fire-fight going with the AI in ArmA 2, anything lasting over a couple of minutes in ArmA 3 just results in everyone in my and the enemy's squads being dead almost to a man. It's so detrimental to the whole experience. Here's a short video (consequently the only videos you can get with an ArmA 2 AI fire-fight will be short) that I made with 3 Fire Teams of Opfor and 2 rifle squads of Blufor [blufor outnumber Opfor in this scenario]. It just highlights the fact that the tempo to most battles is just wrong. The build-up is far too slow, and the battle itself is over within seconds due the AI's unnerving amount of accuracy, and It all just feels a bit lack lustre. By far for me, the AI is the most broken thing in this game right now, it just feels dated and out of place in this great package that we've been given and is something... well, the only thing, that is making me [kind of] regret buying into the ArmA 3 Alpha/Beta since I'm predominantly a single player kind of guy.

Sorry for going off on a tangent from this threads current theme, but I'd just like to highlight how bad the AI driving is when on.. what I would deem.. a suitable area, with enough space to simply move forward. I have two videos here. A small explanation beforehand since the recording is kind of short and doesn't really explain the process. I placed 5 vehicles in order of march, column formation behind each other. Once all the Infantry mounted, 60 seconds or so would pass before the vehicles moved to the next way-point which was just at the end of the road, and then on to the various way-points placed every 200 metres or so. Unfortunately the group of vehicles never gets there in one piece, having never been able to leave the confines of the airbase in which they start. This is attempt #3 and the 'action' starts around 40s in. Most of the other vehicles seem to make it out, just, but the vehicle I'm in has other ideas. This second one is probably attempt #11 to get out of the airbase, after moving the vehicles further apart to allow more room for manoeuvre Under the circumstances, I don't think the AI should really have much trouble just simply travelling down a pre-made, pre-mapped road. There was more than adequate room to manoeuvre, yet still they always felt the need to 'avoid' one another by driving headlong into the nearest wall. It just left me tearing my hair out really and crying "JUST MOVE FORWARD!".

I believe Super AI overrides all other settings and simply places all AI skill levels to Max. I don't think there's really an occasion where it would be useful to actually use the Super AI option, it simply makes things overly difficult and seems kind of redundant (since we can simply move the sliders ourselves). The Difficulty changes a number of different things, it changes the AI skill level, their Accuracy, and toggles certain UI features, such as group info, HUD way-points, Enemy and Friendly tags, and what not. Of course these can all (except AI accuracy, for some reason we only have access to that in the user config) be changed manually regardless of what difficulty you are on. The Unit skill bar dictates the skill level of individual units and works in conjunction with the overall AI skill level. edit: There is one thing that has bothered me for years, and that is the 'friendly' and 'enemy' criteria for skill levels. I don't know if it's bothered anyone else but I always wished they were split into 'Blufor' and 'Opfor'. This was only really apparent when I was playing [ARMA2's] operation arrowhead, and playing around with missions between takistan militia and US troops. When switching between playing between the two perspectives I'd always have to go into the options a swap the skill levels around to better represent the skill levels of each side. It's only a minor gripe, and one I've not seen mentioned before so it's probably not one everyone shares. Just thought I'd mention it.

Yes, and no. I mean with good sound design we should be feeling the effects of being shot at just by the loudness of the bullet cracks as they go by, or by dust being kicked up around you. I don't think, however, that the sound design is quite there yet, and you can't really tell, as you can in real life, whether the bullet passing is close or not. So I think we could settle for some minor effects, nothing too intrusive. A little extra weapon sway from the player, possibly the darkening of the edges of the screen. But I digress (back to the topic if AI). Suppression of the AI would add a VERY MUCH needed layer of tactics that I think ArmA and OFP before it have been sorely missing. TPW suppression and mods like it have done an excellent job of creating the effect, but I feel they lack the polish that only BIS could deliver. So please, BIS, I implore you, we implore you, make shooting at the enemy useful again, give us some suppression. Because otherwise it's just another turkey shoot, and not an actual fire fight.... I could only guess at the coolness of seeing an AI squad being pinned behind cover as we advance on their position, and can only imagine the feeling of trepidation as a squad of my own lays flat on the ground struggling to return fire because of the barrage of incoming bullets. Real fire fights at last.

Are there any plans to incorporate suppression into the AI? I feel as though at the moment shooting at the moment only serves one purpose, to kill the opposing team. Any shots that aren't directly on target seem pointless. It would be nice to know that if my team are getting rounds down range, these rounds are at least causing a negative effect on the AI in some way, whether it's decreased movement, or lowered accuracy/skill levels.

Yeah, people who put their free time into putting content into the game for us to enjoy. We don't pay these people, they don't get anything out of it (usually), they're releasing these mods to us to enjoy, to make the game better. All those features are present in modded ArmA 2, features that should be and could be in ArmA 3, Heck it's practically there for the picking. I hate to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but surely it's possible to see these features that people introduced and say "Yeah.. we see how that's done, we'll introduce something similar that's polished". Instead of "Yeah guys, now the AI spin slightly faster so we won't have as many of those YouTube videos of people running around them hilariously", I don't give a shit about that. Give us fire and manoeuvre, give us AI that don't randomly run off for no reason, give us transport helicopters that don't do almost exactly what they did 12 years ago under fire. Here's a test, put 2 teams out in a field, one Opfor and one Blufor. Play both these scenarios in OFP and ArmA 3. The result is borderline indistinguishable. Both will use bushes and covered terrain for cover, both will be frustratingly slow on their approach, both will crawl more then is needed, they both will look cool ONLY in random sporadic times, like once every blue moon. You can't even suppress AI for gods sake, I did that in Brothers in Arms circa 1963 (sic). All we're asking for is some sort of leap forward, something other than "yeah.. we er.. made it so that they can sometimes get into cover and lean properly". A good number of times I can't even get from one end of Agina Marina to another without AI getting stuck in some movement loop that either forces me to kill them, or just end the mission in frustration.

This thread title is -all- wrong. It should be: "Bohemia, have you really put in enough effort into the AI in 12 years?" IMO that answer is a resounding 'nope'. How about we get something innovative in ArmA 4 (no chance for 3) or at least something close to what we have to a heavily modded up ArmA 2 at the moment. AI using buildings AI communicating with each other Coordinating attacks AI actually using cover very affectively in the majority of cases AI utilising and calling in Artillery AI with realistic aiming and ranging abilities Random movement that doesn't make any sense whatsoever kept to a minimum AI utilising smoke as cover Actual Medic System AI that are reliably able to get from point A to point B on foot, in the air, and on wheels Just some of the things that we have in ArmA 2 currently w/ mods that we don't have in ArmA 3. In all honesty, I really don't think i'll be playing much of ArmA3, it just doesn't have the right feel in it's current iteration (and I don't think it will for a couple of years to come). It's aesthetically pleasing, yes, but that's all I think it's get going for it at the moment. I just don't feel nearly as immersed as I do in my current rendition of ArmA 2

Personally, I don't care about reaction times, accuracy etc. It's actual infantry tactics. With ArmA 2, and a mix of multiple AI mods bastardised together, I can get the game to actually breath some life in the AI. They share information, advance realistically, use smoke, pick up ammo, use buildings as cover, and work together as a unit. It's not perfect, but if I was a little less nit picky I'd be totally immersed in these little battlefields I've created. With ArmA 3 currently it's a massive step backwards, it's nothing to do with matching the AI skill to my own, that's not what it's about for me.. it's about the closest thing we have to military sim immersing us in a simulation of military ops. With the current AI the immersion just isn't there.

Just had a quick go with this... .. well, after being dropped off and picked up multiple times for no real reason kilometres away from the enemy, we were finally dropped off in some dead ground relatively nearby. "Awesome.. maybe this might be some cool emergent behaviour from the AI I've not witnessed before". But no, the the group leader decided we'd better get back in.. we then flew out to sea with a barrage of "2, 3, 4, 5 etc. Dismount" followed by continued "Negative". After a full 3 minutes of this, we were finally dropped off again, though once again kilometres away from anything. The group leader then decided we'd better mount up.. and by 'We' I mean everyone accept me and one other AI, who they promptly left stranded on the ridge of some hill. I'm using the dev build... This is what I mean with my previous post. Everything's so damn random, and not in a good way. Most of the time ArmA AI just doesn't make sense, it's like a fish out of water attempting to flounder towards.. something. IDK, maybe it's just me putting my expectations too high with every new iteration. That maybe one we can get AI that can actually do something that consistently makes sense, something that makes me think "Wow.. I really feel like I'm part of an attack here, this firefight is great" rather than "What the fuck are you doing?", "WHY AREN'T YOU MOVING??!", "why is that guy - by himself - 200 metres over there?" "Oh fuck, the whole squad is stuck again because some dude's get himself stuck on a path loop, better do some euthanasia", "These interiors are pretty cool.. why are they so underused, the points inside the buildings don't even correspond to a window frame most of the time" etc.

ArmA 3 Infantry combat AI is terrible IMO. The franchise has had terrible AI since 2001 and I doubt it's going to change and mods only make it passable at best. Individual and higher AI infantry tactics don't make sense 8 out of 10 times, and when they do it's basically by accident, and it's something you've witnessed off-hand on some random mission you played last week. It's been, what, 12 years since we started this journey to ArmA3, and where have we got to? AI that barely knows how to operate in built up environments ("what the hell is this 'building' you can use them as cover, no way"); In open fields, AI that basically feel the same as it does in OFP. Where's the tactical cohesion between squads.. hell, where's the tactical cohesion between individual members of a squad. I'm sure something is happening behind the scenes, but to be frank, it looks like people are just wandering all over the place doing their own thing. 12 years ago, I would've at least hoped for AI to be able to use buildings in 2013, but no.. the only thing we can be amazed about currently is the fact that AI lean around walls correctly.. sometimes. There's no tactical cohesion, squads don't talk to each other. People run around seemingly randomly due to the fact that they're governed by a loose set of rules that don't really lend well to a realistic military scenario. I know it won't get changed because we're in the Beta now, and well.. the best we can hope for is a couple more of those moments where we say "oh.. the AI actually worked well together for a moment there" and that's it, because it really does need a overhaul... and don't even get me started on the archaic way you control these morons. It wasn't accessible in 2001, and it still isn't accessible in 2013.

A glaring problem.. at least for me, is that Opfor take less shots to take down than Blufor.. so it renders a lot of these "tests" useless anyhow.

I think this is a good video demonstrating that, although the AI does need a lot of work, in its current form it's definitely still a step up from what we see in ArmA 2 Notice a lot of taking cover, also a third squad seems to go up and flank them. The ArmA 2 units are simply just standing on the middle of the road, getting off as many rounds as possible, plus a couple of rockets to boot.

Why? Don't destroy my hopes and dreams of a SLXGL4Zeus enabled heaven of enhanced AI that actually has some semblance of cohesion and -gasp- actual use of those tactical fortresses otherwise known as buildings. I do agree with you though. To play ArmA to it's potential.. we need to mod. It sucks, it really does, but not as much as it could've done without talented Modders. I just hope that for ArmA 5 we have someone revisit the drawing board on AI and actually offer us single-player's something that's actually a real step up in terms of quality and usability.

Well, ChrisB, that original Video doesn't prove much, since you're behind a solid wall, and AI can't see behind solid walls. What they can see though is through a bush/tree/tall grass from quite a distance away when all I've done is triggered some C4. You see, this is the problem we have, people are OK with posting a video of a vehicle moving along a road without crashing and saying "This is amazing, right?".. no, it's not, it's something that I'd expect to be a military sim, it's something I've seen in countless other games that are considered technically inferior to ArmA 3. Surely we should have some change by now, but it seems the vast majority of the community are MP only (I get it, I do), so it seems that ArmA's AI's destined to be stuck in the dark ages for another 12 years. Maybe in 2025 we'll have actual platoons of squads having some semblance of coordination with each other, for now I guess I'll just wait for the High command module to come out and micro manage them myself.

I still feel as though we've taken baby steps since back in OFP days. The control method to control your AI is archaic, and there have been barely any improvements to the way AI engage in battle. Put some AI down in cold war crisis in the middle of a field, do the same in ArmA 3 and they feel borderline indistinguishable. Sure, they're taking cover in ArmA 3 (Sometimes) and they've got a fancy leaning animation, but I saw that shit in ArmA 2. Why can't we have proper coordinated flanking, actual bounding forward, or retreating in a cohesive manner. Right now it just feels like a bunch of loners loosely tied together with a piece of string prancing about the battlefield. I personally think BIS has neglected the AI to the point where their like "Meh, they look kinda cool sometimes by accident, that'll do guys, let's move on to fancy underwater environments", when in fact the AI could've been a really strong feature that could've immersed players into the game rather then leaving them confused as to what's going on.

My Problem with the AI is that a lot of the time.. yeah, maybe they are doing something cool, but it's all very 'behind the scenes' and a lot of the time it just comes off as just plain random. There's no real sense of cohesion, even sticking together as a squad is sometimes an issue. There's a lot of randomly going prone (not as bad as previous ArmA's, OFP's) a lot of movement into random directions, and a hell of a lot of shouting that doesn't really reflect what the AI is actually doing. "Covering Fire!" I hear them cry, but no ones firing, there's a sense of bounding over-watch from the verbal spiel that's being put forth but non actually being done. It all just seems a bit random. I won't even mention how AI treats buildings.. which is not at all. I've been making SP missions since the original OFP, and I love playing with AI, I really do, but I just don't get a sense that we've really moved on all that much in the last 12 years. Sure, AI seem to take cover (or occasionally they'll stand next to a wall and lean the wrong way) but the haphazard nature of it all just makes it seem as though they've just accidentally done something cool rather than legitimately made a smart tactical decision. If I was sitting here back in 2001 being asked what I'd be expecting from OFP 2013, I wouldn't be describing what we have today. I would've hoped for tactical cohesion not only between individual members, but at platoon level and possibly higher, vehicles that can actually travel one behind another without having a 75% chance of crashing into something on their way to their destination, and aircraft that provides effective over-watch of the battlefield without diving head first into the nearest mountain. As we stand now, put a couple of squads of opfor and blufor on opposite sides of a town, and we just end up with a gangfuck that, although they sometimes look cool, doesn't seem to make much sense. I mean, I don't even care about bugs: AI walking through rocks, phasing through walls, getting stuck on tufts of grass.. I just want the semblance of a realistic battlefield scenario using AI. Sure, I can look to MP for that, but sometimes (most of the time really) I just want to play Soldiers by myself and reminisce about that one time I was in the Army, You know.

That's great news, I'll go check it out. I've held off the on using spawned AI since they're basically turned into unrealistic killing machines, hopefully this'll fix it.

Is it just me, or is the skill of 'spawned' AI a lot higher than what it's set as within the config. Spawned Enemy AI will have close to 90% accuracy, whereas enemy that is placed manually within the editor will have a noticeably lower accuracy and possibly skill level. I've noticed this when spawning enemies via a script of any sort, including the use of the 'site' modules within the editor.

Is it just me, or is the skill of 'spawned' AI a lot higher than what we've set at as in the options. Spawned Enemy AI will have close to 90% accuracy, whereas enemy that is placed manually within the editor will have a noticeably lower accuracy level. I've noticed this not only with EOS, but with the any other script that spawns AI (including the 'site' modules within the editor).

I'm having the same problem as many others in this thread and it definitely is the Bloodmist Mod causing the issue. I -have- learned, however, that if you wait for awhile the game does eventually initialise the addons and start. It's a great addon however, does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it well. It's just a shame about whatever it is that's causing the massive delay, I'm sure it's something small.

I've also had this error, though the Helicopter stayed there hovering indefinitely for the rest of the mission with the AI commander constantly ordering a disembark and getting a 'negative' as a reply. It probably has something to do with the fact the Heli was hovering over some difficult terrain, possibly?