By AI Bluefox

Wildlands team ai

This explained the guy was the fundamental principle to all that follows. Although freedom of choice and expression is felt by the AI team members to be their prerogative, they are not actually as intelligent as they like to think they are. Of course they aren’t, they couldn’t be, they’re artificial, and although they do a very, very good job of creating a believable scenario and dealing with a lot of situations, it doesn’t take much dog shit on the carpet before you start to re-evaluate the whole concept of not quite being intelligent enough to be trusted.

And they are not to be trusted. Although they make mistakes and leave their little presents of turd on the shag-pile infrequently, just the once every now and then is enough to sever the bond of trust with their master. Enough for some Gamer Gods to cast them forever into the depths of hell as it were.

So let their shepherd guide them, let the player choose their path and whether they should kneel and which way they should more or less face etc. For each of them separately and together. That way, and this is the genius of the original Ghost Recon in making dumb as shit AI seem believable and real, was that they took on the intelligence of the player. I guess because they are artificial then Weaver, Holt and Midas don’t understand their own failings nor can they learn from them whereas the players can.

With enough control, the player associates mistakes with their own decisions not those of the game and they can learn and do better. Also of course they associate success and overcoming challenges as something they achieved for themselves and they didn’t just press the “win” button – or “Fire” command as it is known in Wildlands.

Probably the most requested feature on the forum and Reddit that I have seen is the request for AI customisation.

Since starting this particular version of yet another Bluefox War and Peace, the announcement that this feature is to happen for Year 2 has come out, so no need to include this section other than perhaps those last features that are often requested for the customisation

• Working Night Vision Goggles with an animation to flip them down (Damn they put those in too!!!)
• More tactical gear

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY

• A feature in the gameplay that made the clothing choice significant. I understand why it’s important for some fashionistas to prance around the Wildlands looking dope without paying a penalty for it, but I want to pay a penalty for it.

None of my AI customisations should be restricted, but then neither should the consequences for them be either. Nice shoes, there, Holt.

After the backlash against the AI banter, there now seems to be a backlash against the backlash so before there is a backlash against the backlash that is against the backlash, an option to toggle the banter back in may be a good idea. My view is that this could be on a slider to make it more or less likely, but I think the game misses a trick in raising the tension by making some subtle changes to the AI communications. A strong feature in the original was the short, curt and on-point radio messages that give an authentic tone to the dialogue.

The AI should be subject to stamina and health etc. Perfection would be that this is a function of the load out I give them and also dependent on how hard I work them.

If they are downed they should not revive automatically or teleport around to carry out this function for me. They shouldn’t carry on talking either.

Probably worth mentioning another feature here that could give more depth and that is that the AI team should be able to be killed. Certainly within a mission so that they cannot be revived but also within the overall game. I guess these days and in a game with 100 missions that permadeath will cause too much dissatisfaction in some players, but there could be a less severe system but one which still makes the players feel responsible for and be careful of their AI squad.

The AI should only shoot with LoS and request a move command to get it. This is one of those game play cheats programmed in to save the player hassle, and yeah I get it, but it’s still a cheat.

The function is almost there, as the AI will sometimes say they don’t have a shot, but other times they can be clearly seen to ignore a mountain and shoot right through it.

Back to the whole “Rules” thing. The game does have the basic Hold or Fire command, but both are pretty much used to either keep the AI out of things altogether or as a last-resort, win button.

Players tend to use the Hold function to either avoid a stealth break or avoid the immersion breaking view of the team staring at an enemy and nothing happening.

They use the fire button to set the AI on a base clearing spree. OK at a certain level of immersion, but this disconnects the single player from that “team feeling” for the players that want to feel like they are leading a team.

I’m not sure we even need any more than the original set of three rules no firing, return fire or fire on sight.

The original had a solid and straightforward RoE system that was adequate in providing a huge amount of tactical variation and depth to the gameplay.

Ok, so one of the big elephants in the Wildlands room now …

I get that the AI are very advanced and in my opinion programmed extremely well with the impulse system working as intended, BUT the gameplay choice for the team AI and enemy AI to not see each other is immersion breaking beyond belief. It is like they are having an affair with each other behind my back, and when I see it I feel let down and betrayed. They take no action to protect me as they are still in stealth mode, and they are not detected when they should be. Bastards!

This seems to be a workaround for the autonomy the team AI are given against the limitations to their pathing ability – which I accept will be only as good as the current science allows – but it should be the players control limitation and tactical positioning that is exposed rather than the lack of prescient behaviour in a game AI model.

If I can be seen they should be seen, and be attacked the same way. The gunfights are too Hollywood, by the way, with the AI accuracy being way too low, but that is another part of the inevitable consequence of the “not micro-managing the AI” decision. It is not about micro managing or delegation, in my view, the game abdicates the player from too much accountability and responsibility

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Unless it’s a vehicle …

Perhaps the most obvious difference between the single player and co-op player experience is missing out on operating a gun turret or leaning out of the window and shooting at a convoy truck’s tyres. Just about every other AI character in the game can drive vehicles and fly choppers, but the Ghost team can’t.

The team AI should really be able to control vehicles and route them between checkpoints and follow a target. There are many occasions when I would have liked to have been on the gun or exited the chopper but then have it landed by the AI somewhere without it being destroyed, but this is not achievable.

I don’t know what the limitation was or even if there was one. The closest I can think is that there are some missions where driving is the challenge and setting the AI to drive would have been a win button, but that could have been managed by restricting the driving to the player for that specific instance. I don’t know, but the game will improve with this feature introduced.

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The content of the AI messaging could really do with some improvement.

The positioning intel for enemies that they give you is next to useless and most of the time seems to be there for incidental back ground chatter rather than any kind of useful player info.

The ability to lose the HuD was a welcome improvement to the game before release and maybe there wasn’t time to rethink the team comms, but this could be worked on.

“Over there by the stack of tyres” is of no use to the player at all and becomes annoying over time. “50m to your South 20° West, boss” wouldn’t be too hard to voice in with all the potential distances and compass bearings would it?

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So now that we have the ability to dress our team in the very latest fashions straight out of the military cat walks and seemingly every other Ubisoft game ever released, then why can’t I also programme my team mates to perform some of my favourite routines from Just Dance or play some guitar licks out of Rocksmith?

Oh, yeah, because the primary purpose of Ghost Recon is to shoot stuff, and the primary tool of choice for shooting stuff is a gun.

So why is this vital piece of team AI customisation not in the game?

The massive fan reaction to the AI clothing wasn’t something I was expecting, I wasn’t alone in that, though, but the seeming lack of passion about their weapons is as much of a surprise. Is it only me and a few older or mil-sim fans that would like to alter their team’s load out?

They can wear a T-shirt or a hoodie if the player pleases (with consequence), but surely the most important thing is whether they have an SMG or a sniper rifle, how much ammo they have and what equipment?

There have been some good suggestions on how to simply add some more AI control with extensions to the existing control wheel and Kane_sg put up a great forum post, should the dev team wish to introduce this to the game.

For me it does as usual boil down to options, with the exception, as Kean, Biomag and other have said, that  the Tier 1 mode has missed the sweet spot in terms of how it made the game more challenging.

Instead of requiring more thought and preparation it simply reduced to more hiding and grinding and could have been 11 out of 10 if it had sought to give that classic GR feel by introducing more of the classic GR gameplay.

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