KeyFox

So, in batting around the AI topic in my head and reading of other's opinions, it occurred to me - is it (or should it be) possible to designate priority targets in the HUD and/or Crosscom? For example, the addition of orders like Priority:Ground Vehicle, Priority:AT, Priority:Gun Nest, etc. You could then give the whole squad an order to be on the watch for those specific sorts of targets, or additionally, really use your specialists for the roles they have. Your Demo guy with a priority for Vehicles, for example, your Support soldier on the watch for infantry, your Sniper on the lookout for other snipers or an AT soldier if you're protecting a column, and so on. Or, as you 'tag' a target and get your nice red diamond on them, perhaps a submenu that would allow you to assign a number or a designation or something to a target to keep track of it and tell your squadmates that you want THAT target down at all costs...or something like that. I don't know if that's realistic, given the coding involved and so on, but well, wouldn't those be cool?

I am going to respectfully challenge this comment ( Or atleast what I think it was intended to mean) Why couldn't an AI that was following your commands 100%, also have a routine to "fall back to its previous position of cover" when it suddenly finds itself under unacceptable levels of fire while in a move? Why should it have to stay and stand and get pummeled? Or continue to the assigned "move position" if it is much farther away than the last (or other near) position of cover? 99.2% obedience is all a squad leader can expect ... The he could say something as simple as "Taking fire, falling back to cover" Don't get me wrong here Bo. The game is excellent. I'm getting my 50 bucks worth. I'm one of the guys that loved GRAW1 too. Played it to death. Made all my friends buy it too. I'm loving it and I'm waiting for the modder tools to really bring the content to the next level. But ..... that comment just didn't ring as "the only way" to me. I think the idea put forth here is not outside the realm of possability or overly difficult. Of course, that is just my opinion. I do realize that with such changes comes testing and possible unexpected results. it takes time and resources to add such a layer of logic. but I think it would be great to see it in a patch. See now, I like this idea. You want your squad to advance and follow orders, yes. You want to be responsible for giving good orders, yes. But you don't want automatons. Especially not amongst the elite soldiers, they need to be able to think on their feet. I am very much in favor of a patch/mod/whatever that would allow my teammates to STOP when they come under fire, inform me that they're taking fire, seeking cover, cannot advance. The AI stops following the previous set of commands and once threat is handled (however it's handled) they hold position for a new string of orders. That would seem to make sense to me and split the difference - you would then be required again to give your specific commands. The problem with the squadmates crying about coming under fire and continuing to follow your orders (good or bad) is that perhaps you, the player, are also under fire at the same time and just a little bit busy to hold the hands of a professional soldier that should know when to duck and when to fire his weapon. If I recall correctly (it's been a while, I'll have to spin up my installation of [GR]), this was the behavior of squadmates coming under fire while on the move. They'd stop and return fire. I could be mistaken, but I think that's right. Now, in GRAW, the problem wasn't so much that the squadmates would react or do things on their own (love it, go ahead, gun that bad boy down!), it was that they did it stupidly. They would walk right into lines of friendly fire (usually the player's), and they would actually push the player out of cover as they moved on their own. I've had a couple instances of that happening in GRAW 2, typically with Beasley on a Follow order. That's not cool, nor is it realistic. Overlapping firelane set-up is the responsibility of the squad leader: given. It behooves a squadmate who wants to continue on to see his next sunrise not to walk out of cover and directly into another squadmate's (let alone the squad leader's) active fire. So, again, an addition of a Take Cover order would be cool, and/or the modification of the AI in the above described manner would be awesome. I'll take responsibility for giving a bad order, certainly, but I don't think I should need to take responsibility for a soldier that doesn't know enough to hit the dirt when a bullet snaps past his helmet!

Um, not to pick nits, but you mean any of those can only be assigned to those characters and Mitchell, correct? I like the ability to carry any weapon. And by the way, while on it, LOVE the fact we can pick up other weapons now, great job on that.

So far, I'm enjoying the improvements from GRAW to GRAW2, a very nice job. I like being able to give my soldiers orders and having them follow them, though two little pieces I would request: 1) If they're being shot at, just simply returning fire without being told and 2) the addition of a Take Cover order in the Crosscom, which would cause the selected unit(s) (not available for the Mule, Tanks, etc) to seek the nearest cover/concealment relative to the direction of incoming fire on THEM. I think those would adaquately solve any problems between the 'do it all for me' sorts of folks and the 'plan out all your team's moves' solution that GRIN implemented. I have noticed, however, a problem with the Attack AI. I had Brown armed with his LMG and a ZEUS. I gave him an Attack order on an approaching Abrams, and what does he do? Unloads his machine gun at it. Um. Sorry, there's no excuse for that. There's no more specific order you can give - if there were an order available (Attack with AT), that would be one thing. But the AI should be smart enough to know that when I order an attack on something that is going to completely ignore anything but the rocket, the rocket is what gets used. It happened three times in a row. I couldn't believe it. Or, if we continue on the we need to give our team members explicit instructions route, then add Attack with (Primary. GL, Secondary, Backpack/AT) orders to the Crosscom?

So, you make some good points in this, and in your follow-up post, but a couple things bugged me, so I thought I'd throw them out here. 1) GR:AW was apparently designed with the idea that one-hit kills do not make for someone trying to drag themselves through the given level to the next save point over and over again. Though I think they addressed the health scale in varying difficulty levels so that it gets easier to kill your character. As far as killing the tangos? Aimpoint and any weapon and I can put a tango down with a shot to the head. Occasionally, they get back up again, another shot, fine. I hit his helmet the first time around, I guess, but whatever. It's deadly enough. 3) You have to understand the current environment and modes of thought of at least the US Army. The brass are busy saying that the future of conflicts will be CQB (Close Quarters Battle), urban warfare and so on. This is not to say they've completely changed their traditional training and modes of thought concerning other theaters of battle, but I think what the GR:AW folks were trying to do was take that current trend of thought and run with it. No, not a lot of long sight lines in an urban environment, and if you want to snipe, your options are limited. The tangos get to find high ground and snipe YOU, but not the other way around. I would at the very least like a way to get to where the enemy snipers were positioned...if only to pick up sniper ammo. 4) BF2 is NOT GR. Period. America's Army is...AA. AA is more about individual accomplishments (Army of One) regardless of the touting of teamwork and the like. GR:AW is its own game, IMO, and not really an improved GR. 5) Games will always have issues with that sort of thing. In campaign style missions and a continuous storyline, one may have to single out the player's character as some sort of ubermensch in order to drive the story. What can we say? 6) GR:AW and R6 are similar in some respects, but not enough. Both concentrate more on CQB than anything else, for one thing. R6 is more about hostage rescue and so on than anything else, and that requires different tactics and weapons. Have you ever BEEN to Mexico City? It may not be the washed out tan that everyone's used to complaining about everywhere, but wow. In R6-3, the tight quarters are to be expected for the most part. Lockdown, in case you haven't been blessed with it, is a waste of time and money, IMHO - avoid it at all costs. 7) I'm right there with you. I despise the spray and pray spawn-camping monstrosities of the MP shooter world for anything other than maybe ten minutes of playtime once a year just so I can rest assured my intelligence isn't atrophied... Seriously, though, ROE is important - there is supposedly a way to use ROE that is called out in the actual game manual, but damned if I can make it work on cue. All this said, no game will be perfect. Some are less not-perfect than others. Each have their pros and cons. GR:AW could be a great game. Part of the replay value of R6-3 (for me, anyway) was the fact that tangos were not always in the same positions I remembered them in the last time I ran the campaign, or even from replay to replay of the same mission within the campaign. I think that's an important piece of replay value - otherwise you get into a routine when playing. GR:AW was too eager to make a lot of use of new technology to show off the beauty of the game without really taking into account the replay value - [GR] was and still is replayable out the wazoo, especially what with several fan-modded campaigns. If we could do that with GR:AW, it might help. I tend to agree with you about fire teams, maximizing fire, etc. Many folks who play shooters, however, are more into the BF2 style of 'teamwork' - even when playing COOP games (SWAT 3&4, AA, R6-3, etc.), which is a crying shame, really. If I'm thinking from a 'realistic' point of view, I don't want to be teamed up with Rambo - he's going to get my butt killed. Just my own observations from afar.