GRAW 2 AI

[Lethal.Ambition]

GR had numbers. I remember in IGOR you could tweak the AI a lot. You could turn them into zombies or killing machines. Or both! An enemy with almost infinite armor and computer reflexes... it was nuts!

[Rocky]

Here goes a little something on the AI ...

Don't know how I managed to miss that post earlier Great insight in to some of the AI routines, very interesting.

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?

Yeh, that's what I was thinking too, that would be more realistic, but as Bo said, they were making a concious effort to remove to complaints about the AI doing silly things by themselves making for "where the heck are you going" type comments being shouted at the monitor.

[BigBumpy]

If the friendly AI would do mostly everything right and the enemy AI would be nearly realistic, where would the game challenge come from?

With great AI, your friendly AI would cake walk through the game and never die. Also, the enemy AI still won't surprise you cause you always have the overhead Tac Map to watch exactly what they are doing.

Within the games reasonable ability, I'd like to hear exact examples on how to address all these AI complaints and not ruin the SP gameplay at the same time. It's not that easy to figure out.

[Sleepdoc-iBeta]

........... but as Bo said, they were making a concious effort to remove to complaints about the AI doing silly things by themselves making for "where the heck are you going" type comments being shouted at the monitor.

Who said anything about them programming in Silly thing?

They could figure out which way theywere being fired upon, and move to a cover that protected them from that angle. preferable falling back.

Now whats so silly about that?

Edited July 25, 2007 by Sleepdoc

[Rocky]

They could figure out which way theywere being fired upon, and move to a cover that protected them from that angle. preferable falling back.

Now whats so silly about that?

Nothing, if they could actually be relied upon to do it every time, but they can't.

i.e. the 2nd para of Bo's post, and the reason they coded it this way.

In GRAW1 the No1 biggest complaint was - The AI takes its own decisions all the time and don't go excatly where I tell them. (they were seeking the best cover related to the threat in the area) and they go do round abouts when I dont want them to.

[KeyFox]

The choice was made to be clear - you cannot have both an AI that acts all on its own and also obeys your command to 100%.

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!

[caprera]

A little initiative by our ghosts would be nice, but for now i think i've seen the best tactical shooter ever.

The only other whining about AI is the "guided" mode they react during missions. Seems to be on rails...

[NoQuarter]

I seem to recall that during the run-up to release that there was a video put out showing the devs at work, explaining the "new" recon capabilities of the Ghost AI...how in recon mode they would sneak around and even approach their move order placement in a prone position.

Well, I have yet to see any of the Ghost AI go prone, Hume (sniper) included, other than if they had been incapacitated. And I've been trying, over & over, to set up the right conditions.

So, question...has anyone else seen the Ghosts use the prone position, ever, or wasn't this feature ready for prime-time?