BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 03:49
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Originally posted by Crion Well, it was ok but they are really stupid. That should have been improved upon.
The problem with AI in this kind of game is that it doesn't all want to kill you straight away. A lot of it is on your side or neutral, so how much shit will it take before it goes against you? How will a group of untrained terrorist react when fighting a group of well trained and well armed soldiers? How do walking commando machines fight with rocket launcers for arms? And how do you program all of this? I thought that the AI was acceptable when all of the other goodness of the game was considered (and when you consider the shear complexity of the game). I was greatly dissapointed in games like SS2 where the only way to hide from an enemy was to hide somewhere inaccesable to them because they automatically home on you. I mean, look at GTAVC, where I'm happily flying around in the sky with my apache and a massive wanted level, and the idiots in blue are laying spike strips (granted GTA is another story altogether). All of that and the fact that combat in this game was not done nearly as well as it could have been anyway.
ZylonBane on 15/12/2003 at 04:59
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Originally posted by BlackCapedManX I was greatly dissapointed in games like SS2 where the only way to hide from an enemy was to hide somewhere inaccesable to them because they automatically home on you.
BZZZT. Wrong.
System Shock 2 has exactly the same AI as Thief. It's just as possible to sneak by sticking to shadows and walking softly as in Thief. Problem is, most of the Von Braun simply isn't set up for it.
BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 06:23
I remember a specific time on the Hydro dec where I went to hide in that one room with the door that doesn't open. To find that not only can midwives home on me, but that they can also phase through that door.
ZylonBane on 15/12/2003 at 15:41
Yeah, that door is bugged -- somehow got left out of the pathfinding database. Doesn't change the general case though.
BlackCapedManX on 15/12/2003 at 19:20
Eh, alright, I suppose then that it was the layout of the Van Braun, I just always found myself scrambling for hiding places a lot more than I did in Thief, where I could just glide into the nearest shadow.
Crion on 16/12/2003 at 05:49
Quote:
Originally posted by BlackCapedManX The problem with AI in this kind of game is that it doesn't all want to kill you straight away. A lot of it is on your side or neutral, so how much shit will it take before it goes against you? How will a group of untrained terrorist react when fighting a group of well trained and well armed soldiers? How do walking commando machines fight with rocket launcers for arms? And how do you program all of this? I thought that the AI was acceptable when all of the other goodness of the game was considered (and when you consider the shear complexity of the game).
I meant stupid in more basic ways. No crouching so I can hide in air vents and snipe them with tranq darts. They barely react to getting shot. Some sort of pain animation a la Golden Eye or Perfect Dark would be good. Sniping them from the roof of the 'ton is too easy and I wish they'd climb up the ladder to surprise me or something. I don't recall them ever using grenades or hiding/taking cover to reload. A simple flee/unseen by player flag when reloading? Jumping ffs. If the player can jump, so should the AIs.
BlackCapedManX on 16/12/2003 at 20:09
Again, the combat system is definately subpar so one would expect most aspects of it to be below the bar as well, such as pain animations, ducking, climbing etc. I don't know much about coding AI movements so I don't know how feasible having the AI run away while reloading would be (how would they know where to run, if it's out of your sight, what if you just turn the other dirrection?) I think I've seen grenades used (I recall just random memorys of the click noise they make and then the bouncing sound that they do, when I wasn't using them, I could just be getting confused though), but not to the greatest effect though (I don't think grenades where really meant to be a combat weapon anyway, too easy for them to kill themselves, too easy for you to miss entirely unless they are unaware of you, though I suppose they probably aren't smart enough to run from a grenade anyway, feh). And I would think jumping would just get really dumb or really confusing (if you mean jumping in the middle of combat to avoid fire, that would get unrealistic really fast, if you mean jumping over obstacles, I don't know much about pathfinding either, but what if the AI would think that it could make it over an obstacle, and instead of being able to jump high enough it just keeps jumping up and down and not getting anywhere?) I suppose all of that could be remedied with better programming, but for the style of game it was (not nearly as heavily combat based as many first person games) the combat AI (or lack thereof) didn't seem to be to intrusive into the actual gameplay.
Epos Nix on 16/12/2003 at 21:18
Basically everything you mentioned there (AIs crouching, running for cover while reloading, ducking, using grenades effectively, etc) was done to good effect in Half-Life. And those things that weren't there (jumping, crawling through vents, climbing ladders, etc) are being implemented in Half-Life 2.
These are all things Deus Ex 2 could've done easily, I'm sure, but instead it seems as if they pulled their AI code straight from the original DX. Considering DX2 is relatively more combat oriented than the first, I really wish they had implemented better AI this time around to at least give me a reason to want to play through the game again.
BlackCapedManX on 16/12/2003 at 23:58
I make no defense for DXIW. None.
Half life was a lot more linear and scripted than DX1 was. What if you could come up on a group of marines from the other direction (say, via a no-clip cheat), would they still effectively run for cover?
Epos Nix on 17/12/2003 at 00:32
Scripted sequences don't work if you bypass them, but the AI works independantly of any scripted scenes. So yeah, no matter where you come at them from, they'll respond accordingly.
