RUNNING WITH RIFLES
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AI needs to be more aggresive
http://www.runningwithrifles.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=465
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Author:  namehobo [ Wed May 23, 2012 12:01 pm ]
Post subject:  AI needs to be more aggresive

every match i play (on singleplayer) i win wethet it take minutes,hours,days,weeks. i always win cause the enemy AI never seems to even attempt to assault bases unlees weve just recently taken them :P i dont know if im the only one.
Also can you improve on stealth? i like sneaking behind enemie lines and stuff but someone sees me cause AI have longer sight range then me or just turns around and shoots me :P

Author:  JackMayol [ Wed May 23, 2012 12:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

namehobo wrote:
every match i play (on singleplayer) i win wethet it take minutes,hours,days,weeks. i always win cause the enemy AI never seems to even attempt to assault bases unlees weve just recently taken them :P i dont know if im the only one.
Also can you improve on stealth? i like sneaking behind enemie lines and stuff but someone sees me cause AI have longer sight range then me or just turns around and shoots me :P


You definitely have higher sight range than the AI, just be sure to point the crosshair to the outter part of your screen to have max view distance.
If you want to sneak, be sure that you aren't in the field of view of your enemy (90° to the left and 90° to the right of the direction he is just looking). At night it's easier to sneak since the AI is more passive if nothing happens and their view distance is reduced.

Author:  Lusketrollet [ Fri May 25, 2012 8:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

As far as AI aggression goes, I have a similar issue. I wrote about it in an earlier thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=134&p=980#p980

Things have been improved since then, but not nearly enough. I still have similar problems, where friendly troops are gathered in little clumps far away from where all the action is when they are sorely needed elsewhere.

In a match I played just now, the enemy formed an overwhelming assault on one of the central trenches. They took almost complete control over it relatively quickly, and the friendly troops stationed there got pushed back from overwhelming numbers. Sensibly enough, the AI Commander ordered the trench retaken, and what followed was an exercise in pure, infuriating incompetence. I dutifully headed for the yellow objective marker on the minimap, and waited for friendlies. Nothing happened for ages, while the enemies peacefully just reinforced their position more and more. Finally, a small friendly sortie entered from the north, and made a pitiful, half-arsed attempt at assaulting the enemy position. Naturally, they failed spectacularly, and I literally felt embarrassed to be on their side - that's not even hyperbole. :x Meanwhile, of course, the entire rest of my army just sat there like a bunch of cunts.

I knew I needed to keep the pressure on that spot, otherwise they could just fan out from that central position and overwhelm us at other points - there must have been at least fifty of them, swarming like ants. But since I was only Rank 2, I had no means with which to gather a significant enough number of friendlies from the locations where they were sitting inactively around like the bunch of criminally incompetent shits that they were, so I was at a loss.

However, the game has this system where the AI will react to gunfire, and come running to the location of the shooting. So what I did, was run up to a bunch of friendlies, fire a few shots with my rifle, and have them all come running towards me. Then I would run a few steps more, fire my rifle again to make sure they keep following, and repeat from there. It was bloody ridiculous. I should not be forced to exploit the game's system just to have the AI do what they should already be doing in the first place.

Obviously, this was nowhere near enough. I eventually ragequit, with the trench still in enemy hands.

I'm not entirely sure where the problem lies - is it with the AI Commander or the AI of the individual soldiers on the map? Or possibly some mixture of the two? I'm not entirely sure how the system works - does the objective marker you see on the map count as the objective for all the friendly troops as well, or are they given separate orders the player don't get to see? What I do know, however, is that there was quite literally no excuse for the friendly AI to behave like they did. They were not in combat, they had no need to defend the locations they were sitting at, because they were far away from the frontline, and they fulfilled no function, whatsoever.

Funnily enough, I haven't really had this problem on the two smaller maps. Just that large one.

Author:  pasik [ Fri May 25, 2012 10:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

Lusketrollet wrote:
As far as AI aggression goes, I have a similar issue. I wrote about it in an earlier thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=134&p=980#p980

Things have been improved since then, but not nearly enough. I still have similar problems, where friendly troops are gathered in little clumps far away from where all the action is when they are sorely needed elsewhere.

In a match I played just now, the enemy formed an overwhelming assault on one of the central trenches. They took almost complete control over it relatively quickly, and the friendly troops stationed there got pushed back from overwhelming numbers. Sensibly enough, the AI Commander ordered the trench retaken, and what followed was an exercise in pure, infuriating incompetence. I dutifully headed for the yellow objective marker on the minimap, and waited for friendlies. Nothing happened for ages, while the enemies peacefully just reinforced their position more and more. Finally, a small friendly sortie entered from the north, and made a pitiful, half-arsed attempt at assaulting the enemy position. Naturally, they failed spectacularly, and I literally felt embarrassed to be on their side - that's not even hyperbole. :x Meanwhile, of course, the entire rest of my army just sat there like a bunch of cunts.

I knew I needed to keep the pressure on that spot, otherwise they could just fan out from that central position and overwhelm us at other points - there must have been at least fifty of them, swarming like ants. But since I was only Rank 2, I had no means with which to gather a significant enough number of friendlies from the locations where they were sitting inactively around like the bunch of criminally incompetent shits that they were, so I was at a loss.

However, the game has this system where the AI will react to gunfire, and come running to the location of the shooting. So what I did, was run up to a bunch of friendlies, fire a few shots with my rifle, and have them all come running towards me. Then I would run a few steps more, fire my rifle again to make sure they keep following, and repeat from there. It was bloody ridiculous. I should not be forced to exploit the game's system just to have the AI do what they should already be doing in the first place.

Obviously, this was nowhere near enough. I eventually ragequit, with the trench still in enemy hands.

I'm not entirely sure where the problem lies - is it with the AI Commander or the AI of the individual soldiers on the map? Or possibly some mixture of the two? I'm not entirely sure how the system works - does the objective marker you see on the map count as the objective for all the friendly troops as well, or are they given separate orders the player don't get to see? What I do know, however, is that there was quite literally no excuse for the friendly AI to behave like they did. They were not in combat, they had no need to defend the locations they were sitting at, because they were far away from the frontline, and they fulfilled no function, whatsoever.

Funnily enough, I haven't really had this problem on the two smaller maps. Just that large one.


If you get more of these, the best thing you could do would be to send the savegame to pasi.kainiemi@modulaatio.com so that I can inspect it. You can find the saved game files in C:\ProgramData\Running with rifles\savegames\mapX\ (Windows 7/Vista), you're most likely playing the last of them.

The AI commander makes defense the top priority, so firstly it allocates soldiers in the bases, then on the borders, and everyone alive after that are allocated for the attack. The AI only attacks in one location, and the attack squads are distributed randomly at the 9 blocks surrounding the attack start marker.

Map1 suffers from bases that are far away from each other, so moving a squad of soldiers from a base where they've spawned to the attack start area takes quite a bit time. Note also, that the AI commander doesn't optimize this in anyway yet, so it doesn't know that instead of sending the squad from the farthest base to the marker, it could send a squad from a nearby base to the attack marker, and send the squad from the farthest base to compensate the loss of defenders in the nearby base.

Also, there can be other problems. E.g. if your faction has bases in a formation of "L", you know, forming an ear, the soldiers sent from either end to the other side tend to clash with enemies in the middle, essentially distracting the squads from their objective to travel to the attack marker.

Moreover, I've seen a bug that some squads can end up in a catatonic state. I think it was 0.63 in map2, where I saw a ~5-member squad swimming still quite far off the shore, and once I went there to check what's going on, they started moving. It's rare from what I've seen, but it appears that they activate only if you travel nearby them. I haven't done anything to it lately, so it's still in 0.65 as well.

Anyhow, I suggest sending the savegame. It wouldn't be the first time it helps.

Author:  pasik [ Fri May 25, 2012 1:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

As for the actual topic of winning every match in the end, I can easily see that happening.

The thing is that all the AI soldiers are even in skill regardless of faction, so starting with even bases, the game will probably never end that way, just some odd base captures happening for one side or the other, if you just let the AI fight. The game is also designed to stay pretty even in terms of difficulty even if one faction manages to capture the majority of bases.

With this in mind, the only way to really lose in the single player game is to intervene with AI playing together and by playing worse than the AI in general. If you are better than an average AI soldier, you will inevitably win the game, it just takes varying amount of time.

In the future, there might be some changes in this. Another recent topic was touching the idea of having individual settings for each faction, so that you could e.g. make the enemy AI accuracy better / bigger man count than what your faction AI has, which would give you some extra difficulty and should make the enemy faction more stronger over your faction. Another feature I'm planning is enabling more than 2 factions in a single match. The factions might be set as allies, so you could face a situation that your faction is being attacked from multiple directions by different factions.

Author:  namehobo [ Sat May 26, 2012 5:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

pasik wrote:
As for the actual topic of winning every match in the end, I can easily see that happening.

The thing is that all the AI soldiers are even in skill regardless of faction, so starting with even bases, the game will probably never end that way, just some odd base captures happening for one side or the other, if you just let the AI fight. The game is also designed to stay pretty even in terms of difficulty even if one faction manages to capture the majority of bases.

With this in mind, the only way to really lose in the single player game is to intervene with AI playing together and by playing worse than the AI in general. If you are better than an average AI soldier, you will inevitably win the game, it just takes varying amount of time.

In the future, there might be some changes in this. Another recent topic was touching the idea of having individual settings for each faction, so that you could e.g. make the enemy AI accuracy better / bigger man count than what your faction AI has, which would give you some extra difficulty and should make the enemy faction more stronger over your faction. Another feature I'm planning is enabling more than 2 factions in a single match. The factions might be set as allies, so you could face a situation that your faction is being attacked from multiple directions by different factions.

ok, but what i was suggesting is if theyres an opening they just go crazy and spam soilders theyre,cause i love when im just sitting theyre doing nothing and like 300 greens pop out of no were and obliterate me or we do the same. i just love the HUGE battles. but this game is great!but if i sneak into theyre base and kill 30-50 people with a mortar it doesnt do anything.i think you should increase spawn time or make it so you can only spawn in the main base so u could set up ambushes and prevent troops from getting to theyre destination fast enough. Sorry i know this is alot of suggestions but i felt someone had to put it out theyre. but again great game and thanks for responding :D

Author:  pasik [ Sat May 26, 2012 7:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

The sneaky stealthy part of the game is a bit lacking, I agree. Since base capture is currently always based on having more man power at a base than the enemy, it's very unlikely you can capture a base going stealth alone or with a bunch of guys, especially if you're playing with a huge number of soldiers.

It hasn't been designed yet what would be the thing which would make going stealth more worthwhile. I'm open to ideas here.

Obviously, there's only one objective in the game currently which is the base capturing. If going stealth successfully should lead to a base capture, it would require another trigger than the stronger soldier count in the area. Some earlier threads have briefly touched a topic of having to plant explosives in the enemy area at specific places and once all the spots would be covered, the explosives could be detonated, which would perhaps mark the area captured and which would then open the spawn points for your faction.

Another variation of the idea was that the spawn points would be made more visible than they are now, usually being linked to doors on the side of buildings, and you would breach the doors by explosives in the enemy area and those spawn points would temporarily become owned by your faction, spawning fellow soldiers to help you capture the base in the usual way of having more man power and staying alive more than the enemy.

Once the vehicles are introduced in the game, stealing vehicles from the enemy might become one good reason for going stealth, depending on how rare/valuable the vehicles will be.

Author:  Lusketrollet [ Sat May 26, 2012 7:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

Quote:
The AI commander makes defense the top priority, so firstly it allocates soldiers in the bases, then on the borders, and everyone alive after that are allocated for the attack. The AI only attacks in one location, and the attack squads are distributed randomly at the 9 blocks surrounding the attack start marker.


I think that might be your main problem, right there. An AI that makes defense its top priority doesn't exactly make for fun gameplay. I don't know if this has been suggested before, but what about letting the player choose between a series of different AI aggression-levels for each faction? Like for example "Defensive", "Aggressive" and "Balanced"?

"Defensive" could be something similar to what we have now. "Aggressive" would be the exact opposite, making it first priority to attack the enemy and only leave a few soldiers in defense almost as an afterthought. "Balanced" should try to hit the sweet-spot between the two - at all times focusing on taking the fight to the enemy and expand its territory, but still try to have enough troops in defense to not be caught off-guard easily. (But only in the bases closest to the enemy.)

Of course, that idea isn't really worth much unless you make it possible for the AI to attack several places on the map at once. Otherwise, you could have a zillion of these different "AI Personalities", and the game still wouldn't be much fun.

*EDIT*

Actually, something similar was suggested in another thread: " viewtopic.php?f=6&t=467 ".

Author:  pasik [ Sat May 26, 2012 1:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

Lusketrollet wrote:
Quote:
The AI commander makes defense the top priority, so firstly it allocates soldiers in the bases, then on the borders, and everyone alive after that are allocated for the attack. The AI only attacks in one location, and the attack squads are distributed randomly at the 9 blocks surrounding the attack start marker.


I think that might be your main problem, right there. An AI that makes defense its top priority doesn't exactly make for fun gameplay.


I'm afraid it's not quite that straightforward. Think about it. If the enemy AI wouldn't make defense it's top priority, what would you fight against in the base you're attacking? The attack parties from both factions don't always go intersecting roads, so you'd just march in the enemy base and eliminate the few defenders. If that makes fun gameplay, I don't know, I must be in the wrong business :)

Lusketrollet wrote:
I don't know if this has been suggested before, but what about letting the player choose between a series of different AI aggression-levels for each faction? Like for example "Defensive", "Aggressive" and "Balanced"?

"Defensive" could be something similar to what we have now. "Aggressive" would be the exact opposite, making it first priority to attack the enemy and only leave a few soldiers in defense almost as an afterthought. "Balanced" should try to hit the sweet-spot between the two - at all times focusing on taking the fight to the enemy and expand its territory, but still try to have enough troops in defense to not be caught off-guard easily. (But only in the bases closest to the enemy.)

Of course, that idea isn't really worth much unless you make it possible for the AI to attack several places on the map at once. Otherwise, you could have a zillion of these different "AI Personalities", and the game still wouldn't be much fun.


Also, think about what happens if the AI starts attacking many bases at the same time, their total soldier count can't obviously get any higher than what it already is. If the enemy AI is attacking a couple of bases with smaller attack parties than usually, it's not concentrating its efforts, the attacks will most likely fail even more than now. And, that's not all: also their defense is weakened as they are allocating a lot of resources on distributed attacks. I don't know about you, but I think we were trying to make the enemy AI more difficult here.

I don't like the idea about making the factions have user selectable strategic options, would feel all funny that you can control how your enemies behave other than in terms of just difficulty. Saying that, I'm not sure anymore if the ally mechanism would work either, unless it would be somehow completely AI controlled.

I'd prefer this to be solved in a more transparent way anyway. Maybe sometimes the AI commanders go for making a single huge attack by sacrificing some defenders overall, while usually they just try to go with the current distribution of forces. That might allow the enemy AI to capture a base more easily at times, as they usually win if they just have more attacking soldiers than what there are defenders in a base, and the player usually isn't a defending element helping out his AI companions. But, that wouldn't help much you Lusketrollet with your ever-lasting problem about getting attack party up quickly enough, as the big random attacks wouldn't happen that often anyway.

Author:  saladofstones [ Sat May 26, 2012 9:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: AI needs to be more aggresive

My idea with the ai allys concept is that the AIs do this all on their own, people in general wanted more customization and I just brought up a good example of how you could have different ai commanders with their different strategies in order to make it a bit more interesting, since each ai 'commander' would do its own task.

Besides, I am a fan of letting the user have as many options as he can possibly want, so he could either have it be default, and completely random, or if he wants a more specific type of commanders to duke it out, he can have it that way.

but the ally mechanism is just how world in conflict works, the point being that you'd have differeant ai commanders who'd do different things with the units under their command, kind of like a chain of command business.

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