My suggestion has two parts.

1: How about adding a "cowardliness" or rather "self-preservation" slider when starting a new game? It would allow the player to lengthen the time that AIs wait before running out into the open after being shot at. Not only would it make the game more appealing to those that prefer slower-paced shooters, it would also make suppression a thing, all without compromising the original game. This brings me to the next part of my suggestion.

2: Suppression time multipliers for certain weapons (i.e. sniper rifles and machine guns). By suppression time, I mean the time the enemy AI waits behind cover before resuming what they were doing earlier. The machine guns would probably not need such a large multiplier because of the sheer amount of bullets they can spray. The sniper rifle, however, would require a huge one because of its sluggishness and deadliness. Because it is a multiplier and not a fixed addition, it would scale like the cowardliness slider. That is to say, at a high cowardliness setting, it will pin the enemy in cover for a longer time, as opposed to marginally longer than an AK47.

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[0.90] Running with Bolters v5



[0.92] Worldwar v2

The AI needs to be tweaked about certain things, that's for sure. I wouldn't necessarily go as far as making the delay time for running out into the open (or pretty much any other really specific factor) a player-selectable parameter, much rather I'd make the AI behave seemingly aware of the situation more than now, much like the direction of the second part of your suggestion is taking.

I personally have no issues about making the AI appear smarter on the expense of losing some of its dumbness that some may even find fun to play against. I can never make the AI clever enough so that it wouldn't still appear pretty dumb to a human who can watch the events from an unfair top-down perspective And, for talking about dumb things to shoot at, there's the zombie mode that will definitely become a reality in the future.

Also, one day I might expose all the AI parameters just for the fun of it, but that'll be a modder thing really to play around with that rather than every other player trying to find a set of values that produce something interesting.

I agree the AI seems to run into danger sometimes and having them wait longer before being idiots doesn't seem right. Also do the AI not use the top down perspective and they actually have some limited LOS?

There are always time when fighting dumb AI is fun but if that's not going to be controlled in settings I'd always make the AI as smart as I could.

Hi Regret, and welcome to RWR
Yes, the AI doesn't have the LoS (which is even less at night) we human have and neither the top-down perspective. And you can be glad they don't, else we would die all the time, and that would kill the fun and be very frustrating.
That's what makes the game so fun when playing in multiplayer against some other guys, you have to take into consideration that those aren't AI players

PS: your desura rating is pretty harsh considering that this game is still beta, and for a beta product it is very mature imo but ofc you are free to give the rating you want I am pretty confident that you will change your mind once you'll feel a bit more familiar with the game and play some multiplayer matches