I dont know what games are you playing.
I felt the AI is stupid sometimes in Deus EX HR on max dificulty.
The AI is definitely stupid and rudimentary in this game.
Really strange why people who are making all sorts of excuses for the shoddy state of this supposed AAA title and none of them see that CDPR said there would be advanced AI in a large, open-world city. If it couldn't be done, then they should not have hyped the game off the back of it. The AI in Bethesda's games is so much more advanced than what we have here, but as has been pointed out, Bethesda can use that approach due to low NPC counts in their worlds. The same approach would be impossible here, which is why comparisons have been made to a GTAV approach, which would have worked nicely. Instead, we get the bare bones needed to allow the game to be sold. It was a swizz.
I shoot a enemy npc from 15 m. i hide behind wall he stand there like stupid.
I shoot again he shoots. I hide. He just stands there.
He never comes for me no matter how many times i do this.
I've been comparing this as of late a little with GTA online, switching between the two bepending on my mood.
And then I noticed that CP77 enemies (particular gangs) are actually quite smart in how they take cover, run for cover in a way that looks like: "expose yourself as shortly as possible" also the way how they shoot in your general direction while fjlly covered (Although Nekomata has something to say then)
But overal. The enemy AI was quite decent.
I even had a good laugh with some Maelstrom who I picked a fight with. Used my sniper to blast the first guys head off. The others them scrambled for cover and tried to circle me. Got a second headshot at the one circling me. A third guy who was following the other one tripped over his dead mate, overshooting the safety of his cover. He stood up and he was even sort of panicking looked like. I missed that headshot tbh. But it was very cool to see that behavior. It really make that moment of skirmish come to life in a unique way.
Now that all compared to GTA were the most dangerous thing about the enemy is that they do stupid damage almost 2-shotting you. The enemies in GTA expose themselves in stupid ways and often just run somewhere willynilly with any idea of what to do. The only scary thing about them is that they carry something like military rifle or whatevs. They're lethal but stupid af
Look how stupid the AI looks:
The police its joke of another proportions. Goku would be jealous.
Maybe Goku teach them instant transmission.
Last edited:
I agree with you regarding the police.
But the fights I've had with predominantly Maelstrom were nothing like that. All I can say.
About the same amount you find active in CP at any given time for the combat encounters.
Does it all have to be done simultaneously? It's a question I don't know the answer to but will toss out anyway. To clarify, I'm picturing a scenario where you have 100 NPC's on screen. They all do the mindless, minimally intense zombie behavior. Until you are in position to interact with, say, 2 of them. Then the game somehow pulls a more complex set of, I don't know, routines out of it's ass for those 2 NPC's specifically.
I'd point to the fist fight behavior as a kind of streamed down example. It would appear the NPC's there have a predetermined set of behaviors. A handful of scripted action sequences. They aren't performing all of those at once. I assume this means each and every one of those behaviors is not being "processed" at any given time. They are triggered behaviors.
As another example, if I am driving around the walking pedestrians don't have anything to do with it. It's immaterial to them. That is, until I move my car near them. Now they can get run over. You'd expect them to respond to this possibility. They certainly appear to do this in the game. I wouldn't expect this response to be hindering performance, at least not as it would if it were constantly running, until that trigger happens.
The shortcoming of the CP "AI" is these responses are pretty lame. I pull my car near a NPC and they either act like they want to end it all and try to get run over, duck down like a moron with their hands up or run away 5 feet, turn around, run the other direction and get run over anyway. Once that happens you can bet NCPD is going to magically appear and save the population of NC from catastrophe. This is largely true for all cases where you, as the player, interact with those NPC's. Thus, people say the game has bad AI.
You can see the same thing in combat. It appears when you first enter combat the NPC's kind of sit there for a second or two and do nothing. They are slow to respond. This window of time is enough to blast, hack, lob a grenade at or otherwise destroy those NPC's. Other times they reach a spot at some point and just kind of stand there. All the while getting shot at because V has wall hax. Perhaps it's to make the game more accessible. I dunno.
I am not saying any of this is simple to design. It's probably very complicated. I don't get where the assumption any and all "AI" applied to NPC's must be processed all of the time comes from though. This strikes me as a wasteful approach. It'd make more sense to have a very basic set of behaviors and a series of conditional routines "called for" on top as the need arises. A set of templates, for a lack of a better word, with various values populated as necessary based on the context.
Of course, I am not a video game programmer. It's also possible I am talking completely out of my ass with all of the above. If I am, feel free to share.
Implementing decent AI post-launch is definitely possible. As bad as it is right now, it's still significantly better than TW Rome 2 AI at release day. I've never seen something broken as this, yet CA brought the AI to playable state after 6-12 months. It's going to take some time to fix it, but it's not unrealistic at all to hope to see improvements.
sure they can. But they won't most probably. Implementing good AI will take them at least half year. And that's alone is huge expense
I think it is possible and it will be done and honestly I don't even think it's all that difficult for them to do. It will be difficult to go into all details of how it could be done. But this is just some initial thoughts.
There is not going to be some extremely advanced lifecycle in CP for each NPC, if people expect that, I think they might be fooling themselves, and there are good reasons for that, it would require unnecessary processing power to keep track of all these, and it's not the purpose of the NPC, that you as a player is suppose to follow them around spying on them for hours.
NPCs would have to be split into categories, as some are more generic than others.
Groups of NPCs
1. Vendors/Workers
These are all the NPCs that somehow is connected to a shop, whether that is one you can trade with or not. We sort of expect that its the same vendor standing in a food store even though we can't buy from them at the moment.
Each of these would require special attention and need to keep track of 3 things "working hours", "home" and "workplace".
Working hours, simply tell at which point the NPC is suppose to be at their store, let's say 6.00 - 22.00.
Home tells us where they live and where they will start and end their day.
Workplace is just where they work.
So after assigning them a building to live in, which could be a house (A locked door) near where they work. All they really have to do with such NPC, is first to check if the player is near them and then the time of day. If the player is there and it's around 22 and you are not interacting with them they go home or if it's morning, you see them go out of their assigned home and go to work. And basically they just keep track of these and spawn them in depending on whether or not the player is in the area or not. So should be fairly simple as I see it.
2. Generic
These would work sort of the same way, we already know that NPCs are spawned in at random around the player and currently this is not handled very well, and in some cases they spawn right in front of your eyes etc.
Basically two things as I see it need to be done here. An area around the player that covers their field of view and maximum view distance and line of sight will be used to spawning/despawning NPCs.
So let's imagine that V is standing in the street, any area which have line of sight to V is a spawn free zone. So no NPCs will suddenly appear or disappear in these areas. A zone around V even if there is no line of sight will be spawn/despawn free as well. So you won't suddenly notice people spawning in side streets, simply because you didn't have line of sight there for a few seconds. However there will be plenty of areas (depending on the size) around V where NPCs can spawn. Also the locked doors could be used as spawning places as it would make sense that people come and leaves houses, even within the viewing range of V. And my guess is that CDPR will fix this, it shouldn't really be that difficult I think.
Next part is to keep track of them, which again doesn't seem that difficult. So much like with the vendors, each of the NPC in the area around V will need a home, Activity period and a goal for the day (depending on how advanced it should be, several goals or new goals could be assigned to them on the fly), which means that if the player decide to follow an NPC around. They will do random things as each of their goal are completed, and when the activity period is up, they will go to their randomly assigned home and simply walk through the locked door and despawn.
This shouldn't be too difficult to do, because there is rarely a lot of NPCs on the street at the same time. We are not talking 1000s of them and some of them will leave the area or the player will, in which case they will despawn. So CP only need to keep track of those NPC around V at any given point. The rest doesn't matter.
Dialogs
These should simply be reacting to stuff both V does, without being annoying or like everyone is keeping track of you. Like in Skyrim or Fallout where everyone have a comment to you when you run past them, that really annoying and immersion breaking.
I personally don't think it's very important for V to be able to speak to these NPC, unless a lot of effort is put into making them say somewhat interesting or relevant things, if they don't it's better for them not to. But NPCs could comment on the news, talking in phones etc as they already do. And if they could comment on that, if you ask them stuff, it could be cool, maybe share some info about some new shops, which would give V new locations etc. But for the most part they should probably just be generic backdrops.
So I think there will be a lot of improvements to the NPC system, simply because I don't see it as being all that difficult for them to improve this, while still keeping it extremely basic. And again, I don't think anyone expect extremely advanced NPC life cycles, it would simply not be worth it.
However all this requires that the NPC can actually navigate the world first, which they can't at the moment. So that would probably be the first step.
Last edited:
I keep on reading the argument that GTA ai is considered smart? In what possible way is that AI smart? The NPCs are stupid accurate and lethal with say assault rifles to the point where they can kill with absolute absurdity. But the NPCs other than that are not smart or tactical in any way.
If damage worked like it did in CP, GTA would be cakewalk.
If damage worked like it did in CP, GTA would be cakewalk.
They aren't smart. Most AI's aren't. With exception to certain things (cheating with aim bot, cop cars reading control input, animals can call cops). GTA is good at hiding it. If you can hide your shortcuts. It won't matter how its done. You can deal with full wanted star GTA events. It's not a complete ride off. We also have access to every vehicle type in GTA. CP doesn't give us that pleasure.
I haven't been following gaming media for years but I recall old article, two decades ago I think. Even then it wasn't a problem to create system than can win. Problem has been finding the middle ground. In every game "AI" is limited to enable player win and at the same time make player feel like they achieved something.
My guess is that surprises, like enemies working together, one providing covering fire and other throwing a grenade which wouldn't always happen and enemies using one of them as bait, things like that could contribute to positive experience.
Balancing is tricky.
My guess is that surprises, like enemies working together, one providing covering fire and other throwing a grenade which wouldn't always happen and enemies using one of them as bait, things like that could contribute to positive experience.
Balancing is tricky.
Totally agree. We must say clearly the reality of cyberpunk 2077 without deception. AI does not exist in Cyberpunk 2077. NPCs are generated directly behind your back, it disappears behind your back when you scare them which is ridiculous. There is no programmed life, everything is false, they serve only to fill space. Just like the police, gangs or cars. The work of this game was taken by the story and the design, nothing more, there was no time to do anything more complex. CDPR will have to create the complex AI of cyberpunk 2077 in its npcs, cars, gangs, police, public transport system (subway, taxi, etc) If not despite the immersive story and the beautiful scenery, there is nothing more, the game has a brilliant job in some things and mediocre due to lack of time in others.
Well, there is a police station right across the street from your megabuilding. Like many things in Night City, it is just something to behold and not something to interact with.
I have to wonder whether the AI is scaled to the performance of the system it is running on. I get NPCs that hide behind things, move from one cover location to another, and come up on me. The enemies will peek out from behind the cover so I can head shot them. I am not saying that they are particularly brilliant in their combat tactics, but they aren't just standing there, either.
Yes and no. It's not what you think of, they get dumber going from PS4 to PC. It's more of loading speed. When the PS4 takes forever to load the area. That means the AI takes forever to load. They do have to stay within the loading area. So they can't do massive flanks. Like climbing over walls from the outside.