Friendly and non-friendly AI in TW2

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Friendly and non-friendly AI in TW2

What did you guys think of AI in TW2?

My experience with it was okay, but I feel what many RPGs don't emphasize the I in their AI.

I would really appreciate a game where the enemy actively utilized group tactics or learned from player actions to overcome the antagonist (the player).

In part, my post is inspired by the wolf screenshot from TW3, and it would be amazing if those wolves are capable of group tactics in fighting the player.

What I mean by group tactics is this:
-if the player is attacking a member of a group, maybe another member should heal the wounded member, if possible (like in Div II).
-enemies should try to corner player, and make escaping harder.
-divert the player's attention, and attack from a vantage point.
-maybe enemies should have VATS-like system to attack player's sore points.
-enemies should be cognizant of their weak points and seek to protect them!

Also, wouldn't it make sense if the enemies learned from the player's attacks? I mean, why would the Kayran keep attacking with its tentacles when we kept cutting them off?

Or why wouldn't the various enemies dodge when they see a bomb or magic flames coming at them? Or how about you don't step into the flashy magic circle on the ground? Unless the player cast the magic trap without your knowledge, why are you stepping there!?

Also, it might be interesting if enemies at harder levels gain new attacks or abilities instead of becoming damage sponges.

The other part of AI is the conversation aspect, and I think TW2 handled this pretty well. What do you think?

I don't have much thoughts on friendly AI. Maybe they should just stay out of Geralt's way? If TW3 has companion aspects, there might be some cool things to do here, like group tactics or something.
 
I think the enemy AI in TW2 was above average atleast. They weren't the most intelligent but not downright retards either.

About monsters, it depends really. For example in TW2 Geralt mentioned something like Celano were the only monsters that displayed something like intelligence, I'm just using memory so maybe he meant only from flying monsters they were the intelligent beings or maybe from the Harpy family but I'm sure you get the point.
 
With enemies it was hit or miss, some monsters were painfully retarded. Especially with chasing you for only few meters. Friendly ai had problem with following Geralt. Over all it wasn't nothing really game-breaking but it could be improved.
 
If friendly AI includes those idiots dwarves in Hey, Work's on in the Mines! and Subterranean Life quests than I'm not happy with this. The only thing they did was got in your way
 
Agbeth said:
If friendly AI includes those idiots dwarves in Hey, Work's on in the Mines! and Subterranean Life quests than I'm not happy with this. The only thing they did was got in your way

Oh, god, those damn dwarves!! I wanted to slaughter them all after that horribly designed quest. I died so many times because of the way they fenced me in and got in the way. Just trying to do something simple like looting was nigh-impossible because of the way they crowded in around me and trapped me in corners. Talk about rage-induced keyboard smashing - and not even because of a hard boss, but because of supposed "allies."

I had a few other weird glitches with friendly AI:

One was with Iorveth at the beginning of Chapter III: after you go through the sewers with him and enter Loc Muinne, some gargoyles attack. After that fight, he stopped following, just stood still, and the quest marker stayed over his head, so you don't know where to go or what to do. Save and reload did the trick and he started moving again.

A similar thing happened with Roche at the end of Chapter II in the sequence where you both go through the canyons and find the secret mine entrance into Vergen. I saved during the trek, and after loading the game again, Roche just stopped following. He would magically pop up for cutscenes, but then he'd be gone again afterward. Once we got to Vergen he rejoined for good.

The third one is more about path-finding: at the climax of the Vergen siege (Iorveth's path) Geralt and Iorveth have to escort Zoltan to the gate so he can close it. Zoltan and Iorveth then ran smack into an elven archer and just jogged in place for five minutes trying to go through him. I assume it just would have gone on forever but luckily Geralt can push people around so eventually I just nudged them around the archer.

 
Game glitches and software bugs is not the same as bad AI. Also, I can tell you're labeling many things as AI, when they are probably scripts or something like that.

Dialogue wise, I didn't see any AI at all. All that scripted reactivity can be implemented with standard (not necessarily simple) programming methods. Most decision paths split in two or three at most and can be tracked traversing a graph.

Not everything we see onscreen pretending to be intelligent is AI. For practical purposes, for example, you can have natural language recognition based mainly on statistical analysis with high success rates. Artificial Intelligence refers to non deterministic methods to model certain phenomena and behavior attributed to intelligence, which usually results in computationally tractable solutions for complex problems (read NP complete).

Path finding, is a good example since it reduces to an optimization problem. Decision making and pattern recognition are also examples, but there's not much of it in TW2.

I would also love to have smarter enemies, and simulation of tactics and group dynamics.

I think a good way of adding really advanced AI to a computer game is designing a combat approach that resembles one or several games of logic with perfect information. But for this, we would need a turn based combat system. For real time combat I suppose some dynamic adaptation and quick generation of strategies would make things more believable. Outside of combat we could have vestiges of learning and reasoning to play games of bluff, coercion, deception and intimidation with the computer.
 
The real crime is that soldier and those fucking wraiths block your attacks at random. Enemies moves should be unpredictable not random there's a difference.

As for AI It'd be cool if enemy soldiers go into formation creating shield walls and whatever and you need to utilize you spells and bombs and you simply can't get by with swordplay alone.

I feel like the AI and Combat is limited by lack of real fucking hitboxes like in Dark Souls. Try visualizing the little circles from W1 on the enemies of W2. Maybe they already fixed it in W3 though.
 
I lways missed the feature just to gently or not so gently, depending on the situation, push the friendly ai out of my way.
 
depends on scale of the engagement. it would be stupid if a guy took a break and applied bandages on a laid guy while his friends are still battling the player 5 feet away
 

IsengrimR

Guest
Mataresa said:
I lways missed the feature just to gently or not so gently, depending on the situation, push the friendly ai out of my way.

Yeah, it mostly comes to the point of:
 
Groups of enemies shouldn’t attack you 1-on-1. This is so implausible that it hurts. Why would enemies who have the advantage of numbers not attack you all at once (or at least several at once) but instead politely and orderly attack you one after the other? This would obviously make fighting groups of enemies harder but with the addition of certain game mechanics this could be balanced (if necessary).
 
All I know is that I don't want a similar situation as in TW2 where all enemies charged at you willy-nilly, just trying to hit you; there's no fun in that, you just breeze through them like a mower on grass because they're not organized.

But if there was some mechanic where they tried to lure you into traps, or dynamically collaborated on beating you, that would be awesome. I also dislike that enemies don't have any dodge moves of their own.

Dialogue wise, I didn't see any AI at all. All that scripted reactivity can be implemented with standard (not necessarily simple) programming methods. Most decision paths split in two or three at most and can be tracked traversing a graph.

I know what you mean, but what more is possible? The best you can do is introduce subtext into the dialogue so the player has to sort out what was said. It wouldn't make sense to have people speak in explicit riddles.
 
Word. For instance, the latest Assassin’s Creed shows that it’s possible to have those features in combat (dodging/blocking enemies, groups ganging up on you etc.) and still be manageable.
 
Demut said:
Word. For instance, the latest Assassin’s Creed shows that it’s possible to have those features in combat (dodging/blocking enemies, groups ganging up on you etc.) and still be manageable.
0_o I hope that's sarcasm
 
Well, I’m not saying that its combat is something that CDPR should strive for as it’s too far on the easy side of difficulty in combat but as an example of dodging and blocking enemies done right and those that actually gang up on you instead of attacking you one by one, I think it’s valid.
 
Demut said:
Well, I’m not saying that its combat is something that CDPR should strive for as it’s too far on the easy side of difficulty in combat but as an example of dodging and blocking enemies and those that actually gang up on you instead of attacking you one by one done right, I think it’s valid.
Bad example really, one archetype(agiles) dodges at times but most the other enemies can block indefinitely you have to to solely rely on countering for them.

And they do attack you 1 by 1 most of the time, once in a blue moon they'll attack 2 at a time but then you can instantly kill them both by pressing a single button.
 
Well, feel free to give other examples, this is just the one that first came to mind :3

sidspyker said:
Bad example really, one archetype(agiles) dodges at times but most the other enemies can block indefinitely you have to to solely rely on countering for them.
Or attack them from behind. Or use ranged weapons. Or bombs. Or the environment. Or your allies :p

sidspyker said:
And they do attack you 1 by 1 most of the time, once in a blue moon they'll attack 2 at a time but then you can instantly kill them both by pressing a single button.
We’re still talking about AC3, right?
 
Demut said:
Or attack them from behind. Or use ranged weapons. Or bombs. Or the environment. Or your allies :pstyle="font-size: 9pt;">
They are nothing more than fancy animations to instant kills really :/

Demut said:
We’re still talking about AC3, right?
Yes. When was the last time multiple enemies attacked you together? Sometimes two attack but they can be killed by just pressing counter once.
 
Well, for one thing, from my experience this doesn’t happen sometimes but all the time (if there are enough enemies). In addition to that you have the other enemies firing at you at the same time if they have firearms.

sidspyker said:
They are nothing more than fancy animations to instant kills really :/
Nevertheless, they are alternatives to counter-kills :>
 
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