|
| T O P I C | |
|
The Unbearable Lightness of Dying. A Lot.
May 28th 2002, 10:45 CEST by Bailey Here's the matters which raise umbrage with me surrounding SoF2. I'll number them real easy-like so you guys can tick off the reasons I'm a jaded fuck in an organized, numerical fashion rather than the usual projectile vomitus about my hating all life, creation, and substance on the planet. 1) In the Columbian levels, the enemy shows a particular proclivity for being able to peg you in the head from 200 yards while you're crawling through waist-high shrubbery on your belly. You, on the other hand, need some magic pixies circling the head of your enemies while sprinkling glowing fairy dust to find a Columbian standing five feet away. Note that the Columbian is also waving a red flag. 2) Enemies which spawn in areas you've already been just to punish you for exploring. You know the drill. You clear an area, you check all the doors, nooks, crannies, then open the vault to get some weapons before heading to the next area, and turn around to find the Wu-Tang Clan and their respective firepower aimed at that particularly embarrassing mole on your left testicle that looks like J. Edgar Hoover in a string bikini. 3) The impressive ability that everyone in the world has (except for you) to strafe back and forth wildly while shooting their desired target in the face, repeatedly. Over and over. At 30kmph. With blindfolds on. From 100 yards off. With a micro-uzi. 4) Stealth missions. The grand joke being the "stealth" part lasts, on average, 15-45 seconds into the mission, which quickly devolves into a running firefight with 60 or so guys. 5) Privacy curtains, a wonderful invention of the early medical system, are thin, pliable, and easily shot through. That's great. The problem is that terrorists have apparently been blessed by the aformentioned sparkle pixies, because they can see you through said solid, opaque, indestructible curtains. You, adversely, cannot see them. Or destroy them. Or bypass them. The quickload key defaults to F8, in case you're wondering. You'll be needing that. 6) The random map generator. Never has something been so over-hyped since Daikatana, New Coke, or the cure for cancer. And it was barely hyped, but even being included in the game is a grotesque error. Simple example: In tonight's game, the defenders spawned 50 feet from the offence. After a quick laugh over the poor design, the map was re-seeded, which left the defenders locked in a valley to the SE, while the offence had an easy, care-free jog to the briefcase. Oh yes. Loving the RMG. Did I also mention every single RMG level is a vast, empty area dotted with tree houses and roman columns? Sniper paradise, you say? No thanks, I'm full. 7) All the levels being designed for an average team population of five. So in case you ever planned on that cozy little LAN party with you and your three friends, prepare for a rocking good time of running around looking for someone, anyone, to shoot. 8) The marines, who while supposedly on my side, shot me in the head if I ran away from them, or when they casuallywandered in front of my steadily-firing gun. They also had the charming tendency to tell me to go into a house and clear it out on my own. Woe be unto me should I open the front door to find a rebel behind it, as the marines would open fire into my spine in an attempt to take out said rebel. The real charmer was the marine who threw a grenade in after me as I scrambled for cover. Thank you, Raven AI team! Share your opinions, experiences, fanboi spewings, etc. |
| C O M M E N T S |
|
Home »
Topic: The Unbearable Lightness of Dying. A Lot.
|«« - Previous Page - Next Page - »»| |
|
I don't intend on playing the SP of SOF2. I was thinking about writing a review of it, but have changed my mind. Same with Q3. Never did the SP, only MP. WTF? CYA, BRB, BYOB. DOOMED! - Videogames Turn Deadly.
|
|
That's what I was saying. The AI in MGS2 is very simple and is really just a couple of tests. Is the player inside the cone of sight of the entity ? If yes, can the entity see him (ie, is the player in a dark corner or under a box/shelving unit) ? If yes, go to alert mode - is the player still visible ? If yes, then shoot him, otherwise begin searching. There's no real AI, because everything is scripted. The tests are fairly sophisticated (the sentries will notice things like blood trails etc.) and the scripts are very lifelike, but they're still just scripts and the AI isn't adaptive in the way that the AI in Quake 3 should be. No matter how many times you alert the AI and then hide in a locker in MGS2, for example, the sentries will never ever conduct a systematic search of every single locker. I've played games of Quake 3 where the bots have broken off attacks on each other and concentrated on killing me when I've been sniping with the Rail Gun; in team games where I've repeatedly killed bot members of my own team, they've retaliated and killed me a few times. Jafd! Warren! Stop bickering or I'll be forced to change your opinions manually!
|
|
a game that had really fun ai was the marines in halflife |
|
#28 by Nova Z I know it, you know it. Now how do we get people in key positions to realize it? Fun AI is much much easier to create then you might think. It's just that they don't bother to put the extra time in. It's not a difficult thing to do just a timeconsuming one. And time is usually in short supply. That's why I'm hoping DNF will have some suprises regarding AI. "I've got a spoiler for you. YOU WILL DIE ALONE!" - Triumph
|
|
I'd like to see a game where the enemies screwed up in a comical fashion once in a while. Mis-throws a grenade, and is scripted to say "Oh shit" when it bounces back at thier feet. Or runs away (or charges in), but trips and drops thier weapon. Or, once in a moon, thier rifle jammed and they muttered a curse and came at you using it like a club instead. Or, maybe after 75 percent of them in an area died, some random percentage said "Screw this, I'm out of here." Or something. Maybe you couldn't see a group of them when heading into an area you needed to go, but if you stopped and listened, you could hear "Go on, get him." "Um, no. You go first." "No, you." "Look, we can take him if we all go together." And then they charge. Or you ran across an enemy, in some off the beaten path area, clearly just finishing up peeing (and consequently without thier weapon). Etc. Stuff like that, scattered around, could be lively and funny. |
|
all ai is just a series of scripts even human ai. cause, effect, result, learning. you know that if you throw that brick in your hand what the outcome will be. Not necessarily because youve thrown a brick, but because you have thrown something and you know how heavy a brick is and you know what heavy objects can do to other objects. You have the ability to recognise and adapt existing `scripts` you have in your head. modern ai, just knows that throwing the grenade will blow something up, but not picking up that fire extinguisher and lobbing at the player would hurt them also. Why ? because that eventuality or possibility hasnt been programmed into it. `Smart` appearing ai just have more decision trees and possibilities and their emplacements compliment those scripts, eg the marines in HL are quite simple but their deployment in tight areas with multiple lines of fire makes them effective. Put the same marine ai into say facing worlds from UT and they`ll appear quite stupid and fall off the edge a lot. Now if the ai could learn and was capable of free form association (semi impossible without eating all your cpu time) so that it could learn tricks from you and utilise them to a greater or lesser degree. Well thats a kind of holy grail for ai. the problem then would be beating that ai, you`d always have to get better, faster, smarter, more accurate, and well, shit, newbies dont wanna face off on the digital equivalent of Thresh & Kornelias mutant offspring, so you have to make it behave at their level. How to make it dumber? limit its decision paths? slow down its ability to make decisions, give it blind spots, reaction time issues, handicaps with various weapons. Figure in weightings to its behaviours, it can learn to be more camp prone, or to snipe, or to charge in guns blazing. Hell for all B&W`s problems it did have a decent `learning` system for your pet, it did retain and it did associate actions and movements, translate that to an FPS game and you may be on to something.. All of which is cpu and memory overhead, which translates to `less on screen but smarter`, like the move from Doom to Half Life, the change from simple `if see enemy, go attack` to `if see enemy, check range, if long select grenade, if close select voice{play squadmovein}`. Take that complexity factor up by 5x (maybe) for the q3 dm bot ai, the next gen bots.. *sigh* I want opponents with discernable foibles and behaviours, I want a bot that can be suckered with lateral thinking, I want a bot that can be ambushed from the shadows, I want a bot that screws up and unloads a grenade into the wall when I duck past it. I want the bot that doesnt make me think its a bot Ds Never argue with an idiot, theyll drag you down onto their level, then beat you with experience.
|
|
I seem to recall scripted moment or two like that in Max Payne... it was amusing at the time, and hell, it made sense when dealing with the "one-man army" scenario. Say the phrase "marketable intellectual property" to find out how long it takes me to leave the room.
|
|
deadlock - No matter how many times you alert the AI and then hide in a locker in MGS2, for example, the sentries will never ever conduct a systematic search of every single locker. You didn't play enough then, because if they know you went in to a room with lockers, and they don't see you in the room, they WILL check the lockers. Bailey: Beep beep, motherfucker.
|
|
Darkseid, I remember reading an article on the sims' AI, and it said that they sort of inverted the AI problem. Instead of the AI actively looking for things to use, the things told the AI that they could be used. Subtle difference, but would cut down on a lot of the required calculations. Bailey: Beep beep, motherfucker.
|
|
now that would be an interesting way round things *mental image of running into a room in Max Payne and things like the Tv chirping "pick me up and bash his brains in, pick me uuuuuuuppppppp"* egads... Ds Never argue with an idiot, theyll drag you down onto their level, then beat you with experience.
|
|
Oh yeah MGS2 is really realistic.. I mean when people know there is an intruder they always stop looking after a certain amount of time and go back to what they were doing. What I'm trying to say is that MGS2 was a completely different type of AI system, it cannot be compared to SOF2 or other traditional FPS' because the rules are completely different. SOF2's AI was alright but it was abit unbalanced giving the enemies the upperhand. |
|
Interesting Hugin. I am going to go with that line. A fun AI scenario that would blow me away the first time I saw it, would be something like this: In the middle of a firefight, you run out of ammo. The enemy, realizing this, charges toward you to finish you off, but in the process, wipes out tripping on the body of a fellow dead combatant, falling flat on his face with a bit of a bounce, his fully loaded weapon slides across the floor right to your feet. Him, then comming to grips with what has just happened, responds in some appropriate manner. That would, like I said, just blow me away. And if the AI were to do it on purpose in response to the fact that I have run out of ammo,would be a much cooler way for a game to deal with ammo than inserting a hovering glow in the dark ammo box, or just happening to have an armory in nearly everybuiling, or storing bullets on the counter of bathrooms. The current ammo solutions for games are completely boring. |
|
Now if the ai could learn and was capable of free form association (semi impossible without eating all your cpu time) so that it could learn tricks from you and utilise them to a greater or lesser degree. Well thats a kind of holy grail for ai. That has been done before.. I'm not sure which game but the bots learn your moves and use them against you and the more you play the harder it is to win. |
|
Hugin, I think Halo has at least that grenade mis-throwing, and fleeing after most of your ai-buddies die next to you. Personally I think Halo has the best AI i've ever seen. |
|
ADoomedMarine - Oh yeah MGS2 is really realistic.. I mean when people know there is an intruder they always stop looking after a certain amount of time and go back to what they were doing. I never said it was realistic. I said it's fun. How much fun would the game be if the enemy found you every time? Might as well just end the mission the instnat you are discovered... Them giving up after a bit is a tradeoff for being fun. Fuck realism. Fuck it up its stupid ass. Realism is not a substitute for good gameplay. Never has been, never will be. Bailey: Beep beep, motherfucker.
|
|
Thing is in MGS2 if you pissed off the enemy enough in one area, they will look in every nook and cranny. Someone gave me my copy of SoF2, and from what it sounds like I wont bother play SP at all. I dont mind stealth missions, but the consequences for failing the mission is very annoying. Just ending the level/death is just lazy game design. There should be some penalty to the player like making them play through an extra level to find out where the commander went if you failed to follow some trooper to his secret location. I am not sure if Deus Ex had that or in some form. From my experiences with MP in SoF2, a good majority of the maps suck. The Shop was their best level, some of the other maps are good for CTF but horrible for INF. The Hong Kong map is absolutely the worst piece of shit I have ever seen. Its very possible for the offense to get to the case before the defending team even shows up. I am amazed though that it feels more like a team game then DM first objectives second like in CS. As for the RMG, I am a sniper, and I love them like a motherfucker. It was awesome sitting in a night jungle mission in brush watching people run by and sniping them. I dont use goggles, and enjoyed sniping the guys who used them with their bright ass green eyes and "humming" sounds. Some of the RMGs do spawn the objective too close to the enemy area, that does suck but at least Raven tried something new. The fog on every level does suck, I feel like im playing Tribes 2. Thank god someone else is experiencing the same problem of hitting enemies near object, I thought there was going crazy trying to hit hiding enemies. The only real annoying thing in MP is when the q3 engine shows an enemy name if your crosshair sorta floats over them. Sorta hard to hide when people can do this to you from accross the map when you snipe at them, then they know your location. |
|
#41 The enemy in MGS2 were invading a base, and had an objective. I don't think a commander would want his troops looking for someone when theirs work to be done in a limited time frame. I would only assume they would hunt down an intruder hiding in their own base. |
|
I never said it was realistic. I said it's fun. How much fun would the game be if the enemy found you every time? Might as well just end the mission the instnat you are discovered... Them giving up after a bit is a tradeoff for being fun. Fuck realism. Fuck it up its stupid ass. Realism is not a substitute for good gameplay. Never has been, never will be. Ahh sorry.. I understand now.. yeah MGS2 AI is fun and I agree with what you say. Although you say "Realism is not a substitute for good gameplay" it sure looks like Game developers are heading that way. |
|
Good Single Player AI does NOT equal Great Realistic Human AI. If I want to fight other people, I'll join a multplayer game. If I want to play bots, I'll play bots. In a SP game, I want to be the "one man army" who can snipe from a bazillion yards away, who can blast a bazillion enemies whilst strafing with a shotgun. I want the enemy AI to appear clever, but not be great shots and uber smart. I don't want them to circle strafe me, in other words. It should look like they're "roleplaying" what an actual firefight would be like (using cover, working in groups, retreating, etc...) instead of being a kick ass bot for me to fight against, with unrealistic circle strafing and weapons switching and jump jump jump. Blah. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
|
|
#47 In one of the cutscenes (well voice-overs) during the start it says to find that intruder.. yet they do what they do normally, just walk around. |
|
mixuk - I think Halo has at least that grenade mis-throwing, and fleeing after most of your ai-buddies die next to you. Personally I think Halo has the best AI i've ever seen. Yeah, most of the reason why I enjoyed Halo so much was the damn fun AI. It was just fun to kill things, and chase them around, and see them run, and scream, and make funny sounding comments. It was fun to be chased by them, it was fun to kill them. Was fun to sneak up on them, or have them sneak up on you. And like I said... chasing an alien around a tree... that was just the best time I've ever had with AI in a game. They never felt 'stupid'. Except for when it was intentional (like the little guys running around screaming and waving their arms). I'd pick Halo as the best AI I've seen in a game. Which reminds me... A friend and I, when working on MDK2, made the interesting observation that the true pinnacle is not Artificial Intelligence... but Artificial Stupidity. That is the true holy grail of game 'AI'. Bailey: Beep beep, motherfucker.
|
|
Darkseid - You have a very computer-oriented sense of looking at human thought. Which is more or less correct, really....but what makes the human brain smart is the ability to think abstractly. To take totally unrelated causes and effects and combine them to produce entirely new effects that have no yet been imagined. That being said, though, we cannot imagine what we have not, in some way, perceived. So yeah, it's all action/reaction type shit, but the ability to think in unrelated abstracts is something that will always be a trick for AI to try and achieve. I'm fighting terrorism by playing violent video games!
|
|
Which reminds me... A friend and I, when working on MDK2, made the interesting observation that the true pinnacle is not Artificial Intelligence... but Artificial Stupidity. That is the true holy grail of game 'AI'. The term I use is Artificial Idiots. |
|
from post 0: "Colombia". good read, though. Nova Z: I don't care what anyone says... good AI, in the form of fun AI, is completely attainable. Any game that has obviously stupid and un-fun AI is just another game where the developer didn't think that AI was a priority. AI can't be shown in screenshots. thus, it'll always take a backseat to graphics. ideal situation? no. nevertheless. Jeet: I want the enemy AI to appear clever, but not be great shots and uber smart. what Jeet said. when i play SP, i want to be a god. i want a mid-80s Schwarzenegger movie, with bad guys being just smart enough to pop up and get gunned down, while hitting me enough to make it interesting. if i want a challenge, i'll play MP. haven't played SoF2. have no desire to. "realistic" games bore me to tears. Whoops, sorry, was my common sense showing again? -HoseWater
|
|
Nova-Z: You didn't play enough then, because if they know you went in to a room with lockers, and they don't see you in the room, they WILL check the lockers. Well, to be honest, I only finished it last night, only played the Plant chapter so far and have only played it on Normal. I'd imagine that the enemy behaviours are more sophisticated at tougher levels, so perhaps sentries do display behaviour that I haven't given them creit for. But again, it's just scripting and my point still stands. Note that I'm not knocking MGS2, I loved it - I'm just making the point that game AI - even Half Life's much-lauded marine AI - is just smoke and mirrors. Darkseid: There are many examples of AI being dumbed down for games. The original AI that David Braben created for Frontier was so good that he had to remove it altogether and just add random behaviours. The original AI in GTA3 was, likewise, too good, and had to be dumbed down (police cars ramming you is actually a bug, believe it or not). Nova-Z: I remember reading an article on the sims' AI, and it said that they sort of inverted the AI problem. Instead of the AI actively looking for things to use, the things told the AI that they could be used. Yep, it's an excellent system because it makes it possible to create an almost infinite number of new objects, since no changes need to be made to the original game. Every object contains instructions on what it's for, what effect it has on the various Sim attributes and can even contain instructions for how the Sims should be animated while using it. ADoomedMarine: Oh yeah MGS2 is really realistic.. I mean when people know there is an intruder they always stop looking after a certain amount of time and go back to what they were doing. Which is exactly the point. MGS2 would be almost impossible to defeat if the enemies persisted in looking for the player. As it is, the player gets a small sense of achievement because they managed to evade the sentries, which is what it's all about: you have to make the player think that he has achieved something by tricking him into believing that the AI is better than it is. Jafd! Warren! Stop bickering or I'll be forced to change your opinions manually!
|
|
I bought SOF2 and don't regret it at all... On the other hand, I've not once clicked the 'SOF2 Single Player' icon it installed on my desktop. SOF2 is a great team-based multiplayer game. Most fun I've had online since Quake2. The random map generator wasn't very hyped at all, as Baily even mentions...But I think its actually quite cool. Yes it will, from time to time, generate stupid maps, but usually the maps are quite nice and its a neat option for situations where you want to simulate an unknown situation.. A lot of the game comes down to how well people know each map, and this eliminates some of that. Yes, it needs major work, but here's hoping its even better in SOF3. Smashing!
|
|
I think some people confuse 'too good AI' with AI that actually isn't good enough. For example, if you have an enemy with perfect pathfinding who never misses a shot, that's not too-good-AI, its really no AI at all. In an action game, at least, AI is really the simulation of faults. Its easy to create a 'perfect' computer controlled action hero (well, ok, good pathfinding in a fully 3D level isn't easy, but its doable), its much harder to make them act human (or intelligent alien, or whatever). And lastly, yes its true that for almost every game except the obvious exceptions (Creatures, B&W to some degree, etc) is really just using state machine scripting for AI...None of them actually 'learn' anything during the running of games in the academic sense of the term 'AI'. Some just do a better job than others at simulating pseudo-realistic behavior. Smashing!
|
|
Nova Them giving up after a bit is a tradeoff for being fun. Fuck realism. Fuck it up its stupid ass. When realism gets its paycheck from CS and SoF2, it's gonna fly around the world beating the shit out of people who slander it online. Best recognize. crash from post 0: "Colombia". good read, though. Thanks. jafd mentioned that too, but I figured for such a prevalent typo, I can pass it off as the Canadian spelling. Flavor and flavour, you know? Don't repress my people! Say the phrase "marketable intellectual property" to find out how long it takes me to leave the room.
|
|
I think "Artificial Intelligence" is just another one of those terms in gaming like "gameplay" that doesn't really mean anything. Look at the arguments here. Everyone has a different meaning for what the word means to gaming. Some people want the game to be more realistic. Some people want it to be more fun. Some people want the game to be easier. Some want it to be harder. No one really agrees what what good AI is, so everyone ends up arguing about different things. |
|
Read my posts! It's Artificial Stupidity!. Bailey: Beep beep, motherfucker.
|
|
Nova demands recognition! And attention! And love! Say the phrase "marketable intellectual property" to find out how long it takes me to leave the room.
|
|
#52, UncleJeet Humans are biological computers, the soul is the operating system, the brain the cpu, the memory functions both ram and hard disk, the senses I/O. humans adapt, they freeform think and associate, when an AI can do that on its own reliably, then you have something special the bots in recent games have yet to impress me with their abilities to adapt and counter what Im doing, all they ever seem to do is suddenly get more accurate. Ds Never argue with an idiot, theyll drag you down onto their level, then beat you with experience.
|
|
I want real AI in one character in the game: the final boss character. Then he uses his real AI to send his stupid drones to attack me. Okay, I want real AI in everyone. So there. |
|
Interesting reads, very. I'm personally in the camp with those talking about MGS2, actually. Guys having very specific rules makes a game seem... fair. And that's a really big deal in a game. Here is the problem I ran into when making SoF1 (and a major part of why I wasn't around for the sequel): making a game when all of your enemies have to be bullet based fucking sucks. I can't stand it. When you have to constrain yourself largely to instant-hit, completely undodgeable weapons, you're basically giving up vast chunks of potential gameplay and variety. In SoF1, I basically had a window of time from when an enemy first spotted you where their accuracy was essentially 0 that would ramp up to some percentage based on the difficulty level over an amount of time based on the difficulty level. So, it might take 5 seconds on easy for them to get up to 30% accuracy, whereas on ultrahard it might be 1 second to hit 70%. I did this a long time ago, so I don't recall entirely. I would modify those numbers if you were strafing perpendicular to the attacker or jumping or ducking, and I would purposely make them miss you accordingly (if you ducked, I would make them shoot over your head, if you were strafing left, they would shoot too far right). My working theory was that it was very exciting to get shot at, but not very exciting to get shot - and we had enough smokes and whizzes and debris to encourage that. That was the best I could come up with (and, when you get down to it, it's very similar to something like Time Crisis - the entire gameplay is killing a guy before a certain amount of time has elapsed)... grr. Instant-hit weapons just aren't interesting. And not only that, in a game revolving around combat, they get quite tedious as well. There's only so much you can do with a number of guys with instant hit weapons. If Half-Life had only had marines, and no headcrabs (leaping melee attack), sonic doggies (timid and area-of-effect attack), autoguns (instant hit but stationary, and fantastic enemies, IMO), alien guys (instant hit beam attack, but they charged up with a visual and audio clue, which is vastly different), green-glob spitting beasts (nice slow arced projectile), head suckers hanging from the ceiling (more of traps, really), giant sharks (fast moving melee), shambling scientists (wandering melee)... and, well, so on, it would have been a vastly more boring game. Games NEED variety, and when you're constrained to people as opponents, especially in real world settings, you're setting yourself up for an ugly task. Not impossible, of course, but you're just tossing out huge amounts of possibilities out of hand. I think the zombies in Quake 1 are actually an example of a pretty good enemies. Nothing great, but a nice diversion. They moved slowly, they moaned a lot, they threw a limited range arced projectile, and there was a certain trick to killing them. Their AI seemed appropriate to the game, so it didn't pull you out of the experience. Now if the game had only had another 20 or 30 similar enemy styles that were equally well-definited, it would have gone a long way in improving it. The bouncing blue blobs, on the other hand.... Grr. Anyway, just some thoughts. Oh, and it's fascinating reading about the random mission generator. Chia Chin Lee (who now works at Valve) and I came up with the concept for it, and then I did the proof of concept demonstration for it not too long after. I doubt it would have happened if I hadn't put together something to show for it on my own time... which is notably exactly how the train level got into SoF1. Sigh. My original random terrain generator made a makeshift city landscape with tall building all over the place. It's still an idea I'm fascinated by. Nathan |
|
Does this mean we can blame you for everything wrong with SoF2, or just for inspiring the whole random generator thingie? Say the phrase "marketable intellectual property" to find out how long it takes me to leave the room.
|
|
Personally, I Blame It On Bailey. It makes a better slogan then No Faith in Nathan. "God is dead." --Nietzsche, 1883
"Nietzsche is dead." --God, 1900 |
|
Nathan: My original random terrain generator made a makeshift city landscape with tall building all over the place. It's still an idea I'm fascinated by. So your intention for the RMG isn't exactly what was released with SoF2? Or did the expectations from people just not match what was delivered? Keep in mind that I mainly play Infiltration, so all my views are skewed to the RMG for that mode. I think the best RMG would take pieces from existing levels, and rearrange them to create new levels. Like legos. They would resemble the current maps, but be different enough that new strategies would be needed when playing them. Sure, there might be cases where these pieces dont always create accessable areas, but that also makes it interesting. Say the level is now only 3/4 the size that the typical level is. Closer firefights, more tension. The wide open levels aren't great for what makes Infiltration so fun. Snipers are only effective in some parts of the Infiltration levels, but in the RMG created levels, snipers tend to be king. Sneaking isn't as important, as you have to cover wider open stretches. I haven't tried a RMG level using the jungle template, but I've heard they are pretty good. Are they like the Colombia map? You should do, what should be done, by you.
-Ancient Japanese Proverb |
|
For me, the whole single player portion of the game is a write-off. Which is OK, I guess, since I bought it purely for the MP side of things. Still, it would have been nice to have a moderately entertaining game I could play alone. But from what I've experienced (up to the colombian river level), I'd rather play through HL, NOLF, EF, MoH, or JK2 again. Not that SoF2 SP is particularly bad. It's just that all of those games I mentioned -- and countless others I can't think of right now, I'm sure -- did the same damn thing, and they did it better than SoF2... With the exception of gore. I'll give them that. For what it's worth, though, I thought Hitman's dynamic skeletal animation stuff (or whatever you'd call it) did an infinitely better job when it came to visually registering hits, and looking badass. |
|
Nathan I'm personally in the camp with those talking about MGS2, actually. Guys having very specific rules makes a game seem... fair. And that's a really big deal in a game. This is the basis of ALL games, IMO. A set of rules that the player can operate within. The most fun games are the games that don't overcomplicate the rules. Fun AI works off the same principles ... the AI in Thief, just like MGS2, works off of very basic, set in stone, rules. These rules are never violated and the player can work with them and around them to defeat the enemies. This should be the goal. WoT?
|
|
Warren, #69: The problem, as I see it, with a lot of recent games, is that when you choose to have humans as your enemies, you suddenly encounter two competeing goals that can often contradict each other. Fun AI requires consistency, as you mentioned... but when your opponents are human, well, that's the interesting thing about humans in real-life. They've very inconsistent. And so, at least in some cases, it seems like "fun, balanced, and fair" suddenly has to compete with "suspension-of-disbelief"... And that sucks :( That's why I like things like the Half-Life autoguns, actually - they have extremely specific rules, and it feels right. If it's dumb and I win, I don't think "Gah, devs made that thing have bad AI." I think, "Ha! Those evil gov't bastards better invest in some new tech, 'cause I am way smarter than their autogun!" Well, something like that, anyway :) I would say its ALWAYS best to err on the side of gameplay, but then, I would also say it's always best to choose genres and settings that are the easiest to make compelling gameplay out of, too, and, well, I'm not so sold on the realistic shooter setting, to be honest. It doesn't help that the environments that are often the most visually interesting and arresting in a game are frequently the ones that it's hardest to make AI work in. Thief and MGS2, when you get right down to it, keep the actual playfields pretty simple (and 2d enough, in the case of MGS2). Greg, #67: "So your intention for the RMG isn't exactly what was released with SoF2? Or did the expectations from people just not match what was delivered? Keep in mind that I mainly play Infiltration, so all my views are skewed to the RMG for that mode. I think the best RMG would take pieces from existing levels, and rearrange them to create new levels. Like legos. They would resemble the current maps, but be different enough that new strategies would be needed when playing them. Sure, there might be cases where these pieces dont always create accessable areas, but that also makes it interesting. Say the level is now only 3/4 the size that the typical level is. Closer firefights, more tension." There are a huge number of techniques and approaches to making random stuff. The key is in shaping the randomness - it's the techniques you use to arrive at your ultimate data. Human perception is bothered by things that are utterly random and without structure as well as things that are too pristine and aligned. The trick is to create structures that result in a sort of ordered randomness... You idea is actually quite interesting (and one I've poked around at), but I think it would still give the sense that the world was mishmash... which isn't to say, by the way, that it wouldn't produce fun arenas to fight in. And, if you chose a different setting than the real-world, modern, etc genre, that mishmash quality might even been a cool stylistic choice. No, the ultimate result of the RMG isn't related to my original vision, and you know, that's okay. I was leaving Raven right when SoF2 was getting underway, so, you know, it's their thing now. My ideas for the thing (as my ideas tend to be) were and probably are _far_ too ambitious - I think Raven made what was right for how their company works, and that's fine. (He tells himself, over and over and over :) ). I have a LOT of ideas about constrained random content creation, probably too many. It's one of the many things I'm experimenting with right now. Nathan |
|
I found this post from Blues pretty interesting since it was from someone who knows what the fuck they are talking about rather than some 3rd rate gamer pissing and moaning because he can't pass a level. Bunch of pissy little girls. Truth is that the AI doesn't cheat by "seeing" you through walls. You're just too damn noisy and didn't learn how to read your PADD. "153. WTF! May 24, 09:50 anon@144.92 Did any of you guys bitching actually play the damned game? As was said these aren't the best levels by far and I've seen so many better in sof2. How about that one in the hotel with a bunch of prague guys running around planting ambushes. Dude this isn't scripted because I get my ass handed to me in the random levels too. They rip your heart out as if they are experienced human gamers. They talk to each other and signal and back up when needed it's cool. OK so they aren't perfect but give me a break if they were perfect we'd have androids running around right now and Arnold Schwarzenager would have to save our ass from the machines. AI is nowhere near the level you guys think it is if you're expecting that. This game blows the pants off the original and most anything out there so suck it up it's very near the best that can be done. What's with Mr. "I am cool because I post in red", all his "reports" are completely crap. I've seen guys actually throwing grenades so it's not some magical scripted nonsense. As for seeing you through walls thats bullshit whats actually happening is either they hear you being a loudass or they caught a glimpse of your sholder. Before you bitch about the second one, do you have any idea how hard it is to code up human sight. I took an AI course and also did q2 modding so know something about that. Your only option in the quake2 engine was to do a line test and I'm sure it's the same in quake3. All these pattern recognition things they are just starting to break ground on would bring the game down to one frame per minute. So if you only have a straight line of course it will connect from a tiny piece of your shoulder to them. This isn't the year 3010 buddy they make with what technology exists and if they can exactly mimic human life they aren't going to waste it on some game for you. This guy also claims they don't react when others are getting shot around them, bullocks! What game are you playing mate? Others are complaining they are too deadly in gunfights and I've seen it too so dude, whatever. All I can say is, post in yellow next time and maybe it will buy you some more jack off points. Seems people bitch about anything, bitch if it's too short, bitch if it's too hard or too long. " |
|
Hell I'm going to post again because saying the AI is scripted is crap. The AI performs just as good in the RMG clearly showing you that it isn't scripted. I hate so-called experts. |
|
So do I, so when your irrefutable evidence gets proven wrong somewhere down the line, don't complain when people laugh. May the end of the world be warm and smoldering.
At least for some of you. |
|
Guys who scream "NO, YOU'RE WRONG!!" clearly pwn the detractors. Say the phrase "marketable intellectual property" to find out how long it takes me to leave the room.
|
|
yet this: This isn't the year 3010 buddy they make with what technology exists and if they can exactly mimic human life they aren't going to waste it on some game for you. ...is clearly a leading candidate for "quote of the year". because it's so true. Whoops, sorry, was my common sense showing again? -HoseWater
|
|
So where exactly is the evidence that this guy knows what the fuck he is talking about, and is not a 3rd rate gamer pissing and moaning because he can't pass a level? Or do you just like his opinion because it closely matches your own? Just curious since it looks like a post by a run of the mill anon poster. |
|
Didn't you read, he took an AI course, so now he knows all! |
|
I, like, the, comma. |
|
Well, I mean, come on Hose, he's really sure of himself! Even if he admits he doesn't know facts or details, and probably has no experience in the field whatsoever... But he read that Gamespy article a couple weeks back, and he remembers most of it! So you best recognize. Say the phrase "marketable intellectual property" to find out how long it takes me to leave the room.
|
|
Bailey... you are so full of shit. I've encounted the AI blinding me with their smoke grenades, while guys kick over tables and hide behind them, shooting at me while their buddies run around trying to flank me. I've seen guys hide in cupboards making me believe the room is clear while lobbing a grenade my way, guys pick up grenades and throw them back at me, and run away when the going gets too tough. I don't know what bug you have up your ass, but you should just lighten up. Sounds like you're just pissed because you're "dying a lot." Play on God mode if you need to feed your ego. I guess you'll just go on believing your so-called AI expert that read an article once about how AI is all scripted. |
| C O M M E N T S |
|
Home »
Topic: The Unbearable Lightness of Dying. A Lot.
|«« - Previous Page - Next Page - »»| |
| P O S T A C O M M E N T |
|
|
| C R A P T A G S | ||||||||
|
|
| There are currently 0 people browsing this site. [Details] |
Powered by blah 0.9.1-dev •
PlanetCrap is © 1997-2035 Hendrik "Morn" Mans
|