AI Video

At least I didn't see HL2 NPCs running in place against an invisible barrier like I did in Far Cry.

I think you people are expecting something from the AI far more incredible then is possible with today's technology.
 
Reaperman said:
seriosly, spawn a barney to fight a zombie, give him a SMG.... he will run up to the zombie point blank (as opposed to staying away) and spray, and die....
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That's because the A.I is integrated into the map. Surely you've seen overwatch soldiers flank and work together?
 
Far-Cry A.I was awesome, i went though it a couple of days ago (cheats) and saw a pack of guy so i shot rockets at em, they saw me then some of them blew up. while i was prod of my attack ( ^_^ < face) i waited a bit then walked and then they killed me. Turns out the made a ambush and there were 2 mrecs behind me and they joined forces :O i was fken shocked, other then that Far-Cry seems pretty even with hl2 from what ive played
 
The metrocops aren't as good as the soldiers; the cops stand in one spot while you shoot them, and it can make the AI seem bad. Notice, however, that this video doesn't have any soldiers in it.

To me it seems like the soldiers behave exactly like the grunts in HL1; if you are reloading or changing weapons then they charge out shooting, and one will fire while another tries to flank you.

But I agree with Logic-- the HL2 combine are usually dead before they have the chance to do anything terribly interesting.
 
Upping enemy hitpoints might give them a chance to put on a better show.
 
HL2 is good in spite of its flaws, even the hardcore fans admit it isnt flawless. Only hack reviewers say dumb shit like that to get attention.

This video is just another pissed off fan who got taken in by the hype and had over inflated expectations.
 
Fishlore said:
I thought that the AI was rather horrible in HL2. Unless you've never played FarCry I don't see how you could call HL2's AI better.
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If HL2 has bad AI then so does FarCry. Played both. FarCry is cheesy in that the guys see/hear miles away and are dead aim. In real life if you are sniping from the cover of a jungle they may hear you but they wont pin point you as fast as they do in FarCry. Is FarCry Hard? Yes. Is Farcry AI so Good that HL2 is bad in comparison? No.

People have to stop equating HARD Gamebalance with GOOD AI. HL2 could be a lot harder... just up the accuracy, damage, and health of the Combine, Zombies, Ant Lions, etc... but the health/damage a NPC can deliver does not say ANYTHING about their AI. In BF1942 if you play the bots you will find time to time a sniper who can clear the field or Anti-Armor who will nail you from miles away. Does that make it good AI? No, it has HORRIBLE AI!! HL2 AI is not perfect but if you watch others play and watch a NPC battle you will see they are not idiots, or "horrible" as claimed.

Here is some other comments on this issue covered in another thread.

I agree. Skill and play style make a big difference in how the AI reacts.

Two things to remember about HL2: (1) You are a super hero. The game constantly puts you against 5, 8, 10, or MORE enemies at a time. HL2 centers on beating the odds of a large group, not one-on-one duals. The AI is setup to be a challenge in a group, but not over powering. (2) Many of us play online frequently and are not just good, but very good. This means unless they give the enemies weapons as powerful and as accurate as us we are going to beat them every time.

Those are VERY important things to remember when judging how the HL2 AI was implimented.

I have seen 2 other people play other than myself. I played through on Normal with no problems. Fun, yes. Super challenging? Not most of the time. I thought the AI was excellent bar a few annoying things (not stupid, but annoying). Because I am a twitch player I often rushed-fired, found cover+reloaded, flanked, etc... I found that they would take up defensive positions. They did hide to reload, they did retreat when shot at while another would cover them. They did flank, etc... I thought the AI was very good. The problem was they were not STRONG enough to fend me off, so I was usually storming their position head shotting them left and right. But I play a lot of online games (mainly Desert Combat right now) and I do the same thing to humans, so it is not bad AI.

Now, my brother also played Normal and REALLY struggled. He is an ok online player (~ a 1:1 kill:death ratio). They constantly pinned him down and were swarming him with others giving cover. So if he engaded the guys coming in on him he would get shot by the guys giving cover. When they would flush him with grenades he was in a lot of trouble usually. He spent most of the game with less than 15% health and he died a bit. The AI really gave him a challenge, even though his guns were more powerful and more accurate.

My cousin played on Easy. He constantly said, "This is hard!" He is a 4:5 KDR online player. So he is not bad, but the average online player will kill him a little more often than he kills them (or, realistically, he is average, but really good players may own him). He played really defensive and the AI really gave him a hard time with pinning him down and moving in on him. I saw the combine flank him a lot and cover eachother while one would move in. If he shot at one guy he would get cover and another would cover and fire back. The Zombies were a BIG challenge for him.

We have to remember with the AI that it will never make EVERYONE happy. for the top 5-10% of players no AI, without having excellent AIM and getting one hit kill headshots, will ever be enough. For the other players the AI overwhelms them. There has to be compromises.

Overall I thought the AI was very good. The combine gunships seem to do very well, even use buildings for cover. The zombies are actually pretty smart and the poison and fast zombies have EXCELLENT AI. The Ant Lions were amazing to watch (they rush, but their path selection and taking high ground was very good). Ant Lions vs. Combine were also very fun to watch. The basic combine were ok. In groups they were organized, but not elite. Their bad aim and weak weapons really did them in. The snipers had pretty good aim and seemed to cover their areas very well. The turret guns worked very well. The advanced combine flanked a lot and covered their forces well and also knocked over the turrets. Striders were ok--yeah, they had big guns, but you could get under them. I guess it was a compromise because if they were quicker/more accurate with the big guns they would have been very very hard to beat. Man hacks seemed to find their way around well, and so did the flying cameras.

All in all I would say I was happy. They never seemed to run while getting hit. If they got shot they would return fire or seek IMMEDIATE cover. Path detection was GREAT. I did not see them getting caught on stuff at all. They seemed very organized and knew what to do most of the time.

I think better players could appreciate the AI more if they were more accurate and more powerful and if the game gave you more positions where you were stuck in the defensive without as much cover. The game always put them at risk or gave you good ways to sneak in. Even with the huge turrent buildings on the beach--plenty of rock formations for cover + the ant lions to draw fire. I would like to see an open area where you had 2 cars for cover and they have elevation and supperior cover. When the SDK comes out I will probably make a few small maps just to try this stuff out... see how good they really are!

Things I would like to see changed (either for a super hard mode or in general):

1.) The 'C' buttom working better. Yeah, they go, but then they will say a few moments later "Follow Freeman!" GRRR! I said stay put!!

2.) They can get in the way in buildings and doorways. Again, see 1.

3.) Make the enemies aim better (very easy to do, I am pretty sure the SDK will allow this to be scaled... note the snipers are accurate, so the other AI NPCs can also).

4.) Make the enemies weapons the same as Gordon's weapons in damage.

5.) Combine shoot more while on the run. Even if they are less accurate, allow them to spray and pray while moving, especially when their cover men are taken out.

6.) Maps designed to put Freeman in a weak strategical position against a better equiped enemy.
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i think that video is wrong, i have never encounted such a shite AI in HL2, all my AI are soo brainny and skill full, i think that game has been edited on the AI part to make them look stupid.
 
Mountain Man said:
Upping enemy hitpoints might give them a chance to put on a better show.
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In noticed on HLfallout.net that the Combine Guard has like 25HP, the middle class has 50, and the white guys have 75.

Add in the fact their guns are less effective, their aim is average at best, they are slow, and rarely have good cover--I would say they do ok. Again, the playstyle of HL2 is a HERO overcoming great odds. After playing with a lot of people online I can safely say most of you would not stand a chance if the AI was any better in regards to accuracy, speed, health, and gun power.

I am not sure how good everyone is in HL2DM or other shooters, but I can safely say the average player has a hard enough time with HL2 as is. I know my brother and cousin did. The fact I can get scores like 31-2, 47-5, 160-44, etc... online indicates that 90% of gamers are having a hard enough time. And to be honest, REAL PEOPLE do some pretty dumb stuff in games. :rolleyes:

And realistically I do not want a game to play like a glorified DM. I want the game to play out as if real life. I snipe a guard. His friend, who is his friend, should go check on him to see if he fell, passed out, or whatever... THEN start calling for help. If there is a code red going if this happens he should immediately signal for help. I think HL2 for the most part has these guys on stake outs to get you... anyhow, I do not want a group of Combine acting like real life online players, I want them to act how you would expect real people to. That is not easy, and games like FarCry and HL2 show there is a LOT of work to be done in this area. Hopefully with multicore CPUs and the new consoles having multiple CPUs we will begin seeing AI dedicated to one entire chip and maybe Physics to another.
 
The people who made this movie have to be really dumb. Wow just saw it and if they honistly think what they said.....5 year olds?
 
The metrocops aren't as good as the soldiers; the cops stand in one spot while you shoot them, and it can make the AI seem bad. Notice, however, that this video doesn't have any soldiers in it.
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Did you even watch it? There are only 2 or 3 metrocop clips, the rest are Overwatch.
If HL2 has bad AI then so does FarCry. Played both. FarCry is cheesy in that the guys see/hear miles away and are dead aim. In real life if you are sniping from the cover of a jungle they may hear you but they wont pin point you as fast as they do in FarCry. Is FarCry Hard? Yes. Is Farcry AI so Good that HL2 is bad in comparison? No.
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I did plenty of sneaking in Far Cry, and it worked.
The AI impressed me in that if I wasn't quiet with my kill, the a guy would come to investigate, while 2 or 3 others flanked me, a 4th guy called out for help.

Very good AI, to say the least.
Never saw anything like this in HL2.
 
Nobody picks on farcry AI. I can shoot a guy right next to someone "ARE YOU OKAY"- yeah buddy he's ok even though he got shot in the temple with a sniper rifle. Then they forget about it after 2 minutes.
or

I'm hiding in the bushes with armor and everything completely hidden and a merc comes across the forest and finds me.
 
The farther you get into the game, the better the AI becomes... All games start out easy and progressively get harder..

I never had a problem with HL2's AI.


If your looking for a problem, you will always find one.
 
What a waste of 4:50 seconds...

Well, whatever happend with them didnt happen with me, if I ran at someone with a stationary machinegun like that I get shreaded real quick, unless I carry a barrel with me, the thing with the prison guard soldier... wtf?? what kind of trash is that? it never happened to me, must be that you all have horrible computers or your copy is flawed, whatever you do, dont tell me how it really happened when I played, it's your flaws, not ours/mine.

The thing with the soldiers on the pier has happened a couple of times, nothing that is very constant, basicly the only problem, the thing with the metrocops never happened here, when they get shot they should they run away and hide most of the time.

The only real problem I have is there accuracy/damage and ranged-close combat, first: accuracy should be higher, and damage, and then there is ranged-close combat, at range, they should take 3 shot bursts, accurate and preserving, at close range, they should lob a grenade behind you to force you to run in at them, then they fire at full auto, just spray and spray, shoot as fast as they can, so either way your either going to die or get wounded running into the grenade or getting shot up, also it should be added that they can carry around barrels and move in 2-man squads, one soldier carrying and one firing, this should make it a tad harder, also add so they try to use halls with this to block you out.

Overall, this isnt happening to everyone, you all must have just had some real screw ups in-game to get these problems, mine runs well, that is to bad for all of you who are having problems.
 
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when i click video link
 
That video must be fake. I used a barrel on the machinegun guy, and he was shooting at it and killing me, that guy picks up some pickles and nobody see him. FAKE.

What a waste of time...
 
Question: Can you change the difficulty on the fly like he was doing? That is, he would have the game loaded, hit ESC, go to the options, select HARD, then hit resume. Does this actually change the difficulty setting in game?

I know people were looking for a console command a long while back to change difficulty and did not see a solution. Btw, in the video, on Coastline before the tower one of the MetroCops is strafing behind a vehicle and shooting through the window of the car. It seems a lot of the gripes this guy had were the hit boxes. That is a lot different than AI. It did seem the AI was not picking up on him in the duct work, but that could be intentional. i.e. Give the player credit for concealing their position out of site. It is much easier to make the AI see through walls and have dead eye aim than to make them act natural.
 
curious..he says something about the hitboxes sucking, when he uses the sniper rifle bow gun..but couldn't he have just made it bounce back and hit him? I never played half-life 2, but this seems illogical. and i heard you can do that type of thing :p
 
I happen to think the AI in hl2 was good, but easy. Someone here put it very well, that the AI is not meant to be run straight up to and shot in the face with the shotgun. This brings me to one minor criticism, If you took more damage, the AI would seem alot better, because the AI is meant to fight at long distances (Not very long ranges like in Farcry) not at point blank range, because no one in their right mind would run up to a marine armed with a MG...
The AI in farcry was not good...at all, it was impressive, but they would hear to well, and pin point you from a mile away then run behind building, and wait for you to go half way across the map to snipe them. The AI seemed good because they worked as a group, which is no big deal nowaways... And how come i could hide behine a tuft of grass two feet high and snipe one guy after the other. The AI in HL2 was seriously flawed, there is no doubt about that, but it was good noetheless..
 
The video was an excellent laugh. Recommended viewing for anyone who thinks HL2 is perfect. :p

The main fault with tha AI is it's purpose: the combine aren't expected to be a challenge - like HL's soldiers - they're cannon fodder, meant to die in posterous ways for the player's satisfaction.

It is evident in level design as well - the cops sliding down ropes right in front of your airboat or taking cover behind explosive barrels, soldiers charging into turrets, someone yelling "grenade!" 4 seconds after it landed at their feet (despite the bright red disco trail) or easy-to-notice snipers (remember the snipers in HL?).

Personally, I think Valve went over the top with things like these. I mean, one man standing up against an oppresive, all-powerful army is epic. A mute guy battling a bunch of retards in queer costumes is not.
 
nice one, ai, although it is pretty crappy is also pretty good compared to most other games around. im getting far cry tomorrow so i ahve yet to compare to that :S
 
Did you notice that combine soldiers try to punch you with a fist/weapon if you come to close? How cool is that? :)
 
MigaS_tX said:
That video must be fake. I used a barrel on the machinegun guy, and he was shooting at it and killing me, that guy picks up some pickles and nobody see him. FAKE.

What a waste of time...
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Not fake. I just tried it on "hard" and it works.

Keep the jar exactly where he is and he can't see you. Which is nuts, but there we go.

I got all the way up to him without getting shot. Then I bounced the jar off the guy's head and he just stood there looking at me!

It's just a funny little flaw in an otherwise very good game.
 
Zeus said:
Nobody picks on farcry AI. I can shoot a guy right next to someone "ARE YOU OKAY"- yeah buddy he's ok even though he got shot in the temple with a sniper rifle. Then they forget about it after 2 minutes.
or

I'm hiding in the bushes with armor and everything completely hidden and a merc comes across the forest and finds me.
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Yeah I used to think "How the hell can they see me from miles away". But don't forget you have those binoculars that "mark" the enemy...maybe they have them as well. As for "ARE YOU OK? - your head's just detached from your body"...roflmao!

My experience with HL2 AI was bloody good. All the enemy AI was fantastic. They took cover when necessary, worked as a team and generally did the right things. Last night I saw enemy soldiers retreat when I pulled out my RPG but when I switched to SMG or pistol or whatever they advanced. Also, if I shot an enemy soldier from concealment, they took off...they NEVER just stood there wondering.

On the other hand the friendly AI was infuriating. Most of the time I wanted to shoot my "friends" more than the enemy.
What's really weird is the vastly conflicting reports on how good/bad the AI is...now that's weird!
 
well....who the hell is going to be playing through a game and carry a jar of pickles in battle against a soldier at one of the machine gun things? wtf. it doesn't affect gameplay at all. I've played through the game on medium and hard, and never noticed any problems(and no, i wasn't LOOKING for ways to bring out problems(like charging into battle with pickle jar....play the game normally and it works fine)
 
I've been playing with the difficulty a bit since the SDK release. just improving the metrocops accuracy with the pistol makes Route Kanal a LOT harder, and the AI seems more impressive bacuse of that.

You can't blindly charge them when they can easily take you down, and they don't seem to charge me without covering fire, which is quite effective when they actually hit u with it.
 
The pickle jar is a bug. All games have bugs, like farcry (not trying to act like a fanboy but this is what everyone else is comparing hl2 to), like the mercs forgetting I killed one of their guys right next to them 2 minutes after I killed them.
 
buhahahaha that video is hiliarious, that pill bottle part is AWESOME
 
Thing is FarCry's AI was built for something completely different than most of HL2's Scenarios. So its an Apples and Oranges case.
 
That video is dead on. HL2 was a great game, one of the greatest, but that video makes things clear -- HL2 still has flaws.
 
As far as I'm concerned, things like the pill bottle thing are EXPLOITS. People who make use of them are ruining their own game experience. It takes some participation on the player's part to experience HL2 at it's best.
 
omlette said:
That video is dead on. HL2 was a great game, one of the greatest, but that video makes things clear -- HL2 still has flaws.
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I don't think anyone disputes that, but searching for the flaws, and positioning yourself specifically to expose them, and then claiming AI is bad is just silly.
 
Well it's a good example of the current state of AI in computer games in general. People wouldn't focus on the easily exploitable AI problems of Far Cry, Call of Duty, Doom 3, Painkiller. Why then is there a lot of focus on HAlf-Life 2's? Expectations based off the '03 E3 video? Were people expecting every single element of Half-Life 2 to be revolutionary? Probably....but when they saw that the AI was about the same standard as every other FPS game over the last few years it stands out.

Because of the low damage and accuracy of the enemies in half-life 2 it gives your mind more time to focus on the way they behave. In Far Cry you're too busy dodging machine fire from a merc 4 km away to notice that it's ridiculous that he can see you and shoot that accurately from that distance. As a consequence your mind tells you "phwaoor these guys are damn good, this AI is awesome!"

/runs off to far cry message board
"THIS AI IS AWESOME"

To me it seems as if AI development in games has plateaued. No-one is really challenging the current standard of AI in games. I thought Valve might have a stab at it, but Half-Life 2's development period (with source code thefts and court cases) was probably the worst in the history of computer games. They probably planned to have awesome AI but just had to drop the idea and go for the standard because the game went horribly over schedule.
 
There are 2 things that Crytek and Bungie did better then Valve when it comes to A.I

1. The enemies in Far Cry and Halo are alot more accurate then the Combine. And you also have less health.(Fixed through a simple script change..at least i'd imagine...IF I COULD FIND SKILL.CFG!!!!)

2. Better level design for the A.IThe levels in Far Cry were designed to help the A.I. out. Same with Halo 1/2. Think about it, the entire place is full of obstacles to hide behind. in Half-Life 2, there are few levels with that.

And with those two thigns said, Far Cry does have better A.I but not by much. I've seen the A.I in Far Cry do the exact same things in that video as well. Seriously though i just came back from playing the Pier level in Far Cry (on Challenging) and the A.I frequently run around in circles looking for me even though i was standing up in front of them shooting at them. Must've been looking for cover i guess, but still its pretty dumb. And being able to trick them with a rock is pretty funny at times too.

Anyway, good video, but some of the stuff that happens in it has never happened to me. But it does happen.

I started mucking around and spawning NPCs and shit, and the Combine is dumb compared to some of the things the friendly A.I does.

You know that level in Follow Freeman where you're chased by that strider in the tunnel? and there's dumpsters everywhere? I figured that would be the perfect place to test the A.I. So i spawned some Friendlies and some Combine. The friendlies used the dumpsters for cover. The Combine, however, ran all the way back to doorway from where you enter the tunnel.
 
Yah I've noticed while spawning combines, they don't work too well, like i never see them throw grenades when spawned, but i did notice that when you spawn fewer they seem to work better,

ill bet that if someone upped the dmg, accuracy and health of the enemies there would be fewer complaints, HL-2 imo, is the only game out of what has been mentioned that actually lets you test the AI to it's fullest, because you don'y die as fast as in those other games. the fact that hl2 AI works pretty well, imo, even tho you are super tough and they are weak, shows that the AI is actually pretty sophisticated.
 
the reason spawning enemies gives them crap ai is because the ai is designed around the levels, the maps include nodes which give the characters options, if you spawn characters where there wouldn't normally be any characters, then it is likely that there won't be any ai hints set up so they won't do certain things - for example if they were getting shot and there was cover next to them, if the cover didn't have an ai node attached to it, then the ai wouldn't recognise it as being cover.

The same will likely be true if you spawn loads more enemies in an an area than it was designed for- I imagine they start to run out of options as their actual ai tells them not to bunch up together too much....
 
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