NPC AI a letdown?

Gargantou

Gargantou

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I just played several singleplayer games on various difficulties, I must say I'm tremendously dissappointed by the humans AI, it has been severely overhyped.. Honestly, they're WORSE than CS:S bots, here's why.

  • They only follow you around
  • They go nowhere on their own
  • They can't use grenades or molotovs
  • They don't stop or such, they follow you around, ALWAYS.
  • Read the previous statements.

Anyone else had the same experience?
 
They never were to close for me. Always at the right distance. About the grenades. Dunno. I mean i dont think ill want to play alone once the games servers are up.
 
I noticed the AI doesn't type words like "Hey n00b!" or "g4y" and they don't spam really crappy music of the mic. They also don't team kill.

So I am quite disappointed the AI is obviously not up to par with actual human behavoir.
 
for me this is a multiplayer game only, and i don't really care about single player AI. the AI always been shit since HL2:E1 with valve games.
 
Gorgon said:
for me this is a multiplayer game only, and i don't really care about single player AI. the AI always been shit since HL2:E1 with valve games.
Click to expand...
Well, if you haven't followed the game, Gearbox has hyped their AI saying that you can get the same experience in SP as in MP, with AI friends that can do everything humans can, obviously that ain't true seeing as NPCs cant run off on their own to pull switches etc, and they can't use nades or molotovs.

I just didn't expect this kind of behaviour from Gearbox..
 
First of all dude, the game isnt made by Gearbox.

Also they have built up very little hype for the Player Bots themselves, we have known for a while that they would be adequate for filling slots, but beyond that nothing much was said. The game was built from the core as a multiplayer cooperative game, personaly I havnt had a problem with them, they dont get stuck anywhere, and they heal and revive pretty well.
 
Considering this is survival co-op and sticking together is key, I thought it was rather appropriate that the bots stay close to you. And since it's single player mode, I don't think leaving the big decisions up to the player (like pulling the oh god zombies switch) is a terrible let down. If they were hyped as being human-like bots, then sure, but I don't remember that being the case.
 
I just played it through with 3 AI alongside me. I do agree with some comments, they make no tracks to progress themselves, and just stand around in herds. They also never use pipebombs or molotovs which confuses me.

Apart from that, they are very good at instilling the team ethic. They healed me twice, and saved me from a hunter. Naturally I had to help them when smokers crept up on us.

They're by no means spectacular or anything special, but they do the job for that game mode. Most kids out there wanting a quick local game will find it more than satisfactory.

The humans vs AI online mode is a different universe, it changes the complete feel to the game knowing the other people are real. I think that's a big part of the experience lost with the AI team mates, and adds to their inferiority.
 
I think the AI really shines when there is one or two of them. It becomes apparent that the AI are AI when you are the only human, but just as a fourth character, it's great.
 
But no sensible person can deny that it's a pretty big flaw that the AI can't use grenades nor molotovs, even Counter Strike Source bots have enough skill to use grenades.
 
I'm sure the bots will be able to use grenades and Molotovs in the near future.

The game isn't even officially out yet.

Besides, we all know that Valve's level of post-release support is second to none.
 
Well considering you are doing it alone, why would you want them to take off without you?

I think they should make suggestions like "Let's go this way!" or something, but ultimately, it's singleplayer and you are in control and they should always follow you. How pissed would everyone be getting if the bots went off by themselves and you got left behind (or rather.... Left4Dead).

I'm sure Valve is listening to all of the feedback though and will be making tweaks in the coming months.
 
Iced_Eagle said:
Well considering you are doing it alone, why would you want them to take off without you?

I think they should make suggestions like "Let's go this way!" or something, but ultimately, it's singleplayer and you are in control and they should always follow you. How pissed would everyone be getting if the bots went off by themselves and you got left behind (or rather.... Left4Dead).

I'm sure Valve is listening to all of the feedback though and will be making tweaks in the coming months.
Click to expand...
I just don't see why they couldn't make it so the ingame command of "You take the lead" made an AI take lead and you could follow it, like in CSS.
 
I notice the Survivor AI can stray a few metres away from you, for example in the subway when the platforms are seperated by the destroyed train in the centre. Bill followed me and Zoey and Francis walked up the other staircase.

Its pretty good AI though. Give them some credit.
 
I think the AI does its job pretty well. Like Nicky I have seen them spread out when a horde of zombies appeared. Also they are pretty good team players.

People would still moan if they went off and did their own thing; especially since going off by yourself usually means you're gonna die.
 
I have to say though, the boss infected AI is pretty damn good. They do a good job of really screwing you up sometimes - I have to say I'm looking forward to getting to play as them!
 
Mark my words :

Bots are entirely capable of completing maps on their own.

They were deliberately set to follow a player to not ruin the singleplayer experience.

Look around for the proper console commands if you really want to.

Goddamn I hate valve bashers.
 
Why would you want to play a Co-op game with bots anyway? Where is the fun in that?
 
Singleplayer value.

And bots are sometimes smarter and more polite than some people.
 
Psht. Louis rescued me. I give the AI in Left 4 Dead a hearty slap on the back for being such great teammates!

Thank you, Louis. I am eternally grateful for you opening my door.
 
Personally, I like it that they follow me instead of running ahead into their doom.

especially true in a partially full game
 
Only thing I noticed when playing with the bots was that they didn't get stuck, not even once :O

That's huge for me :d
 
I think the bots are great, sure they aren't going to be as good/fun as human players but they are good enough that when someone leaves the team doesn't go to shit.

For the 3-bot single player (also noticeable in 2-bot multiplayer) even though they are very capable of pushing forward themselves (play as infected and see how well they can do) of course they are going to let the only human player(s) on the team dictate the action.

As for the grenades, I'm thinking since both of them have large gameplay consequences (larger than CSS) Valve felt that placing them outside player control would be detrimental to the game.
 
Yea, but this isn't the only game this has happened to. It's with alot of games. I think they developers and company should just spend even more time with games like these, on the Single-Player mode. To surprise us, it'd be a way better single-player mode game if so.
 
Moods said:
I think they developers and company should just spend even more time with games like these, on the Single-Player mode. To surprise us, it'd be a way better single-player mode game if so.
Click to expand...
That's kinda the thing though, from day one the game was designed to be a multiplayer game. The only reason singleplayer is there is because the bots are good enough for it to work.
 
Operational said:
That's kinda the thing though, from day one the game was designed to be a multiplayer game. The only reason singleplayer is there is because the bots are good enough for it to work.
Click to expand...
Yea, it's like that with quite a few games. Of course, Left 4 Dead was made for online/multi-player play. Which is the great thing, I just think they could have waited and made the Single-Player better. Although, I still like the Online-play way more.
 
I hope they implement the L4D stuff into Gmod 10, I'd enjoy dicking around with a lot of it.
 
Wait, one of your arguments is that they don't go off on their own?

Isn't that stupid to do PERIOD?
 
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