97 replies to this topic

[Daggett]

Jyi, on 30 November 2019 - 06:50 AM, said:

Your arguments are ridicilous.

Thank you very much Sir!

Jyi, on 30 November 2019 - 06:50 AM, said:

I can solo pretty much any mission on the list. The assassination is actually one of the harder missions, not the easiest. And I don't consider myself a very good player even when I try.

Well, for us all those missions are a cakewalk (i can't even tell if any of them is harder for me).
But when you look at the average MWO player (who is much, much worse than you according to jarls) which for instance uses mediocre joysticks for aiming instead of moving, you can be pretty sure that MW5's as well as the demo's default difficulty will be geared towards those players. And since we have not seen any overall difficulty settings, we simply can't tell right now if PGI will provide some extra-hard difficulty modes for better-than-average players and if those are better than simple "throw more/better stuff at the player".

Jyi, on 30 November 2019 - 06:50 AM, said:

Regarding TheB33fs clip: there hasn't been a single MW-game where AI hasn't shot at the player if the player hasn't shot at the AI. It's pretty obvious there is some sort of aggro system, but it's a BAD aggro system. There is a stationary assault mech on the field, but the AI is more concerned of a Commando running in circles (lol at the crappy lancemate AI as well). This is NOT good AI, stop pretending everything is fine.

I never said that it's a good aggro system, i even pointed out a major exploit. I also never used the aggro system as an example that "everything is fine".

Jyi, on 30 November 2019 - 06:50 AM, said:

Also, like I have said a dozen times: accuracy isn't an indication of good AI. Accuracy can easily be changed. Even with 100% accuracy, the AI is still bad. Stop using this as some sort of proof that the "final AI will probably be good". You don't know that. We have ZERO proof that the final AI will be any better than this.

I know that accuracy is not what defines a "smart" AI. But in your video you failed to point to anything else in particular except that passive locust in the first base. We don't exactly know what else you think is missing. Is it the lack of torso-twisting? Not using cover? Lack of flanking?

Be precise and don't just throw a video at us where the only hints are pointing to the passive locust and that tank repeatedly missing on point blank. If you only rant about how easy the mission is, then of cause you will get answers focusing on the difficulty aspect and less on the AI's "smartness".

So please don't put words into my mouth. Since all i could take from your post and video is difficulty-related I only referred to the difficulty which is of cause quite easy to ramp up in the release version. I never said that the overall AI is or will be good in terms of "smart". But as others said, given the target audience which is not the top 10% of jarls list, the AI probably is indeed "good enough".

Let's face it, Mechwarrior never was a particulary challenging game series or featured a smart AI. I have easily beaten those games when i was a teen and had no manual nor sufficient english knowledge. It always has been: Move to nav point, point on enemy, click, repeat. The MW series is a shooting gallery, nothing more. So i expected exactly this and so far MW5 delivers.

Don't get me wrong: PersonalIy i WANT an AI that is able to torso-twist, uses cover and flanks more often. But this can only be optional because i am probably not the typical MW player, so others may be overchallenged when the latest MW game suddenly is no shooting gallery anymore...

Edited by Daggett, 30 November 2019 - 03:38 PM.

[Prototelis]

The "typical mw player" is a key reason why the franchise and the BT IP as a whole is stagnant.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

Jyi, on 30 November 2019 - 07:02 AM, said:

However, accuracy is not what I have my issues with. The poor actions and reactions of the AI are. It's not even on 1990's level of AI design. Period.

Something tells me you weren't even alive in the 1990's if you think this. In Mechwarrior 2, your lancemates would frequently get stuck behind giant rocks while following behind you. But that game still sold like gangbusters and nobody really complained about the AI much back then.

The last time I heard anyone praise the AI in a shooting game was Halo, and that was almost 20 years ago. Mechwarrior 5's AI may be weak, but so is almost all of its competition's AI on the Epic Game Store and Steam. That's just the reality of modern game design. Mass market consumers have seemed to voice with their wallets that they prefer their CPU cycles to be allocated to more shiny graphics rather than elaborate AI.

And AI does not seem to get a lot of attention in video game "journalist" reviews either. I expect the major complaint about this game from reviewers will be it's still too complicated, ironically.

What casuals WILL read on the interwebs is posts like these by cynical bitter disgruntled MWO veterans who are looking for every flaw they can find to torpedo this game and ensure it's the last Mechwarrior title we receive for a generation. I refuse to be part of that self-sabotaging camp. It's like claiming you want to burn down the village to save it.

A big part of any single player experience is that you, the player, essentially have to direct the pace and flow of the experience to entertain yourself. That's not an option, that's a requirement. If you're playing a Call of Duty or Battlefield or Red Dead Redemption single player level and you go hunker down in a room you've cleared, you can sit there for an hour and nothing will happen in the game until you decide to come out and trigger the next enemy spawn or linear event. Even if you're fighting a major battle to decide the fate of the world, the game will wait on you.

So if you're worried about the AI not shooting at you because you're not shooting back, then make sure to always SHOOT BACK. Problem solved. Fun can resume again.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 30 November 2019 - 04:41 PM.

[Koniving]

References to many things praising the AI...only to discover express how simple it is.


Halo's always getting praised for its AI...

And important for anyone wanting to know about the AI system that Unreal Engine, and by extension MW5, uses.


Now
Lancemate stuck behind a rock...
In Mechwarrior 2...


O.o;

I'm trying to imagine this...

But this is what keeps coming to mind.

Edited by Koniving, 30 November 2019 - 05:20 PM.

[Koniving]

And I've never really had that issue. Then again I've never had lance mates in MW2.... so I'm assuming we're talking about MW2 mercs?

Though to be fair, the only real differences between MW5's AI and MW2's AI is MW2's AI never gives up the chase when you run away, and MW2's AI had to deal with head buildup and finite ammunition while MW5's AI has infinite ammo and doesn't actually have a restriction by the heat system (deliberately arm your allies with weapons that would shut them down and gimp their heatsinks to a bare minimum...watch them handle the weapons like they're bogged down in 20 tons of DHS). But that's a design decision.

(That's another thing I'll have to figure out how to fix but I'll admit I'm not sure how to fix it yet.)

[Koniving]

Now to be fair, MW5's AI is on 90s level AI when you remove scripted events and map triggers.

Goldeneye for example.

[Jyi]

5th Fedcom Rat, on 30 November 2019 - 04:25 PM, said:

Something tells me you weren't even alive in the 1990's if you think this. In Mechwarrior 2, your lancemates would frequently get stuck behind giant rocks while following behind you. But that game still sold like gangbusters and nobody really complained about the AI much back then.

I was very much alive in the 90's and playing games. Yea, MW2 had lancemates that were dumb and enemies that were dumb, but it still offered more challenge than MW5 has so far. I'd say MW2 had objectively worse AI than MW5 demo has, but then again, it was made about 25 years ago, and wasn't even close to the best AI of 90's. (And it wasn't worse by a much).

Ad hominem much when you try to drag my age to the conversation instead of tackling my arguments?

Quote

The last time I heard anyone praise the AI in a shooting game was Halo, and that was almost 20 years ago. Mechwarrior 5's AI may be weak, but so is almost all of its competition's AI on the Epic Game Store and Steam. That's just the reality of modern game design. Mass market consumers have seemed to voice with their wallets that they prefer their CPU cycles to be allocated to more shiny graphics rather than elaborate AI.

And AI does not seem to get a lot of attention in video game "journalist" reviews either. I expect the major complaint about this game from reviewers will be it's still too complicated, ironically.

Yea, there has been little praise towards modern videogame AI, because it's almost always lazily done and not worth any praise. But it's still a rare occurrence when there's such a BADLY done AI as MW5 demo. It's literally getting stuck on ground and rocks, just like the aforementioned MW2 AI. We're supposed to advance in 25 years, not stay the same.

Also, there are plenty of games that have had good AI besides Halo. FEAR comes to mind as one, though it's getting old as well now. Some say Alien Isolation had good AI - and though I personally disagree with that, it is leaps and bounds ahead of MW5.

The reason there haven't been many games with good AI is because most players are scrubs and in games like corridor shooters etc. a good AI would completely dominate them. But there have been examples of excellent AI even in games like that. For example, there's Dark Souls -series. And don't get me wrong, the basic enemy AI in Dark Souls -games is pretty dumb, and most enemies just have a few things they do. Heck, they can easily walk off of cliffs by themselves. But they're dumb because there are so many other restrictions that keep the game hard. However, the AI's that would invade your game in DS2 and DS3 were almost indistinguishable from players.

There are other examples too. Like AI that learns from the player etc.

AAA-games are generally a bad place to look for anything of quality - except perhaps graphics.

Quote

What casuals WILL read on the interwebs is posts like these by cynical bitter disgruntled MWO veterans who are looking for every flaw they can find to torpedo this game and ensure it's the last Mechwarrior title we receive for a generation. I refuse to be part of that self-sabotaging camp. It's like claiming you want to burn down the village to save it.

What "casuals" will read on the interwebs is DEFINITELY not MWO-forums. I can guarantee you that much. Also, if I'm only stating facts about poor AI, is it me who's torpedoing and self-sabotaging the game or is it PGI? I thought we all wanted a good game here.

Quote

A big part of any single player experience is that you, the player, essentially have to direct the pace and flow of the experience to entertain yourself. That's not an option, that's a requirement. If you're playing a Call of Duty or Battlefield or Red Dead Redemption single player level and you go hunker down in a room you've cleared, you can sit there for an hour and nothing will happen in the game until you decide to come out and trigger the next enemy spawn or linear event. Even if you're fighting a major battle to decide the fate of the world, the game will wait on you.

Yea, and that's what you've been conditioned to. To be content with lazy game design and shortcuts. Newer Call of Duty -games and pretty much all Battlefield -games have NOTORIOUSLY bad single player campaigns. But hey, even those games actually offer some challenge and kill you if you suck at them.

Also, you'd be surprised at what kind of cool tricks there are in some modern games when it comes to AI and breaking expectations. Like the aforementioned Dark Souls -games and invaders.

Quote

So if you're worried about the AI not shooting at you because you're not shooting back, then make sure to always SHOOT BACK. Problem solved. Fun can resume again.

He he he.

Oh, if the solution would be this simple.

Edited by Jyi, 30 November 2019 - 05:58 PM.

[Koniving]

Just seen these. Thought I'd share.

Beta known issues.
- During play you may find that enemies are appearing within eye sight in certain game modes. This has been improved greatly for final game release.
- Some enemy voice lines are missing audio.
- There's a bug where if the player stands still, the AI ally also stand still.
_ - We found the issue and already working on a fix for this.
- There's a bug where in some random instances, the trees may lose their textures. (Haven't encountered this)
- The Flamer weapon optimization didn't make it into the beta, therefore shooting with them will result in a slow frame rate.
- There's an issue where the MW5 Beta is opening Steam VR. We found this issue and already working on a fix for it.
- The MW5 Beta only has half of the "Ally Pilot Personas" that release will have. (This isn't exactly an issue but something interesting you might be interested to know)

(It seems the enemy AI might also stand still if the player stands still...)

Co-Op Known Issues:
- Host cannot see game invites from players that have previously disconnected from their lobby.
- When you target another player in coop, the target box is yellow instead of green.
- Players in the lobby may not see other players updated 'Mech camo spec until they themselves enter Edit Loadout.
- Host may see Client 'Mechs positioned incorrectly during the mission intro cinematic.
-Sometimes a client may not be able to connect to the host (Workaround: Have all users reboot the game and re-invite).
- Sometimes the background camera in Instant Action may break when returning from a mission.

[New Known Issues that will be fixed for release]
- In MechLab, Double Heat Sinks are only listed when the Valid Only checkbox is unchecked (being able to equip both DHS and SHS onto a 'Mech is as-designed)

(O.o;;;; So another thing for me to fix is as designed...ugh...)

Co-Op known Issues, fixed for release:
-Turret bases aren't visible to clients (players who have joined a host).
- The distortion effect caused by PPCs can persist longer than it should.
- Clients sometimes have targets underground, or floating that host does not see
- AI Lancemates will stand around the host's body after the host is killed and will not move around anymore.

[Jyi]

Koniving, on 30 November 2019 - 05:52 PM, said:

Just seen these. Thought I'd share.
...

Yea, I saw those earlier. Not giving me much hope, as there are very few points about AI in those notes. And they mention that "only half of AI personas are in the demo". Heck, I didn't see any kind of personality in the AI in the demo, so if that's half... well, a full nothing is not much more than half of nothing.

Otherwise, only talking about AI standing still. AI not standing still would be a huge improvement, but it still would not fix things like:
1) Enemy AI shooting each other and lancemates shooting the player
2) Lack of any kind of strategy besides charging towards the enemy
3) Lack of general awareness of player, each other and lack of communication between AI's.
4) And so on...

Edited by Jyi, 30 November 2019 - 06:05 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

After having witnessed your amusing one-man crusade on this forum the last several days, I watched your video.

Is that the A.I. you're talking about? How did you get it so you could have a first person view in the A.I. cockpit?
I agree that A.I. Awesome definitely demonstrates that there needs to be some adjustments, because it's laughably bad and needs to learn how to aim and move.

[Koniving]

Jyi, on 30 November 2019 - 06:04 PM, said:

Heck, I didn't see any kind of personality in the AI in the demo

They mean half of the lancemate personalities you can acquire.
So there will be 16 lancemate personalities that you can acquire to help you over the course of MW5.

[Koniving]

If you're talking about JYI's video, the fact that he states he is going to play bad at the very beginning of the video and intentionally derp around sorta kills your joke, Jackal. o.O;

I've actually spent the last 20 minutes being an Urbanmech at 16 kph in Warzone on cruise control and only periodically checking it while watching star citizen youtube videos. I'm still yellow.

[TVMA Doc]

Jyi, on 29 November 2019 - 07:49 PM, said:

So, I decided to make a video of the bad AI.

This video is for those who haven't played the demo or those who have played the demo, but for some reason have not realized the state the AI is in.

If you still think the AI is "fine" or "good enough" after watching this, I really don't know how much lower I need to go to demonstrate how broken it is. I'm pretty sure you could complete the mission in an unarmored mech if you tried a bit.

I know there are also excellent video examples by TheB33f on this topic, but I'm not sure if he or anyone else has videos of solo play.

There are also some other "interesting" bugs in the video, but those are not a big deal. The AI is the elephant in the room.

https://youtu.be/WjGNi6zhs-M

Wow, the AI is almost as bad as a PUG spawn.

[Cyanogene]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 02 December 2019 - 06:41 AM.
unconstructive, inappropriate reference

[Koniving]

Jyi, on 29 November 2019 - 07:49 PM, said:

I just discovered something.
I went to check my beta version and it read 1.0.1b
and had an option to update it.

Try this and/or a verification. For some reason the update only took about 40 seconds and I've noticed a very large difference in the aggressiveness of the AI on the first time playing after patching.
The version after is 1.0.2b

As it happened I was talking to someone who told me about it.
The "I'm walking away" exploit was the first thing I tried and they ripped me a new one.

Edited by Koniving, 30 November 2019 - 07:17 PM.

[Khobai]

Nesutizale, on 30 November 2019 - 03:40 AM, said:

I think what we see in B33Fs video is the Ai prioritising targets after how dangerouse they are. A mech that does nothing but standing still isn't a threat compared to the ones shooting.

But if the player dies the mission ends regardless. So if the AI is metagaming properly the AI should always target the player first.

[Jyi]

Jackal Noble, on 30 November 2019 - 06:20 PM, said:

After having witnessed your amusing one-man crusade on this forum the last several days, I watched your video.

Is that the A.I. you're talking about? How did you get it so you could have a first person view in the A.I. cockpit?
I agree that A.I. Awesome definitely demonstrates that there needs to be some adjustments, because it's laughably bad and needs to learn how to aim and move.

Isn't it great to have crusaders who care about things? I think I'm magnificent.

Since it's hard to play extremely badly, I actually had to play with a claw grip and raise my wrist instead of my usual resting palm grip. That's why there are some weird movements in the video. I got kind of used to it, though, so it wasn't as bad as I had hoped.

Koniving, on 30 November 2019 - 07:11 PM, said:

I just discovered something.
I went to check my beta version and it read 1.0.1b
and had an option to update it.

Try this and/or a verification. For some reason the update only took about 40 seconds and I've noticed a very large difference in the aggressiveness of the AI on the first time playing after patching.
The version after is 1.0.2b

As it happened I was talking to someone who told me about it.
The "I'm walking away" exploit was the first thing I tried and they ripped me a new one.

I'm not sure, but I think I've had that version for a while. Says "BETA v1.0.21" for me.

Anyways, I didn't notice a marked difference when I tested just now. The 1st Locust actually fought together with the Thunderbolt, and it tried to stay close to me, but it's occasionally done that before. Neither of them got much damage done. Also, when I killed the Thunderbolt, the Locust instantly retreated back to the base. Could be a cool AI quirk or could be a fluke, I honestly don't know at this point.

The Awesome was dumber than usual. I picked a stock Archer for the mission and sat behind a rock with over half my mech showing, lobbing LRM's at the Awesome. I don't know if the rock screwed with its targeting, but the Awesome barely shot at me and even then many of the PPC's hit the stone. At one point it didn't shoot me more than once or twice for almost a minute. I captured a video of that.

Furthermore, killing the Awesome didn't trigget the mission objective for me, so I couldn't complete the mission. But that probably has nothing to do with the AI, and is beside the point.

Edited by Jyi, 30 November 2019 - 10:14 PM.

[Roland09]

Daggett, on 30 November 2019 - 03:35 PM, said:

I know that accuracy is not what defines a "smart" AI. But in your video you failed to point to anything else in particular except that passive locust in the first base. We don't exactly know what else you think is missing. Is it the lack of torso-twisting? Not using cover? Lack of flanking?

How about that T-Bolt electing to engage in an artillery duel against an Awesome at ~370m range? That was glaringly, craptastically bad.

Now I'm not even asking for the AI to look at the player mech's load-out and pick an engagement range based on that (although why not, that should not be impossible). But as it is, the AI seems to be incapable of even determining a good range based on their own load-out. That T-Bolt never once fired its short range weaponry. Why doesn't the AI know to close within 270m and use all of its weaponry?

[Dee Eight]

Koniving, on 30 November 2019 - 07:11 PM, said:

Try this and/or a verification. For some reason the update only took about 40 seconds and I've noticed a very large difference in the aggressiveness of the AI on the first time playing after patching.
The version after is 1.0.2b

As it happened I was talking to someone who told me about it.
The "I'm walking away" exploit was the first thing I tried and they ripped me a new one.

Yeah mine was already updated I believe when I was co-op streaming with Violent Blue on friday and that might be why we were experiencing a much more appropriate enemy AI behavior (the four of us humans failed to finish the demolish mission the first time we tried it, the enemy wiped us all out). You can set games in your Epic games launcher library to auto-update or manually update and I believe the default is auto-update, which is why when I needed to use the launcher to do the co-op, it updated itself (because otherwise the launcher is never running).

[Nesutizale]

Khobai, on 30 November 2019 - 07:29 PM, said:

But if the player dies the mission ends regardless. So if the AI is metagaming properly the AI should always target the player first.

You are thinking from a gamers perspective "How do I end the mission min-max-ing the best?" Answere, destroy the one target that wins me the mission.
Try thinking from a world building point of view. Think of a real battlefield with soldiers fighting to their death. What target is the most importend one? The one that is activly trying to kill you or the one that dosn't try to kill you?
Also how often, in a real world scenario, does killing one person makes everything else stop and I mean literaly stop. One soldier gets killed and all bullets just drop to the ground and everyone just goes home. Does that sound realistic what would happen?
If the answere is no then you idea of "meta gameing" isn't helping in world building.

Hell even in MWO most of the time when you encouner an AFK, while there are other targets around that shoot at you, you let the one guy stand and kill him later instead of ignoring the guys that are firing on you right now.
Matter is different when you are a light that encounters an AFK far from the front lines, then surely you kill him quickly.

Long story short, yes the AI should priorities the active targets instead of the AFK. Remember that those AI Mechs run stock builds. From playing stock a lot during testing I know that firing a lot is realy bad. You want to shoot as little as possible as your single HS Mechs can store a lot of heat but the dissapation rate is terrible. So I only shoot the targets of most importance.

Roland09, on 30 November 2019 - 10:47 PM, said:

How about that T-Bolt electing to engage in an artillery duel against an Awesome at ~370m range? That was glaringly, craptastically bad.

Now I'm not even asking for the AI to look at the player mech's load-out and pick an engagement range based on that (although why not, that should not be impossible). But as it is, the AI seems to be incapable of even determining a good range based on their own load-out. That T-Bolt never once fired its short range weaponry. Why doesn't the AI know to close within 270m and use all of its weaponry?

That is indeed a flaw that I have encountered too. Also sometimes the AI not reacting to your presents, like a Locust that didn't started firing at me or move at all before I got into close range. That happened rarely but it does from time to time.