265 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

Ilfi, on 03 December 2019 - 08:34 PM, said:

Also, on what grounds is "soon to be very popular opinion" founded upon? Everyone I talk to outside of the Old Gold MWO forums and Outreach HPG is outright ****ting on both the game and PGI for their long and sordid history of poor business decisions and slap-shod game design -- and honestly, I see a lot of salty buggers in here as well. What's worse is I've started seeing users advocating piracy on the sole fact that MW5 is an EGS exclusive, but that's another story entirely...

Sometimes I feel like the only people left here are shills, victims of Stockholm syndrome and angry MechWarrior fans -- which makes sense given the location, but is a bit heart-breaking.

I don't know where I posted but I explained that MW5 is like Doom without the corridors and glory kills. MW5 looks like it is going to be the FPS version of HBS's Battletech with a lot of potential to mod the game. The demo missions are all a huge target-rich environment. The AI is serviceable based on the demo and it could get some tweaks from the community, just like how it happened in Battletech.

What is really going on is that the AI has low accuracy and works on "Aggro" system. You can be very active in the game, keep firing constantly and all of the enemies will shoot you while your teammates remain largely unaffected. But your teammates do good damage and get some kills as well. They're not dumb as some people point out. There is friendly fire and the AI doesn't care much about war crimes. On the other hand, if you engage the enemies at long range with 3x ERPPC, the AI doesn't do a whole lot in missions where they have a set location like in the Assassination mission. They'll sit in their spot and try to engage in a losing trade. Only a few enemies will actively push you, like the Locust and VTOLs. Other missions like Raid will throw enemies at you and they'll constantly engage but again, their accuracy is low and sometimes, they walk back-and-forth trying to shoot back at you.

Regarding the people, I can say that there are many who want the AI to be like human players in MWO. They are not understanding that MW5 is also about managing units and salvaging while combat is like bringing your lance against a minimum of 2 enemy lances and often, it can be 4 or more. We haven't seen any campaign missions yet where there could be spawn triggers, set-piece battles, etc., All of their complaints are coming from the fact that the demo is mostly easy to do if you are careful. That's like watching a SL1 speedrun of Dark Souls without getting hit by any enemy and saying, "Dark Souls is easy". You have to understand that in a SP game like this that involves salvaging gear and mech parts, worrying about repair costs, travel expenses, lance salary, etc., if you put the AI by default to play like humans, you'll be getting your face blasted before you kill 4 mechs.

The UI needs some work. I get the feeling that the demo is on a placeholder UI 'cause the mechlab looks like it's from Battletech's design. The HUD isn't good and issuing commands to the lance-mates is ancient. It'd be better with a radial design and implementing the HUD to provide info without making the player look at each corner of the screen for different data.

But overall, the game looks great, runs great apart for when the flamer goes off but that's known and is being worked on, PGI knows about the AI being easy and are supposedly tweaking it for the final release. The weapons are great. The Machine Guns need a better sound effect 'cause they're currently lacklustre. Destructible buildings are satisfying. The mechs are more "stompy" than MWO and have a weight to their movement, especially when using JJ. There's no "balance" aspects from MWO like ghost heat. The modding scene is already set to release some projects soon. So, take what you will from some people who complain and people who explain.

[Jyi]

Jackal Noble, on 03 December 2019 - 09:37 PM, said:

Oh you are more than welcome to stay, was just letting you know how it looks for appearance sake. You strapped in and did a blitz bomb. In one spot you went on several tangents 4 posts in a row. Dude, chill. Ransacking and derailing a thread for the sake of creating a presence that you think might, probably absolutely not, but might get the attention of said developer of said game literally a week before it launches.

Yea, I did that, didn't I? I'm actually kind of proud of myself. And no, I won't chill. I paid for the game in advance, and I think that entitles me to some blitz bombing.

If you didn't notice, I did give credit where credit is due in my original post. I actually like some parts of the game. But if I concentrate on those, what good will it do? It's not like THOSE PARTS need improvement.

Yea, it's only a week to the launch. It was almost 2 weeks when I started posting. From my point of view, I've given the developer 2 weeks of advance warning that their GAME will be the one to bomb if it's anything like the demo.

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I'd say that ship has sailed bub. Going by your limited forum presence (a whopping 192 posts) I'd say that you were saving all of those pent up post for until the demo dropped and you started making posts about it.

No, I just had zero interest about MWO in the recent years. I said what I needed to say during MWO beta and right after release, they didn't listen to me and people like me, and MWO received lukewarm reviews and didn't do well generally. They kept selling their mechs "to keep the lights on" instead of trying to fix things that were wrong, and people like me realized it was a lost cause.

The amount of my previous posts has nothing to do with the validity of my arguments, though.

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You must have been greatly anticipating this moment, either to **** all over it because you've vowed to never forgive PGI for past mistakes, or you were greatly anticipating MW5 and it was nothing like you thought it would be... Which is totally fine. Some people can like games that others don't. That is okay. I can't stand JRPGs or those Pixel RPGmaker games, just not my cup of tea. It doesn't mean that I think the people that gush all over that stuff are wrong (maybe a little) but that not everything is meant for everyone.

I was indeed anticipating MW5 and the demo. I was hoping it'd be a decent and fun addition to the MW -series, and I was prepared for it to be an all-round mediocre game and was prepared to be somewhat disappointed. Well, PGI punched my low expectations right out of me with the demo. I was worried that AI could be somewhat incompetent, as those early alpha and beta videos from 2016 onward did not look good - but I certainly didn't expect the AI to be at the exact same alpha state after over 2 years of development.

Also, I acknowledge there are games that are just "not my cup of tea" - Dark Souls -series is one of those. But I can still RESPECT those games for what they do and how they do it competently. I don't want to play Dark Souls, but I like to look at other people play it. In case of MW5 demo, I don't respect it. It's not a case of personal preference, it's objectively bad at what it does. Does MW5 demo have merits? Sure, the graphics are nice, the music and sound design are nice and so on. But when it fails at a FUNDAMENTAL level like AI, it's objectively bad.

You can like it, I'm not telling you not to. But don't try to convince me it's good when it's not. There are people who like eating sh*t for whatever reason, and no matter what they say, they'll still be eating sh*t.

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Look, I know you are super hung up about the A.I. in the game, what is your shining example of how giant seeming mechs should interact and move in a destructible - sandbox- environment? I am curious.

Please tell me it's Wing Commander 2

There are no examples, because there haven't been good mech games in decades.

There are, however, examples of good to decent mech games with no sandbox -environment. Like earlier MW-titles and Earthsiege / Starsiege. Those are obviously 10-30 years old, depending of title, and not really applicable to modern day.

I was secretly hoping PGI would give us a title to be that example, but now I'm seriously questioning the choice of a sandbox over a handcrafted game, because it's really starting to look like those boots were way too big for PGI.

But hey, here's a couple minimum requirements for AI mechs in a sandbox -environment:
1) They don't get stuck in ground too much (they do in MW5 demo).
2) They don't shoot each other in the back (they do in MW5 demo).
3) They don't spawn inside the ground or in a weird place in the skybox and explode / bounce around hysterically (they do in MW5 demo).

And those are just minimum requirements. With UE, it shouldn't be that hard to have enemies that can actually use cover a bit and not just stand in the open. Or some sort of rudimentary teamwork. Not exposing their backs to the player. And so on. Simple things that most games actually get right.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Jyi, on 03 December 2019 - 10:03 PM, said:

Also, I acknowledge there are games that are just "not my cup of tea" - Dark Souls -series is one of those. But I can still RESPECT those games for what they do and how they do it competently. I don't want to play Dark Souls, but I like to look at other people play it. In case of MW5 demo, I don't respect it. It's not a case of personal preference, it's objectively bad at what it does. Does MW5 demo have merits? Sure, the graphics are nice, the music and sound design are nice and so on. But when it fails at a FUNDAMENTAL level like AI, it's objectively bad.

Dark Souls AI is fundamentally bad, too. I may not have completed the game in a SL1 challenge but I've certainly beaten the game all the DLCs a couple of times and tried many different builds and not once was the AI competent. Not once. Infact, the AI in Dark Souls do really stupid things.

[Jackal Noble]

Jyi, on 03 December 2019 - 10:03 PM, said:

Monologue

So to sum up,

• MWO failed (yet survived 7+ years) because they didn't listen to you
  
• Come out of nowhere and start telling people you are right and they should agree with you.
  
• You insulted my ability to gauge what a good game is (404 Steam games and 7000+ hours I'd say otherwise, but whatevs)
  
• You can't answer the only question I directed to you with a contemporary A.I. example. Perhaps, it is because it's more complex than you are giving credit. If you read earlier posts Mischief said there will be some difficulty modifiers.
  
• It's a sandbox game - the nature of these types of games can lead to funny physics behaviors (you are having high velocity objects interact with multiple angle surfaces). Believe it or not there are other sandbox games where similar stuff happens.
  
• Your list of demands seem logical. Make a mod and then publish it.

Edited by Jackal Noble, 03 December 2019 - 10:20 PM.

[Jyi]

FRAGTAST1C, on 03 December 2019 - 10:10 PM, said:

Dark Souls AI is fundamentally bad, too. I may not have completed the game in a SL1 challenge but I've certainly beaten the game all the DLCs a couple of times and tried many different builds and not once was the AI competent. Not once. Infact, the AI in Dark Souls do really stupid things.

I have acknowledged and explained this in a post already.

In Dark Souls, most of the AI is relatively simple. There's a game design reason and a lore reason (a lot of them are undead, duh). If the general AI would be smarter in that game, you'd get absolutely destroyed time after time. Now you only get destroyed when you make a stupid mistake.

There are also ways to abuse Dark Souls -games. Playing a caster in some titles of the series is laughably overpowered. Personally, I think that's one of the mistakes of those games, but a lot of people seem to think that's a quirk of the series and a good thing.

However, Dark Souls is mostly a game consisting of narrow corridors and small areas, the enemy often have overpowered statistics compared to the player and they have the numbers. Much of the challenge lies in the excellent level design in Dark Souls. The AI is tuned with that in mind. Also, Dark Souls has bosses, and I'll bet you didn't beat most (if any) of those in one try. They don't have AI per ce, but they have patterns that you as a player are supposed to learn and defeat. Thus, the AI design (or lack of) in Dark Souls is perfect, because it's complemented by the level design and the design of the player character. They go together very well.

And the funny thing is, the developers of Dark Souls have demonstrated they can do competent AI as well in the invasions. When you first encounter some of the invading AI, you can't tell if they're a human or not.

But when it comes to MW5, there is no handcrafted level design, there are no narrow corridors or small areas. There are no bosses. The AI is supposed to take advantage of the environment, not get curbstomped by it.

[Koniving]

Jackal Noble, on 03 December 2019 - 06:28 PM, said:

Yo koniving, I know you said you couldn't get the nvidia ansel working because amd gpu.
The dev cam should work for you however - you need a game controller linked via usb - the sheet(link in op) says xbox 360, but a xbone works the same. With it you can pan over the entire map and look individual enemy units etc, without issue given that you don't start the mission right off the bat. Also change time of day with x button + right bumper.

here's a night shot.

Will let you know how it pans out tomorrow.
Would be a good way to capture some of the things I mentioned

[Jyi]

Jackal Noble, on 03 December 2019 - 10:19 PM, said:

So to sum up,

• MWO failed (yet survived 7+ years) because they didn't listen to you
  
• Come out of nowhere and start telling people you are right and they should agree with you.
  
• You insulted my ability to gauge what a good game is (404 Steam games and 7000+ hours I'd say otherwise, but whatevs)
  
• You can't answer the only question I directed to you with a contemporary A.I. example. Perhaps, it is because it's more complex than you are giving credit. If you read earlier posts Mischief said there will be some difficulty modifiers.
  
• It's a sandbox game - the nature of these types of games can lead to funny physics behaviors (you are having high velocity objects interact with multiple angle surfaces). Believe it or not there are other sandbox games where similar stuff happens.
  
• Your list of demands seem logical. Make a mod and then publish it.

• I wouldn't call what MWO is "surviving 7+ years". But whatever it is, it's not because of competent design but because of too loyal fans
  
• I came out of nowhere and post objective facts. I don't care whether you agree with me or not.
  
• I didn't insult you, you just took it that way. I don't care how many games or hours you have on Steam, they still won't change FACTS.
  
• I answered your question. You gave me narrow parameters, and there's nothing that fulfills them. There are more competently done AI in a lot of sandbox games (also a lot of sandbox games with even worse AI), but none of those have big mechs. Thus I can't give you an example of something that doesn't exist.
  
• Yea, they can lead to funny physics bugs, but then maybe those bugs should be a priority to be fixed - and if you can't fix them, maybe you shouldn't have made a sandbox -game in the first place.
  
• Looks like Koniving is already doing that, and he seems better at it than me. But I'm seriously tempted to join his efforts just because I actually like the basic feeling that BT games give me, and I'd like for MW5 to be fun. However, it's not the player's job to make the game good, it's the developers job. Yours is some Todd Howard -level logic here.

[Koniving]

Dark souls


Also on my mod page (link in sig) I have a video about building ai simple and working up rather than building complex, so the concept isn't lost on me. "Build simple and intuitive, if it behaves as expected players will imagine greater intelligence than there really is.". "The more fidelity you have the more that is expected of the ai and the easier it is to get into that uncanny valley. Think of the player, think of what is expected and anticipate how people think it should react. AI that doesn't behave as expected will never live it down."
But very basic things are completely missing from the ai. The instant I realized it had no concept of friendly fire, I couldn't take it seriously and that's how I kept picking it apart. It was the most basic MechWarrior element of every game that had a Lance system and it didn't even exist. All you get is a bark about it...and they just let you do it. From there I realized a bunch of basic things are missing...and once you play Echo... Welp that game's entire premise is tricking an AI that adapts and copies you, both literally and story-wise. So I've learned a lot of tricks...

GoldenEye ai for example had no concept of each other so other triggers were used to prevent friendly fire or slaughtering your escort NPCs and the like. Perfect dark built upon that and they were aware enough to cancel fire if something was in the way by way of a simple check. GoldenEye made it work by not allowing them to do friendly fire.

My fix simply makes a call to check the obstacle with any blue Dorito in weapon range, if obstacle is blue Dorito do not fire.

Beyond stated weapon range it won't recognize the teammate but it should eliminate it at 540 or less in most cases.

I'm certain I can improve that fix with a better one when I get more time to sit with it. My other tweak was to permit engaging at up to twice longest weapon range.

Coincidentally raised their detection range behind them. So will have to figure out how to unlink that.

Edited by Koniving, 03 December 2019 - 10:52 PM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Jyi, on 03 December 2019 - 10:25 PM, said:

I have acknowledged and explained this in a post already.

In Dark Souls, most of the AI is relatively simple. There's a game design reason and a lore reason (a lot of them are undead, duh). If the general AI would be smarter in that game, you'd get absolutely destroyed time after time. Now you only get destroyed when you make a stupid mistake.

There are also ways to abuse Dark Souls -games. Playing a caster in some titles of the series is laughably overpowered. Personally, I think that's one of the mistakes of those games, but a lot of people seem to think that's a quirk of the series and a good thing.

However, Dark Souls is mostly a game consisting of narrow corridors and small areas, the enemy often have overpowered statistics compared to the player and they have the numbers. Much of the challenge lies in the excellent level design in Dark Souls. The AI is tuned with that in mind. Also, Dark Souls has bosses, and I'll bet you didn't beat most (if any) of those in one try. They don't have AI per ce, but they have patterns that you as a player are supposed to learn and defeat. Thus, the AI design (or lack of) in Dark Souls is perfect, because it's complemented by the level design and the design of the player character. They go together very well.

And the funny thing is, the developers of Dark Souls have demonstrated they can do competent AI as well in the invasions. When you first encounter some of the invading AI, you can't tell if they're a human or not.

But when it comes to MW5, there is no handcrafted level design, there are no narrow corridors or small areas. There are no bosses. The AI is supposed to take advantage of the environment, not get curbstomped by it.

The design in Dark Souls is such that the enemies aren't affected by the same things that a human player would be. For e.g., collisions. The AI's attacks goes through their own "allies" and hits you, their attacks goes through walls, their weapons doesn't get rebounded by static objects, etc., etc., The AI doesn't take advantage of anything even though in handcrafted levels and spawn points, you'd think they should be doing it. Yes, they go very well together... *sigh*

The reason Dark Souls is popular is 'cause of how it handles online and 'cause how it handles respawn and player death. That gives it the sense of achievement. And of course, how could I forget, "Fashion Souls". If you think otherwise, you've deluded yourself. Any top streamer who plays any Dark Souls series do it now with mods and some sort of a "run". It has nothing to do with the vanilla game.

Invader AI is human-like? Really? Did you first encounter the Painting Guardians and think that they're human, too?

[Koniving]

Try this for an AI to brag about.
https://m.youtube.co...h?v=i51x6-8GqkA
I went into that game blind beyond it was cheap and sci-fi...and holy **** the slow buildup had me gripped with what is going on mysteries, and when I realized what was going on they were just pushover zombies... But then they started to evolve, adapt, and without explanation or narration the game Showed me that the location's in game AI was witnessing me, copying me. I'd do something and it'd snapshot a holographic image and on the next reboot they could do it too. Anything I could do they could be soon after.

One thing they don't show is if you sneak around and do stealth kills often, some of them will sneak around and try to stealth kill you.

https://youtu.be/vJj9nI_T5VQ
Side note hard mode is often a lie...

Edited by Koniving, 03 December 2019 - 11:51 PM.

[Jyi]

FRAGTAST1C, on 03 December 2019 - 10:44 PM, said:

The design in Dark Souls is such that the enemies aren't affected by the same things that a human player would be. For e.g., collisions. The AI's attacks goes through their own "allies" and hits you, their attacks goes through walls, their weapons doesn't get rebounded by static objects, etc., etc., The AI doesn't take advantage of anything even though in handcrafted levels and spawn points, you'd think they should be doing it. Yes, they go very well together... *sigh*

Yep, they are not. And that's a good thing. They provide more challenge because of that.

Altough some of them do hit each other and kill each other.

The enemies DO take advantage of level design - or more precisely, the developers took advantage of it by placing certain types of enemies in certain places. AI should probably not be too smart if they can already whoop your *** just by existing.

The enemies in MW5 demo are not affected by same things as humans either, and they still suck. Actually, I think that's one of the reasons they suck. Though in case of MW5 demo, they shouldn't suck. And it's pretty funny, because in case of MW5 demo, the same enemies always spawn in same locations, so the dev clearly either generated and saved a couple random maps for MW5 and thought they were good enough or personally placed these enemies there and thought it was good enough.

This is the point I've been trying to make the whole time.

So TL; DR:
Dumb enemies in Dark Souls = good because of contextual reasons like environment and restrictions on player
Dumb enemies in MW5 demo = bad because they get curbstomped by environment and don't provide almost any challenge or immersion

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The reason Dark Souls is popular is 'cause of how it handles online and 'cause how it handles respawn and player death. That gives it the sense of achievement. And of course, how could I forget, "Fashion Souls". If you think otherwise, you've deluded yourself. Any top streamer who plays any Dark Souls series do it now with mods and some sort of a "run". It has nothing to do with the vanilla game.

There are many reasons why Dark Souls -franchise is popular. The story, the gameplay mechanics, the uniqueness. And as it's been over 3 years since Dark Souls 3 came out and even longer since 2 and 1, of course everyone that's interested in it has seen everything that the vanilla content had to offer and streamers are using mods.

When it came out, everyone was just as hyped about the vanilla gameplay as they are about the mods now.

And yea, people like speedrunners broke Dark Souls -games pretty damn fast - in weeks or months at best. But then again, they are a small portion of players, and they break any game equally fast (if there's any speedrunning potential to be had). But that doesn't mean the games shipped broken. Unlike MW5 demo.

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Invader AI is human-like? Really? Did you first encounter the Painting Guardians and think that they're human, too?

When you look at DS1, it's just very slightly above normal AI of that game, and as such pretty damn dumb. You could mistake it for a human if you're playing for the first time, but should realize it's not that smart after a while. For example, they can pretty easily roll down a cliff - but then again, so can humans.

In DS2 and 3 they get better. They exhibit a lot of playerlike behaviour and quirks. They roll around, block and parry. They use ranged weapons and spells when player is further away and melee weapons when player is close. They try to distance and heal themselves if given the chance. I'm pretty sure they occasionally even use cover.

For example, in this video, I can't seriously tell which ones are players and which ones are AI except by trying to figure out the names:

Edited by Jyi, 03 December 2019 - 11:57 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Jyi, on 03 December 2019 - 10:03 PM, said:

No, I just had zero interest about MWO in the recent years. I said what I needed to say during MWO beta and right after release, they didn't listen to me and people like me, and MWO received lukewarm reviews and didn't do well generally. They kept selling their mechs "to keep the lights on" instead of trying to fix things that were wrong, and people like me realized it was a lost cause.

The amount of my previous posts has nothing to do with the validity of my arguments, though.

Laughed hard...Lets try it:
so JackNoble can not have valid arguments because he started playing MWO after the greatest moments of MWO were past, already. the early stages of closed beta... this, and his low number of post make it obvious that he doesn't bother enough with MWO to have a valid opinion about MW5 that is done by the same developer - and that has the same "fingerprints" - of to much....
So how does it sound? Seriously - this was a joke, primary the part about denying the other guy his "valid" subjective opinion.


Its for the first time I've seen the argument about post-count used in this (the other way) - its funny how stupid some arguments are, you don't know stuff because you post to less, you don't know stuff because you post to much, you don't know stuff because you are only Tier 4... bla bla bla.... serious the world would be a much better place if you guys (everyone) starts an discussion with the premise, that the other guys know what he is talking about. And when he disagrees with you its not an insult.

Thank Jyi - your posts are perfectly done.
The main problem of MW5 and why I never bother to even order it or even play it in the next years (yes years to come) - is that i thought this project was about to fail when it was announced.
Reason: again to much BuzzWords (Sure customers want to here that stuff)

Edited by Karl Streiger, 04 December 2019 - 12:02 AM.

[Jyi]

Karl Streiger, on 03 December 2019 - 11:56 PM, said:

Laughed hard...

Its for the first time I've seen the argument about post-count used in this (the other way) - its funny how stupid some arguments are, you don't know stuff because you post to less, you don't know stuff because you post to much, you don't know stuff because you are only Tier 4... bla bla bla.... serious the world would be a much better place if you guys (everyone) starts an discussion with the premise, that the other guys know what he is talking about. And when he disagrees with you its not an insult.

Thank Jyi - your posts are perfectly done.

Yea, it's pretty funny. I'm just here criticizing a demo and some of the weird choices of the developer. Most of the time I'm not personally attacking anyone, just their arguments (though I did call someone deluded earlier because of his sarcastic comment that I didn't realize was sarcasm... and then admitted I perhaps shouldn't have done that).

Even funnier is, we all want MW5 to be a good game, and I've stated multiple times there are some aspects of the MW5 demo that I like or even love - like the music. I don't think anyone has anything bad to say about the music. It's awesome. But it's not going to change anything post-release if I go around praising the music and ignore the things that are bad.

I just want a good game, I am very loud about it and what I consider to be problems, and then for some reason I get attacked by people who refuse to see any problems. I get told that me and people like me are the ones who are ruining the game and its reputation by writing negative comments on MWO -forums - which only diehard fans read anyways. As if I was going around the internet, telling people not to buy the game and spreading lies or something.

What makes this all a riot is that when MWO was still in development - and even after it came out - I probably did WAY MORE to get new players into the game than many of these now criticizing me. I actually brought in friends of mine, some of whom even bought mech packs and other real money stuff. And when they eventually had completely valid criticisms like "Why does the game run so poorly? It'd be more fun to play if I had decent framerates." or "Why is everything so confusing and convoluted?" or "Why are there only like 4 maps?" I was the one explaining it away with arguments like "Oh, the developers are working on that." and "The developers have promised all these new cool features."

And in the end, it took them MULTIPLE YEARS to update that supposedly placeholder skill system to a new one - which is an even worse and more convoluted one.

F*ck, I even asked a friend of mine to come play MWO with me just a few weeks ago because I was stupidly hyped about MW5. And what did we get? 20+ minutes of an endless queue, because team games in quick play are DEAD. D E A D. How is this supposed to bring in new players? Some new player would either 1) have to try to play quick games with randoms without understanding how any of the game works or 2) jump straight into faction play with scrub mechs and hope that someone takes them under their wing. And considering how the community acts in the quick play, you're more likely to get told to uninstall or kill yourself than get helped.

I mean, would it be a big thing if the devs uncoupled 2-man groups from the group -queue and instead mixed them in with solo queue? Then I could justify asking my friend to play with me, and there would be 2 more players in MWO instead of 0.

And then... I don't know, like... PGI are angry at Steam because MWO didn't do well there? Or something like that? It's not Steam's fault. There are plenty of examples of tiny indie studios breaking through on Steam on absolutely no marketing just by the merit that their game is exceedingly fun. Why is that such a hard concept to understand. Make a fun game, put a snippet of it on reddit and let some streamers and youtubers play it - it'll be a sleeper hit. Zero marketing budget required.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Jyi, on 03 December 2019 - 11:52 PM, said:

Yep, they are not. And that's a good thing. They provide more challenge because of that.

Altough some of them do hit each other and kill each other.

The enemies DO take advantage of level design - or more precisely, the developers took advantage of it by placing certain types of enemies in certain places. AI should probably not be too smart if they can already whoop your *** just by existing.

The enemies in MW5 demo are not affected by same things as humans either, and they still suck. Actually, I think that's one of the reasons they suck. Though in case of MW5 demo, they shouldn't suck. And it's pretty funny, because in case of MW5 demo, the same enemies always spawn in same locations, so the dev clearly either generated and saved a couple random maps for MW5 and thought they were good enough or personally placed these enemies there and thought it was good enough.

This is the point I've been trying to make the whole time.

So TL; DR:
Dumb enemies in Dark Souls = good because of contextual reasons like environment and restrictions on player
Dumb enemies in MW5 demo = bad because they get curbstomped by environment and don't provide almost any challenge or immersion


There are many reasons why Dark Souls -franchise is popular. The story, the gameplay mechanics, the uniqueness. And as it's been over 3 years since Dark Souls 3 came out and even longer since 2 and 1, of course everyone that's interested in it has seen everything that the vanilla content had to offer and streamers are using mods.

When it came out, everyone was just as hyped about the vanilla gameplay as they are about the mods now.

And yea, people like speedrunners broke Dark Souls -games pretty damn fast - in weeks or months at best. But then again, they are a small portion of players, and they break any game equally fast (if there's any speedrunning potential to be had). But that doesn't mean the games shipped broken. Unlike MW5 demo.


When you look at DS1, it's just very slightly above normal AI of that game, and as such pretty damn dumb. You could mistake it for a human if you're playing for the first time, but should realize it's not that smart after a while. For example, they can pretty easily roll down a cliff - but then again, so can humans.

In DS2 and 3 they get better. They exhibit a lot of playerlike behaviour and quirks. They roll around, block and parry. They use ranged weapons and spells when player is further away and melee weapons when player is close. They try to distance and heal themselves if given the chance. I'm pretty sure they occasionally even use cover.

For example, in this video, I can't seriously tell which ones are players and which ones are AI except by trying to figure out the names:

Did you just say that bad and cheesy design is good design? The fact that the enemies can hit you through walls and their attacks don't affect each other is somehow good design? Do not try to twist it and say that it is ok in Dark Souls 'cause you'll be digging a deeper hole than the one you've thrown yourself into.

When Dark Souls 2 was released, many people weren't happy with how the developers tried to bring in the Nexus from Demons Souls but in form of Majula. People still aren't happy with the Parry system in DS2 and the introduction of ADP, one of the worst and cheesiest implementation of player-limits. None of them were happy about the combat either. Dark Souls 3 had decent levels and everything else was spammy attacks until enemies dead. No strategy required unless you were trying to build something specific. Just spam attack and roll away to win. If you don't know this, do not try to argue again about Dark Souls. It is why you don't see popular streamers playing DS2 or 3 regularly.

Dark Souls wasn't broken? Did you bother to play the PC version of the first game? Or better yet, did you bother playing Dark Souls on the consoles and see what it was like? Do you think that watching someone make clay pots will automatically make you knowledgeable in making one yourself?

You keep bringing up "dodge roll" as some kind differentiation between common enemies and AI invaders. Guess what? It isn't. The common enemies have a side-jump animation that has less invincibility frames than a dodge-roll. If THAT is your standard for calling AI invaders as almost human-like, then again, just stop right there. Everything that the AI invaders do, the common enemies do it as well. They work the same way. It's the animations that are different. Just the animations. Their decision making isn't any better than that of common enemies. Did you know that common enemies in Dark Souls can use Estus Flasks, too? How is that different to AI invaders healing?

So far, you've seen "common enemy" behaviour in MW5 demo. If there are enemies that have player-like accuracy and good loadouts, they'll almost be like a player themselves.

[jss78]

The real test will be how MW5:M is perceived way beyond the existing MWO community. Between all of us here , including those with positive and negative expectations, there aren't enough to form a viable customer base for MW5.

IMO MW5 looks great, and this does seem to be a fairly commonly shared opinion. And it's mildly amusing to see all the bittervets go apesh*t over this, because they're so emotionally invested in seeing PGI fail.

The franchise as a whole is doing better than it has for decades, and this is in no small part thanks to PGI. HBS is doing great with their game -- with a solid cornerstone in PGI's models. Catalyst is releasing fantastic new models reinvigorating the tabletop game -- also thanks to Russ et al.'s heroics in courtroom. And I think MW5 will do well.

Edited by jss78, 04 December 2019 - 12:34 AM.

[Ilfi]

I just want a game better than MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. That's not what we have now.

[Jyi]

FRAGTAST1C, on 04 December 2019 - 12:28 AM, said:

Did you just say that bad and cheesy design is good design? The fact that the enemies can hit you through walls and their attacks don't affect each other is somehow good design? Do not try to twist it and say that it is ok in Dark Souls 'cause you'll be digging a deeper hole than the one you've thrown yourself into.

It IS ok for Dark Souls. They have demonstrated that the AI was a decision they made consciously, not because they were incapable of doing better. And the game has demonstrated that it works, because new players keep dying even though the AI is simple.

I'm not trying to twist anything, I've been saying this from the start. You need to look at the context of things when designing games, not live in a vacuum. In MW5's context, having a bad AI is demonstrably a bad idea.

Though, I'd go as far as to say MW5 has even worse AI than Dark Souls.

Quote

When Dark Souls 2 was released, many people weren't happy with how the developers tried to bring in the Nexus from Demons Souls but in form of Majula. People still aren't happy with the Parry system in DS2 and the introduction of ADP, one of the worst and cheesiest implementation of player-limits. None of them were happy about the combat either. Dark Souls 3 had decent levels and everything else was spammy attacks until enemies dead. No strategy required unless you were trying to build something specific. Just spam attack and roll away to win. If you don't know this, do not try to argue again about Dark Souls. It is why you don't see popular streamers playing DS2 or 3 regularly.

Yea, of course there will be people who are not happy about some change. But then again, there are also people who are specifically fans of DS2. And the fact that all Dark Souls -games did pretty well commercially is proof enough.

Quote

Dark Souls wasn't broken? Did you bother to play the PC version of the first game? Or better yet, did you bother playing Dark Souls on the consoles and see what it was like? Do you think that watching someone make clay pots will automatically make you knowledgeable in making one yourself?

Oh, the PC version was f*cking sh*te, and one of the reasons why I never got so into the series as some others. And yes, there were problems with all the games on release, but at least they were not broken on a fundamental level. You could play through them, and they were challenging to everyone and fun to those who like that kind of stuff. The AI was not broken, it provided a challenge even though it was simple.

Quote

You keep bringing up "dodge roll" as some kind differentiation between common enemies and AI invaders. Guess what? It isn't. The common enemies have a side-jump animation that has less invincibility frames than a dodge-roll. If THAT is your standard for calling AI invaders as almost human-like, then again, just stop right there. Everything that the AI invaders do, the common enemies do it as well. They work the same way. It's the animations that are different. Just the animations. Their decision making isn't any better than that of common enemies. Did you know that common enemies in Dark Souls can use Estus Flasks, too? How is that different to AI invaders healing?

Depends of enemies. Some of the regular NPC's dodge roll, but not all. Some use Estus flasks, but not all. Some use spells or heals, but not all. The invaders were very playerlike, because they had almost all player capabilities, similar character models and gear. The whole shebang. They had quirks. Those give character.

I'll give another simple example of an AI-related decision which establishes a more humanlike character in a game: the grunts in Halo 1 and their tendency to run away with arms flailing in certain situations. Like when you shoot them with the needler and they have exploding projectiles stuck on them, and they run in middle of other grunts and get them killed too. Completely pointless and detrimental from a challenge perspective, but gives them character. And it's not like you need extra challenge in the game on hardest difficulty.

Quote

So far, you've seen "common enemy" behaviour in MW5 demo. If there are enemies that have player-like accuracy and good loadouts, they'll almost be like a player themselves.

No, no they will not be. If the demo is an example of what is to be expected, the enemy will be markedly worse than even an average potato in MWO.

If they have player-like accuracy and better weapons, they will just more accurately and effectively kill each other.

[Jyi]

Ilfi, on 04 December 2019 - 12:36 AM, said:

I just want a game better than MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. That's not what we have now.

I just want a game as good as MW4: Mercs, and from what I can see, that is not what we have now.

[Jackal Noble]

Jyi, on 04 December 2019 - 12:48 AM, said:

I'll give another simple example of an AI-related decision which establishes a more humanlike character in a game: the grunts in Halo 1 and their tendency to run away with arms flailing in certain situations. Like when you shoot them with the needler and they have exploding projectiles stuck on them, and they run in middle of other grunts and get them killed too. Completely pointless and detrimental from a challenge perspective, but gives them character. And it's not like you need extra challenge in the game on hardest difficulty.

This screams to me that you went into the demo with a pre-determined lense.
HAVE YOU NOT WITNESSED THE CICADA BEHAVIOR??? It's bar none almost identical in that it shows up to an engagement and then quickly, cowardly pulls back only trying to find an opportune moment to come up and try to backstab you with it's measly 2 mediums and small laser. Give credit where it's due.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Jyi, on 04 December 2019 - 12:48 AM, said:

It IS ok for Dark Souls. They have demonstrated that the AI was a decision they made consciously, not because they were incapable of doing better. And the game has demonstrated that it works, because new players keep dying even though the AI is simple.

I'm not trying to twist anything, I've been saying this from the start. You need to look at the context of things when designing games, not live in a vacuum. In MW5's context, having a bad AI is demonstrably a bad idea.

Though, I'd go as far as to say MW5 has even worse AI than Dark Souls.


Yea, of course there will be people who are not happy about some change. But then again, there are also people who are specifically fans of DS2. And the fact that all Dark Souls -games did pretty well commercially is proof enough.


Oh, the PC version was f*cking sh*te, and one of the reasons why I never got so into the series as some others. And yes, there were problems with all the games on release, but at least they were not broken on a fundamental level. You could play through them, and they were challenging to everyone and fun to those who like that kind of stuff. The AI was not broken, it provided a challenge even though it was simple.


Depends of enemies. Some of the regular NPC's dodge roll, but not all. Some use Estus flasks, but not all. Some use spells or heals, but not all. The invaders were very playerlike, because they had almost all player capabilities, similar character models and gear. The whole shebang. They had quirks. Those give character.

I'll give another simple example of an AI-related decision which establishes a more humanlike character in a game: the grunts in Halo 1 and their tendency to run away with arms flailing in certain situations. Like when you shoot them with the needler and they have exploding projectiles stuck on them, and they run in middle of other grunts and get them killed too. Completely pointless and detrimental from a challenge perspective, but gives them character. And it's not like you need extra challenge in the game on hardest difficulty.


No, no they will not be. If the demo is an example of what is to be expected, the enemy will be markedly worse than even an average potato in MWO.

If they have player-like accuracy and better weapons, they will just more accurately and effectively kill each other.

New players keep dying despite the AI 'cause the players are restricted big time. How is that good design? Again, "It's Dark Souls and it works" isn't an argument unless you can come up with something to prove that MW5 AI won't have variants that can be deadly to human players.

Didn't Mechwarrior games do well for the audience it was aimed for and despite the fact that the game controls were crappy and the AI bad?

You keep saying that on a fundamental level, Dark Souls series wasn't broken but with each iteration, the fundamental aspect of the Souls-like games, which happens to be combat, was altered to the point where one style was OP and the other was like walking barefoot on broken glass. That is the definition of "broken" when it comes to the Souls games.

Finally, your last four paragraphs are contradicting and hopefully I can show it you. You're saying that enemies in Dark Souls had quirks and specific builds. The lowly Grunts (BTW, thank you for reminding me about Halo. I need to install Halo : Reach, which I had completely forgotten about ) were detrimental to their allies.

But you suddenly changed your tone by saying that something like that would be detrimental in MW5. I mean, you said that if AI was deadly in MW5, it'd be proficient in killing its own allies but at the same time, not be deadly to the player. Instead, what you want is AI that reacts to the environment, reacts to the player loadouts, etc., but shouldn't be deadly accurate or behave badly 'cause it'll ruin the game experience.

If anything, some enemy AI with deadly loadouts in mechs and high accuracy would add character to it while the rest of its allies would be average or below average. To make it simple, the AI need specific mechs and loadouts based on mission types and have highly skilled AI as the pilot in that mech to bring variety. This pretty much happens already in HBS's Battletech and more so in Roguetech. I am almost certain that MW5 is the FPS version of Battletech and having enemies with varying levels of skill is actually good. You specifically do not need human-level thinking AI. Just an AI composition of differing skill levels.