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LoooSeR

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   I completed Rainbow 6 Raven shield several months ago but forgot to write a review of this game (really wanted to post it because my experience with R6 RS is a bit interesting).

 

   Well, after going through a whole game on maximum difficulty i can only be surprised that there are many people that thinks that this is "tactical" FPS or that it is good as a tactical shooter/game in general. It is very unusual in one aspect - it fails as a both tactical and good game because of AI. I mean FUCKING AI.

   This is first game that i know that was ruined for me only by how AI of friendly units and enemies was working (and it was working, just design behind it was wrong). @Collimatrix, you may find this to be interesting.

 

   R6 RV was recommended to me after experiencing excellent SWAT 3 with it's mind-blowing AI, R6 was deemed as a more "hardcore" tactical game, while SWAT 3 was perceived as more "casual" take on tactical shooter genre. I like different FPS, from Painkiller to Arma, so R6 could have been good winter evenings time waster. And first mission was promising start.

   But... after 2-3 missions were completed and all needed tricks with mission planning were learned, my time with this game started to become frustrating and last 2 operations were done just because they were last 2 operations before end of R6 singleplayer, not because they were interesting, engaging, etc.

 

   I can make a list of annoying shit in R6 that hurt it like clunky controls that tie camera movements and body movements to animations instead of other way around, several commands binded to same key (yeah, you can press E just to open door or send a team through it if you are few pixels away from it), weapon selection animations that are unscipable and so on, but they are minor for me. Main problem was that after first 2 operations when player learn all small tricks and "features" of this game the game itself start to fall apart. 

 

  R6 is all about big arena-like map full of evil guys that must  be cleared using good guys that are avaliable to you. You can pick up to 8 good guys and pack them into up to 3 teams and before mission starts you can open a map and put waypoints and orders to execute for each team to please your inner Rommel. Add here high damage, slow movement speed and high recoil and this all what is tactical in this shooter. 

   You can complete missions as part of team, as separate or even single rambo-boy or as a spectater. This game is supposed to be played in such way that you will restart each mission many times (because of perma-death of squad members, high damage plus high recoil plus quick reaction times plus a slight randomisation of enemy placement)

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

   After first 2 operations i never used pre-planning phase for more than placing teams and giving them waypoint to nearest entry to enemy-controlled areas. Why? Because controlling teams directly is faster and more reliable way to complete mission. I came up with "standart" composition of 3 teams with 4 members in first (the "Guntrain"), 3 in second (the "Grabthattrain") and 1 rambo-man in last team equipped with VSS and heartbit sensor (yes, this is a thing in this "tactical" game, CoD MW2 was not the first with this piece of equipment, lol) as it allowed to me to use first team for overwatch, second for grabing hostages/pressing buttons and last one for clearing unimportant places.

 

 

   Planning IMO is inferior way to play R6 from time-saving perspective because of how subordinates and enemy AI work:

   

   1) The AI is oblivious to surroundings.

   AI automatically assemble those "human trains" of team members with 1 soldier always watching what is behind and 1+ other watching in direction of current or next waypoint. At first this looks neat and usefull, but after observing how they move through enviroment you can see that those guys pay no attention to enviroment near them. They don't watch opennings, doorways or windows near them if you don't place waypoint in a particular way to effectively make them look in right direction. Add here some amount of random enemy placement and you can see where a lot of mission failers may came from.

   So in order to make them look in right direction you either need to place plenty of waypoints with plenty of fire lines and possible fire sectors in mind but you can't plan for everything. Doors can be open or closed (random enemy placements lead to random situations) and sometimes you need to move through an area (thanks to pretty "gamy" maps  obviously designed by game level designers instead of trying to make them realistic) and you don't have instruments to deal with, expecially if it opened in other side of the fucking map. You can see an example of this at 1:09 in the video, when a soldiers of team are paying no attention to what is happening to the right of them (where 2 dead enemies are) and at 1:16 they don't try to check right corner (sometimes 2 man team is there). And to make AI check corners you also need to work with waypoints placement. This also leads to frequent situation when AI is looking into wall several pixels away from him.

   In SWAT 3 AI (i will sing an ode to it later) does pay attention to what is happening around and automatically cover all possible ways and fire sectors with all avaliable manpower without player needing to put shitload of waypoints (each of them are planted after considering all possible sitautions thanks to enemy randomizer), AI also do check corners (not in a scirpted way, BTW, which is great).

 

logo.jpg

There is an openning to the left, you idiots.

 

   Basically R6 AI have a very simple template of what to do when moving, but no algorithms to take into account enviroment in which they move. Sounds great, isn't it?

 

   2) AI pathfinding can't work with more than 1 guy walking in non-linear way

   If your team approaching a door that you ordered to blow up, and explosives is equipped in second or 3rd guy, you can become a spectator of "human train" crash. Best, most spectacular human trains crashes can be observed if second team was ordered to move behind first one.... While first one is busy with trying to let 2nd/3rd guy to walk to the door, second team "human train" is getting into the mix. Individual AI bots method to solve such problem is to walk back about a meter and than walk forward with some degree of changed direction before hitting other moving guy, with a "repeat until solved" moto in mind. Boy, i like to see 6 people headbutting each other for 10 seconds just to see a terrorists, attracted by a sounds outisde, walk out of a door that was ordered to be blown up, and unloading his full [bottomless] mag into that herd of idiots for maximum player triggering. 

 

   3) AI does not know what "cover" is.

   Not much to write here. They simply don't know what it is, thanks to being oblivious to enviroment arround them. 

 

   4) AI room clearing behavior is rubbish

   Compared to SWAT 3 AI room clearing behavior, R6 AI attempt to "clear" rooms is kind of bad. They open door, enter it in a way that looks scripted (1 to the right, 1 to the left, if more - other in the middle) and than stand around. In case of small rooms they do bother to walk until end of the room, but without checking corners and areas that are not visible from entrance, which lead to frustrating moments when one asshole is sitting behind something. And looks like devs know that, thats why for example inside of big WCs all doors are closed and non-accessible for everybody, haha.

Spoiler

 

   

   5) AI isn't good at all in that "tactics" stuff

   All of above are resulting in AI trying to play this game without using much of "tactics". They don't cover possible ways of attack on them, don't clear rooms, don't set overwatches, don't advance/fall back (they are on waypoints aka rails), don't react to a contact in any way other them shooting, don't try to help to other team, don't try to maintain secuirty when other team is leaving area and so on.

 

   6) Aimbot will solve everything

   The only thing is going for those bots is crazy/obvious aimbot. When enemy is located above/below soldier, he doesn't even elevate/depress his gun, he just shoots and bad guy is dead, like in first DooM when players did not had mouse look. Enemies can be located at very different distances, different elevations, but this AI does not care. Door opened, millisecond later - PEWPEWPEWPEW, 4 terroists dead, one of them was in the room, second was on a balcony and 3rd was outside on street level and 4th was a sniper on roof of building on the other side of the street.

Terrorist%20Hunt%20Banking%20House%20full%20team%20RavenShield%202009-08-25%2023-08-10-04.jpg

R6 AI shooting at satellites and aliens ships passing by out solar system

 

   This aimbot works well until enemies don't obscure themselfs with partial cover (not intentionally). If they do, ohh boy, your soldiers can empty a mag and not achive a kill. First time this happen in second mission with terrorist sitting behind a window with head and chest partially visible, and this asshole managed to kill 3 teammembers, while 15-17 bullet holes were counted around him after shooting was done. And he was 7 meters away. 

 

raven_screen001.jpg

The bank that you are supposed to assault is behind you.

 

   In short - imagine if somebody took a CoD AI and gave to a player a developers scripting tool and this is what your soldiers are. And this is why i started to use completely unrealistic actions to complete this game without casualites (had 1, didn't bothered to replay that mission as it was loaded with bullshit). One of them is taking under control 4-strong team, throwing flashbangs into room with hostage/important things and just run into middle of it like an idiot, while my characters picks next flashbang (thanks, clunky controls, you can't choose a weapon before animation of your soldiers taking out next grenade after throwing one is done). And yes, it works, because 3 other members of my human train will aimbot the fuck out of terrorists. And this tactics work for big-ass halls, rooms, White house, Red Sqaures, alien ships, basically almost everything where objective is located.

   I also use 4 or 3 man teams just to "block"/overwatching of doors through which terrorist might run when i control other team/soldier to clear levels. And yes, i use 1 guy from 3rd "team" with heartbeat sensors to just rambo rest of levels. Very tactical! Just get to the door, take out your Aimpoint T-1 Wallhacktm goggles, open door and double tap Wehraboos (yes, there are nazis in this game) or drug dealers. Thanks to ability to open doors incrementally, clearing rooms is easier to perform than in SWAT3.

 

   Even with pretty good plan they still got some casualties early. Also, don't know why video is labed as "AI at work" as they are just on rails executing a plan made by a human. Without that plan they would just stand still.

   You can see number of serious tactical errors during operation that would resulted in casualites (and in my case - completely restarted operation, as you can't save in the middile of it) in just first 2 minutes of operation:

   - door was opened by the same soldier that was throwing smoke, in this particular attempt nobody was near the door, but i know that sometimes there is a bank robber with a gun patroling near this door. Potential mission restart.

   - AI not watching corridor to the right (0:50), but there is chance that randomizer would have added another criminal patroling in the end of it. Several seconds later, i guess because last soldier was walking and looking in direction of next waypoint, 1 member of assaulting team was KIA.

   - after first room was cleared, AI walked out of it and turn to the right in direction of next waypoint without checking left, there is like 4 places through wich bank robbers could sprint right next to assault team and aimbot them to death - corridor right next to a room door, end of corridor (there is a security "checkpoint"), 2 doors from offices. Taking into acount how AI sometimes react to gunfire, this could lead to another mission restart.

   - at 1:10 they shot a gangmember that was watching corridor, so this whole time after first KIA those 2 were not shot to pieces only because of smoke. Smoking entry point is one of those weird tricks that you need to use if you try to get AI to complete operations. 

   - 1:15, right corner is not checked, can lead to another dead SF team/member. I don't remember if AI can spawn in it, but level designers sometime put spawnpoints in such places.

   - 1:20, entry to the right and after they start to move - corridor behind them (it is long BTW) are not under control, they just walked near corridor that sometimes have 2 bad guys in it with their backs facing that direction... yet another mission restart if randomizer will not like you.

   - 1:21 - they enter big foyer without checking right corner before entering, and first soldier decided to reload just a second after entering unsecured big-ass hall.

   - their movement through stairs is terrible as they just look in direction of where they are walking, and there is almost always 1-2 guys on top of those stairways.

   - at 1:50 you can see how enemies just sprint at max speed to place of shots and to their death. Will describe it later. And one bad guy on the first floor (hard to see) also charged right into foyer. If he used stairs - another mission restart.

   Don't know how many times i would restarted this particular operation to get this footage.

----------------

 

   And it is not like enemies are made any better....

tcrb63d3_5.jpg

 

   1)  Bad guys also have ridiculous aimbot to make them suck less. 

   They can sprint 50 meters, and in less than a second stop, aim their pistols/rubbish SMGs and headshot your sniper with first bullet from across the airfield on a regular basis. Even if you are exposing only head and a gun. 

   

   2) Cover? What is that?

   Enemies are as good at all that "cover" thing as your tier 1 SFs.

   

   3) "What was that?"

   If you open the door, while not standing right in front of it, AI will react with this generic phrase and walk right into doorway just to get shot by you. Yes, i used this "trick" on a regular basis while controling 1 guy-team to "rambo" majority of level.

   If they hear gunshots, they might sprint to a place of shots, sometimes right into the spot from which shots were made. This looks incredidbly stupid as you shot a guy, then door next to him opens, next bad-guy drug dealer with his golden Desert Eagle in Hawai T-shirt srpint out of it, change direction and start to sprint in your direction, and if you didn't shot him 20 times already at this point, will stop immediately 10-15 meters away and headshot you in a millisecond. Example in video above.

 

   4) "I NEED HALP!"

   Sometimes when they run out of a door right next to a killed enemy and see you, they do that tactical realistic 180 degrees turn on a dime and run to nearest bad guy to ask for help. So 10-20 second later you will have 2+ idiots spriting out of same door right in your direction, so you can get 2+ killed with one bullet.

 

43652452.jpg

Results of I NEED HALP are usually this.

 

   5) "My shoes are untied, EXECUTE THE HOSTAGE!"

   In any situation when bad guys don't know what to do they execute hostage. Sometimes release a deadly chemical (which is kind of strange to do on a remote slaughterhouse). Door opened and there is nobody visible in a doorway? EXECUTE THE HOSTAGE! Enemy saw a somebode's hand behind a corner? EXECUTE THE HOSTAGE! Door is blown up, SF team is charging in and their gun barrels looks right in your face? Turn 180 degrees and EXECUTE THE HOSTAGE!

 

ravenshield03.jpg

I know what happened even without understanding what is written.

 

   Bascially in order to artificially increase difficulty of the operation, more than half of them was made to be hostage situation and bad guys are very into all this hostage execution idea. Even random drug dealers do that! They all watched too much of ISIS videos, and execute hostage in any situation. Remember "I NEED HALP!" point? Well, when one of those idiots run next to hostage, he picks some guys with him, and EXECUTE THE HOSTAGE, just to be sure.

   Even more stupid version of EXECUTE THE HOSTAGE is DELETE MY PORN reaction. In some missions a hostage is replaced with notebook with... umm.. hmm..."important files". You destroy a door, throw a flashbangs, frag grenades, but enemy AI is still trying to run to that notebook, enter the DELETE MY PORN animation of calmly sitting on a chair and deleting his browser history in a middle of gunfight, and it leads to hard failer state/Mission fail.

 

   6) Stand right next to a window or a door during Police-Hostage takers stand off so they can see your face full of determination!

   Enemies placement by gamedevs is not terrible, as they are placed in corners, but AI itself can't do that. They are always choosing visible places to stand, run and walk. IF they hear gunfight in next room and they will not run into it, they will just stand around. This lead to not much challange during room clearing, after door is opened majority of times all enemies are immediately visible.

 

   Well, after that you can understand why AI mods are still made for this game.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/terrorist-realism-mod/downloads/rainbow-ai-enhancer

http://www.moddb.com/mods/terrorist-realism-mod/downloads/ai-battle-enhancements

 

   Worse part of this AI situation is that gameplay of R6 RS is heavily based around actions of your team and actions of bad guys, enemy placements, arcs, sectors, lines and so on. In SWAT 3 there is some beauty in how simple, but harmonious AI system is, becuase it ties SWAT members behavior to criminals behavior via navigation system (will try to describe it later) and realistic actions of both sides. When SWAT team tries to catch criminal, that criminal does everything to not be arrested using cover, hiding places, trying to locate iteself in less visible parts of the room, react to opened doors, what it see and so on. SWAT officers and militants/crimilans react to each other actions, and AI programmer designed behavior in such way that it looks like play-counterplay behavior when you try one action, enemy does another action in attempt to counter it. Just mentioning doors - if criminals hear you behind the door, they will react and try to relocate closer to corners near the door to ambush you, or they will just shoot through the door, sometimes they will try to take nearest cover, sometimes they even flee and so on.

 

   In R6 there is nothing like that, the SF team actions and bad guys actions are in dissonance. It looks like they are playing different games, not trying to outdo each other or outsmart each other. R6 is when CoD bad guys AI was programmed into head of SF members with slight modifications and were sended to deal with another CoD bad guy AI with slight modifications with no play-counterplay dynamics behind AI behavior.

   And this mean that you don't need to outsmart enemies, don't need to consider their reactions. You just open doors and shoot them until nobody is alive and only thing that you need to take into consideration is high damage weapons (so you make gunfights to be 1vs1 and not 1vsX number of assholes) and their generaly good aimbot.... which lead to second to no tactics development in your head beyond opening doors incrementally and using heartbeat sensor. And this is what made tactical game fall apart - no tactics was needed after first 2 missions teached me how to complete the game. 

 

   So i refuse to call R6 a tactical shooter, as i used much more tactics in Call of Duty MW3 survival game mode than here.

 

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After some thought, I have a bit of a longer response.

 

I am looking forward to your description of how the AI works in SWAT 3, because it sounds head and shoulders better than anything I've ever seen in a game.  High-speed internet made game devs very lazy with AI; just slap some multiplayer on that shit, and nobody will notice that the single player is mostly set pieces or even completely scripted events!  Most shooters these days don't even have workable pathfinding for the AI, let alone sensible room-clearing tactics.

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12 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

Thanks for the write-up, @LoooSeR.  I am actually surprised that they sold the game with some of the problems you are describing.  The strange behavior of the aimbots sounds potentially game-breaking.

   This game have pretty good shooting, it feels right and game itself is challenging. They high-precision single shots coupled with high damage and enemies that can be dropped with 1-2 hit gives nice and satisfying pew-pewing. Also, at lower difficulties problems are less visible. And don't forget that market for such tactical games was almost non-existent in olden days.

 

1 hour ago, Collimatrix said:

After some thought, I have a bit of a longer response.

 

I am looking forward to your description of how the AI works in SWAT 3, because it sounds head and shoulders better than anything I've ever seen in a game.  High-speed internet made game devs very lazy with AI; just slap some multiplayer on that shit, and nobody will notice that the single player is mostly set pieces or even completely scripted events!  Most shooters these days don't even have workable pathfinding for the AI, let alone sensible room-clearing tactics.

   Yeah, will do. Although, all of it will be just my understanding of how AI works based on observation of their behavior and trying to notice all small quirks of their specific actions. I wish there was next SWAT game will AI developed futher, as it have pretty good potential if developed for more than a month, hahaha.

 

   And under potential i mean developing their combat abilities to the point when countering will be transfered from "who have better reflexes and bigger gun" plane to "i will try to outsmart them", which mean gameplay will be more based on tactics, trying to outsmart enemies, trying to counter their actions or intentions. For this matter AI should be able to organise units under it's command and guide them to certain goal, and employing some sort of higher-level planing and execution to reach goals compared to what is presented in SWAT3. Hell, AI can somewhat command SWAT 3 teams on it's own, this game doesn't really need a player as it can play itself. Maybe using a bit of FEAR 1-like goal-orientated AI with it's planning system would have been enough to reach that level.

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On 10.06.2017 at 9:33 AM, Collimatrix said:

After some thought, I have a bit of a longer response.

 

I am looking forward to your description of how the AI works in SWAT 3, because it sounds head and shoulders better than anything I've ever seen in a game.

....

 

And here it is.

 

   About several months ago i saw that youtube video with old FPS that i knew existed but never played it (SWAT 4 on the other hand was on my computer for some time before seeing that youtube clip).

   It was pretty unusual to see AI doing deliberate actions that i never saw any bots doing in other games like taking positions near closed doors (i supose they were not cleared yet), watching sectors and corners. Room breaching at 1:25 looked visualy clunky (old animations), but they did it pretty well and it looked almost scripted (which is not BTW). And after clearing that room 1 officer took cover, keeping eyes on one door, second took another entry to the room while 3rd was overwatching whole room. Pretty cool, i wanted too see more if it was some sort of script/mod.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

   This is 1999 FPS about a SWAT that have AI that is sometimes not very polished, but still is much better at CQB than any DELTA FORCES NAVY SEALS shooter/action game i saw since.

 

   Unlike R6, SWAT doesn't have pre-planning mode and don't provide you with accurate map (without accurate map in R6 you would not be able to make a plan for AI to execute). SWAT 3 instead relies on real-time execution of commands (given by a player via easy to use menu during actual gameplay), and rather advanced AI behavior to execute them pretty well, as player don't have ability to plan room assault for 15 minutes. AI in SWAT 3 is capable to understand to some degree enviroment around it, and take into consideration featues of terrain around it during executing templates. Not only they know some tactics, but there is an AI that can replace team leader, so SWAT 3 can play itself without player inputs. And he is not bad at this, which is hilarious for me.

 

   Let's look at how SWAT officers AI work using first operation as an example, screeshots i made just before writing this post, mission was played several times to get more pics.

 

First run

   3epSJKq.jpg

   Element is stack up and prepared to entry the building. 1 suspect is expected, potentially have firearms including sniper rifle. That man is randomly placed in the building and he can be located just behind this door or as far as possible. There is number of special hiding places where he can be - at least 2 on the first floor, 1 at second floor if my memory is right about that mission.

   

   SWAT 3 AI navigation system have very simple, but still a hierarchy of some sorts. A network of waypoints are placed on the level by level designers to allow AI bots to move and navigate through buildings, they are used to just designate areas where AI can walk and where it can't. In SWAT 3 a number of waypoints of this network can be assembled into a "group" to designate a special area like a "room". If you play this game, existance of such system becomes obvious because of button 5 ("area clear"). It is active in areas that AI did not "clear" (you also can designate areas as "clear"). How AI decide if area is actually clear? By establishing line of sigh with each waypoint during "room clearing" command execution. During room clearing AI tries to "mark" each waypoint of designated group ("Room") in a framework of area clearing behavior and during it AI is walking and looking at next nearest "unmarked" waypoint until LOS is established. Pretty simple, isn't it?

   Even more impressive part of their behavior is that they clear all cabinets, lockers big enough for criminal to hide, as those criminals use same navigation system and same waypoints as SWAT officers. And if there is waypoint in a locker, it means that during room clearing (if waypoint in that locker is part of designated area) SWAT officers will check it as well. Some waypoints can be individualy designated, for example as "hiding spot" for suspects or civilians. Some waypoints are not used to designate a walkable surfaces, but as point of interaction - doors, windows, traps, etc.

 

   hYhbiXa.jpg

   Element is moving into 2-storied house with rather spacious attic. Officer on the left part of picture is watching opening to the right, while officer on the right is entering building. He is crouch to allow second officer behind him to have LOS with potential gunman. There is nothing to the left from him behind doorway, so he moves in while watching stairs and corridor to the kitchen.

   

   Each door have special interaction point attached to it for AI to recognize that this is a door that can be interacted. Doors can be locked (will require tools or explsovies to be opened) or unlocked, depending on the mode of AI (stealth of dynamic) they can use tools (stealth) or just blow up it to get inside. Room breaching during stealth mode is conducted in specific way - after door is opened 1 AI will try to "slice" doorway and see what is behind doorway/in the room without actually entering room itself by moving from left to right (or vise versa) and after some very short time team/element is moving in and start to clear it. IDK how AI judge if "slicing" is complete, as they can perform it for very short amount of time, or for something closer to 3-5 seconds.

 

   oeWvfsF.jpg

   In this run suspect was hiding under staircase inside of storage area of the first floor. Was found by AI, on the right officer with handcuffs is arresting our unfortunate gunman. BTW, this guy can leave his hiding places when he thinks it is safe enough, sometimes he run to the attic for his hunting rifle. You can see that one officer is peeking into second floor, while one on the left is leaning right and use staircase as a cover while watching suspect being arrested.

 

   Apperently same system that is responsible for "marking" waypoints during area clearing is also used somehow to designate areas where AI should watch, but AI also take into account waypoints that designate doorways/openings and so on. Usually doors are prett high in their list of things to keep an eye for, together with unarrested criminals (if they surrendered). 

 

mLDVDy3.jpg

   Blue team is clearing last room on the first floor - kitchen, red team automatically (without my order) relocated to watch staircase. If you don't give a specific order to stack up or cover area, Red and Blue teams can move around if needed. Sometimes team can leave their positions if another team is under fire and help them, or if one team is leaving area, second one will try to cover places/angles that were under watch by first team.

 

   After area is clear AI can either leave it and move to area from which they started to clear room, or reorganise and cover all posible entry points to next areas. This behavior depend if there is interaction points and waypoints connected to cleared room (except one that they used to enter from). Apperently navigation system also connected to doors and interaction points "attached" to them. This mean that AI can understand when room have more than 1 entry and can spread forces to cover each of them by establishing LOS to each interaction point.

 

VYd5CFy.jpg

   For the sake of experiment i ordered a red team only to clear second floor. As you see first officer keeps his eyes on 3 doors in this corridor on my righ (house entrance is just under me), while second keep his eyes on a door to the attic that is not visible for the first officer. Don't know how exactly they decide where to place themselfs to watch x amount of interaction points.

 

NzxYnJT.jpg

   Blue team also was given an order. As you see they placed themselfs differently, probably because a 2nd door and entry to attic was already "marked" as covered by Red team members. Here you can see a tactical mistake - blue team member on the far side of the floor should have switched positions as right one in the way of second officer to the left. Although i would call it an imperfection as guy behind can just lean and shot, while first one can crouch.

 

CPDVr2U.jpg

   Red team was ordered to stack up to 1st door, but because there were no place they moved futher almost up to 3rd door, while Blue team was ordered to stack up to 3rd door. Stacking up is dynamic and looks like level designers didn't put specific waypoints to use during executing "Stack up" command. AI bots are trying to stay away from interaction point or/and several waypoints near it. Don't know how exactly it works, but it works pretty well. In this particular case because 2nd door is near 1st one and there was not enough space for team to stand without getting into "restricted" waypoints/area, which resulted in team choosing other place to prepare to enter what is likely to be a bathroom.

 

hazBg9S.jpg

   In stealth mode opening door is separate command to allow to use mirror/optiwand for recon. Red team opened a door, AI usually do it while standing outside of the deathfunnel. Here is Red team is clearing the bathroom. Officer is leaning left to see more what is inside.

 

   There is a lot of leaning done by AI in this game, which is actually usefull as accuracy of some of bad guys is not that great. I have only one explanation of how they almost always pick correct direction of leaning - probably there is 2 additional points to the left and right of officer body that "represent" places of where AI head will be if he leans, and if one of those 2 gives higher number of visible waypoints with direct LOS - than AI leans in that direction. This algorithm also allows to AI use leaning in order to mitigate obstructions like poles/pillars/different enviromental stuff like TVs, boxes, etc and sometimes - another officer/gangmember.

 

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   Officer almost completed "slicing" from right to left, prepare to entry room. Inside of it there is a bed that can be used by suspect as  a hiding place. A locker which i am aiming at is another hiding place.

 

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   One of hiding spots for civilians is located in that room as well. This is a wife/GF of our bad guy. Sometimes this spot can be used by him as well to shot from his Glock.

 

Second run

   

Spoiler

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   Entry team prepared to do secnd run. As you see, their positioning is different for this run, they were stack up to a first door by a script in this mission.

 

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   Entry. As you see it is slighty different in execution, but AI again is watching for this opening to the right. In SWAT3 AI actions are highly affected by surroundings, unlike R6 RS.

 

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   CS gas in case our bad guy is again in the first floor. AI is "slicing" storage area under staircase. This time he is not here, but not far either. Rest of team is outside of pic - 2 of them in room to the right, one is near doorway to the right from me.

 

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   Blue team members are prepared to entry kitchen, 1st member is visible here, 2nd is near door from room to the right. Red team leaving that room to cover blue.

 

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   This time Reds don't peek to the second floot from stairs. Asphalt is keeping his eyes on it, though. Blue team member to the right is visible, covering door between kitchen and room where he is. In this case having more people in stairs area is logical - there are more entry points/interaction points here to AI to cover.

 

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   Modern AI can't do that without being scripted by level designer. And this is automatics, as only order at this point i given is clear room during initial entry.

 

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   Sadly, missied a moment when they were clearing area and opened this cabinet to see our suspect. Well, after seeing 5 guys with guns he dropped a weapon without firing even once. AI collected his gun (criminals can pick weapons, those who surrendered can "unserrender" and start to shot) and now handcuffing him. If you are too close to suspect, they will not do that without order, but if you are far, AI automatically will do that and only thing left for you to do is report about arrested armed man.

 

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   Officer with M4 is watching arrested guy, while SWAT member with MP5 is covering corridor near stairs. Rest of the team is on the left, not visible.

 

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   I ordered them to follow me. At this point there is no danger in this mission as there is only 1 bad guy, as this is suposed to be your "learning" mission. As you see they are wathing back. Second team is to the right, and again not visible here.

 

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   Criminals and civilians can hear steps outside of the door and react differently. This one opened it and saw a gun pointing at her. Generally civilians are not problem until they hear shooting, after which their behavior become erratic. They can start to run and open doors in random rooms, and if there is militants/gangmember/SWAT officer inside, they can run to next room. This lead to sitaution when rather safe corridor become nightmare of firesectors and death funnels as futher missions have more "advanced" bad guys to the point of competent assholes that also cover doors and sometimes watch sectors.

 

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   Arresting everyone is probable one mechanics that mainstream audince may not like. Although it is not a problem - just press 8 and AI will figure out who will arrest civ/suspect. And AI not always pick closest team member to do that, as closest can be busy with watching doorways/openings, etc.

 

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   AI will also lean to see more around object during clearing of the room itself. Sometimes there is a bug when both teammembers lean for some reason, as you can see here, but this is not a problem. Officer that enter room already checked right corner.

 

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   "Slicing". Originally i thought it was based on a timer when AI have time to move from one side of the doorway to another for set amount of time, but trying to count time used for "slicing" i can say that it is not a timer-based (although they might have one for "maximum amount of time avaliable for slicing" in order to avoid bugs with endless pre-entry tactical shenanigans). No idea how exactly they decide that it is time to get in. During this step they also try to see maximum amount of space inside of a room.

 

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   Cleaing is done. They sometimes throw a lightstick, i think they do that only if AI detect that area have only entrance and it is not special hiding spot/waypoint like a locker.

 

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   Clearing the attic. As you see this place have sophisticated layout for AI, but they clear it almost perfectly. Also, notice that they clear areas that were not visible from doorway during pre-entry phase. 

 

   BTW, Colli, i have good picture that shows that stacking up is dynamic. Officer on the right is standing in a doorway.

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   Suspects AI is also well developed, although i wished they went futher to MGS levels when there is an AI that command all units on the map, in case of bank robbery by criminals that look orgnised and well-equipped it would make sense to give them a leader to guide them.

 

   Criminals in this game are as aware of enviroment around them as SWAT AI is. Bad guys also can interact with same amount of objects and use same waypoins, but in different way. 

   Bad guys are made different using morale system that dictates their behavior and reactions to what they hear and see. In case of 1st mission our suspect is not very agressive and can flee at the moment he see several SWAT assault team members. If their pathfinding does not give them a way to flee to hiding spot or "unmakred" set of waypoints (aka room), they might either surrender (like in a kitchen in 2nd run of 1st mission) or fight if morale is high. Flashbangs, CS gas, shooting, number of visible SWAT members and number of visible comrades does affect morale. Game devs assigned noticeable changes in behavior if morale is decreased/lowered or otherwise. If morale is high, suspects can start to move and re-occupy previously cleared rooms. If low - they can flee to nearest group of their friends or hiding spot. Suspects without a weapon can run around in a search of a weapon, in case of gunman in first mission he can run straight to his hunting rifle in the attic.

 

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   Bad guys can arm themselfs pretty easily in later operations, as there is plenty of avaliable guns around. It is interesting that sometimes you can find yourself between suspect and a gun, for example he can be on a first floor, exiting his hiding place and you can be on a second floor. And here is where things might get interesting as sometimes AI can try to break LOS (get to waypoints that are not visible for player and other officers) and lay an ambush. In case of more aggresive guys they even can charge you.

 

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   Bad guys also lean to see better when is happening. Enemy AI also can react to gunfire, i shot a bit to the left of him and this guy run to the right, probably to the waypooints not visible from my position. 

 

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   Here he is back to fire at me. 10 rounds mag, and bad guys in SWAT do reload their weapons.

 

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   AI continue to move in attempt to find a way out of this situation, although this guy will move back under cover.

 

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   Here is an example of AI trying to ambush me. You can see his hands just above aiming triangle. Criminals can lay ambushes when they hear you doing something outside or near the door. They can ambush you at the door (using cover avalible inside of the room or using same "stack up" algorithm as SWAT guys) or inside of room. 

 

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   SWAT officers have access to 100 round mags for their M4 for a reason.

 

   As i already said, both SWAT and Criminals AI use same set of waypoints/interaction points, but differently and they were programmed in order to either counter or mitigate actions, or replicate some realistic situations. Officers are preparing to enter a room? Enemy AI, if hears it, will try to ambush you, flee, hide, sometimes fire through the door. You entered a room without gasing or flashing everyone inside? Well, enjoy your shootout and civilains running around, giving you this "i am lost control of this shit" feeling. Sometimes, if criminal is facing SWAT team, is located near a doorway that is not secured and there is a civilian near him, that bad guy will "interact" with civilian and put him as life sheild (same navigation algorithm used as one that stack up SWAT team members one behind another in line during movement). Yes, criminals in this game can use civilians as shield, dymanically. And your guys will react by yelling at him to release the hostage.

   And again, all what was used are waypoints and what i call - interaction points, same as SWAT AI uses. Bots behavior is designed to be a result of specific situation and enviroment around, actions of criminals are dictated by your actions and avaliable "resources", while your actions and the way you try to complete a mission is attempt to counter those actions, counter possible way for AI to react to your actions that is not beneficial, which is where some sort of tactics may start to appear, unlike R6 AI that do templates with no idea what is happening around.

 

   I probably will post more on that when will get more pics from later operations, if anybody is interested. 

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Interesting.  I believe that the Half Life 2 AI also uses "nodes" or waypoints as you describe them, but only for pathfinding.  It seems that developing AI that moves on a series of nodes, as opposed to trying to navigate the world the way the player does, is a more successful approach.

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11 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

Interesting.  I believe that the Half Life 2 AI also uses "nodes" or waypoints as you describe them, but only for pathfinding.  It seems that developing AI that moves on a series of nodes, as opposed to trying to navigate the world the way the player does, is a more successful approach.

   A lot of old games use waypoints for AI (HL1, Quake 1-2-3, etc), it is normal/go-to method of pathfinding. More modern games use more advanced systems like navigation mesh, some use automatically generated navigation systems (latest Crysis engine can generate pathfinding meshes for AI). Waypoints are not very good as they require to be put by hand of level maker.  

 

   Far Cry and Crysis used a bit different approach for outdoor areas - instead of putting areas where AI can go, map makers were putting areas that AI should not go. In case of Far Cry trees and bushes were automatically taken into account by AI, and it even used them for cover or concealment. In structures/building old waypoint system was used instead.

 

 

 

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lol, FEAR is still remembered for it's AI.

Why F.E.A.R.’s AI is still the best in first-person shooters

 

Quote

   The shadows on the wall tell me they’re coming. Two of them, both with assault rifles swinging idly at their hips. If I’m quick enough, I’m sure I can take them both out in one go. I peek out of cover as they round the corner, and let my stake gun sing, pinning the first enemy to the wall with 10mm steel projectiles. But at the sound of gunfire the other one legs it back the way he came, hunkers down in cover, and yells for reinforcements down his radio.

   This five-second episode tells you a lot about the attention to detail in F.E.A.R., a 12-year-old game with AI that puts many modern-day shooters to shame. Its army of clone soldiers feel smarter than any enemy I’ve faced in an FPS since, and remain razor-sharp to this day.

 

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Also, @Collimatrix, you probably will find interesting this competition:

http://vizdoom.cs.put.edu.pl/competition-cig-2017

 

Visual Doom AI Competition 2017

Quote

Can AI effectively play Doom using only raw visual input?

 

Results of 2016

http://vizdoom.cs.put.edu.pl/competition-cig-2016/results

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This looks cool, although feels similar to Destiny and The Division. This is Bioware's rumored new IP.

 

Call of Assassin: Infinite Creed: Egyptian season pass DLC. This eagle have same in-game mechanics as a drone in Ghost recon and all other Ubi openworld games.

 

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