Combine AI UNDERSTOOD!!!!

scarecrow1

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There has been alot of controversy around the Combine AI for Halflife 2. Some say the Ai is crap, while others say that the Ai was fairly ok but could have been better!!

First of all, what were the reasons people said these things? many gamers did not like the Ai simply because at certain times, when the combine would be getting shot, they would just stand there and take the beating. Others have complained that they did not throw enough grenades or run away fast enough to avoid getting blown up. The major feeling from many is that valve was lazy with the AI in Halflife2. Whereas many still believed the ai was the best they had seen(me including)

Now that we have clarified that, let me give a logical explanation to why valve did what they did, and why the combine act as they do.

1. We learned that Combine soldiers are not entirely human,
2. The combine are reffered to as a "Transhuman" force, an engineered human
3. We learnt at Nova Prospekt that humans are turned into stalkers or soldiers.
4. The similarity between the two are: both stalkers and soldiers have their humanity stripped away.
5. Soldiers are implanted with combine technology making them cybernetic organisms(think the BORG from startrek).

This is where my point comes across: During this phase of stripping away the humanity, that would mean taking away things like, feelings, emotions, even perhaps a conscience(they may not be clearly consious that they are still alive).

When feelings and emotions are taken away from the soldiers, there is nothing left, meaning: feelings such as hatred, disgust, love, pity and even FEAR are no longer part of them. Why? in order for the combine to create the perfect military force, one thing must not exist in their soldiers when they are thrust into a battle: FEAR. the combine do not want their troops(mindless drones) to feel fear in the middle of a battle that could cost the combine the control of a galaxy. Therefore all combine transhuman soldiers are created without FEAR.

Ok, now lets look at the points mentioned earlier in the game:

1. When shot, the combine do not scream out or run away from injuries
2. Combine often throw grenades but dont run away from many
3. The combine run straight towards the enemy, only sometimes taking cover, but often taking the offensive to the enemy
4. they shoot onsight and do not try to reason with you or negotiate

Why do the combine soldiers do these things? Because they have been manufactured to feel no sense of FEAR, to feel nothing at all for that matter, they are in essence no longer human beings, they are Drones, full complete SOLDIERS who do not have a consience, they follow ORDERS, therefore they shoot the enemy onsight unless stated otherwise by their orders. Dont forget: the soldiers in halflife 1 were actual human beings, with feelings and emotions hence the retreating and combat tactics.

I hope this has clarrified what valve have done. When you think about it, it is quite clever what valve have done to keep consistency in the story and mythology of the halflife universe.
 
As for the cops, the reason they cant shoot that good, and dont have much military tactics is because they are: civilians who never held a gun before, and never served in the military-but some are vicious bastards..hehe, and they deserved what they got!!
 
Don't double post. But yeah, you got most of it correct. Only that Combine Soldiers do run away if they're outnumbered or have been severely hurt. Or they have to reload. They use cover if possible. The AI wasn't bad, wasn't great. It's of today's standarts.
 
I gave a reason to cover why it wasn't "great"!!! its hard to compare the combine with the mercs in farcry. the combine are technological infusion with humans, the mercs in far cry are human commandoes, big difference, so for that reason the way they act in the game is not because of lazy coding, but because of what they are: Engineered humans into a combine soldier, to defend the empire, without fear of dying or being hurt. When u hear one calling "outbreak" it does not mean they are scared or injured, it only means that they are radioing back to base to confirm that they are the last one in the squad left alive, sort of like a beacon that turns on when something goes wrong !!! see what i mean, the AI was perfect...according to the type of enemy, which is well described in the game.
 
scarecrow1 said:
I gave a reason to cover why it wasn't "great"!!! its hard to compare the combine with the mercs in farcry. the combine are technological infusion with humans, the mercs in far cry are human commandoes, big difference, so for that reason the way they act in the game is not because of lazy coding, but because of what they are: Engineered humans into a combine soldier, to defend the empire, without fear of dying or being hurt. When u hear one calling "outbreak" it does not mean they are scared or injured, it only means that they are radioing back to base to confirm that they are the last one in the squad left alive, sort of like a beacon that turns on when something goes wrong !!! see what i mean, the AI was perfect...according to the type of enemy, which is well described in the game.

Explaining away this kindof stuff, though, doesn't mean the AI was noticeably brilliant. In my experience the AI as I percieved it was a lot less fun to work with than that of FarCry; you can make all the excuses in the world, but I don't believe Valve would have compromised making their AI more fun to
play against because of this.

At the end of the day, this is a game, and people are meant to have fun with it. Thus you'd want to program the AI of human/humanoid opponents to be fun/ devious/ cunning to make battles more interesting, and I don't beleive they would have cut their programming short to conform to an obscure ideal that is simply speculation (no one really knows what goes on in nova-prospect- they could be given advanced military training, etc.) when they could have spent more AI making the game's enemies fun to play against.

The other hole in this theory is the fact that CP's, probably the dumbest combine soldiers you meet, are completely human, with no augmentation or processing whatsoever.
 
Even if the Combine troops are modified to have no sence of fear, shurly they would still give them sensible military thinking patterns. So instead of thinking "wow, Im getting shot, I think I'll just stand here" they would think "I am coming under fire, I need cover so that I may improve my surviveability and stand a better chanse of killing my aggerssor". Training/conditioning troops to not make use of cover or use grenades to clear out enemy positions is stupid. It's a waste of resources. why the hell would you use all the resources nessicary to create, equip and arm a cyberneticly enhacned force and then deney them the ability to think in combat? Exactly, you wouldn't would you. And neither would the combine.

Bassicly, I felt that HL2's combine AI was a bit of a let down, because although the AI from HL1 is by today's standards not so good, back when it came out it was very advanced and blew everything that came before it out of the water. I exepcted the troops to use clever tactics, much like those emplyed by the Marines in HL1. So instead of thinking "He's hiding round that corner, I know, we'll go round one by one" they would think "right, He's round there we'll flush him out with a grenade and then rush him while he's stunned/moving out of the way of it"

So, Simply put, The Combine soldiers are not nearly a combat smart as they should be. Or in other words they suffer from "Storm Trooper Syndrome" ("only imperial storm troopers are this presice!" and they promptly go on to miss everything for 3 flims)
 
Lets not make any excuses for Valve creating some average AI. They hired one of the bot programmers to make the AI, didn't they? They should've left the task to whoever made it for HL1.
 
and why didnt the combine do all the smart stuff we saw in the HL2 movies?

remember traptown? *scripted*
 
So they biomechanically engineered humans to make them dumber? Then why haven't the rebels won yet? Surely they are at least as motivated as the combine despite their "brave up dumb down-programming"?
There's no plotpoint to cover this up, VALVe just promised us more than they could keep. They are, despite popular opinion, merely mortals, and as such, they make mistakes.
 
Perhaps I just killed the enemies too quick, but I never really understood what people's beef with the AI was at all. And for that matter, I never understood what was so great about Far Cry's AI either. And as for those who claim that HL1's marines were more intelligent than HL2's soldiers, such people deserve to be roundly laughed at even more than the "Grenade suicide" antics of the AI they choose to champion.
 
kupoartist said:
Perhaps I just killed the enemies too quick, but I never really understood what people's beef with the AI was at all. And for that matter, I never understood what was so great about Far Cry's AI either. And as for those who claim that HL1's marines were more intelligent than HL2's soldiers, such people deserve to be roundly laughed at even more than the "Grenade suicide" antics of the AI they choose to champion.
QFT.

Same here. I never found Half-Life 2 enemies too stupid or too smart. They used the tricky terrain to their cause, took cover when reloading, scattering out when outnumbered. They did have their flaws, but no AI is perfect.

Far Cry's AI, however, was rather basic. Just snipe 'em, is all. And mutants would simply stand still until they've spotted you, and once they did, they began madly jumping at you with one-kill-hits. Nothing special.
 
AI is difficult... it's more of an art than anything else. Do you think Valve could of make the AI better? Sure they can. This isn't all they can do. I think it's realistic enough for Half-Life 2. But if Valve wanted... they could probably make unstoppable enemies, having them fly and shoot out laser beams, burrow underground and turn invisible. But how realistic and annoying would that be?
 
I'm not saying that HL1's AI is better than HL2's because it isnt. However, if we look at what the AI's impact was at the time the differnece is clear. Way back when in '98 HL1's AI was little short of revolutionary. By the standards of the day it was amazing. HL2's on the other hand was rather mediochre by the standards of today. Still better than HL1's (at least this time round the enemy soldiers dont run out on top of grenades to investigate what that noise was) but, it lets down the original spirit of HL1 which, by the standards of the day had brilliant AI, by not having enemies that employed the best AI avalible.
 
Combine do have emotions, just play the first chapter. They enjoy other people in pain. That is an emotion.
Though, Combine could have been modified to have no pain, though, they would have a heartbeat status etc. at there helmet. Hence that heartbeat canceling sound at the beginning.
 
I personally did not like farcry's ai all that much, but then again after beating the game i could not stand to play it again due to the shitty story and horrendous voice acting and the lack of quicksaving which made gameplay painful.

HL2's combine ai would be a whole lot more interesting if they

-weren't easily fooled by physics props
-reacted to noises, flashlight, and suspicious activity more
-threw more nades
-shot more accurately
-did more damage
-could climb ladders
-could jump gaps
-they had medics
-would make more use of supressive fire.
-could throw nades back
 
The first chapter is the CP's. They are still human, just forced to work for the Combine.
 
I found the AI to be annoyingly good. Its better then any other AI I have seen, but in diffrent ways.

See, the main problem is they dont work together well. They fight as individuals. But other then that, its good. If someone could do a mod with squad-based combine action...
 
If they're so fearless how come when I duck behind something to avoid fire or run around the corner and stay there for a long time, they just stand there instead of pursuing me?
 
A note about the Combine Soldiers...

When you lob a grenade under their feet, they often cry out, "Shit!"

That alone, to me, shows that they still have some personality. Some 'humanness'. They could very well be former CP's, for all I know. Whatever they are, they aren't just complete drones.
 
Hmmm...that does make sense, but I wouldn't call that the perfect military force. The perfect military force in the HL2 world would be the same thing, but the Combine take more cover, and don't throw their lives away. Now wouldn't that make fighting them harder?

I don't think the AI was terrible, but I don't think it was great. I still, however, love the vocal commands all of the Combine enemies do.

I remember back in the E3 2003 video, we were told the AI was not scripted, but rather the AI decided for itself when to move, for example, in that street skirmish scene in that same video. Doug stated that, while your friendly AI moved up the street. Whatever happened to that? It was in game working, so why did it have to be taken out? A bug, something that affected gameplay? I trust their judgement, but I was hoping for that.
 
Malfunction said:
we were told the AI was not scripted, but rather the AI decided for itself when to move, for example, in that street skirmish scene in that same video. Doug stated that, while your friendly AI moved up the street. Whatever happened to that?

I'm sorry, Malfunction, but they lied. *hugs*
 
The reason the AI isn't super-powerful is because they need to make sure that the game can be completed by the casual gamer. There are fudges in the code to deliberately make them easier.

-Angry Lawyer
 
You can't use the plot to cover up AI :rolleyes:

I really never had a problem with the AI
 
This theory is quite amusing actually... it's like excusing your school's delinquent's from ending up working in McDonalds because of their poor upbringing :P AI is bad? I blame the parents, not the coders.
 
Yeah, the only time they reteat is when they regroug. I've only seen them doing it once but it was impressive.
3. The combine run straight towards the enemy, only sometimes taking cover, but often taking the offensive to the enemy
I thought they took adaquite(sp?) cover.
 
Well, I swear, in Anti-citizen one and Follow Freeman chapters... the AI is 100% smarter. I dont know why.
 
Puzzlemaker said:
Well, I swear, in Anti-citizen one and Follow Freeman chapters... the AI is 100% smarter. I dont know why.
It's because the soldiers work better in urban combat that open spaces.
 
I'd like to also add that combine soldiers work better in secluded areas filled with props, etc. is because they use cover when reloading.

The soldiers are also easy to defeat because they fire in bursts. Imagine if all the soldiers would shoot at you non-stop...

I also stumbled upon a certain thing when mapping. Combine soldiers can be divided into squads. Squads share info on enemies, attack in turns, i.e. work as a group. I say AI is there, all it requires is a good coder to bring it up.
 
Yeah, the only reason citizens beet soldiers is because they fired non-stop. Either they should have made soldiers fire constantly or given citizens limited ammo.
 
Or killed the entities that give us unlimited citizens. "One dies - one joins" really kind of made the game easier. And the game is easy enough without rebels...

Also, there are way too much medkits and especially ammo. It'd be better if there'd be nearly no medkits in the game, only health vials dropped by soldiers and health chargers. And supplies boxes laying around everywhere? Perhaps instead of throwing supplies around Black Mesa East, once inside, Alyx could say, "Hey, it looks like your short on ammo. We don't have much, but... It's better than nothing, I guess." And those ammo crates? Evil.

It's not only the AI. It's the player that is overpowered.
 
Or how about the stupid AI in your allies. I died a few times because they ran into my line of fire detonating my rockets. Of course since FF is disabled they survived and I died!:flame:

Then theres the fact you can't ditch them and make them stay behind unless they're dead and will constantly engage the enemy and draw attention painting a bullseye on me for every Strider in City 17. They don't seem to know about cover either they just run in the middle of a field and shoot.
 
DoctorWeeTodd said:
Or how about the stupid AI in your allies. I died a few times because they ran into my line of fire detonating my rockets. Of course since FF is disabled they survived and I died!:flame:
Hmm. I never died in such a way. You should've simply commanded them away and then shoot. Or you have a very poor aim. Or you can't tell apart from a combine soldier and a rebel. :P

DoctorWeeTodd said:
Then theres the fact you can't ditch them and make them stay behind unless they're dead and will constantly engage the enemy and draw attention painting a bullseye on me for every Strider in City 17. They don't seem to know about cover either they just run in the middle of a field and shoot.
You can. If you press C on a person he stays behind. This applies for the squad too. I found this useful in the beginning of "Follow Freeman!" (snipers part). Oh, and striders attack only he who shoots at it. I.e. your allies, but not you. Unless there is no-one hostile to the strider around but you.
 
I think the AI is great. I mean you hear ruffling chatter and beeps when you kill them, how much better could it get?
 
iMMuNiTy said:
Hmm. I never died in such a way. You should've simply commanded them away and then shoot. Or you have a very poor aim. Or you can't tell apart from a combine soldier and a rebel. :P

You can. If you press C on a person he stays behind. This applies for the squad too. I found this useful in the beginning of "Follow Freeman!" (snipers part). Oh, and striders attack only he who shoots at it. I.e. your allies, but not you. Unless there is no-one hostile to the strider around but you.

They tend to run towards an enemy. Or in case of the medics run up to my face while I'm shooting to give me a medpack. If I tell them to stay they will only stay put temporarily before losing attention and following me or going in front of me.
 
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