HL2 Combine AI...

[Osker12]

Is it just me or does the combine AI seem kinda off? They seem to be smart in a "how can I get to freeman" way but are completely agressive acting like they cannot be killed. In the part with barney of the demo the AI does not even attempt to survive at any point, they are glued to their positions and even when you throw a grenade at them they dont move. Half life 1 had better looking gameplay in that aspect.
In the driving part its more of the same, the enemies just stand there and get run over, dont dive out the way or anything.
What bothers me most is how bad the AI looked against the ant lions. They stood feet planted and just shot directly at one antlion as they were slaughtered. The most troubling instance of this is at the end when the huge ant lion breaks down the wall and the 3 combine soilders stand in a line mirroring each other exactly, each getting killed really lamely.

Everything else about HL2 blows me away, besides the crappy looking breaking wood with the crowbar.
But in a game that is so amazingly realistic, is the AI gonna stay this stupidly kamikaze like?

 

[-S30Ul]

imho, the AI is a tad on the lame side , and could be improved quite alot...

are the difficulties going be the exact same as hl1 ? more life, but nothing else ?? or am I completely wrong about that ??

 

[Vertigo]

I agree with you to a certain extent. While I agree how they get killed by the huge Ant Lion commander was a tad lame (though if you were attacked by this huge thing, would you be thinking at all? My brain would just be fixated on 'pull the trigger, jackass!'. Maybe that's just me), I think that, while it's not quite as realistic, it's a bit more fun when they don't run from grenades all the time. In MOHAA, you can exploit that so easily. All you have to do is toss a grenade in, and all the guys come running out so you can gun them down. I kinda like how for HL2, they realize that it's hopeless (the grenade was primed and went off a split second later) to run, and just try to get the last few shots in, instead of running from their cover and making the job even easier for you. In either case, it's once again a decision we can only truly make until the final version comes out.

-Vert

 

[Mr.Reak]

GUYS, one of the Valve devs stated that they turned of Ai during these presentations, they showed off AI in the second movie. In the movie with Barney, soldiers were fixed. Don't worry, they WILL run if you throw a nade.

 

[Vertigo]

Originally posted by Mr.Reak
GUYS, one of the Valve devs stated that they turned of Ai during these presentations, they showed off AI in the second movie. In the movie with Barney, soldiers were fixed. Don't worry, they WILL run if you throw a nade.

Thank you for your insight. Though I'm just wondering...what "second movie", do you mean? (I have the entire 600 meg fileplanet movie, so there's only one movie for me)

-Vert

 

[Mr.Reak]

Window-table-door-smashing thing.

Plus, in HL1 soldiers were taking cover, do you think AI will go downhill in five years?

 

[Vertigo]

Ahhh, ok...and in response to the second part, sometimes the AI wasn't all that smart, really. You can throw one grenade to the left and one to the right of a guy, and the guy'll just run into one or the other grenade in most cases. Kinda fun, really. Especially when catching those damn Black Ops guys in Op4. Annoying bastards take like 10 shots with the MP5 to down. Bah. Gib em, I say.

Edit: In either case, I thought something was off with the AI...in that little final show down with the 4 rebels, you and a bunch of combines in the urban battle scene, the Combines tended to point at the rebels more than shooting...felt kinda weird.

-Vert

 

[Osker12]

I dont think the AI would go downhill, as its obviously more advanced in environment interaction, but It just seemed like the defensive self preservation part of the AI was completely cut out.
I guess I wouldve liked to see the people move around more, especially during the barney sequence and the ant lion sequence. I know the AI was turned off for the barney part, but what about the others?

 

[Vertigo]

I actually thought the rebels seemed pretty focused on self preservation. They rarely just stood there and got shot at. They took cover in viable areas, they ran low to the ground when running for new cover, and only one got killed, and that was because there was a sentry gun hidden. And until Gordon took out that gun, nobody ran past it. I'd say it was fairly well done for the allies. Also, for the Ant Lions, I was actually fairly impressed. I mean, near the end, where the one Ant Lion jumps over the guy to distract him while the other slashes him in the back -- I'm not sure if it just accidentally happened that way or not, but I think it's brilliant.

-Vert

EDIT: I may have misread your post. Please don't kill me.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Originally posted by Osker12
I dont think the AI would go downhill, as its obviously more advanced in environment interaction, but It just seemed like the defensive self preservation part of the AI was completely cut out.
I guess I wouldve liked to see the people move around more, especially during the barney sequence and the ant lion sequence. I know the AI was turned off for the barney part, but what about the others?

It was turned off for the Combines.
Just wait until September and see for yourself

 

[Osker12]

that is very reassuring vertigo. I am mega psyched.:bounce:

I edited in the grean bounce to un-infer sarcasm.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm not sure if I should take that as sarcasm or not...ah well.

-Vert

 

[Bad^Hat]

At the start of the 600mb vid he mentions the 4 main areas this game shows improvements in. I'm not too sure about this but I think they were physics, realistic characters, realistic environments and AI that welds all these features together. They've shown they can do the 1st three well, and you all know Valve never dissapoint...

 

[Straylight]

Ok so we have 2 demos each with one side's AI being turned on according to Mr.Reak. You have the one where the door gets kicked in showing off combine soldiers' AI, and barney clip showing off the human allies' AI. If this is true then both sides did a good job IMO. The combine with their AI turned on didn't seem to hesitate to fire and in fact seemed to fire indescremantely rather then hesitating like they did in the friendly AI demo as vert noticed. They even seemed to use supressive fire through windows and even shot up cover Gordon was behind.

Your allies behaved like Vert said but if you watch again, one of them did in fact run in front of the sentry gun and got mowed down before Gordon got it.

-Straylight

 

[bonanzaguy]

yeah it was posted that the AI wouldnt just stand there while you were trying to blow them up. although you have to admit it was cool to see that combine go flying across the street

 

[EVIL]

hehe.. yeah.. great e3 demo show off material

 

[Alzxul]

Call me a retard if you will, but I only just relaised that the Combine were a bit mundane after reading this post, however it does seem likely that the AI was turned off as they did just stand there, so i'm presuming when it comes out, everything will be okay.

 

[ub3rbr0k3]

It's obvious to me movement was turned off or minimized in certain videos.

One thing that boggles me is... When Gordon blew up that dumpster in attempt to crush the combine below... It seemed as the combines "ran" to a perfect position to get crushed by the beam. Or maybe he was trying to run away from the swinging I-Beam?

 

[Domini]

Originally posted by ub3rbr0k3
It's obvious to me movement was turned off or minimized in certain videos.

One thing that boggles me is... When Gordon blew up that dumpster in attempt to crush the combine below... It seemed as the combines "ran" to a perfect position to get crushed by the beam. Or maybe he was trying to run away from the swinging I-Beam?

That soldier tried to escape but a canister blocked him, and so he panicked by turning into the opposite direction.. And the beam struck him.

 

[Shippi]

Which video are you talking about? Is this part only in the 500/600mb video?

 

[RoyalEF]

Clearly for the demonstration they needed things to be visible to let the audience see. For instance, in the Barney scene. Gordon aims, not at the soldier whose heads are poked above the wall, but at the wall they are hiding behind. They wanted to show hw the AI would follow your lead of crossing the street, moving throurgh the building and getting behind the enemy. Killing them early would defeat this. If the Combines moved, it would also spoil the shots they were trying to set up.

If they were constantly ducking you wouldn't get as good a look at them. The allies NPC show in the strider scene that they are capable of staging a retreating position (again assuming this was not fully scripted). No reason to think COmbine wouldn't benefit from some of the same coding

I'm sure it will be more effective for them to show off how hard/easy they are to fight, when it is happening on your PC's screen.

 

[Tull91]

gotta agree on that one

 

[ub3rbr0k3]

Originally posted by SHIPPI
Which video are you talking about? Is this part only in the 500/600mb video?

This is the one with combine soldiers kicking down the blocked door.

*EDIT* oh and thnx Domini, that can be one explanation.

 

[Straylight]

Originally posted by ub3rbr0k3
It's obvious to me movement was turned off or minimized in certain videos.

One thing that boggles me is... When Gordon blew up that dumpster in attempt to crush the combine below... It seemed as the combines "ran" to a perfect position to get crushed by the beam. Or maybe he was trying to run away from the swinging I-Beam?

You know I noticed that too it does look like he runs right under it from a place where he was safe. My theory is that valve probbly recorded people playing through all these sequences several times and picked the ones where the coolest things happened like getting the heater off the wall to slam the Combine soldier into the coke machine. I'm sure that it doesn't always work out that way but they showed it because it's funnier. The way the beam falls on that guy is probbly something similar.

-Straylight