For gods sake ! Developers Please put more attention to A.I. coding ! Frustrating gameplay in COOP

Dear NWI developers :
We ( the coop player base ) are constantly telling here in this "Official Forum" and also in Steam Forum that the A.I. code has severe problems.
Why don´t we get any feedback on the A.I. behaviour problems which have been mentioned dozens of times !?
Giving no reaction on this feedback is no solution !

Hopefully you guys will overhaul the A.I. behaviour in short future, because the following things really really bother every coop player in Insurgency:Sandstorm !

NWI definatly needs to hire a small team with excellent skills in A.I. coding ( for unreal engine based A.I. )
Sadly you guys don´t seem to put efforts to hire extra personell for this task.

Right now we have to deal with "amateurish" A.I. codes which result in serious problems ingame ( which i list here again and i am sure not for the last time --but i will NOT give up on this ) :

  • Instakill Bots ( very very fast killshots of the Bots coming around a corner or on medium distance which is impossible to react on , not even the fastest players with the best reflexes are able to survive these Bots ---> this is inacceptable ! ),

  • X-Ray vision Bots ( they can see through smoke, trees, bushes, grass and sometimes even walls !!! ) They kill the players very often in these situations giving no chance to react on them because you cannot see them !

  • Supersniper Bots ( super precise shooting on very long range distances , sometimes one shot kills with a mosin which is acceptable as it is a "one hit = kill" rifle in the game, but same with an AK74 or PKM ? Really ? )

  • Bots walking like a duckfamily into the fire of an incendiary grenade or molotov fire ( burning to death one after another instead of waiting in front of the fire until it´s over or just try to flank in that situation to avoid the fire ... why that stupid behaviour ? Why is it NOT possible to put some effort in coding the Bots routes ? Comon this is ridiculous ! )

  • Super fast sprinting Bots -- I have the impression that most of the bots are olympic world record sprinters with weapons and explosives !
    Some of them don´t even produce footstep noise when they sprint up the stairs to a building which we have to defend.
    How can that be ? How is it NOT possible to let them at least produce loud running noises when they try to rush the objectives or also in general when they are running ?
    How can a player fight an enemy which he cannot hear ?
    You cannot hear sneaky slow moves, agreed !
    But sprinting ?? COMON !!!!

  • "GPS guided" Molotov rain ( the developers published in the update news that those super precise molotov throws have been fixed .... NO SIR , they are still present and dangerous like on day one of this awsome game ! They are thrown by bots absolutely precise and sometimes even from 60 meters distance !

  • Precooked Frag grenades which explode perfectly close to you without giving time to hide behind cover , i mean really ? I could live with that when the bots are in the neighbor room and trying to clear the room i am protecting but those precise timed grenades fly in any scenario !

What can i say more ? We need an A.I. overhaul urgently !

Edit :
And yes we also need more efficient melee attacks !
Last game i hit the bot two times and he still was able to kill me after that .. i mean WHY ?
Why is Sandstorm the only game on the FPS market where melee attacks don´t work as a one hit kill ?

last edited by GSG_9_LIGHTNING

@Dutchxarms

Thank you !
An upvote from everyone who agrees with my complaints would be helpfull and demonstsrate the importance of this , thanx !

last edited by GSG_9_LIGHTNING

Don't know about AI (I don't playing with bots), but I totally agree there are could be more feedback from devs.
They ask for bugreports and suggestions from us, and when we give it they ignore it (seems that way).

last edited by Sulfur

@GSG_9_LIGHTNING Thanks for summit it up (again). Hopefully not for nothing (again)!

@GSG_9_LIGHTNING LET THE RAGE FLOW TRHOUGH YOU GSG! lol.

If you wouldn't mind, could you add AI spawning points. The Bots keeps spawning on the last objectives way to fast, no one ever has time to get gear and prepare.

Could you also mention that bots are still rushing dead/secured objectives 5 mins after capture time. They than flank the team due to poor AI code.

Another thing; The AI is completely numb to Flashbangs, Smoke detection, Hollow Meshes (ie curtains). All these things need addressing.

Lastly, the Bots are still bending bullets around objects, penetrating Sandbags and tracking players through walls.

@AncientHoplite
No rage in my post, just some dissapointment and frustration.
I don´t need to explicitly take your good points into my post, you already did it well 😉
All your points are valid too !
Except one ..at least for me ... the flanking / attacking bots . In my opinion it is important to keep the tension high and the danger of getting shot is always present in such a war zone.
So why not take that risk serious and cover the team in any direction at all times ?
It raises the immersion for me to always have some flanking bots which keep the team busy and alert !

last edited by GSG_9_LIGHTNING

For anyone reading this. Upvote this post, they won’t see it unless you press the thumbs up button in the top right corner of the original post

@GSG_9_LIGHTNING said in For gods sake ! Developers Please put more attention to A.I. coding ! Frustrating gameplay in COOP:

@AncientHoplite
No rage in my post, just some dissapointment and frustration.

Except one ..at least for me ... the flanking / attacking bots . In my opinion it is important to keep the tension high and the danger of getting shot is always present in such a war zone.
So why not take that risk serious and cover the team in any direction at all times ?
It raises the immersion for me to always have some flanking bots which keep the team busy and alert !

Don't get me wrong. I think flanking is awesome, i'd love if the bots do it. But they don't, what I meant when I said flanking is the buts rush a old objective because of bad code, then the proper code kicks in and they retreat (10 minutes after they should) back to the new objective that they were supposed to be protecting, which causes them to flank. But it's not done with intelligence, making it rather broken and unfair. I'm just hoping, flanking is implemented properly and not through an accidental bug.

Hello everyone,

We've read a lot of feedback regarding the current AI behaviors, and the team are aware of that! They'll continue to work on this to provide a better experience. So feel free to give us any thoughts you may have regarding the AI codings, and I'll forward them to the team!

@GSG_9_LIGHTNING Thanks for the list! It'll be passed on to the team.

@Sulfur said in For gods sake ! Developers Please put more attention to A.I. coding ! Frustrating gameplay in COOP:

Don't know about AI (I don't playing with bots), but I totally agree there are could be more feedback from devs.
They ask for bugreports and suggestions from us, and when we give it they ignore it (seems that way).

The fact that there were, what, 90+ threads about their garbo bots in Alpha says plenty about their vision for bots : none. Oh, except for highlighting their BS with special Halloween-in-Summer events...

@chaton said in For gods sake ! Developers Please put more attention to A.I. coding ! Frustrating gameplay in COOP:

Hello everyone,

We've read a lot of feedback regarding the current AI behaviors, and the team are aware of that! They'll continue to work on this to provide a better experience. So feel free to give us any thoughts you may have regarding the AI codings, and I'll forward them to the team!

@GSG_9_LIGHTNING Thanks for the list! It'll be passed on to the team.

Oh I'm sure it will be. Now if they'll act on them is a totally different story. 🙄
How about bots that, instead of quick-scoping you in penny size windows of space or tracing you through walls as a hold-over from their "we wanted a single player mode but didn't have time for it" bandage...we get bots that actually react to what's going on in the world (other than, but including, taunts to them)?

Youtube Video

It's 2019 and that game from 2005 has our "oh shit!" snap-a-headshot-cookie-cutter-8th-grade-final-profject AI beat by a landslide...

I‘d like to mention one bot behavior I find quite unrealistic: If you‘re close to bots you don’t see (bots don’t see you, too) and you take a grenade into your hands, bots very often come around the corner and stab/melee you or just plain shoot you dead.

While I can understand and like a feature where bots hear you doing noisy stuff, e.g. reloading, I find it annoying that there’s super-hearing (more some sort of x-ray-vision) and bots hear you taking a grenade into your hands.

If they can see it: nice.
But they shouldn’t hear it so often or not at all.

Yeah definitely agree, molotovs are insane, like do they not have a chance for innacuracy when throwing? Bots have weird ass angles when shooting, im talking about them coming around the corner across the map not even looking at me and sniping me with their AK and I get downed instantly. Yeah, behavior seems unrealistic at times, or atleast does not look realistic in terms of A.I. looking at me when shooting at me.

Imagine if Sandstorm had a CoD4 knifing mechanic 😏

last edited by KahleKingzTV

I'm very impressed with the AI-bot programming by the NWI coding team (...except for the laser-guided molotovs.) It is apparent that impressive number of behaviour algorithms are coded into the AIs. I don't want to list all that I noticed and appreciate, but the one many overlook is AI detecting/tracking you based on hearing your “running” footsteps, or coughing in smoke, leading to raising their alertness for the insta-shot.

One recommendation is to give community server operators access to a new set of gamemodeproperties (cvars) so we can adjust the individual bot parameters (not just "bot difficulty levels") according to the flavor of servers we host.

For example high bot-count community servers may be looking for a more consistent bot behaviour, because they require high KDR for their players to complete the round and thus the desired “feel good” experience. The OP’s problem may be solved by reducing AI hearing, reducing visual range, decreasing aiming accuracy, and increasing the minimum reaction time. If we can control damage rate for incindiary or molotov flames, some adversary bots breaching to counterattack may make it into the defended premises without dying in flames.

last edited by JS Schroeder
This post is deleted!

@JS-Schroeder said in For gods sake ! Developers Please put more attention to A.I. coding ! Frustrating gameplay in COOP:

I'm very impressed with the AI-bot programming by the NWI coding team

You shouldn't be...all they do is spot your hitbox (ANY portion of it...) and start thinking of what to do based on their difficulty/'smartness' level. That's beyond rudimentary for a game that wanted a single-player mode...

It is apparent that impressive number of behaviour algorithms are coded into the AIs.

Not many, actually...if you hide in some areas with 1-2 paths that they can't access and 1 they can but would be a death funnel for them they send in the rush boys to steal your attention while they bots go redurrrrHurr trying to find the other flank route that doesn't exist. In other cases if they can't find any route they'll throw a grenade, even if a fucking wall is there and they'd otherwise not be able to know your position.

And then there's that : you can't claim something is smart if it's not learning what to do against you and relies on obtuse BS like magic-pathing where the game knows where you are and sends a bot to you on a bee-line. You get a good dose of this on Oilfield Insurgent if you take the far left path into the mostly restricted zone and ONE bot will know you're there 95% of the time even when you made no sound and it's well off the beaten flank route to box in Insur moving onto the point...L A Z Y.

I don't want to list all that I noticed and appreciate, but the one many overlook is AI detecting/tracking you based on hearing your “running” footsteps, or coughing in smoke, leading to raising their alertness for the insta-shot.

Alpha : we reported bots hearing people ROTATING, which they acknowledged was not supposed to happen. Now they can hear you pick up items that don't have pick up noises. Also doesn't help your point when walking indoors or on soft surfaces or surfaces from well outside hearing distance and they still attempt to walk straight to your position instead of sweeping and clearing like a human has to.

Also love how molow bots taking damage will cause them prone out and stare at you with the molo in-hand like some angry fire terrorist...such great AI, that...

[ Placeholder for hilarious bot pathing in a match here... ]

last edited by xDark

I love it when bots aren't affected by the weapon bash delay that human players are. I also love that they can swing their knife twice as fast as us. What was the thought process/rationale behind this design decision?

I love it when bots can john wick you with an uzi from across the map when you witness them coming around a corner not more than half a second ago.

I love that if you have a suppressor, bots behave in such a way as to make one question whether developmental disabilities are a possibility, but if you've never fired a shot with an unsuppressed gun they know where you are at all times, your credit card number, name of your firstborn etc.

I love that bots can use 7x scoped weapons in close quarters combat like john wick as well.

I especially love it when bots one tap me with a PKM mid sprint and they don't even slow down in the slightest.

I really love these bots. There's nothing wrong with them; they're challenging because clearly they're smart and most certainly because they're not basically cheating.

The AI in this game since Alpha to this very day I am writing have been undeniably abysmal.

Once you've played a co-op match scenario back to front you've played it a million times. The AI spawn, run, camp in the same exact spots every time, there's little variation making it a bore for replay value. The 'duckfamily' as you call it is the biggest give away when it comes to how under developed the AI are. The bots respawn and follow a set path resulting in a conga line.

I've recently created a server for myself and brother for co-op and am now realizing how bare boned co-op scenarios are in this game. Even customizing the AI behavior (the minimal amount that we can right now) isn't enough to make it enjoyable.

The main problem I have with this game is that the maps are so large, yet the AI don't use them. In between objectives you can just sprint to the next one without much of a worry. Sometimes this contains large sections of a map with completely empty indoor/outdoor environments. The AI are 100% predictable.