Enemy AI aggroing on mercs whose location they can't possibly know

[troubleyoucalldw]

As in JA2/2.5, I like making use of stealth. For the most part, the enemy AI reacts mostly logically. But on some maps, if an enemy sees an ally die but isn't able to spot the killer, the entire map will instantly aggro on one or more mercs, even if those mercs are stealthed at night in a rainstorm halfway across the map and haven't taken an action since deploying. It's bizarre and frustrating.

Basic example: my IMP is stealth focused, so I'll send her around the perimeter of a fortress map and take out any loners or snipers. The rest of the team, I'll leave stealthed behind cover near the deployment zone. I have Livewire and usually have intel, so I know the enemies' locations. They're usually 40+ squares away from my mercs, often on the other side of multiple walls.

After taking out the loners and snipers, I'll often try taking out one of a pair of guards, just to create some chaos and maybe shake out a few more loners. I snipe them with a silenced rifle from a significant distance away and get the stealth kill. The second guard sees the death but doesn't spot my IMP. He freaks out, sounds the alarm... and suddenly the entire map is booking it towards the deployment zone, where the rest of my squad is chilling.

Sometimes, I'm able to sneak my squad to another location before the enemies get in range. The enemies will mill around, then wander off. But the next time a mob notices a kill or finds a body, the entire map zergs on my squad's new location. Doesn't matter where I go, the entire map automatically rushes to exactly where they're hiding.

 

With some care and a lot of quicksaves, I've learned ways to frequently manipulate this behavior to my benefit. Set up ambush formations along the mostly like route, etc. But it's still frustrating. Even if the map zerged on my stealthed IMP, that would make at least a little bit of sense—at least they'd be in the right area to find the killer. But no, my IMP is usually left twiddling her thumbs all the way across the map from where the rest of the squad is desperately trying to sneak away from the tidal wave of mobs that appears to know their exact location.

 

Is this a bug, and if so will it be addressed? Is it intended, and if so... why?

[Uncle Nick]

People forget the game devs themselves play JA hardcore. They know all our JA2 tricks, and are just making the game puzzle a little more difficult for us. Every sector map has an optimal solution. You just haven't found the best solution yet. This makes game replay possible, because many of us want that coveted Lone Wolf achievement award.  

[D13]

I found that this behavior can be triggered not only be killing an enemy, but by letting a lone merc be killed. I tried this on Ernie in the second sector (the one with the bridge and the plateau). Hid merc out of sight on top of the vantage point, another in the sector corner behind the rock formation. Walked a third merc towards enemies. After killing him, the entire enemy squad went on some type of unnaturally high alert, even their sniper climbing down the plateau, everyone running towards my hidden mercs, two enemies going straight for the vantage point and climbing up there.

Not sure if bug or intended AI cheating to make up for combat AI deficiencies.

[J1v1n]

Even though I know what you mean, let me throw something in there: maybe the enemies have a few Livewire-type mercenaries themselves, activate them on the first active encounter (someone dies or gets hit, grazed, or sees a bullet flying by), and therefore easily know where to find everybody. I mean we just can't expect having a mercenary that shows us the exact and live location of every enemy but when the enemy knows our location it is cheating. 😆

[LXant]

1 hour ago, D13 said:

I found that this behavior can be triggered not only be killing an enemy, but by letting a lone merc be killed. I tried this on Ernie in the second sector (the one with the bridge and the plateau). Hid merc out of sight on top of the vantage point, another in the sector corner behind the rock formation. Walked a third merc towards enemies. After killing him, the entire enemy squad went on some type of unnaturally high alert, even their sniper climbing down the plateau, everyone running towards my hidden mercs, two enemies going straight for the vantage point and climbing up there.

Not sure if bug or intended AI cheating to make up for combat AI deficiencies.

You can use it to your advantage though. Set up a row of snipers in a position that can't be flanked. Stay hidden the entire time, using the 'H' key. Then you kill one defender and trigger the alarm. Since the AI doesn't have any visible enemy, it's swarming towards you until it uncovers you, which requires it to stand 5-10 tiles away from you.

While they run towards you, you can snipe them with headshots, because they don't really seek cover while they don't see you. Usually the entire map comes to you that way, even the snipers. Just make enough noise, use loud weapons, and let them come.

The AI is cheating by knowing where you are, but can't attack if you're hidden. So they rush your position and get killed one after another, because you know how the AI behaves.

Yeah, two can play that game.

It's intended and can be exploited, is what I'm saying.

[Skaldy]

1 hour ago, J1v1n said:

Even though I know what you mean, let me throw something in there: maybe the enemies have a few Livewire-type mercenaries themselves, activate them on the first active encounter (someone dies or gets hit, grazed, or sees a bullet flying by), and therefore easily know where to find everybody. I mean we just can't expect having a mercenary that shows us the exact and live location of every enemy but when the enemy knows our location it is cheating. 😆

then i should enter every map in combat mode. Enemy is cheating to justify difficulty, modern game design cant program AI in an other intelligent way.

[BossWeapons]

The enemies are using some sort of african shamanism to detect mercs they shouldn't be able to even know about. It's a weird thing when it happens. Sometimes the enemy can be absolutely oblivious to your presence and they just run around aimlessly when alerted, but more often than not they beeline to where you are hiding when there should be zero possibility for them to know your location.

That is, to put it short: They be cheating ya!

But to be fair, I've also wondered on occasion if this behaviour is AI bugging out due to some sort of overlooked bit in the code or if it is indeed intended so that stealthing wouldn't be as powerful as it could otherwise be.

[troubleyoucalldw]

20 hours ago, Uncle Nick said:

People forget the game devs themselves play JA hardcore. They know all our JA2 tricks, and are just making the game puzzle a little more difficult for us. Every sector map has an optimal solution. You just haven't found the best solution yet. This makes game replay possible, because many of us want that coveted Lone Wolf achievement award.  

There's puzzles, and then there's just plain cheap. Enemies aggroing on mercs whose location they have no way of knowing is super, super cheap. If there's an optimal solution for each sector, that's one thing. Setting up invisible walls to force other solutions to artificially be less optimal? That's an entirely different thing.

Which is why I really hope this is just a bug that can be fixed, rather than an intentional 'feature'.

[Divine Moleman]

I had a lot of combat where I had sneaking mercs and sniping mercs and didn't see this happen at all.  It seemed more like the enemies were focusing on flanking and I was able to keep my stealthy mercs hidden and the enemies did nothing suspicious.

I'm sure that what you guys are talking is real and should be fixed, but whatever system they have does work in some cases.

[troubleyoucalldw]

27 minutes ago, Divine Moleman said:

I had a lot of combat where I had sneaking mercs and sniping mercs and didn't see this happen at all.  It seemed more like the enemies were focusing on flanking and I was able to keep my stealthy mercs hidden and the enemies did nothing suspicious.

I'm sure that what you guys are talking is real and should be fixed, but whatever system they have does work in some cases.

Yeah, I've had them work many times. And then other times, for no discernible reason, psychic zerg rush.

[troubleyoucalldw]

Seriously, can anything be done about this? Is enemy AI moddable? Can someone comment out the knowExactlyWhereAllMyMercsAre() function?

[Biff]

6 hours ago, troubleyoucalldw said:

Seriously, can anything be done about this? Is enemy AI moddable? Can someone comment out the knowExactlyWhereAllMyMercsAre() function?

There's a new mod on the Steam Workshop that might do what you're looking for. It says it stops enemies being able to magically move to your location.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3020274812&searchtext=

[troubleyoucalldw]

On 8/16/2023 at 6:56 AM, Biff said:

There's a new mod on the Steam Workshop that might do what you're looking for. It says it stops enemies being able to magically move to your location.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3020274812&searchtext=

Trip report: it works, but as expected, it makes the game REALLY easy. That or I was already so used to the psychic bum rush that anything less felt easy in comparison.