AI too stupid or to buggy? Spoiler alert.

[5Cents]

Beware of some critism & spoileralert.

Its not to bash the game, i only wondered a lot about AI, after my first playtrough.
I want to hear your expierences and also share some expierences i made with reference to the AI. And i questioned myself are there some bugs or is it pure AI stupidity? I know, Jagged Alliance AI was never really Albert Einstein, but JA3 seems even worse for me, at the moment.

The game seemed a bit too easy for me (even when i played Mission Impossible), because of the AI wasnt that clever. Aside from the 2 boss levels, it wasnt that difficult i thought it would be. F.e. it was possible to autoresolve successfully (1 Livewire against 7 or 8 commandos) and at some places i could shoot at enemies 10 times with flashbang-UBGs and they still stand at the same place, like 10 rnds before, till they finally bite the dust...boring smtms. Sometimes they seem to know exactly where you are, other Times, they seem to have absolutly no glue at all, despite seeing you one time per round.

I also wondered a lot about the autoresolve results. Mostly my militia or my (1) merc won against a heavy load of commandos.

JA2 was much more difficult for me, all together. The AI seemed better, wasnt standing lame around (in groups) and looking against walls in the opposite direction of the already attacking merc (no flashbangs or stun or toxic gas was used before). When deidrannas soldier got attacked, they behaved much more clever & realistic, imo. In my experiences Grand Chiens soldiers mostly doing suicidal moves (like running to your mercs or his unknown location) and sometimes, they just doing nothing.

Sometimes they show the perc fast reaction, drop down in cover, before bullet can hit them, despite the fact the bullet were shot silenced by unseen merc & behind their line of sight (great Idea, btw, the men who are faster than a bullet and even the sound...^^ plz dont try that at home ^^) Although it seems (or is it a matter of fact?) there is a 360 degrees vision sight..

...

On stratetic map there wasnt a big challenge either. There wasnt too much attacks and there wasnt any surprises, the patrols seemed very rare and rather harmless. In JA3 enemies seems a bit absend, also very passive, imo. The patrol and squadsizes was also rather poor (cant mess with 1.13 difficulties : D : D : D )

What is with all that? Is something wrong, can it be solved or is the Ja3 AI a bit lazy and disabled? Somebody expierenced similar? What do you think?

 

PS: In loving memory to the never ending Drassen counter-attack ; )

Edited July 28, 2023 by 5Cents

[5Cents]

Another weak Point, using silencers, surpressors.

I real life they are working more like that: heard the sound, but cant make out, where the shot came from. So the sniper is more safe in his hideout.

In JA3, like  in most of games, silencers meaning silenced, mute, can't hear a shot.
So here: how can the enemy hear, where the shot came from? When there is NO sound. Supported muzzle flash? Crime scene investigation?

This game mechanic design i would call lazy thinking. I hope its modable, somehow in the suture.

Cause most of the times, i experienced: enemy get shot, every other enemy somewhere knows the pproximately merc position immediately.

Yes, i know its a game. But such things mean a hell lot of fun less.

Stealth and kills without reactions only works when youre in hidden mode and even then your camo is lost, when there is more than one soldier and some others nearby (not in sightrange of the target). Or the enemy ist standing and doing almost nothing, like in some undergroundsectors.

Its just annoying when it feels like your sniper position is actually an open secret to the AI (and they only pretend, to not know.)

Edited July 29, 2023 by 5Cents

[GODSPEED]

Everyone keeps bashing JA2 for having lame AI..

The only difference here is that while combat isn't EXACTLY small pods like in X-Com, well it kind of is. The only way to attract other enemies from further away, is to actually walk further away, or shoot near another "pod" of enemies. So they kept battles tiny to avoid that "feeling" like AI that swarms you zombie-style. But in fact it's pretty much the same. Very few occasions I feel I need to even get up and move. I actually just do it to entertain myself, or else battles are all so short and end in a few minutes without much tactics involved.

AI is pretty much braindead in this game. I've stopped even using overwatch, 'cause battles are often over before the enemy even get a second turn.

I don't know if I've gotten "hardcore" because of some of the very hard JA2 mods, or maybe the JA Ai.exe got my brain to actually turn on in combat... but JA3 is FAR from being even close to what I've come to expect from turn-based tactical games.


It a strange thing really. Back in the day of old dos games, early windows games. Many games were kind of hard and unforgiving. A few decades later, "souls-like" and games were you MUST die to keep going have become very popular. But in between those genres, games are become very streamlined - what I think we refer to when saying "dumbed-down" - where, the devs are so afraid of letting players learn on their own, that everything must be easy to get into, easy to play, easy to understand, easy to win, easy to finish.

I remember the first times I played JA2. I had bought a used CD on ebay and did not have the manual. I just went in the game... quickly exit and uninstalled. Too hard, wasn't even hitting the side of a barn. Few days later, decided to find a manual online. Read it. Understood the whole aiming, ap, stance.. etc..

Nothing in the game holds your hand, yet, it's become one of my favorite games of all time. To the point where I read and tweak ini files just to get a kick out of a harder JA2.

I think JA3 suffers from this modern touch of taking all its players for a bunch of weak-minded simpletons who can't figure anything out on their own. It's made to be easy to get into, easy to digest and easy to not really use much brain to play.


Don't get me wrong, at nearly 70 hours, I've had some fun... but I'm losing my patience as I feel the game has become extremely stale. Where are the enemy squads? when will the enemy get better? When will I be challenged by actual tactics instead of simply bullet sponge armor and perks that provide "I knew you were going to shoot me, but I dodge your bullet".


Is this a good revival of JA? Meh... I'm not going to bash it, because I respect the effort that was put into the game, but honestly, 2 more years of work would have been needed here. The game isn't ready for launch in this state.. I'm surprised how little work was put into basic enemy "artificial intelligence".
 

[brato]

I don't need the ai to be too clever. They rush me when I'm outnumbered. They try to flank me when I'm outnumbered. The beginning is so much fun.

I wish almost dead enemies would be hampered more. They're just as dangerous as healthy ones.

Toward the end, you're right, you can just sit there and let them come. I did the sector with thr colonel that way: 6 snipers prone on the road.

But hey, by then it had been boring for a while already. Hadn't found a cool new gun in ages. My guys didn't miss their shots. Outposts taken, so few patrols. 

Do i started over.

If it's too boring play with fewer mercs.

Edited July 29, 2023 by brato

[Warmonger]

11 hours ago, 5Cents said:

Another weak Point, using silencers, surpressors.

I real life they are working more like that: heard the sound, but cant make out, where the shot came from. So the sniper is more safe in his hideout.

In JA3, like  in most of games, silencers meaning silenced, mute, can't hear a shot.
So here: how can the enemy hear, where the shot came from? When there is NO sound. Supported muzzle flash? Crime scene investigation?

This game mechanic design i would call lazy thinking. I hope its modable, somehow in the suture.

Cause most of the times, i experienced: enemy get shot, every other enemy somewhere knows the pproximately merc position immediately.

Yes, i know its a game. But such things mean a hell lot of fun less.

Stealth and kills without reactions only works when youre in hidden mode and even then your camo is lost, when there is more than one soldier and some others nearby (not in sightrange of the target). Or the enemy ist standing and doing almost nothing, like in some undergroundsectors.

Its just annoying when it feels like your sniper position is actually an open secret to the AI (and they only pretend, to not know.)

It was/us quite the same as with JA2. While in JA3 KI looks keener 2 me. Try it without saving. We all do the "saving game" mainly to know what the enemy does or will do. But if just move forward as it comes by you own it looks quiet different and did already in JA2. And at least there is a game play or do you just want to loose? 😉 

[D13]

My main gripe with AI is its inability to identify kill zones. When I'm on a roof next to an open area (e.g. town square) and I shoot one approaching enemy in the head, then it makes no sense for a second and even third guy to run to the exact same spot just to collect their own headshots. I noticed this as early as Ernie village and it's been a recurring issue ever since.

Here you can see four enemies, and three of them ran towards me in a beeline, all dying the same way and next to each other:

In the top left corner you can see two of my mercs hiding. I had positioned them there to deal with any enemies attempting to flank my sniper, or taking cover behind the objects, but that never happened and I ended up killing everyone in the open area.

---

I hope we'll get casual human-vs-human multiplayer at some point. No campaign - just pick a sector and a few mercs, assign guns, deploy, go.  Should be good fun and would allow us to bypass AI limitations and combat balancing issues. Would also be nice to play some of the fine people on this forum 🙂

[GODSPEED]

1 hour ago, D13 said:

My main gripe with AI is its inability to identify kill zones. When I'm on a roof next to an open area (e.g. town square) and I shoot one approaching enemy in the head, then it makes no sense for a second and even third guy to run to the exact same spot just to collect their own headshots. I noticed this as early as Ernie village and it's been a recurring issue ever since.

Ok, I'll be blunt. I get it, some people don't like when we compare JA3 with JA2, mods or especially 1.13.

SevenFM, one of the "popular" modders of JA2 had worked on a few Ai tweaks. Some of these can be found in the more recent 1.13, but lots of them just require one of his .exe files to use instead of the JA2.exe

So, enemies, and especially the black shirts and also sometimes redshirts, were re=programmed to AVOID certain things.

As an example, if you just entrenched your mercs and threw some flares in front, waiting for the enemy, they would actually AVOID walking into the light. They would flank and go around. If they saw a dead enemy in front, they wouldn't walk over or near him.

Naturally, this made the game pretty much deadly, but solved the issue of boring Ai that just comes crashing into you like mindless zombies. Now, YOU have to move and act in a real "tactical" way. You want to bait the enemy, you REALLY have to work for it.



When I talk about 1.13, some people seem to think that all we want is to have JA2 1.13 in 3D. While some of us wouldn't mind that, I think what most 1.13 fans want, is simply for some of the better tweaks to make it into a new game. Better Ai than in base JA2. Ai that actually REACTS to what YOU do.

So.. you sit and camp and get headshots? The enemy shoudl react, they should retreat, throw smokes in front and try to advance under cover, flank or try something else.

But none of that here. Ai doesn't do anything other than just sometimes take nearest cover if the range is acceptable, or simply run towards you like dead zombies.


The game needs more work, the Ai needs serious work. As it is, the game is no upgrade over JA2, apart for graphics.

[Melliores]

@GODSPEED

There are a few matters that do not make it that simple to program a sensible AI in JA3:

• JA2 is 2D, there is very, very elevation to the maps. It was easy to tell the AI to simply climb on the roof and they did not a ladder or any other point of access. JA3 has multiple levels of elevation and fall damage does exist. This makes path finding, especially for Brutes and other close quarters units a challenge.
• JA2 had a lot of indestructible terrain. Those trees are stronger than titanium and we should have used tree bark from Arulco instead of ceramic plates. All this impossible to destroy cover facilitated the path finding and decision-making logic of the AI. Now, in JA3 there is a lot of destructible terrain and even if you can not destroy the concrete wall with your rifle, it is possible to penetrate with certain calibers. The AI has to be taught not only to avoid certain cover but also to know that it can destroy it and go through it. As well as go under the target and simply shoot through the ceiling. Again, we have a lot more scenarios and options that the AI has to consider.
• In JA3 the AI does use trained animals. It is a valid strategy to first let the animals loose and then wait before rushing forward. Here we have different categories of AI that need to be independent from each other but still able to work as a team.
• Explosives. Not used much in JA2 but for some reason in JA3 both you and the enemies have access to plenty of them. Due to this cornucopia of things that go boom, we need the AI to be more aware to not cluster their units and also to be more liberal with their explosives. They do carry weapons with under-barrel launcher but I have yet to see them use it. Now, the AI pummeling you with explosives won't be fun for most players, so I guess this can be reserved for a specific difficulty. 🙂

All that text just to say that you need to consider that just because something was codded/modded back in JA2 does not make it neither a viable, nor an easy addition to JA3. The games have their differing systems.

[Claudius33]

@GODSPEED

Today an AI is capable to beat the GO world champion. So having an AI that easily wipes out an outnumbered and sometimes outgunned team is obviously feasible. But what the point for the player?

What is more difficult is to have an AI that offers challenges while remaining beatable, and such for veterans and newcomers as well. Hence the difficulty levels and the options like lethal wounds.

Imagine that the AI entrenches itself with snipers on highground, a well placed crossfire defensive position then waits for you to come, assaulters waiting for an opportunity to finish off the reckless mercs, an AI that shoots through smoke if you use smoke, uses stealth and all availabale firepower, forcing you to desperately try to outflank its soldiers ... The battle would be very iffy and moreover last forever. That could be something acceptable for the very last epic battle but surely not during the game.

I do not find JA3's AI that dumber as compared to JA2's one. Actually it seems to me that I'm healing more often. Do not forget that with 25 years of JA2, Silent Storm, E5, High Caliber, you should consider yourself as a legendary player when it comes to JA3.

[Attempt]

You can discuss AI capabilities and how to balance AI to make an interesting game, but some things are just glaringly obvious. A small thing I see all the time is enemies wasting AP by going one direction and then changing their mind mid run (I am not talking about panicked).

The K16 fight is super weird, all the snipers keep hiding by the radio tower at the docks and in my solo run a third of enemies congregated out of cover in front of a spotlight like moths:

I sat there for 20 turns or so waiting for the next martyr. At times there were 4 or 5 enemies, excited to find out who gets to die next. The only time I moved was when a Brute joined me on the roof and I had to get some distance to avoid the shotgun blowback, two more enemies eventually tried taking the forward position (smaller circle). A major endgame battle on a Mission Impossible solo run should feel like a joke. The final fight is similar.

When it happens you chuckle and think "I guess I'll take it" but long term you want those fight to be interesting.

[Solaris_Wave]

11 hours ago, Claudius33 said:

@GODSPEED

Today an AI is capable to beat the GO world champion. So having an AI that easily wipes out an outnumbered and sometimes outgunned team is obviously feasible. But what the point for the player?

What is more difficult is to have an AI that offers challenges while remaining beatable, and such for veterans and newcomers as well. Hence the difficulty levels and the options like lethal wounds.

Imagine that the AI entrenches itself with snipers on highground, a well placed crossfire defensive position then waits for you to come, assaulters waiting for an opportunity to finish off the reckless mercs, an AI that shoots through smoke if you use smoke, uses stealth and all availabale firepower, forcing you to desperately try to outflank its soldiers ... The battle would be very iffy and moreover last forever. That could be something acceptable for the very last epic battle but surely not during the game.

I do not find JA3's AI that dumber as compared to JA2's one. Actually it seems to me that I'm healing more often. Do not forget that with 25 years of JA2, Silent Storm, E5, High Caliber, you should consider yourself as a legendary player when it comes to JA3.

I think there is plenty of room for a middle ground between every enemy AI soldier being John Matrix combined with General Patton, and a bunch of kamikaze lemmings who dream of being target dummies.

Being thrashed by the AI isn't fun, especially when they have abilities you can't hope to match (usually a combination of ultra fast reactions, cheating and omniscience) but having the enemy act like skittles in a bowling alley can get boring (unless you enjoy bowling, in which case go wild and have a great time). Even if there are different grades of difficulty and less experienced players don't want to be outsmarted too easily, there needs to be variation to keep the game unpredictable and interesting. People's brains need to be challenged. It can be very satisfying to be presented with a problem and then find a solution.

I want to be outsmarted by the AI by it being crafty (so no bullet sponges or cheating). I will then discover a way to deal with that situation. That would create enjoyment throughout the course of the game, instead of me just going through the motions until the end credits roll. Or, even worse, giving up the game because I felt it was tedious and monotonous.

[Claudius33]

@Solaris_Wave I share your point, yes as an experienced player I would like a smarter AI but you have to think about the general audience. You have to set the cursor somewhere. Make the AI too smart, only a bunch of old grumpy grandpas and a few young newcomers will really appreciate the game.

Honestly I think it's a hard game for a newcomer, especially with a limited tutorial and no mini 'boot camp' campaign. Of course newcomers who sucessfully overcome the initial difficulties are likely to like the game and maybe become fan. But how many?

I really doubt that a boosted AI would transform JA3 into a Dark Souls like success. 

By the way, kamikaze lemmings who dream of being target dummies is what you see in almost all games, including JA2, and in action movies. Don't tell me you have never set a killbox waiting for the lemmings to come.

[5Cents]

I read some arguments, reasonable for having an AI just the way, like it is. But i still have some reservations for the behaviour of AI in JA3. They are not so grounded on lemming wise behaviour, its more the actions of large groups feeling buggy, manymany times and sometimes it seemed AI is cheating other times (knowing where you are, when invisible f.e). I know JA2 was the the same, with enemy group behaviour. But that was 20 years ago. Sometimes even JA1 enemey behaviour felt more unpredictabal.

Do you rember the map-editor witch came with UB (and DG)? You could differentiate enemy orders; well thought out (stationary, on guard, close Patrol, far patrol, on call, seek enemy, point patrol, random point patrol) and their attitude (defensive,cunning, brave. aggressive, aid, solo, fearless).
So my experienced in Ja2, there was quiet a difference in enemy behaviour, which was definitivly visible and really recognazibale. Sometimes the attitude was the reason for that last manhunting an coward enemy, sitting scared hidden somewhere in a lonely corner, still being a deadly threat for too careless mercs.
In JA3 it felt for me, sadly, there wasnt any difference at all for enemy types regarding attitude behaviour (except of enemy typ classes, which are using different typ of weapon-classes)..they all seemed aggressive when they recognize the player (into killing at all costs). But at least there were some order-differences to been seen.

But maybe its dependable of difficulty level or maybe behaviour needs only some rework, and IS modifiable with some value changes on possibly existing attitude classes.

So maybe im wrong with that point, but at the moment, it seems to me, there was a cut off nice features on purpose of simplification.

Finally we will see, when JA3 Editor comes out.

 

 

(Fun?fact: suicidal lemming behaviour are a tasteless and disturbing Hoax created by Disney in the 50s..:/)

[D13]

1 hour ago, Claudius33 said:

I share your point, yes as an experienced player I would like a smarter AI but you have to think about the general audience. You have to set the cursor somewhere. Make the AI too smart, only a bunch of old grumpy grandpas and a few young newcomers will really appreciate the game.

I think this problem could be managed with difficulty levels, where on easier levels the AI would get fewer "thought cycles" to analyze the battlefield situation and plan its moves. Difficulty levels would affect the quality of AI decisions, not just the  effectiveness of AI decisions of the same quality (by altering enemy numbers and stats).

Like when you play chess against a computer: the higher difficulty levels think far ahead and consider thousands of moves and potential responses to these moves, and responses to the responses - and eventually the AI picks the one best move out of all those calculated possibilities. The easier levels force themselves to cut off thinking after, say, ten percent of what the higher levels are capable of, so they calculate fewer possible moves to choose the best one from, which often (but not always) results in a weaker move.

But all chess games adhere to the exact same game rules, regardless of difficulty level - there's always the same number of pieces, and they always have the same reach. All humans can enjoy playing if they set a difficulty level that roughly matches their own abilities.

 

1 hour ago, Claudius33 said:

Honestly I think it's a hard game for a newcomer, especially with a limited tutorial and no mini 'boot camp' campaign.

True, but to me this is an omission, not a difficult-enhancing feature. The game should be easy to learn but hard to master, and combining incomplete introduction/documentation with not-so-great AI makes it hard to learn and easy to master.

It's just weird for the battlefield to look like this when there are so many spots for enemies to use as cover, and the battle itself felt a lot like rinse and repeat. (black boxed one enemy to avoid spoiler):

[5Cents]

40 minutes ago, D13 said:

I think this problem could be managed with difficulty levels, where on easier levels the AI would get fewer "thought cycles" to analyze the battlefield situation and plan its moves. Difficulty levels would affect the quality of AI decisions, not just the  effectiveness of AI decisions of the same quality (by altering enemy numbers and stats).

Like when you play chess against a computer: the higher difficulty levels think far ahead and consider thousands of moves and potential responses to these moves, and responses to the responses - and eventually the AI picks the one best move out of all those calculated possibilities. The easier levels force themselves to cut off thinking after, say, ten percent of what the higher levels are capable of, so they calculate fewer possible moves to choose the best one from, which often (but not always) results in a weaker move.

But all chess games adhere to the exact same game rules, regardless of difficulty level - there's always the same number of pieces, and they always have the same reach. All humans can enjoy playing if they set a difficulty level that roughly matches their own abilities.

 

True, but to me this is an omission, not a difficult-enhancing feature. The game should be easy to learn but hard to master, and combining incomplete introduction/documentation with not-so-great AI makes it hard to learn and easy to master.

It's just weird for the battlefield to look like this when there are so many spots for enemies to use as cover, and the battle itself felt a lot like rinse and repeat. (black boxed one enemy to avoid spoiler

Sometimes hourglass in enemy turn, kept spinning a Long Time and i thought, what ARE they doing, are they are planing a real serious counter-attack, against my single person? Will i get in trouble?

Nope. In trouble with boredom, äh YES!

Extreme example: I observed, sometimes enemy did exactly that: Nothing, nothing, nothing, for rounds and rounds and rounds. They didnt even take cover, standing there in the rooms, didnt duck, standing there as an armed target, got shot every round again again and again, waiting for the next or hopefully for me, at least, the final shot, from my merc appeared out of cover. If that wasnt lazy AI it must be bugged.
The only reason, why the were dangerous, because it was unpredictable, if they will awaken sometime..maybe exactly at that moment, i made a unconcentrated fault, because i slept in boredom (a bit comparable to waste of time inventory clicking)..but it was funny a little bit, at least 😂

I had the same lame story, doing a sunday walk through this actually interesting looking sector, like you showed above. It was hm,... actually a tragedy having observe this drama in 3 acts. I dont think, the AI ever had a chance, because of that sectordesign..
Unfortunately, my merc was absolutely safe, like he threw tiny paperballs out of a window in a kindergarden.

Edited July 30, 2023 by 5Cents

[Melliores]

So I managed to play today the big battle against Siegfried, Bounce and their soldiers. Siegfried's soldiers had a very good AI - they move from cover to cover, use grenades, fire burst fire instead of full auto and evade any machine gun Overwatch (normal overwatch was still a trap for them though).

From what I gather though, they only had one AI role assigned - while taking cover and trying to close in and get a better shot, they did not try to snipe me. There were no snipers among them.

I think the AI framework of JA3 can benefit from having enemy units have 3 AI Roles assigned to them, so they alternate between them.

In the case of the battle at B12, the AI correctly identified that I had the high ground on the hill and they did not try to storm it. But the firefight did not go in their favour at all mostly because they tried to maneuver too much around the buildings.

We need more AI that have multiple weapon roles and are able to use them like Siegfried's soldiers. 🙂

[sandman25dcsss]

I was defending in huge port and noticed that allied AI (there were 3 allied teams on my side) has no idea where enemy is despite my Livewire was showing position of all enemies. Yet it proves AI does not cheat, at least vs other AI.

[Solaris_Wave]

10 hours ago, Claudius33 said:

By the way, kamikaze lemmings who dream of being target dummies is what you see in almost all games, including JA2, and in action movies. Don't tell me you have never set a killbox waiting for the lemmings to come.

I have done that on more than one occasion and in more games than I can remember. However, it can become boring if it happens too often in the same game. Hence the need to have better AI that adapts to a situation. If you have a sniper picking off their forces, they shouldn't keep falling to the same method.

 

7 hours ago, D13 said:

But all chess games adhere to the exact same game rules, regardless of difficulty level - there's always the same number of pieces, and they always have the same reach. All humans can enjoy playing if they set a difficulty level that roughly matches their own abilities.

 

Chess against the AI isn't something I play often but I haven't enjoyed the experience all that much. The reason behind this is because of the disparity between the AI levels of which I am good against. I am not a good Chess player but I will find one AI difficulty level too easy to beat, encouraging me to go to the next difficulty. It then becomes Gary Kasparov. I am unable to choose a level between the two. I am either not challenged enough or thrashed without the chance to gain experience on what I should do.