PC Will the AI introduced in Alpha 17 be too good?
- Thread starter azmothman
- Start date
Scyris
Survivor
My first horde night, in A17 I'm going to do what I used to do in the previous alpha's: Get on the 2nd floor of a poi and knock out the stairs. I know its not going to work, but I really wanna see the new AI in action. I do admit I dislike the fact there is no headshot bonus without that one perk in the perception tree I think. We should be rewarded for good aim for headshots as a baseline and that perk can just make it better. Otherwise, I'd just go for easier bodyshots if its going to take the same amount of hits to kill them. I hope the headshot thing changes, and there is a headshot bonus even without the skill. Otherwise it'll kinda make the combat way to easy as you can just go for body shots. Its a worry I have that i'll not really be able to do much about till A17 experemental finally comes out.
OldManBrian
Refugee
Personally, I think headshots should be lethal (1-hit) period with just about every weapon accept fists and club, and on every enemy except z's with helmets and bears.
That's how I always mod the XML at least. (Though I haven't been able to make it enemy specific yet.)
Scyris
Survivor
I agree, used to always piss me off how I killed all the zombies behind me, so I turn back around only to get hit before I can move by something that magically spawned close to me, when behind me was completly clear up to my sight range, Its especally akward when this happens in a wide open field with nothing zombies could hide behind. I mean if there is a tree or a rock you could go with the logic that maybe it was just hiding/idling there. Its even more akward when you clear a room out, only to turn around and start getting hit from behind in a room that you just cleared. IMO Other than maybe the initial sleeper spawns (they often don't tend to spawn till your very close to the building within 2-5 blocks of the doors/walls) no zombie should be able to spawn within 50-100 blocks of the player.
Had quite a few instances in a16 where I just went "Where the hell did that zombie come from?" as the place was completly cleared, and was nothing in view.
I hope they fix my biggest issue with the game though and that is the screeching zombies do. If the zombie actually physically seen me, then yes let them screech, but if they detected a sound, and start hitting walls, they don't need to screech and scream every single damn swing they take, just hitting the wall with the odd groan they always do is good enough. I literally stealth thru poi's not because I am scared of the zombies, but because of how much of a headache all the racket they will make as they swing at the walls (or air) and screech on every swing. I wish there was more options in the volume settings: BGM, Zombie voice, Player sound effects. settings. I'd probally nearly mute the player sound effects/voice, as the noise when mining or using the auger/chainsaw has always just agitated me, don't get me started on the metal hitting metal noise when using pick axes etc. Have them do the same in terms of zombies noticing them, but at least allow the player to mute or turn them down for themselves to save our ears. Especally the zombie screechers. On horde night I usually mute my sound entirely because its nothing but nonstop screeching for almost half an hour.
Last edited by a moderator:
ricp
Refugee
As with most of my posts, I'm overly verbose, jump to the TL;DR for a summary or my meanderings...
Let's start with the obvious, AI is very difficult to program. Think about all the possible variables that are involved, remembering those variables need to be recalculated every fraction of a second based on an ever changing world. Sure there are libraries out there that will cut out a lot of the work, such as Unity's pathing algorithms but it's still needing to calculate a ton of stuff just to work out where one zombie should go, factor in a horde and factor in that the horde needs to act as a group of individuals rather than a uniform group of zombies (ie: all following exactly the same path/strategy/etc). Add in different attack methods, such as the cops or the spiders and you can see how the basic underlying logic can get complicated and that's before we've factored in the difficulty settings where each AI calculation will be based on how aggressive they are to be.
So, it's not easy, not easy at all. Not only is there a ♥♥♥♥ ton of calculations involved it also has to feed into the immersion so that zombies act like zombies - they aren't robots so should act as if they are sentient even if it is a brain eating, decaying sentience! It's because of this I cut a lot of slack with AI in games - anyone who has been playing for any number of years will have seen the level of AI improvement over the years (just go back and play some old games to see what I mean, AI was easily the weakest element)
Ultimately I'm not looking for uber-intelligent enemies but I do want ones that will challenge me, and not just because they can take out concrete and steel easily. Currently the AI is a challenge only if I put the difficulty at max (heh... that combined with my low FPS!) and even then it's not so much the AI that's challenging but the sheer brute force that they offer up.
7DtD suffers very much from CoD (not the FPS franchise but Circle of Death) where zombies will get caught up in their own little world and just run around in circles until interrupted by a timely arrow to the forehead. There is also the perma-fence jumping glitch where zombies see no problem with continually jumping against a seemingly weak wooden fence rather than simply plough through it - especially as it's more than capable of doing that it just chooses not to. There are a few other little glitches along the same lines. It's all too easy to fool the AI - especially when there is a height difference between you and them. So all in all, the current AI is more noticeable due to it's "glitches" than it's successes or the level of fear it can strike into the player.
TL;DR?
It's not so much that the AI should be better, although I believe it should, the first port of call would be to iron out the failings of the current AI. The running in circles, the getting stuck behind an obvious and easy obstacle, unwillingness to destroy something that they repeatedly try (and fail) to jump over. It's only once you remove those immersion breaking stupidity of the AI can you go on to improve.
Personally I'd like to see ridiculously hard AI, one that beelines onto you and beats on you like a ginger stepchild until your only option is to flee. "Why?", you ask. Because the current upper limit of difficulty should (imo) be almost impossible to deal with but it's really not. I'd much prefer hard as nails AI and need to dial it down, than limp wristed idiots which I need to dial up.
** I would love to see the return of the "smell detector", and perhaps even extend it, where you can be detected via fresh meat you carry, but either I missed it or it's not coming back for A17
Let's start with the obvious, AI is very difficult to program. Think about all the possible variables that are involved, remembering those variables need to be recalculated every fraction of a second based on an ever changing world. Sure there are libraries out there that will cut out a lot of the work, such as Unity's pathing algorithms but it's still needing to calculate a ton of stuff just to work out where one zombie should go, factor in a horde and factor in that the horde needs to act as a group of individuals rather than a uniform group of zombies (ie: all following exactly the same path/strategy/etc). Add in different attack methods, such as the cops or the spiders and you can see how the basic underlying logic can get complicated and that's before we've factored in the difficulty settings where each AI calculation will be based on how aggressive they are to be.
So, it's not easy, not easy at all. Not only is there a ♥♥♥♥ ton of calculations involved it also has to feed into the immersion so that zombies act like zombies - they aren't robots so should act as if they are sentient even if it is a brain eating, decaying sentience! It's because of this I cut a lot of slack with AI in games - anyone who has been playing for any number of years will have seen the level of AI improvement over the years (just go back and play some old games to see what I mean, AI was easily the weakest element)
Ultimately I'm not looking for uber-intelligent enemies but I do want ones that will challenge me, and not just because they can take out concrete and steel easily. Currently the AI is a challenge only if I put the difficulty at max (heh... that combined with my low FPS!) and even then it's not so much the AI that's challenging but the sheer brute force that they offer up.
7DtD suffers very much from CoD (not the FPS franchise but Circle of Death) where zombies will get caught up in their own little world and just run around in circles until interrupted by a timely arrow to the forehead. There is also the perma-fence jumping glitch where zombies see no problem with continually jumping against a seemingly weak wooden fence rather than simply plough through it - especially as it's more than capable of doing that it just chooses not to. There are a few other little glitches along the same lines. It's all too easy to fool the AI - especially when there is a height difference between you and them. So all in all, the current AI is more noticeable due to it's "glitches" than it's successes or the level of fear it can strike into the player.
TL;DR?
It's not so much that the AI should be better, although I believe it should, the first port of call would be to iron out the failings of the current AI. The running in circles, the getting stuck behind an obvious and easy obstacle, unwillingness to destroy something that they repeatedly try (and fail) to jump over. It's only once you remove those immersion breaking stupidity of the AI can you go on to improve.
Personally I'd like to see ridiculously hard AI, one that beelines onto you and beats on you like a ginger stepchild until your only option is to flee. "Why?", you ask. Because the current upper limit of difficulty should (imo) be almost impossible to deal with but it's really not. I'd much prefer hard as nails AI and need to dial it down, than limp wristed idiots which I need to dial up.
** I would love to see the return of the "smell detector", and perhaps even extend it, where you can be detected via fresh meat you carry, but either I missed it or it's not coming back for A17
Last edited by a moderator:
You are a little behind on A17 information it seems. The bugs you are talking about are already fixed to a great extent (maybe even all of them), no running around in circles anymore or not attacking specific blocks for example. Zombies attack the weakest spots in your defense if they can't get at you directly.
So the question isn't anymore how to make the AI really good, the AI IS really good. At least compared to what we are used to.
If you want to know more, read Faatals posts in "The Official A17 Developer's Diary for Developers"
Last edited by a moderator:
ricp
Refugee
I certainly don't doubt that, but until we have A17 in our grubby little mitts we can't really say just how well those issues have been fixed and how the new implementation will work. I mean I hope for the best, don't get me wrong, but we need the game to test for ourselves.
Sure, there is quite a lot of info available. Sadly this site, or TFP tend to put a lot of info into one thread which in itself gets bloated out by others opinions and comments. Every time I've gone to similar threads it's difficult to pick out the "official info" as it were.
That said, on your recommendation, I will look out of Faatals posts in the future.
Scyris
Survivor
Thinking about it, depending how the AI views traps, you might be able to easly funnel zombies on horde night down a death tunnel, I had an idea for a base, It has 4 ways in, each way with those shock poles and fans spinning, while you stand near the middle, since there is air blocks above/around the traps they'll march right down the kill corridor. Use a few rows thick of wood frames to delay them if they get that far past the traps, You can shoot thru wood frames, and as they have next to no hp, the zombies will go right for them like a fly to... well you get it. I'm personally going to have fun messing with the AI and seeing what kind of mazes I can make them run like they do with mice with food at the end.
Randomly attacking walls is gone according to Fataal, they will run directly at you if there is a free path and otherwise attack whatever wall promises to have the weakest path to you. At the moment they are even too predictable in this regard, they plan to add some randomness to their behaviour.
Last edited by a moderator: