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On The Topic Of Enemy Artifical Intelligence [Updated 12/20/2013]


DarknightK
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As you all may have heard over the past few months, Enemy AI is certaintly lackluster, but has been improving (and degrading, at times), over the past few updates. This thread purposes itself to compile multiple suggestions for the incoming Winter of godly updates.

 

 

 

Topic Uno: Enemy Docile Behavior

 

As of now, Enemy's obey a semi-strict patrol pattern. What may be needed is more dynamic and 'natural' feeling enemy paths and behaviors while the players are not detected in order to:

1) Ease the issues with stealth gameplay, making it possibly easier in some aspects

2) Make enemies more unpredictable, if they are not so right now. :S

 

As such, here come the swath of rich, honey goodness you know as ideas.

 

Corpus: The Corpus should have Crewmen models that are not initially equipped with weaponry, but instead, they are preforming tasks that crewmen should probably be expected to do: Carry cargo, mop the floor(possibly as a rare easter egg?), talk with higher officials(elite crewmen), Corpus Techs and Elite Crewmen could be working on a broken electrical panel somewhere, and so on. When the first sign of violence occurs, unarmed Crewmen will rush for an "Armory", where they will switch their model to its respective combative form. The Crewmen nearest to an alarm will attempt to reach it before picking up his weapon.

 

Grineer: Unlike the Corpus, the Grineer will have more patrolling models, but will still have some scripts such as a Shield Lancer polishing his Shield, Troopers and Lancers inspecting their guns, Commanders instructing basic Lancers on combat techniques, and yadda yadda. Unlike the Corpus, the Grineer will have no disorder, and will attack at the sign of detection.

 

Infested: The Infested follow a more savage and unpredictable role in Docile behavior. Scripts such as Chargers scavenging for food(2-3 groups of Chargers), sleeping Chargers/Runners/Ancients, and most importantly the "Infection" process. Corpses of Crewman/Grineer will evolve into the Infested models before your very eyes! (Think Dead Space transformation). The Infested should have completely random and orderless patrol patterns, to make them the most unpredictable. However once they have found their prey, they will utilize more Predatory tactics.

 

 

Topic Zwei: Combat AI

All of Warframe's current AI is pretty much unified: rush the enemy(or defense objective). Let's add some diversity to it shall we good chaps? Tut tut.

 

General: Enemies should not be able to track players they have not already seen, and should instead focus on the player's "Last known location". This feature is prevalent in the Assassin's Creed and recent Splinter Cell universe, and adds a good sense of Stealth immersion and tactics around. Right now, once your spotted, enemies will take a defensive stance and/or begin scouting you out, shooting immediately once you get into firing range, even if your behind them. This heavily breaks stealth immersion, and less options to break out of combat and into a more hit-and-run mode. Basically, once you enter combat, you can't leave. This option will allow players more leeway in combat if they're in a difficult situation and manage to break line of sight from enemies.

 

Corpus: Humanoid Corpus will use basic cover tactics (as they do now) and will pop out at times. If they cannot see a player, they will throw a plasma grenade (devastates shields, not so much health) depending on varying difficulties. Sometimes, they may throw an EMP grenade (longer counter, but wide explosion and seeps some energy and strips shields). Robotic Corpus will rush in as they do now, and will strafe when below 20% health, instead of standing there like metal walls (which they basically are). If possible, more interactive Corpus enemies like the Turrets and Cameras should be worked into AI with the Humanoid Corpus, giving them more tactics in their fault of brute strength like the Grineer.

I'd suggest for Corpus tactics that Corpus crewmen would generally stay at range while MOAs eschewed cover. Crewmen would retreat to cover when shields are 75% depleted to recharge as if they have a sense of self preservation. Chasing a crewman down while he's in that state would cause him to flee. Shield Osprey would prioritze crewmen with low shields, then deal with MOAs with depleted shields. -Dan137W1750n's feedback on Corpus AI

 

Grineer: Generally, Grineer will also utilize higher degrees of cover-based combat than the Corpus Crewmen will. Such feats would be; stacking 2-3 Grineer behind one another, forming a tactical, sheltered breach; a Lancer getting behind a Shield Lancer and popping out at times; Grineer sliding into cover and vaulting over cover, as well as combat rolling between adjacent cover. Grineer will also use combat rolls at higher difficulties which give them a chance to dodge incoming projectiles, tricky tricky.

The Grineer will also utilize a mixture of guerilla tactics such as Ambushes, Raids, and Blitzkreigs depending on the number of their forces. Grineer Commander's will be the ones who give these commands, and will generally allow groups of Grineer to preform some particularly challenging defensive and offensive tactics.

 

Infested: There's not much to say here, the Infested would be the primary rushers, not much in terms of varied combat as of right now. Light infested could however fall back when the "territorial" ancients come rushing at players, or such future Infested types if created. Infested should generally act like a Predator, ambushing player's through air vents and hidden spawning areas when alerted to the Player's presence.

"Leapers will try to climb up,and always (when possible) assault you from above,knocking you back.

 

Chargers will run towards you in a more zig-zag behavior and they can also pin you down if they attack from behind (similar to how we can press E to assassinate a target from behind,just that the chargers will pin you down for 1 second,after which your frame kicks it off a fairy amount of distance just for the fun of it and seeing flying ragdolling chargers).

 

Runners can actually be RUNNERS,they'll wall run,wall jump from surface to surface (these algorithms are calculated before an actual jump,so the game knows where they will land and if that is actually a feasible location that will get the Runner much faster closer to the player than by simply running on the ground." -Sebastianx's suggestion for diverse Infested AI.

 

 

Topic три: Dynamic Enemy Models

In retaliation to the "Scorch/Napalm/Evisceratur OP pls nurf" threads, I've decided to come up with a solution for all our worries!

Certain "difficult" enemies, such as the Scorch and Napalm for example, will have additions to their models that may make way for a certain advantage over them.

 

Grineer Model Changes

General: Enemy soldiers with faceplates can now have their plates shot off after receiving a certain amount of small damage. This will open up their faces, now giving normal damage to their face area (while their faceplates are on, they are given an armor boost to their facial region).

 

Scorch: Scorches now have horizontal fuel tanks attached just below their large hump on their upper back. Players must get behind the Scorch to hit these tanks (or use puncture). When a Scorch's tank is hit, he will immediately divert his attention to the player who hit it and will attack them. Before the tank detonates, several fumes of fire will start leaking out one by one at a time, alerting nearby players that the Scorch is about to explode. Upon destruction, the tank releases a large fiery blast that sets surrounding enemy and player units on fire, as well as minor AoE explosion damage.

If the Scorch is still alive, he will switch to whatever secondary he has, and use that from that point on.

 

Heavy Gunner: The Heavy Gunner model will go through substantial changes, giving her more of a bulky and armored look, complete with a belt-fed chaingun primarily used for suppression. The chaingun will have slightly less DPS than the Gorgon, but will never have to be reloaded and fires at a faster speed yet has a longer spool time to max fire rate. Players repetedly hit by the chaingun will suffer "Suppression", or blurred vision, decreasing their accuracy. In order to subdue the new Heavy Gunner, players should focus on shooting her magazine feed, jamming her belt and causing her to manually reload. Additionally, if the Heavy Gunner fires for too long, her chaingun's barrel will overheat, causing her to momentarily stop firing for about 2 seconds. The Heavy now has two weakspots, her head and her ammunition backpack, which will decrease her firing rate if damaged enough (the backpack can be shot from in front of her because it peaks over her shoulders and head, like that weird neck cushion the current Gunner and Ballista models have).

 

The Heavy gunner will don a new model of a chaingun, belt fed to a munitions backpack. Shooting the bullet feed will cause it to jam, forcing the Gunner to reload (longer than current Gorgon animation). However in consequence, because of the belt-fed magazine, the heavy will never have to reload, giving her more of a suppressing role (her chaingun will deal much lower damage than the Gorgon, and will also have worse accuracy than the Gorgon).

 

Napalm: The Grineer Napalm now sports several canisters of Napalm around his abdomen. Destroying these canisters will be a challenge for those who do not have puncture, as the Napalm's arms and gun will usually cover it when he kneels down to fire. When the napalm reloads, it gives players a chance to destroy the canisters. Destroying these canisters will give a similar effect to the Scorches, except that it causes a "firecracker" fire explosion, hitting up to 6 times around the napalm.

If the napalm is still alive after the canisters have been shot, his launcher will have a severely decreased range and damage output.

 

Commander: The Commander will simply receive decorative changes to further diversify him from other Grineer units. A hopeful change to the Commander AI will remove his ability to switch teleport with players, and instead allow him to teleport Grineer units within his field of vision to flanking positions near players. Additionally, the Commander will be able to yell out specific commands, allowing troops within range of him to set up concentrated fire on Tenno units, establish a phalanx wall of shield lancers, establish a firing squad of Elite Lancers, and possibly allow his troops to stay out of sight in order to ambush players as they walk into a room.

 

Bombard: The bombard will gain several frag grenades and extra rockets attached to his uniform. Aside from this asthetic change, the Bombard's rockets can be shot, causing them to prematurely detonate. When concentrated fire at a Bombard's Ogris is exerted, this can exceptionally help take down lesser enemies around the Bombard.

 

Corpus Model Changes

Prod Crewman: Should be removed completely, and their Prova's should be used as a backup weapon for other Crewmen

 

Sniper Crewman: Sniper crewmen have differing helmets that help set them apart from other Corpus enemies. Aside from their helmets, their uniform is blue, like that of an Elite Crewman, but is stylized different than the Crewman models, reflecting their position as a more tactical variant of the Corpus, yet still looking similar to the whole "Crewman" theme.

 

Tech: Corpus Tech's have slightly more armor on their limbs, as well as several dormant Ospreys on their backs that will deploy when the Tech activates his handy-dandy wrist computer thing! The reason for this addition allows players to destroy the Ospreys before the Tech releases them! Ospreys types are spawned randomly on the Tech's back, and once he has used those Ospreys, or if they are all destroyed, he cannot send out more.

 

Mine Osprey: Mine Ospreys now deploy a physical mine similar to that of a naval mine (or Vor's nervos) that can be shot and destroyed. They can only place up to 5 mines at a time, and will avoid placing mines within 3m of other mines. Detonating these mines can cause a chain reaction, should they be lined up perfectly.

 

Leech Osprey: Leech Ospreys will move into melee range of the player and begin to start draining their shields at a steady rate. Their model will change their gun section into a Portal-gun-like apparatus that is used to drain shields.

 

Infested

Charger: The Charger's model could use a few touch-ups, maybe making more variations of the charger to diversify gameplay? These variants could mainly differ in color and a few texture extremities. Chargers should have "WEAK, CLAW ATTACKS" specifically stated in their flavor text. Variants of the chargers may have special status effects such as puncture or impact damage.

 

Runner: The Runner's head and neck region is replaced with a large bulbous growth similar to that of Saryn's Venom bulbs. This will still be the Runner's weakspot, and shooting it will cause the runner to prematurely detonate, harming any entity around him. Dealing sufficient damage to a Runner's legs will dismember them, reducing the walker to a crawler with the same exploding function, and renders his parkour abilities useless.

 

Leaper: The leaper now vaguely resembles an Elite Crewman. His legs have been heavily mutated into muscular, Moa-like appendages to provide long-range aerial attacks. Their arms have become crippled, and are now supported by what appears to be an exoskeleton of Infested bone and flesh, their original arms barely visible inside. Among these arms are a series of razor sharp bones protruding from the hands and forearms. The Leapers can now stick to surfaces and pounce upon unsuspecting prey. In addition, Leapers will occasionally thrust themselves into the air at blinding speeds in order to land down upon their enemies.

 

Ancients: In general, the Radials that the Ancients sport on their backs will be symbolized as a source for concentrating their powers. Destroying them will remove the associated powers of the Ancients, but will throw them into a Frenzy. During this state, their movement speed is drastically increased, and they begin to attack with a flurry of whiplashes with their long arm. In addition, Ancients will use their large arm to block their face while charging at players normally.

 

Topic Quatre: Damage Reaction

Enemies should react dynamically to damage received to their body parts. Right now, enemies take standardized reactions from the following: Abilities that guarantee stunning/knockdown, Impact proc, and Blast proc, implementing this system will actually make the player feel they are harming their enemies.

 

Enemy Damage Reaction: After sustaining heavy fire at a specific body part, enemies will react accordingly to oncoming damage

Here is a condensed list of possible effects

Head Trauma: Focused fire on the cranial region will daze enemies, causing them to randomly stumble around and lose accuracy.

 

Cracked Shoulder: Enemies will have drastically reduced aim and reload speed (or just attack speed in general for the Infested).

 

Smashed Kneecaps: Enemies will fall under the concentrated fire upon their legs, and will slowly stumble to get back up while firing.

 

EDIT: I'll start adding update info in the main post as well. Added "General" part to Topic Two and wrote Topic Four up today. Please keep contributing!

Edited by DarknightK
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i like these ideas. remember to add something about making enemies not capable of tracing you when they can´t possibly know where you are.

 

one little detail: the scorchers do way too much damage. maybe they could have lower armor, but they just do WAY too much damage. they start appearing on earth, and if you use a warframe with low level, they kill you in less than a second.

 

napalms are horrible things because you can´t even dodge them. you think you did, but the range of the animation i 1 square meter (aprox.) but the actual are of effect is, what? 20 meters? 15 meters? no idea, but it is way too much, and then having all of that fire effect all over you is bothering

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i like these ideas. remember to add something about making enemies not capable of tracing you when they can´t possibly know where you are.

 

one little detail: the scorchers do way too much damage. maybe they could have lower armor, but they just do WAY too much damage. they start appearing on earth, and if you use a warframe with low level, they kill you in less than a second.

 

napalms are horrible things because you can´t even dodge them. you think you did, but the range of the animation i 1 square meter (aprox.) but the actual are of effect is, what? 20 meters? 15 meters? no idea, but it is way too much, and then having all of that fire effect all over you is bothering

 

Yeah, the tracing thing will be something I'll add in a miscellaneous section.

 

Agreed with the fact that Scorches do insanely amounts of DPS and Napalms have ungodly range. Damage 2.0 and (hopefully) an incoming update/hotfix will solve those issues, respectively.

 

However these additions to the enemy models should give both starter and veteran players some edge over their enemies, without the direct need of mods.

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The Infested could be the ones you could work with the most actually.For example :

 

Leapers will try to climb up,and always (when possible) assault you from above,knocking you back.

 

Chargers will run towards you in a more zig-zag behavior and they can also pin you down if they attack from behind (similar to how we can press E to assassinate a target from behind,just that the chargers will pin you down for 1 second,after which your frame kicks it off a fairy amount of distance just for the fun of it and seeing flying ragdolling chargers).

 

Runners can actually be RUNNERS,they'll wall run,wall jump from surface to surface (these algorithms are calculated before an actual jump,so the game knows where they will land and if that is actually a feasible location that will get the Runner much faster closer to the player than by simply running on the ground.

 

We should also get a new infested enemy type called the Swarmer, they're basically the zerg rush version of warframe. Little fast guys,hard to hit due to their size,not so strong if 1-2-3 come near you and start biting you for a small amount of damage but they do have a high attack speed. When a player does not have them in visual range,they first try to pack togheter in swarms of 10,20,30 or more and then advance on the player. Their main role is that of distraction,while you're busy shooting at those little bastards,an Ancient sneaks up on you and BAM there goes your energy.

Edited by Sebastianx
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The Infested could be the ones you could work with the most actually.For example :

 

Leapers will try to climb up,and always (when possible) assault you from above,knocking you back.

 

Chargers will run towards you in a more zig-zag behavior and they can also pin you down if they attack from behind (similar to how we can press E to assassinate a target from behind,just that the chargers will pin you down for 1 second,after which your frame kicks it off a fairy amount of distance just for the fun of it and seeing flying ragdolling chargers).

 

Runners can actually be RUNNERS,they'll wall run,wall jump from surface to surface (these algorithms are calculated before an actual jump,so the game knows where they will land and if that is actually a feasible location that will get the Runner much faster closer to the player than by simply running on the ground.

 

We should also get a new infested enemy type called the Swarmer, they're basically the zerg rush version of warframe. Little fast guys,hard to hit due to their size,not so strong if 1-2-3 come near you and start biting you for a small amount of damage but they do have a high attack speed. When a player does not have them in visual range,they first try to pack togheter in swarms of 10,20,30 or more and then advance on the player. Their main role is that of distraction,while you're busy shooting at those little bastards,an Ancient sneaks up on you and BAM there goes your energy.

 

I was thinking that the Runner should be either renamed, or prevented from exploding if that is the case.

 

The Runner serves as a highly mobile C4 right now. In accordance with Dynamic Enemy Models, he should have some sort of bulbous growth on his head that when killed via headshot, he will explode and do damage to not only players, but his allies as well. Its basically the same as the current Runner, just more functional.

 

Of course, maybe we could combine these two ideas and make a very mobile time bomb/explosive barrel, if that's the case.

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If they EEEEEEVER update ai, I will literally eat my shoes and post it on these forums.  That is soooooooo much more work than I can imagine DE doing having watched them over the past year push out listless sidegrades to their beta game.  Have you watched the livestreams?  These guys are on easystreet.

Edited by alocrius
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  • 5 weeks later...

I know it's been a while, but the post has been significantly updated and added to the new Fan Concept's Index

 

I need a moderators decision on whether this should be moved to Concepts or in the Feedback forums, since it focuses on changing gameplay mechanics through the experience of player feedback.

 

Oh, and don't forget to check my other posts in the Gameplay Feedback section if your interested in my ideas! I promise they're being updated constantly.

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I like the OPs ideas. +1

 

I disagree with Infested having territorial skirmishes during the passive phase. I viewed the Infestation as a hive mind. They act with singular purpose to propogate infection of life in the system, which is why Runners have no issues being suicide bombers. Passive behavior should probably be dormancy or spreading infection. Dormants would be infected Corpus or Grineer lying on the ground that would complete their transformation and become final stage when they go active. Infection spreaders would be in areas of Infestation background with tubes plugging them into the background pieces.

 

I'd suggest for Corpus tactics that Corpus crewmen would generally stay at range while MOAs eschewed cover. Crewmen would retreat to cover when shields are 75% depleted to recharge as if they have a sense of self preservation. Chasing a crewman down while he's in that state would cause him to flee. Shield Osprey would prioritze crewmen with low shields, then deal with MOAs with depleted shields.

 

I like the idea of changing the Grineer Commander's teleport into a tactical relocation system for his troops.

 

I definitely agree that alternative models for infested are needed. All Chargers should not look the same. I think a random "building block" system is needed to swap out heads, bodies, and limbs for Infested.

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Added "General" section to Topic Zwei, and wrote up Topic Four about Body Part Damage! Nothing too major, it simply creates a more dynamic range of enemy responses to damage inflicted on various body parts, so you don't have enemies simply bending over when you deal an Impact proc on them anymore.

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  • 3 months later...

Corpus: When the first sign of violence occurs, unarmed Crewmen will rush for an "Armory", where they will switch their model to its respective combative form.

Elite Crewmen should already be carrying their Flux Rifle on their back or in their hand, as it is primarily a tool, not a weapon. Maybe a Spectra Crewman could be added, who has the ability to repair (i.e. heal) damaged MOAs and destroyed cameras.

 

Grineer: ... combat rolling between adjacent cover. Grineer will also use combat rolls at higher difficulties which give them a chance to dodge incoming projectiles, tricky tricky.

With their bulky armor, I don't really see Grineer rolling around like we do.

Apart from that, your suggestions sound pretty good and would add a lot to the fights.

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rember to add something, that prevents each enemy under lvl 50 beeing one shot to a Soma bullet... 

 

As long as we can one shot enemies with a LMG with 100 Shots in the Mag, there is no reason to work on AI.

We would not see any of it as the average survival time of a enemy is well under one second. Not much time to showw off how smart you are..

 

(This is not a rant about Soma beeing OP, you can oneshot most enemies with every well modded weapon...)

Edited by IamSalva
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  • 2 months later...

Just a quick update to let you know I'm in the process of reformating and reposting this under two separate and linked topics.

 

The first will be "Stealth: Enemy AI" and the second will be "Combat: Enemy AI"

 

These two will expand upon the ideas in this topic, capitalizing on the queries I've compiled in this topic. Not only that, but I'll be adding more new ideas to those topics. I'll edit this post and the main one with the links once I'm done and I'll just let this topic wither away into the archives.

 

Expect this to be REALLY SOON™, as in the next day or sunday. I'm 5excited for this.

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