More realistic gameplay in Singleplayer ?

[Wiggum]

Hi !

I played the old CMx1 games, Shock Force with its modules and finally Normandy.

But i did not buy any Modules for Normandy and did not buy the Italy game (although i love the setting).

Because...

In the SP Mode the game alwasy felt way too static to give me the realistic gameplay i was looking for. If you are the attacker the defending ai mostly did nothing then waiting for you to show up and do something, no small scale counterattacks to regain lost key terrain, no maneuver to reposition its units, no retreating of forward elements (alarmstellungen).

As attacker the ai mostly just threw its units into the meat grinder.

Two AFV already burning at the village entrance, they throw 3 more at you using the same route...

Small groups of survivors and tank-crews who should normaly retreat kepp running into your killzones like robots.

I know the scenario designer could use some clever ai plans but mostly i felt like the ai was acting stupid and static anyway.

Another point was supression, cover and "fog of war".

The effects of supression always felt way too low especially with MG's and heavy guns and artillery. The cover presented by the terrain and buildings often felt too low giving me the feeling that my guys were always in sme kind of open terrain and not in covered positions.

Then the amount of information you get about the enemy in seconds always felt to much.

That enemy hardly ever seemed to target positions or buildings, he always was shooting straight at my guys.

So with Red Thunder and the Triggers for the editor, do you think the ai will feel more "real" in SP ?

Do you think the gameplay will see bigger changes over its current status ?

Hope there will be a demo for Red Thunder !

[womble]

Some of your points have been addressed in interim patches and version upgrades: suppression; data on enemy units; tank crew agressiveness.

Some of them are about perception and how the variety of the game's options often meant narrow expectations grown out of other games were not fulfilled in every case: building cover.

The AI still won't use area fire. I think triggers are going to be difficult to use on the attack, but will make defense plans vastly more flexible and challenging.

[Combatintman]

While I agree that triggers for an attacking AI may take a little more finesse, I think that there are plenty of possibilities for AI design here.

Much of course will depend on how many you are allowed to place as a designer but simple concepts such as weighting the attack should be easily handled by triggers. Steve's explanation in the dedicated thread also discussed a scenario where a 2nd echelon type force could be triggered forward once an initial echelon had hit a particular trigger.

From what I read in Steve's explanation of the concepts the triggers revolve around the presence of units within the trigger area. This does have limitations but can still be worked around with a bit of lateral thinking.

As an example an attacking AI in a screen/guard scenario can be triggered to advance by triggers on assessed fall back positions. As soon as the defending screen/guard leapfrogs back on to the trigger, the attacking AI could be triggered to advance a bound for instance.

In effect they can be used by the designer to simulate a Decision Support Overlay (DSO). Link below discusses how these work and their associated concepts.

http://www.cavalrypilot.com/fm17-98/ch2.htm

Really looking forward to seeing these.

[womble]

Still, having second waves and weighted attacks won't be much use given that the AI will tend to use the same, unsuccessful movement paths to create clots of burning tanks and heaps of dead infantry at the same choke points that are still covered by defending arms.

I can't remember the last time I needed to fall back against an AI attack, so having defender-triggered orders might not be that useful. I'm sure there will be ways in which the attack can be given a bit more finesse, but in a lot of ways it's not the Plan level that needs AI improvement, but the level below that which assigns movement axes and the level which handles "fire and movement". At the moment, there's too much movement and not enough fire.

[SlowMotion]

And the best fix to problems in SP mode is to play against human opponents. The AI will never get as good as a real human opponent. Effectiveness and suppression of weapons is much better now than in CMBN 1.x.

[Wiggum]

I totally agree with you womble, and i will buy "Red Thunder" only if there will be improvements to the editor (triggers/scripting) and the TacAI (and i mean BIG improvements).

Otherwise its just another texture-mod for CMBN for me.

A editor like in ArmA would be great with complex triggers (with conditions like x casualties or moral), waypoints and scripting.

That would allow designers to give the AI more punch and brain.

@ SlowMotion

I hope thats a joke...

The Combat Mission games are not Call of Duty were you can find a opponent in seconds. CM is totally niche. Finding a opponent and play a 2h scenario is difficult.

Yes AI will never be as good as a human opponent but Battlefront needs to focus on making it better because most of us play SP most of the time.

[Baneman]

...The Combat Mission games are not Call of Duty were you can find a opponent in seconds. CM is totally niche. Finding a opponent and play a 2h scenario is difficult.

Yes AI will never be as good as a human opponent but Battlefront needs to focus on making it better because most of us play SP most of the time.

Not within seconds, no, but there are at least 2 clubs/groups I know of - WeBandofBrothers and A Few Good Men where you can find reliable ( in terms of not-bailing and regular turns ) opponents within a few hours.

[Wodin]

I get well and truly trounced by the AI many time sin CMx2. I won't play against others because I hate being tied down to a game and having to play it. In the end this can make me resent the game and ontop of that I probably wouldn't play the AI again. What I don't know don't hurt;).

Squad Battles was a series I ruined for myself by plying it PBEM. resented having to play and then couldn't go back to the AI. Not doing that again.

Thankfully I'm rubbish at the most wargames so the AI does me.

And the best fix to problems in SP mode is to play against human opponents. The AI will never get as good as a real human opponent. Effectiveness and suppression of weapons is much better now than in CMBN 1.x.

[Wiggum]

@ Wodin

I also lost against the ai some times but mostly in scenarios where i attack and the ai has to do nothing then shooting at me.

I cant remember loosing a scenario while defending. The ai always attacks banzai/human wave style, although that can be succesful sometimes.

[Wodin]

Yeah I rarely play as the defender when against the AI. Still plenty to keep me happy though.

[SlowMotion]

I totally agree with you womble, and i will buy "Red Thunder" only if there will be improvements to the editor (triggers/scripting) and the TacAI (and i mean BIG improvements).

Otherwise its just another texture-mod for CMBN for me.

A editor like in ArmA would be great with complex triggers (with conditions like x casualties or moral), waypoints and scripting.

That would allow designers to give the AI more punch and brain.

@ SlowMotion

I hope thats a joke...

The Combat Mission games are not Call of Duty were you can find a opponent in seconds. CM is totally niche. Finding a opponent and play a 2h scenario is difficult.

Yes AI will never be as good as a human opponent but Battlefront needs to focus on making it better because most of us play SP most of the time.

We know already that this will be the first version of triggers. No branching or other similar stuff. No new scripting AFAIK. Still it's far from texture-mod because all Russian units are new.

Yes, fewer people play CM so finding opponents doesn't happen in seconds. But now when TCP/IP-WEGO becomes possible, maybe more opponents will be available. PBEM works well. I don't see "find opponent in seconds" a big problem there because most PBEM games take weeks to finish.

Maybe AI opponent makes more sense if you've never done scenarios yourself. Once you understand how it works (doesn't react to what you do) it's difficult to play against it.

[Glubokii Boy]

I'm sure this 'trigger thing' will evolve with each new update we get in the comming months...

If we could get some new type of triggers with each module released that would be very nice...right now its quite basic as i under stand it...

Hopefully it will not be to long before the AI will be able to mount some challeging attacks (reacting to casualties, choosing a weak spot to attack, comitting artillery in a good way...etc, etc...)

[Glubokii Boy]

oops...double post...

[Jock Tamson]

Once you understand how it works (doesn't react to what you do) it's difficult to play against it.

Agree, but it is how the vast majority of customers play CM. Hopefully the new triggers, even in their limited form, will apply a veneer of responsiveness to the AI's movements.

Conditional triggers will be the real game changer for single players though, I think.

[SlowMotion]

Yes, I'm interested in trying what kind of tricks can be done with the trigger system we're getting now. Surely it will develop, like infantry's tactical AI has done during CMx2 development.

[Battlefront.com]

The new Triggers are definitely the beginning of more extensive improvements for AI behavior. How quickly we will make further improvements is not known at this time. We do have a pretty good sense of where we want to wind up.

The big problem is trying to get the AI to react logically to changing battlefield conditions. The old CMx1 AI was better at adapting it's behavior, but it did not do so with any sense of "the big picture". Which meant it often did things that were counter productive. Of course we also can think of times when this resulted in a significant and unexpected challenge for the Human player! But it was a total accident when that happened and many games had to be played to see anything that was a major challenge in that regard.

CMx2's AI has some flexibility over how it moves its units, but it has no flexibility about why it is moving it's units. This means CMx2's AI always has a very strong sense of "the big picture" because it never has an alternative.

Triggers are the start of giving the AI some alternatives without losing the context of the larger fight. For now the Triggers are mostly limited to timing and committing to specific course of action. This is absolutely an improvement, however we're still a ways away from having the overall strategy influenced by battlefield conditions. Meaning, the designer can get the AI to play "peek-a-boo" based on when the enemy shows up, but not abandon that concept in favor of "stand up and fight" if conditions change. Nor can the AI shift forces from one side of the battle to another based on how the battle is going unless it is explicitly instructed to do so ahead of time.

In short, the AI can now better decide WHEN it should do something, but on it's own can not decide IF it should do something and THEN what should happen next based on conditions. The IF/THEN portion of the AI is what we hope to tackle next.

Steve

[ss11955]

Yeah I rarely play as the defender when against the AI. Still plenty to keep me happy though.

100% agreement

[A Canadian Cat]

Not within seconds, no, but there are at least 2 clubs/groups I know of - WeBandofBrothers and A Few Good Men where you can find reliable ( in terms of not-bailing and regular turns ) opponents within a few hours.

Add The Blitz to the list. I have several regular opponents whom I met on The Blitz.

[Doug Williams]

You guys who only play against the AI are really missing out.

[Jock Tamson]

You guys who only play against the AI are really missing out.

I think most of us appreciate that, but for many (most?) of us, a few free hours for gaming appears in the schedule with zero notice.

[Skwabie]

Perhaps the lack of I in AI won't be such a problem for eastern front as it seems to me the ruskies win on sheer numbers instead of tactical prevalence..

[Doug Williams]

I think most of us appreciate that, but for many (most?) of us, a few free hours for gaming appears in the schedule with zero notice.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

You can either choose to spend your available gaming hours playing against the AI or against a human opponent.

I do both, but I would say 80% of my CM time is against human opponents.

Why bother playing the AI when you can play against an opponent that is much less predictable? The AI does ok on defend, is barely passable in meeting engagements, and is pathetic on attack.

[AttorneyAtWar]

Perhaps the lack of I in AI won't be such a problem for eastern front as it seems to me the ruskies win on sheer numbers instead of tactical prevalence..

While numbers certainly helped you couldn't be anymore wrong...

[Wiggum]

Im not a huge fan of multiplayer with a stranger using the internet...

I like to play football (the real one) on xbox against my friends or play coop with friends over the internet (ArmA).

[Collingwood]

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Maybe Jock is saying that if someone only gets a few hours free at times which aren't regular or predictable, that would be frustrating for their opponent. Opponent thinks "why am I waiting 3 weeks for a move?"

H2H probably works best when move exchanges are regular.

It's the issue of coordinating spare time with others when you have little. Much like my motorcycle riding - I like exploring and camping at remote places, usually the desert. There are other riders that like doing this too, but finding one who gets the same amount of time off, on the same dates, means I usually end up going solo.