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  1. #1

    A.I. Issues

    As far as I know, everything listed here is not being held back by a difference in technology between the platforms... but instead are behaviour related which can (and does) have an overall impact on gameplay. Some of my suggestions were made with the assumption that it could be affected by the difficulty setting, while others (like the first one) should not.



    [Scenario: Drive Safely - Save A Life]
    All citizens of Kyrat should be required to go to driving school and pass a driving exam before being allowed behind the wheel.
    No Exceptions!





    [Scenario: Hostage situation]
    After the guards are eliminated and the first prisoner released, why can't they assist the player with releasing the remaining hostages?





    [Scenario: Player disables 1 of the alarms with an arrow]
    When a soldier discovers an alarm is broken, he gets nervous and alerts all the other soldiers in the outpost. (Good!)
    However, they don't bother checking the status of the other alarm(s) to make sure that they aren't broken as well. (Bad!)





    [Scenario: Random encounter with 2 soldiers]
    While both soldiers appear to be fully aware of each others presence, if Soldier #1 is stealthily killed and the body hidden, when Soldier #2 returns from investigating that weird noise he heard, he will somehow not notice that his buddy -- who was there just a few seconds ago -- is suddenly missing.





    [Scenario: Don't feed the animals!]
    Why do they leave the dead bodies of their fallen soldiers lying around after they find them? Yes, they want to find the killer, but they give up that search rather quickly and then seem to forget that their friends corpse even exists. They will do this even if it is out in the open and in their path. Shouldn't they at least move it indoors to avoid attracting any of the friendly, local wildlife?





    [Scenario: Royal Soldier finds dead teammates]
    If all but one of the soldiers within an outpost are killed and hidden without being detected, why does the final soldier not realize something is very wrong and act accordingly;
    And if/when he does happen to find the pile of his dead teammates, why doesn't he panic and call in reinforcements or, if the alarms have been disabled, attempt to flee to the closest occupied outpost?



    Click the spoiler tag to see how they currently react to this situation...
    Spoiler:  Show

    "Guys?"


    *poke* - "Hey.. wake up"


    "I see you breathing!"


    *poke*


    "I'm going to tell Pagan"


    "C'Mon, its not funny anymore"


    *poke*





    [Scenario: Soldier ignores projectiles embedded in leg(s)]
    Assuming that all of the soldiers don't wear pants made from kevlar; how do they maintain a normal gait when they have a bullet, bolt or throwing-knife embedded in their leg?
    (And why don't they even attempt to remove it?)





    The Golden Path appears to have a balanced ratio of male/female soldiers. (Good!)
    However when you look at the Royal Army and Royal Guard... you start to wonder if they have a "No Girls Allowed!" sign nailed to the recruitment office door.

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  2. #2
    Well, even though the realistic behavior you have mentioned sounds logical, it is, however, asking a bit too much. I mean, if one goes your route of thinking, one can see a thousand things they should have done to make everything realistic. For example, why when you skin the animal, you don't see any tampering of the animal skin? Why don't certain animals sleep at night? Why don't npc's put out the fires with buckets of water in certain situations? The list goes on. Also, keep in mind that the more code you put on AI, the more the game is going to lag because the engine will be calculating all of these behaviors specially if they have a sort of schedule.
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  3. #3
    Thank you, man!
    You made my day!..
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  4. #4
    Originally Posted by Lorca73 Go to original post
    Well, even though the realistic behavior you have mentioned sounds logical, it is, however, asking too much. I mean, if one goes your route of thinking, one can see a thousand things they should have done to make everything realistic. For example, why when you skin the animal, you don't see any tampering of the animal skin? Why certain animals don't sleep at night? Why the npc's don't put out the fires with buckets of water in certain situations? The list goes on.
    Because those things don't have a direct impact on gameplay, as (most of) the things I mentioned do... not to mention I'm talking about the A.I. behavior, not the physics of objects that you interact with. (which would add a performance penalty)

    And sure, maybe they should put out fires.. in fact, it'd be awesome if they had fire extinguishers at each outpost and could use them when needed.
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  5. #5
    Frag_Maniac's Avatar Banned
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    1. Agree, though realistically, it's likely Ubi's lack of pathing expertise for friendly AI in cars, than an intentional thing making them drive that badly. Just the way Autodrive swerves radically at times for no reason makes that apparent.

    2. This I can live with, because there's only 4, and the player doing it triggers a financial reward from each one.

    3. This I can live with as well, because they are in alert mode looking for the culprit, and if seen one always tries the nearest alarm not already found to be broken anyway.

    4. This I can live with as well. There's enough challenge with sight lines and sounds. Plus such a reaction would imply troops always follow a set route, and never wander off to pee.

    5. This I can also live with. What you're suggesting is a step far beyond what most games would have. Plus it would make it too easy to avoid predators if they're always going after corpses.

    6. This I can also live with. For gameplay and point allotting purposes of achieving stealth or dealing with the consequences, alarms are only used if the player is detected.

    7. This I can live with as well. There's not many games that have that level of enemy hit animation and response. It's = to if not above the curve in that regard for a tactical/arcade shooter, and enemies affected by such things would just be too easy to take out.

    8. This I can also live with. Min can afford and probably only wants the strongest soldiers. That and it would eliminate a lot of possible sexual distractions or feminist comparisons.

    It's common that people that suggest changes only see things from a real life rather than gameplay perspective. One doesn't necessarily translate well to the other.
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  6. #6
    Originally Posted by StabbysUPAcct Go to original post
    Because those things don't have a direct impact on gameplay,
    I'm pretty sure some will disagree with this statement. Look at the Gothic/Risen series. Wild animals like a pack of vicious wolves sleep at night, for example. That can have an impact in your gameplay. If you pass through stealthily, they wont hear your steps and avoid their attacks. And boy, do we need that in FC4 since every few feet there are wild animals messing you up, alerting the enemies.

    I don't want to sound like your ideas aren't worthy. I wish they had those details you've mentioned but, devs have their priorities and they can't satisfy everyone.
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  7. #7
    Frag_Maniac's Avatar Banned
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    Originally Posted by Lorca73 Go to original post
    I'm pretty sure some will disagree with this statement. Look at the Gothic/Risen series. Wild animals like a pack of vicious wolves sleep at night, for example. That can have an impact in your gameplay. If you pass through stealthily, they wont hear your steps and avoid their attacks. And boy, do we need that in FC4 since every few feet there are wild animals messing you up, alerting the enemies.
    Well, in reality wolves are primarily nocturnal animals that avoid the heat of day and hunt in packs by night.

    I agree however that such things can change gameplay, but a bit too much. Like I said there's TONS of things devs could make more real world, but it can also lessen challenges and even make things more boring. Games are about real world themes, but exciting gameplay that isn't necessarily realistic. It's like cop shows, if they showed everything a cop actually does, the bulk of it would be driving around and doing paper work and the ratings would tank, BORING!
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  8. #8
    Originally Posted by Frag_Maniac Go to original post
    Well, in reality wolves are primarily nocturnal animals that avoid the heat of day and hunt in packs by night.

    I agree however that such things can change gameplay, but a bit too much. Like I said there's TONS of things devs could make more real world, but it can also lessen challenges and even make things more boring. Games are about real world themes, but exciting gameplay that isn't necessarily realistic. It's like cop shows, if they showed everything a cop actually does, the bulk of it would be driving around and doing paper work and the ratings would tank, BORING!
    You're right. So much for me being a city slicker. ^^ But you get my point. ^^
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  9. #9
    Originally Posted by Frag_Maniac
    1. Agree, though realistically, it's likely Ubi's lack of pathing expertise for friendly AI in cars,
    You would think they could ask for help from one of the other dev teams that work on racing games or something.


    2. This I can live with, because there's only 4, and the player doing it triggers a financial reward from each one.
    Are you saying you wouldn't rescue someone unless there was a financial reward? *tsk* *tsk*


    4. This I can live with as well. There's enough challenge with sight lines and sounds. Plus such a reaction would imply troops always follow a set route, and never wander off to pee.
    I'm not exactly saying they should be alerted or anything... more that their dialogue should reflect their current situation. For example, I have seen a single soldier talking as if he were in a group... "Everybody keep your ears open!" Instead of it being something like "Where the hell did my backup go? Hey! Don't leave me out here by myself! There are wild animals everywhere!"


    5. This I can also live with. What you're suggesting is a step far beyond what most games would have. Plus it would make it too easy to avoid predators if they're always going after corpses.
    In Far Cry 2, when one of their buddies were injured, they would first check the area... and if safe, pick up and carry the injured to a safe location... and sometimes even heal them. It was an awesome thing that somehow got lost in 3 & 4. The "attracting wildlife" angle is just me trying to be clever with bringing this idea to a screenshot.


    6. This I can also live with. For gameplay and point allotting purposes of achieving stealth or dealing with the consequences, alarms are only used if the player is detected.
    Maybe this could be enabled/disabled depending on the difficulty setting?


    7. This I can live with as well. There's not many games that have that level of enemy hit animation and response. It's = to if not above the curve in that regard for a tactical/arcade shooter, and enemies affected by such things would just be too easy to take out.
    I could be mistaken, but I think that in FC2, if you shot an enemy in the leg, they would have a very noticable limp. (Makes me want to go back and play some to find out) Either way, I'll admit that this is not something that would change gameplay, but I do think it would still be nice to have.


    It's common that people that suggest changes only see things from a real life rather than gameplay perspective. One doesn't necessarily translate well to the other.
    I'm not saying that everything should be realistic1, nor am I saying that this game isn't already leaps and bounds above others... rather, I am just trying to suggest tweaks that I think would make a great game better. I actually don't expect these things to ever be addressed, but I *know* they won't be if they are never mentioned.



    1. One thing that no game seems to do correctly is the speed of sound! See an explosion in the distance, hear it immediately. ... It's like they have been watching the History Channel for too long or something!
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  10. #10
    Originally Posted by Lorca73 Go to original post
    I'm pretty sure some will disagree with this statement. Look at the Gothic/Risen series. Wild animals like a pack of vicious wolves sleep at night, for example. That can have an impact in your gameplay. If you pass through stealthily, they wont hear your steps and avoid their attacks. And boy, do we need that in FC4 since every few feet there are wild animals messing you up, alerting the enemies.
    Fair enough... and now that I think about it, that would make it rather interesting when you accidently walk into the wrong cave only to find a couple of sleeping bears between you and that loot/letter/mask/etc.
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