I'm having a long conversation about it at BFS. I would put a link, but we're taking down the "Other Games" section soon, so I'll copy and paste my comments here. Have a read and correct me where I have anything wrong Wolfsong... If you can't, do it in the staff section.
These are all my responses to other peoples comments;
On a complaint about passive AI:"I have to disagree about the AI. Spend some time going through those busted up buildings alone, playing hide and seek with them. Fire a shot and get noticed. Then hide. They do a pretty realistic job of searching around for you. And it's well balanced, where they don't just automatically know where you are. They will walk past you looking around, giving the player opportunities for ambushes.
I've also had them flank me, and they do have random behaviors, When you wipe out a group down to just one guy, I've had that one guy either
A. hide and wait to ambush me
or
b. Actually turn tail and run up to the compound to join the others over there.
I'm really impressed actually.
And also important to note, The 3d Guru Tweak Guide says the difficulty levels also affect behaviors, not just aim or awareness. Meaning; Turn the difficulty up from normal to hard, and they 'stand around' less. I can confirm that after switching to HARD, I came up that first street to face the 3 guys behind the sandbags. I fired one shot and ducked behind a wall. All 3 guys immediately left the sandbags and came all the way around the buildings to flank me.
It was awesome.
Play some hide and seek with them in those buildings. You'll see. "
About "the AI seems humanlike this time";"This is my feeling too. There's something about this that they simply have tweaked just right. When the full game comes out with an editor, I'll be able to reverse engineer the scripting a bit to see exactly what the AI is able to do, but there seems to be some better used variables and decision making going on.
I think there's a lot of things coming together that have really made this one work.
- Really good level design. Even the outdoors has an element of CQB to it. In previous games you might be forced to simply come up the center of that street. But here, all those multiple pathways through those busted up houses on both sides of the street, almost make for a good game of Hide and Seek all by themselves. And several buildings even have roof access.
- Excellent AI behaviors. And I think they have the AI "senses" tweaked just right. They don't automatically know where you are. They don't see you from across the map, and when you hide, they don't automatically go straight to you, they actually have to look for you. They will sometimes walk right by you, and you can flank them and stand quietly staring at the side of their head until you're ready to nail them. Combined with the new Crosscom ordering system, this makes for some great gameplay.
- New Crosscom 2 abilities. The whole team ordering system is great. The return of the recon/assault switch was much needed.
- Audio sounds are great
- Graphics are great and miraculously don't bog your rig/fps down to a crawl.
- The voice acting for the team AI must be good because I haven't heard something and thought "that's off". And I kind of like the constant "Hey captain, talk to us". I feel like I'm playing with humans. That's a good thing for an SP guy.
Most games, there's one or two good things, then there's flaws to balance it out. Here, I think all those things above are coming together just right to make this the best GRAW yet, over any of the previous versions, console or PC.
My only gripes...
As someone said above, I would prefer the mexican models from GRAW 1 PC. These guys look more like better equipped Bosnians or Russians than Mexican rebels.
Multiple insertions points, hopefully on other maps they are spaced further apart. Like opposite ends of the map, otherwise it's just a gimmick with little real purpose or usefulness.
The AI seems real good, but the only thing missing is the random spawning each time you play the mission. The AI does react well and do cool things upon contact, but I still pretty much know exactly where everyone of them will be when the mission starts. There's no reason for this that I know of from a programming/scripting standpoint, and nothing makes a game better/more replayable than when you drop into the insertion point, you don't know where anyone is, just like the very first time you played it.
Everytime I rope into the road, I know withut a doubt those two guys will come walking down that road in a minute. I know exactly what to do, so it becomes "just going through the motions".
All they have to do is attach some random paths at spawning. Sometimes have the guys stationary leaning up on the fence. Or sometimes have them hiding in the building. Or sometimes have them not spawn there at all. That way, when I hit that street every time I play, I have no idea what they are doing or where they are. That's what a first person shooter should have, and I'm going to argue that point until someone finally does it."
About Team AI 'still making mistakes';"Obviously I cannot say if this will apply to you, but one thing I was forgetting about the AI;
While it will attempt to find appropriate cover, they also follow orders; so, if you order it into a position out in the open, that's where he will go; sacrificing his protection to follow your command.
So, you have to find the balance between allowing the AI to work properly, or ordering it into a compromising position.
Send a loyal guy into a death trap, and he'll die. Command wisely."
My playing tip....."If you guys want to play this in a really cool way...
I've noticed the secondary MP5SD is really nicely silenced compared to the primary weapons with silencers. So, at the team select screen, remove all the primary weapons from the team. Make sure they all have the MP5SD with suppressor (even the 'support' guy). Add the scope to the MP5 too. Now they will all use the silenced MP5SD, and keep the team on Recon.
Now play it, and it has a real Rogue Spear type feel. Good old sneaking around.
And make good use of the map and set up some sequenced orders.
I just had the whole team silently slip into seperate buildings, each guy setup on a different area of tangos on that street. I could check the crosscom cameras and see every tango in their sights. Hit the "Go assault" button, and they all went down at once, and still silently because of the MP5s.
Good stuff."
On AI hearing gunshots...;"One thing I can say about the sound;
Using the MP5SD and roping in on the street to get those first two patrolling tangos; I was close by against the fence, and pegged one of them with a headshot while the other was right next to him. As close as I was, he had no idea where I was. He actually turned different directions looking. Never knew where the shot came from.
Same thing from up on the roof of that building with the steps, looking out across the big road into the outpost. I pegged a few guys, and the living tango ran to them looking around, had no idea where the shot came from.
That is working perfectly.
I did seem to notice that there is a seemingly 'lack of hearing' with louder gunshots for tangos that would normally hear it in real life based on their proximity, BUT, considering the size of the map, for gameplay reasons it works.
For example, if you broke the map into 4 areas... the two street accesses, the outpost, and the caves.
If I fire a shot anywhere on the street, all the tangos in the street area seem to react, but across the street in the outpost, they don't. It
has to be this way, otherwise a single gunshot from anywhere would bring every tango on the map to that location. That would reduce the game to a simple camping out, "stay here and shoot all the tangos as they come" type game.
The 'hearing' ability seems to be proximity oriented, but reduced to keep interaction limited to the immediate tangos. It's a good way to have it, for gameplay purposes.
Some of the latter part of this is a bit of an assumption on my part because I haven't experimented that much in particular for "did they notice the loud noise over there", but I will as I play more.
So far, I'm really having a hard time finding 'something wrong'. As I said before, I think they have the Tango 'senses' of sight and hearing tweaked almost perfectly."
