Ground combat too easy

[karnak]

Hi all,

after playing Xenonauts V 17.1 for 2 hours i wonder why the ground combat is so easy?

For the most time aliens run only around without fighting me so i only have to go to them an shoot.

At my last mission my base was under attack and there where many enemys, they could whipe me out easily but i dont even lost one soldier. In the whole fight the aliens only shoot two times. Is this because of the alpha stadium of the game? I realy hope so because this is something i love on the original UFO game, it was hard and you realy have to fear for your soldiers life.

Airfights on the other side are hard enough with time, to be honest after playing one hour im realy lost in airfight. There are so many ufos and with the better ones they shoot everething down i have :-)

Sorry for my bad english.

[Chris]

Yup, it'll get harder as the AI improves. I'm surprised they only shot at you twice but in the final game they should murder you if you do something stupid

[karnak]

Thanks Chris,

i´m glad to hear that. I realy looking forward to this murder alien AI :-)

Now they are no enemys only sheeps to slaughter. Boring when they dont fight but maybe i am so impressive :-)

When the AI is done i think i will love this game like the original UFO and there are not much games where i played that much as UFO :-)

[Xcom Veteran]

Yup, it'll get harder as the AI improves. I'm surprised they only shot at you twice but in the final game they should murder you if you do something stupid

I didn't play Xenonauts yet, but I also hope AI will be strong.

BTW Hello!

[ooey]

I think Chris has a specialist AI guy working on the the AI for xen, so I'm sure it will be very good in that department.

[karnak]

Yep i need some hardcore Aliens :-) Its so much more interesting if you fear for your soldiers ;-)

[tunatime]

the ai needs some work, so far on every ufo i have had aliens just sit right inside the ufo, and they need to try flaking you and what not and i think the hidden movement screen needs to go just have it forces in on your guys and if some one gets shots at zoom to that guy so you can see where the shot came form

[StellarRat]

the ai needs some work, so far on every ufo i have had aliens just sit right inside the ufo, and they need to try flaking you and what not and i think the hidden movement screen needs to go just have it forces in on your guys and if some one gets shots at zoom to that guy so you can see where the shot came form

Of course it needs some work, it's not finished yet.

[Simberto]

the ai needs some work, so far on every ufo i have had aliens just sit right inside the ufo, and they need to try flaking you and what not and i think the hidden movement screen needs to go just have it forces in on your guys and if some one gets shots at zoom to that guy so you can see where the shot came form

Mostly, they really just need to shoot more. At the moment, they appear to run away as soon as they see 2 soldiers, which makes losing anything pretty hard even if you try.

[StellarRat]

Mostly, they really just need to shoot more. At the moment, they appear to run away as soon as they see 2 soldiers, which makes losing anything pretty hard even if you try.

I think Gjis-Jan (the AI guy) said that they only seek cover, perceive danger, and try to pick the best target right now. So, they are sensing they are out-gunned and running away. He said they can't form "plans" right now or understand the consequences of their actions. I imagine in the next version of the AI they will begin to form plans and be able to "weigh" the wisdom of just retreating vs. seeking cover, holding it and returning fire. You also have to realize that at the start of the game the aliens are heavily out-numbered and outgunned. Plasma pistols are next to useless. So, it does make sense for them to withdraw. If I was the alien commander I'd have my soldiers blow up the ship then we'd hide in the nearest buildings or behind solid cover and try to ambush the Xenonauts at close range where the plasma pistols might have a chance to hit. Edited November 1, 2012 by StellarRat

[Max_Caine]

I think this is a reasonable example of what's wrong with good AI. The AI is making the "right" decision - in this case it's "I'm outnumbered/outgunned - run away". But that "right" decision is hella annoying because it leads to a Benny Hill chase all over the map. I hate to say it, but the AI has to have some degree of poor decision making to make it a fun game. Something along the lines for "For the EMPRAH! *zap zap* Arrrgh!"

[StellarRat]

I think this is a reasonable example of what's wrong with good AI. The AI is making the "right" decision - in this case it's "I'm outnumbered/outgunned - run away". But that "right" decision is hella annoying because it leads to a Benny Hill chase all over the map. I hate to say it, but the AI has to have some degree of poor decision making to make it a fun game. Something along the lines for "For the EMPRAH! *zap zap* Arrrgh!"

Actually, it's not "good" yet because it's not finished. Basically only 1/3 of it's brain is complete. I'm sure it will be much tougher in the next version. It needs to learn that it has a "mission" to accomplish like guarding the UFO. Once that's in place I think you're going to see much less running and more fighting. Right now, it's like a simple wild animal that runs from danger and only fights in self-defense.

[yorak]

This requirement for the AI to be entertaining is sometimes called Artificial Stupidity (as opposed to AI). The idea is that game AI should be optimized to be fun, entertraining and challenging (the order may vary depending on the case) instead of being "good" AI.

Good introduction and some reading for the interested:

N. Yannakakis. 2012. Game AI Revisited.

Lidén, L. 2003. Artificial Stupidity: The Art of Intentional Mistakes

[hawk66]

I think the AI 'stupidity' should be determined via the difficulty level. Personally, I do not want an AI that plays bad to give me a feeling of having success...

Such an AI I'd expect from a typical AAA game but not from a serious X-COM remake.

What I would expect is a goal-oriented AI...'goal: protect my ufo etc.'. And running away when it makes sense is perfectly fine. Also the AI should be capable to lay ambushes etc...

The roguelike games have the famous saying 'Loosing is fun'. That says it all .

[Gorlom]

The roguelike games have the famous saying 'Loosing is fun'. That says it all .

I disagree that that phrase says it all. It's ok for roguelikes because they have centered all their mechanics around it. Usually it's easy to restart, usually it is seemingly simple mechanics with surprising depth, usually you learn what to do next time from your deaths.

Not everyone enjoys that kind of game though. (as apparent by the whining on FTLs forum when they launched)

[StellarRat]

The fact is that no current AI, no matter how smart, will be able to beat a good human in a strategy game of any complexity (unless it cheats.) Chess is one thing, but a game with as many facets was Xenonauts is another matter entirely. You can write one that will kick the crap out of a beginner, but beating someone that knows what they're doing is nearly impossible. The intelligent human will always find a weakness and exploit it. There might be occassional victories here and there due to luck, but that's about it. In the future, it might be possible to write one that can consistently win, but that's a ways off and the AI would probably require far more programming time than the actual game.

Edited November 2, 2012 by StellarRat

[HWP]

Lidén, L. 2003. Artificial Stupidity: The Art of Intentional Mistakes

XCOM EU designers certainly took this to the heart.

Except all at once and skipped the parts about not being obvious.

Then they gave your troops 10% chance to hit and 90% to panic to compensate.

Let's hope Xenonauts will be different. No holding back, except maybe on Easy.

[StellarRat]

XCOM EU designers certainly took this to the heart.

Except all at once and skipped the parts about not being obvious.

Then they gave your troops 10% chance to hit and 90% to panic to compensate.

Let's hope Xenonauts will be different. No holding back, except maybe on Easy.

That's what I'm hoping. Basically, it's easy to control the level of difficulty by varying the number of aliens and alien vessels. You don't have to mess with the AI. It's also a lot easier to balance if you only mess with one variable at a time.

[hawk66]

I disagree that that phrase says it all. It's ok for roguelikes because they have centered all their mechanics around it. Usually it's easy to restart, usually it is seemingly simple mechanics with surprising depth, usually you learn what to do next time from your deaths.

Not everyone enjoys that kind of game though. (as apparent by the whining on FTLs forum when they launched)

Yes, sure it is not directly comparable. What I basically meant was that I do not wanna have an AI dumbed down, so just that I can win. This could be easily configured by an AI difficult level.

@HWP

Sure, AI coding is very tough. But it is not impossible to code a believable AI, it depends on the priority and since Xenonauts is a single player game, AI should have prio 1.

I think nowadays it is not impossible to create a good tactical AI. As a side notice, even in the 80's on the C64 some tactical AIs are better than AIs from current AAA games. An example is RedStormRising, a nuclear submarine simulator, which has a very believable tactical AI. It even uses real life doctrines.

[StellarRat]

even in the 80's on the C64 some tactical AIs are better than AIs from current AAA games. An example is RedStormRising, a nuclear submarine simulator, which has a very believable tactical AI. It even uses real life doctrines.

True, but that game had much less scope. Less scope = Less complicated AI.

I co-programmed AI that even I could only beat about 50% of the time for a space warfare game, BUT it took two of us a YEAR and we only have to deal with two dimensions, real time (this is where the computer has a huge advantage), tactical combat only, no cover (only asteroids that could block LOS), one objective, and limited set of weapons that all players used.

Xenonauts actually requires TWO AI's one for tactical and one for strategic. That alone increases the work tremendously. If you tie the two together to make each more effective than another level of complexity is added.

Edited November 2, 2012 by StellarRat

[Dangermouth]

I think sometimes the AI does ok. The aliens hide in houses and shoot you as you go past, for example, so even now it can catch you out and put a trooper in hospital for ages, even if they're wearing wolf armour and they're hit by a plasma rifle.

[xcorps]

Regarding AI and difficulty, I don't think the AI should be tied to difficulty level. I think Easy AI should be exactly the same as Insane Nightmare Ironman Hardcore.

I think the difficulty should affect:

Starting funds

Volume of aliens

Strength of individual aliens

Likelihood of funds being withdrawn

Speed of tech discoveries

Soldier wound recovery time

Here's my ideal easy battle:

aliens spawn at 1-1 force advantage.

aliens have penalties to hit points and accuracy

xeno soldiers have no modifiers

positive mission score modifiers are doubled

Medium

aliens spawn at 2-1, no modifiers to hit or accuracy

mission result are not modified

Hard

aliens spawn at 3-1, no modifiers

mission score modifiers that negative are modified upward, positive score modifiers are lowered

Insane (or whatever)

aliens spawn at 4-1

xeno soldiers have a small penalty to morale and accuracy

negative mission results are higher still, and positive modifiers are smaller (it takes almost perfect play to recieve a positive score)

[thothkins]

I quite like increased viciousness and deviousness of the AI as it improves it's tactics through the difficulty levels. Having top end tactical nous in the beginner level is going to end in a lot of tears. Likewise, dumbing down the tactical awarenss of the aliens too much is going to leave you with a tediousness to higher difficulty levels. There may be hordes of them, but they're fairly dumb.

Edited November 5, 2012 by thothkins

[xcorps]

Well, how devious can the AI really be? We aren't talking Deep Blue here (not a shot at the dev team by any means). At best the AI is going to move as a unit with it's soldiers identifying a threat axis and approaching with optimal TU expediture for covering/opportunity fire and *possibly* exploiting a flank with a manuever group or holding a defensive line with upper floor sighting and interlocking fields of fire. Having a small alien hide in a closet or behind a hedge isn't devious, it's a boring trick.

I think being exposed to "real" tactics early in the game will make the player better for the experiance.

[thothkins]

If I set my Chess game for Grandmaster, I will be tanked. If I do it when I'm just starting to learn the game, then it could get pretty discouraging. Likewise, if you are new to squad tactics, you may find yourself fleeing for the Chinook if you are easily outclassed by a few tough Sebillians. Having the aliens less capable of taking complete advantage for easier difficulty levels, but getting harder as that difficulty level progresses, may benefit the player and will probably prolong re-playability in the game.