Opfor BigDom Ver N

[DaiSan]

The idea was to have the ai controlled by a human. I would like to see it go back to that, with no snipers. Then have a seperate TvT map.

 

Finally, some sense. This is not TvT but is becoming closer which is also starting to bring in the bad side of TvT (the bad mouthing etc) as seen in other posts.

 

Please go back to the Commander only.

[peter~SPARTA~]

The idea was to have the ai controlled by a human. I would like to see it go back to that, with no snipers. Then have a seperate TvT map.

 

Correct me if im wrong.

Idea was to have AI controlled by human but purpose for that was to make AI behave more like human in order to force players to act more like a team. Not as bunch of rambo's

right?

 

AI with or without HQ is worthless in this game as equal match to human players.

All you can really do with them is to order them to move or do frontal attack. They can be uber ambiots or really dumb , depend on settings. Neither of them is close to human resourcefulness.

 

Adding only commander change almost nothing in AI behavior, giving him access to variety of weapon make it a little more difficult. Adding 2 snipers who can ambush, react to danger, use tactics and cooperate, force attackers to teamwork.

 

What is you really dislike about opfor snipers? You don't like shoot human opponents?

 

 

After spending last week in Opfor shoes i play Blue tonight. And i can say it was enjoyable and well balanced.

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

You are wrong, I told you the original reason for adding an opfor commander. But all things evolve and this evolved too.

 

What I like about ArmA is working in collaboration with other adults playing together to achieve an objective. I do not like the competetive element of tvt play and the occasional BS that leads to.

 

If you dont want the AI to act like AI play TvT against humans. If you keep adding humans to the opfor side that is all you are doing and you are right I dont enjoy killing human opponents in this game and am not interested in participating in TvT either, but I do think there is a real interest in it and we should do it.

 

I have played the opfor commander and enjoy thinking about how to place the assets and possible points of entry into the AO. Being able to place assets outside the AO makes the game much more variable and makes life complicated for the Blufor.

 

If people enjoy a certain style of play I dont want to discourage them.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Having said that I also think the AI is acting dumber than before, I lost 3 squads to 1 player on foot alone, that should not be the case.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

AI with or without HQ is worthless in this game as equal match to human players.

All you can really do with them is to order them to move or do frontal attack. They can be uber ambiots or really dumb , depend on settings. Neither of them is close to human resourcefulness.

 

 

I have to disagree with that. I have successfully used AI to assault, flank, counter-attack BLUFOR for a while now, and can say that it all depends on how one uses them and where they are placed. Tanks are another matter. That being said, though, it is still common for AI to drive right up to BLUFOR without noticing them in full combat.

 

As for teamwork, Ive noticed people tend to work better together on the all-infantry AOs. When it comes to busting armor, it's all about who can get to the target the fastest and get the kill. And it's mostly the guys on TS doing it. I can call out on TS all day long that my group is headed over to an area to take something out, only to have 5 others hear me say so and run from the other direction as fast as possible to get the "kill" before me.

 

 

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

I'm going to brain dump here for a second, so Medic you can hold off on the O'RLy cuz we can all see this is probably a long post.

-----

 

Is the AI "dumber" in the last few weeks, and what could contribute to that perception? The AI strength can be configured with only a handful of parameters, so each time we tweak it it changes things quite a bit. Over the past few weeks very little has changed. So lets also keep in mind if maybe our interaction in the game has contributed to this perception:

 

1) Awareness - AI actually has a fairly limited range of knowledge which is line of sight based, and very little is sound based. If you stand on top of a mountain and shoot a SMAW, chances are the AI may wake up and start shooting at you - the key is visibility.

 

By default, the AI in Domination does not have a general giving orders - the movements are all randomly placed waypoints for the zombies to move to. That also means its 25 or so seperate groups of infantry/armor, etc that deal with their own world. They don't share much information with groups near them, its mostly what they learn themselves. This means as Blufor attacks an AO, chances are high that they can carve out pockets of safe zones and continue walking into the AO. The AI will only flank if they happened to have a randomly generated move order already behind the team.

 

When the map is in regular mode, the AI will never have even ground with humans. When working as a team and sharing info, humans can spot all their targets behind trees halfway across the map using the map icons and easily zero in on a target. This is where Rambo's and point collectors can excel: parajump in to make the map glow, figure out your target, and rack up 50+ kills without dying from afar. You can one-shot kill 4-5 members of a team before the last few guys will even wake up. The AI has a delay to wake up and even act, which means if you are fast enough you can be deadly in ground combat. In veteran mode, two things change - the AI difficulty goes up, and the human awareness goes down. This balances things slightly.

 

Lastly each spawned AI group has a random difficulty swag, from .7 (normalish) to 1.0 (veteran), and a random morale/flee ratio (@20%). So mathematically things are changing harder/easier all the time. When the AI are spawned, default values are given to the Awareness, combat stance, orders, etc. Stock Domination spawns most groups in "Safe" mode, with waypoint orders to just move from point A to B. Fish in a barrel. Several versions ago I changed the default to "Combat" mode upon spawn, with "Search and Destroy" as the orders. From what I researched, this should of made the AI more aware, use cover when moving, and be more challenging. I'll look into this to see if has had adverse affect.

 

2) Accuracy - The stock AI - imagine they have a cone of fire that slowly gets more accurate until pinpoint accuracy. The closer you are, the smaller the starting cone. They will eventually hit you. However, people feel that its not 'realistic' enough because the majority of the spawned AI do not have sniper rifles with that kind of accuracy over range - they have SMGs. With version N.1, we added in the dispersion mod. In general terms, this mod keeps the cone larger for a longer time, meaning the AI won't hit you for some time and seem to fire randomly in your area, which probably mimics SMG fire at range much better.

 

 

Summary: A human sniper with a loud one-shot-kill weapon is safer in his roost than a sniper with a silent 2-shot-kill weapon because the AI cannot share information in time. It is entirely feasible for single player can take down an entire team of AI due to the quickness by which they act vs the speed of the AI sharing information. AI is scripted and predictable, humans adapt. Replayability is based on change and adaption, not on repetitiveness. But humans bring much more random bullshit to the table like emotions.

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

Oops, missed this last part.. haha

 

IMO - I say we reduce the number of opfor humans for now and see how it affects gameplay. My prediction is that the human douchebaggery will go down, but I'm not sure what that will do to the repetitiveness feel and interest by players. If interest wanes too much, I would remove opfor completely from Domination to go back to something more stock, and rebuild a map into one that supports the human vs human aspect more.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Oops, missed this last part.. haha

 

IMO - I say we reduce the number of opfor humans for now and see how it affects gameplay. My prediction is that the human douchebaggery will go down, but I'm not sure what that will do to the repetitiveness feel and interest by players. If interest wanes too much, I would remove opfor completely from Domination to go back to something more stock, and rebuild a map into one that supports the human vs human aspect more.

 

 

Having one OPFOR sniper seems to be a good comprimise, and I agree with the AI intelligence stuff. One interesting note, somebody last night was complaining that the 2nd sniper slot (3rd overall slot) was bugged and never respawned correctly. I just referred him to the forums. Also, I think it was this same slot where somebod got surrounded by BLUFOR and they all unloaded on him, shooting him several times without effect. Not sure if he was cheating or what. But he never did it again after I kicked him.

[Lightspeed~SPARTA~]

yes personally after playing human opfor and mission commander a fair bit i think the ideal tweak is -

 

double the length of time between arty strikes

 

and reduce human opfor by one

 

that should be close to perfect and not give human opfor the edge they seemed to have b4.

 

i would say you could add the blue icon back in that place bcoz it gives opfor a heads up even though its general vicintiy not exact location so you still have to find them and kill them.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

yes personally after playing human opfor and mission commander a fair bit i think the ideal tweak is -

 

double the length of time between arty strikes

 

and reduce human opfor by one

 

that should be close to perfect and not give human opfor the edge they seemed to have b4.

 

i would say you could add the blue icon back in that place bcoz it gives opfor a heads up even though its general vicintiy not exact location so you still have to find them and kill them.

 

And get rid of one of those damnd choppers! If Johnny Rambo is stupid enough to get his shot down, he doesn't need to respawn and take the other one There's just too many explozions goin on, and not enough bullet-swappin'

[NCO]

I really enjoy the added challenge a good human Opfor commander brings to the map, but , like others, I don't like some of the behaviors that can come with "TvT" style of play or point collectors. I have no clue about what is technically doable, but some ideas that have passed through my mind while playing:

- less ammo on choppers or less choppers, or longer reload times or something ....

- suppress the scoreboard (Remember "Whose Line is it?", where the points don't matter?)

- less parachuting

- longer re-spawn times for blue force guys who die far away from everyone else (maybe, I'm of two minds on this one)

 

But ... I still really enjoy the server, and find the tweaks and changes interesting!

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

I really enjoy the added challenge a good human Opfor commander brings to the map, but , like others, I don't like some of the behaviors that can come with "TvT" style of play or point collectors. I have no clue about what is technically doable, but some ideas that have passed through my mind while playing:

- less ammo on choppers or less choppers, or longer reload times or something ....

- suppress the scoreboard (Remember "Whose Line is it?", where the points don't matter?)

- less parachuting

- longer re-spawn times for blue force guys who die far away from everyone else (maybe, I'm of two minds on this one)

 

But ... I still really enjoy the server, and find the tweaks and changes interesting!

 

I would absolutely love to get rid of the score board, but think it's hard coded into the game?

[peter~SPARTA~]

Honestly i don't understand your complains now.

There always will be rambo players. Even those who don't usually do rambo sometimes like to play that way.

Today fun is to do teamwork, tomorrow to be lone wolf.

As for choppers i think flight list works pretty well, not perfect but ok. Much better then everywhere else.

2 attack helicopters, unless they are in really good hands are quite easy to shot down.

Harrier problem is , there is usually no one with laser designator. So all what it can do is just buzzing around.

 

As for sniper and opfor commanders. Commander is there to command, true. But what to do in the 90% of the time?

Mostly opfors are occupied by non TS non regulars, who have no clue about HQ module. They are there cuz they don't dare/ know how to move to blue force's. Except those times when opfor commander is played by someone experienced + experienced players as sniper's are really pain in the ass.

But final score is allways the same, opfor loose.

 

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

I would absolutely love to get rid of the score board, but think it's hard coded into the game?

 

for the scoreboard not to be visible until mission has ended:

NetStats=1; in the server.armaprofile under the class difficulties (by default is 1 for every difficulty level minus the expert)

 

You could also change to 0 the following:

deathmessages=0;

 

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

Zeno and I discussed a bit earlier today. Based on the several conversations floating this is a draft of changes, mostly balance related.

 

1) remove one opfor sniper

2) turn off the scoreboard

3) increase the delay on artillery for everyone

4) remove the WP ammo from the mortars

5) increase the delay on parajumps so that it is not done every 5 minutes.

6) double the life reward for reviving others and lower the max

lives down to 20 to promote teamwork

7) add more random roadblocks/isle defense around the entire map

 

 

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Zeno and I discussed a bit earlier today. Based on the several conversations floating this is a draft of changes, mostly balance related.

 

1) remove one opfor sniper

2) turn off the scoreboard

3) increase the delay on artillery for everyone

4) remove the WP ammo from the mortars

5) increase the delay on parajumps so that it is not done every 5 minutes.

6) double the life reward for reviving others and lower the max

lives down to 20 to promote teamwork

7) add more random roadblocks/isle defense around the entire map

 

 

Even though you've already tweaked it out as far as I thought it could go, this is pretty good. I'm starting to wonder if we'll get to "Z" now.

 

As for sniper and opfor commanders. Commander is there to command, true. But what to do in the 90% of the time?

Mostly opfors are occupied by non TS non regulars, who have no clue about HQ module. They are there cuz they don't dare/ know how to move to blue force's. Except those times when opfor commander is played by someone experienced + experienced players as sniper's are really pain in the ass.

But final score is allways the same, opfor loose.

 

 

90% of the time is easily taken up by commanding. The other 10% is usually spent running around. An OPFOR commander is kept pretty busy moving units around, or he's not effective.

[Tholozor]

Harrier problem is , there is usually no one with laser designator. So all what it can do is just buzzing around.

 

Actually, a lot of times (I've been doing recently) I'm not using the laser marker to help me drop ordnance, I just use the marker to pinpoint the target location and I'll make a manual drop from a high angle. Also a plus of the AV-8B over the F-35 is that the HUD will highlight vehicles with a square on the display, making it even easier to target.

 

The cannon on the AV-8B can actually do some good damage against armor. A long enough accurate burst on a tank can disable it so the crew will bail.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Actually, a lot of times (I've been doing recently) I'm not using the laser marker to help me drop ordnance, I just use the marker to pinpoint the target location and I'll make a manual drop from a high angle. Also a plus of the AV-8B over the F-35 is that the HUD will highlight vehicles with a square on the display, making it even easier to target.

 

The cannon on the AV-8B can actually do some good damage against armor. A long enough accurate burst on a tank can disable it so the crew will bail.

 

 

Thus completely negating the coordination/teamwork aspect of it, and our need for it on the server.

 

Honestly i don't understand your complains now.

There always will be rambo players. Even those who don't usually do rambo sometimes like to play that way.

Today fun is to do teamwork, tomorrow to be lone wolf.

 

I understand that. Lately I haven't even had the chance to play with others as a team, since I come on and everyone has their own little agenda. I tried with Delta the other night, but just had to give up. You'll rarely see me complan when there's only one or two rambos, but 30 of them is the problem.

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

for the scoreboard not to be visible until mission has ended:

NetStats=1; in the server.armaprofile under the class difficulties (by default is 1 for every difficulty level minus the expert)

 

You could also change to 0 the following:

deathmessages=0;

 

Just some clarification on what these commands on the server profile actually do: (1 = on, 0 = off)

 

DeathMessages=1; // (1.09 and later) Displays "XXX was killed by YYY" messages in multiplayer

 

NetStats=1; // (1.09 and later) Enables the scoreboard functionality in MP

 

I think turning off the DeathMessages will remove people knowing if an AI killed them or human player, lessoning a bit of griefing. The NetStats will stop people playing for points.

[Tholozor]

Thus completely negating the coordination/teamwork aspect of it, and our need for it on the server.

 

How? They ask me to take out a specific target. I ask which one, they spot it for me, I take it out. How is that not coordination/teamwork? I can understand why you say that, in regards to the AV-8B's HUD, but usually in an AO there's so much armor around it makes it almost impossible to determine which target to engage. Besides, the AV-8B can only target lasers when the GBU-12s are selected.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Tholozor

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

How? They ask me to take out a specific target. I ask which one, they spot it for me, I take it out. How is that not coordination/teamwork?

 

I've never seen it happen. What I usually see is someone flying around the AO asking if anyone has a laze on something, and when nobody responds, or responds as a "negative," they start attacking anyway. Next time we're on together, let me know so I can see how it's done.

 

EDIT: Check that, notice I said "most." Some are conusing my statements lately as absolutes.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

We chatted about the taking out the sniper I was unaware of these other changes especially the scoreboard. This is a public server, I think we should keep the score board.

 

Do get rid of one of the attack choppers. If you get rid of WP is there smoke available for the mortar.

 

Just my opinion.

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

6) double the life reward for reviving others and lower the max

lives down to 20 to promote teamwork

 

What actually happens when you reach "zero" lives? I've never actually seen that happen.

 

 

- JHunter

[peter~SPARTA~]

What actually happens when you reach "zero" lives? I've never actually seen that happen.

 

 

- JHunter

 

 

Nothing, you relog and you have fresh stack of life's.

Its really hard to die 20 times when server/arma crash so often

Edited February 5, 2010 by peter~SPARTA~

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

Sooo... really theres no consequence for the "rambo" style game play when they run out of lives.

 

 

- JHunter