I give up on SP

[gua543]

A broodlord spawns on chapter 4 in front of the big ass Black Templar statue with the xeno skull under it's foot. My cursor was directly at him. Ordered Bara to attack. Bara goes for attack. Smaller genestealers start appearing behind the broodlord.

The broodlord starts running towards me. Bara closes the distance with him. The broodlord ignores Bara and keeps running towards me. Bara ignores the broodlord and goes for the smaller nids. Not one of the two even tried to hit one another.

I start going backwards, Nahum is paralyzed - doesn't move, doesn't fire. All this time I've been hammering the broodlord with psychic attacks and bolter rounds. Nahum gets killed in 3 hits, fires a couple of times after the second one. At least I know he's not sleeping in that armor.

Bara chims in with a sad "We shall remember Nahum" comment. He's nowhere to be seen though, probably hammering the small genestealers. At least he's doing something I guess.

In the end, I basically solokill the broodlord. Then I remember I'm playing on Chapter Champion (or whatever the second difficulty was called) and I wonder how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard will my life be if I tried to play SP on No Mercy. If any devs are reading this - fix your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI.

[Dent]

Originally posted by BarTwoOne:

Don't use command wheel, as it is like defecation on activated fan.
Bind
F "follow" ,
Q "move to point",
B "seal/open",
LCtrl "Attack",
Z 1st Dumbwing-Barahuj,
X 2nd Dumbwing-Nahuj,
C both Dumbwings ,
eventually LALT "Hold position" (to spam it in certain situations). AI so stupid, that it holds position better, when in idle state, than "Hold" itslef xD Devsies make it even worse in EE by including Dumbwing model collision (bravo ! ), making bots dancing in tight areas. Predict your movement and orders in such places.
Barahuj always with Claws or THammer (depends on your loadout, as it easier to shoot, when Barahuj has Claws).
Bind Psygate somwhere else, to avoid unintended activation.
REMEMBER ! You have secret HEALTH BINDS for each Dumbwing on 9 Barahuj and 0 Nahuj.
Keep Barahuj a bit behind by repetitive "Hold" and "Follow". Look minimap.
Don't bother about No Mercy/Lottery difficulty. In Special Missions play 2nd or 3rd difficulty and just after finishing objective, press Esc and Option->Game and switch to No Mercy for a moment. This way you will always get the highest EXP multiplier for Special Missions (retarded isn't it ?).

NEVER react to ✠UK_SHPAWN✠

Some excellent advice here. Did the original Deathwing have squad member collision detection? I never noticed.

Something else to note is that the "move" command is currently not very strong: the bots will only obey if there are no enemies around to fight. It's better to leave them on "follow" and lead them personally to wherever you want them to go.

Barachiel with claws or hammer is much tougher, but since he has no gun his engagement radius will be smaller than Nahum. This means that when the squad is moving fast he tends to overtake and leave the Apothecary behind to die (Nahum will stop to shoot at distant pursuing enemies, but Barachiel will keep following you). You can fix this problem by giving Nahum claws and hammer as well, but then he can't heal.

Getting the two 10 percent armor upgrades in the command skill route will make the two bot teammates much tougher in campaign. Sadly, this option is not available in special missions.

[BarTwoOne]

Originally posted by Dent:

Some excellent advice here.
1.Did the original Deathwing have squad member collision detection? I never noticed.

2. Something else to note is that the "move" command is currently not very strong: the bots will only obey if there are no enemies around to fight. It's better to leave them on "follow" and lead them personally to wherever you want them to go.

3.Barachiel with claws or hammer is much tougher, but since he has no gun his engagement radius will be smaller than Nahum. This means that when the squad is moving fast he tends to overtake and leave the Apothecary behind to die (Nahum will stop to shoot at distant pursuing enemies, but Barachiel will keep following you). You can fix this problem by giving Nahum claws and hammer as well, but then he can't heal.

4.Getting the two 10 percent armor upgrades in the command skill route will make the two bot teammates much tougher in campaign. Sadly, this option is not available in special missions.

Thanks ^^

1. Good you asked. As far as I remember, on vanilla SH bots were just ghosting trough each other and player. They still do in SH EE but with additional AI script checks. So now, instead of instant reposition , they first try to go around each other with the same priority. Without master/slave relation, it cause them to move back and forth 2-3 times, while claws and talons get closer and closer. Mostly it is too late, when Dumbwing finally decide to ghost...
According to above statement, I think it is AI script, rather than physical model colision. Nothing "Enchanced" for sure.

2&3. Exactly ! What is the point of giving player command over Dumbwing, if orders are not superior...
"Purge everything in sight " priority is messing everything up...

There should be diffirent behaviour for main bot loadout:
-meele,
-range,

with 3 stances:
-defensive with "hold"order,
-reactive with "move", "open/seal" orders,
-agressive with "attack" order,

and 2 levels of priority:
-execute order considering : player line of sight, healer protection, basic formation etc.
-forced order execution (double click),

4. Sadly SH:DW main archive is enscrypted .... I overlooked hacking possibility but no ezz solution...

Replace "light saber" with "game dev" xD
http://www.comedycentral.co.uk/south-park/videos/le-light-saber-terrible

Ce n'est pas possible!
http://www.streumon-studio.com/?page=studio

hghahghahhahahhahh !!!
http://www.streumon-studio.com/?page=jobs

[Dent]

I think you summed up the key issues and workarounds for the current bot AI quite well.

I agree with the OP that the bots seem to ignore the Broodlord and Scythe-strains half the time. I recently had a game where both bots stood there while I dodged a Broodlord around the level. They were both armed with hammers and shield, there were no other enemies around at the time, and they were standing right in the path of the big guy, but they didn't react for quite a while.

I remember reading an article about the amount of effort the devs put into the horde AI of Deathwing. Too bad they didn't do the same for your own teammates. I guess they focused more on multiplayer and felt that the current bot AI was good enough for campaign. The problem now is that there are special missions for single player and the bots simply cannot handle the increased spawns with their limited AI.

[Knight Commander Martellus]

It's better to die for the emperor then to live for yourself!!!!!

[Mr B.]

Originally posted by Always_Uncomfortable:

It's better to die for the emperor then to live for yourself!!!!!

It's better to succeed than fail.

[Knight Commander Martellus]

Originally posted by Mr B.:

Originally posted by Always_Uncomfortable:

It's better to die for the emperor then to live for yourself!!!!!

It's better to succeed than fail.

HERESY!!!

[Gorwe]

The AI most likely won't be improved, but you can use the current AI a great deal, especially in campaign:

Barachiel: He should have either Claws or T.Hammer. Claws are a more offensive choice, even if they do leak some damage, while the Hammer is more defensive. He's invaluable for defense parts because when you order him, he'll deflate threat by like 80%.

Nahum: He's quite useless apart from heals, but that thing saves runs. So, use Heal sparingly and the PsyGate mechanic and everything'll be k(except some nasty popcorn encounters). Imo, it's not that he's weak, it's that the S.Bolter's so epic weak that it makes Nahum useless. Especially in later part of Campaign when you go vs White Brood 100% of time.

You: Imo, you can choose whatever you want. In melee the T.Hammer or Mace are very nice and ranged, given that Campaign doesn't have FF even on No Mercy(hardest difficulty), Plasma Cannon or such are beyond godlike. Spells...spells are fantastic, especially the Fire ones. Immolate and Combust should be a staple and either the Storm(for Sword users) or the Lightning(for maximum Axe spam). It's really beyond epic.

Strategy: I'm writing this from the perspective of Caster. Be very careful and take care of those nasty popcorns(Biomorphs). Those are your first threat. The big uns(Scythe / Broodlord) aren't really a threat given that your Fire spells decimate those. Warp Storm can even CC lock them, so they're a shadow of their true threat in multi / special. If you have Ltng, you can take out Biomorphs / Turrets very easily. Order Barachiel to defend everytime you need to defend something. You and Nahum take the other side. DO REMEMBER TO LOCK THE DOORS, so you funnel the Nid approach vector! Don't rush around. It's not like you're a Rugged Assault anyhow with that leet Stamina. Everytime you see a pack of Warriors, Immolate their ass. If you see something dangerous clustered, use Combust. Combust also knocks big uns on their asses apparently. Ltng is vs popcorns / turrets / general spam(is much more powerful than your Bolter anyhow) and Storm is to cut off yet another approach vector. Shockwave is quite useless(needs more Stagger value or some kind of an extra effect) and Lion's Nemesis is nice for spellsword-y builds. Ultimate ability sucks lol.

///

If you need more help for multiplayer / specials, feel free to ask.

[Knight Commander Martellus]

(The big uns)

Thought you could get away with uttering alien words??????????!??!!??!?!?!?

DIE YOU ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HERETIC!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vuld_Edone]

They might have made the horde AI "too good". I remember playing chapter... 6 I think, in multiplayer SP, and reaching the caverns at the start of the game, I positioned myself at the intersection of two galleries.

The result was that depending on which direction I was looking at, the genestealers would backtrack and try the other gallery, so I could make them run forever and never be attacked. It was immersion-breaking to say the least.
Not that I don't appreciate the effort from the AI to flank me, even retreating to do so.

[boneknocker]

Originally posted by Always_Uncomfortable:

(The big uns)

Thought you could get away with uttering alien words??????????!??!!??!?!?!?

DIE YOU ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HERETIC!!!!!!!!!!!

this why more than half of SP including those sons of your long dead emperor join Chaos chapion. Eternity curse for the faust emperor !

[Herald_UK]

Seeing as the Campaign has been rendered usless, because of the much much better gameplay provided by the Special Missions. Is this really such a bad thing ?

Could almost make a guy wonder why they even bothered with an SP campaign. Just comes across as a waste of production time, when they could have just used that time, making the experience way better than the one we had to wait (pointlessly), for.

[Phyrus]

If you want models i got some from the old onces (not that plasticdope ) the real stuff made of alloy .

[zenstrata]

interesting reading this thread, I remember commenting on the incredibly low player counts (in double digits, yes, below 100 players most of the time...) and someone said "oh they are just all playing single player so you don't see them"... yep.. . rriiiiiiigggghhttt.. with these types of comments about single player i'm starting to wonder if that person was just very mistaken.

[Mr B.]

Originally posted by zenstrata:

interesting reading this thread, I remember commenting on the incredibly low player counts (in double digits, yes, below 100 players most of the time...) and someone said "oh they are just all playing single player so you don't see them"... yep.. . rriiiiiiigggghhttt.. with these types of comments about single player i'm starting to wonder if that person was just very mistaken.

That includes single player.

Steam charts is total number of people playing the game, others single player only games (like ftl) would show zero.