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Zombie AI. Too smart, doo dumb, too something


Tahaan

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I'm a relatively new player and I see over and over how long time players reminice about the old AI.

 

I installed Alpha 17-point-something but I think Alpha 18 came out the next day. I think I only played a single session with Alpha 17, so I considder myself a Alpha-18 only player.

 

So here is my conclusion based on my own experience and on what I read in the forums.

 

While the AI was broken in the past, it aparently felt more Zombie-like.

 

Some of my specific observations:

 

1. The zeds almost always pick the same path to get to me. When I run through a maze, they come at me at approximately the shortest route, bar only a few Zeds that does something slightly random.

2. When the zeds do something "random" or stupid, they don't appear stupid-zombie-like. It just looks like the AI is broken. It doesn't FEEL right. The biggest and most common example of this is cases where they try to beat down a wall rather than run around to go through an open door to get to you. I *DO* like that they sometimes don't do the obvious thing, but it doesn't look and feel right.

 

I have an idea about fixing it that has to do with how the player know that the zed has become aware of him. The zed's animation needs to be one of two things:

a) It knows exactly where you are because it can see you. Example: Turns head, sees you, and then comes straight for you.

b) It knows you are near but it has not actually seen you yet. Example: Cocks head to listen, sniffs the air, and then starts to move in a direction, stops, listens again, changes direction, etc until it sees you. When they know you are near they should first mill arround looking for you before they start beating on the wall to get to you via the shortest route.

c) The third one of the two things is that sometimes it should "give up". In stead of just beating on the same door, the zed should go back into milling and searching mode. This should NOT be related to you moving unless it can see you move.

 

If the zed sees the player move it should still keep on going on the same path unless that path is suddenly very far from the most optimal path. Eg if the path current followed is only 10% (number very scientifically thumb sucked) longer than the new most optimal path, keep on going on the same path.

 

If it loses sight of you, the zed should definitely keep going towards where it last saw you.... (Eg you disapeared around a corner). When it gets there it starts to search, listen, sniff, turns to try and see you.

 

In addition when one zed sees you, and starts to rush at you, the other zeds should also know from that one having seen you where you are (maybe with a small chance that some of them aren't paying attention or are still sleeping)

 

One feature of the game that would make a big difference to make them more zombie-like is if the zeds could turn their heads to look arround...

 

Anyways that is my observation.

 

On a related note: I wish the spiders could still climb and path vertically - perhaps with a chance like say 5% per voxel climbed to fall back down, and say 25% chance per voxel traversed along the underside of a ceiling...

 

 

 

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Funny enough, most people that miss the old A.I are the people that liked it when zombies just smacked their way through the blocks and buildings, even if there was an easier way in, because this gave that feeling of them being relentless.

 

I like your idea. Back in very old versions of the game, the zombies did actually turn their heads towards the player. I could see this coming back, and additionally, serve as an A.I overhaul of some sorts. I highly doubt anything like that will happen, though.

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I really like your idea on AI, but as Xtracking said, I seriously doubt it is going to be implemented... All this calculations will hang the CPU even more than before and we will face situation that 64 zeds at once is already too much, so you will end up this few sleepers only on all big map... And people are recalling dumb zeds as you could spawn many of them all around cities and farms, nowadays cities are kind of abandoned... It in no challenge to go to the city for loot, but around A16 it was, there were hordes of roaming zeds all around and the were eager to attach you.

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Aparently if I write "The zombie c o c k s its head" - which isn't in any way dirty, the forum system feels the need to put little hearts on the word to protect the sensibilities of people who play games in which they hit naked stripper zombies in the face with bats.

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Aparently if I write "The zombie c o c k s its head" - which isn't in any way dirty, the forum system feels the need to put little hearts on the word to protect the sensibilities of people who play games in which they hit naked stripper zombies in the face with bats.

 

Mods! Mods! This barbarian is trying to cheat the forum's automatic censoring system. Outrageous. Ban him!!

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