The AI Issues thread

[Sensuki]

There are quite a few problems with the enemy AI in Pillars of Eternity that are causing quite a few issues with combat, and I believe skewing the developer's view on what abilities are "too OP" to be able to cast to initiate combat, among other things.

 

First and foremost, I will address some of the things that I brought up in my Engagement thread from last month. I highlighted a particular issue with AI targeting and movement that has been present throughout the entire beta.

 

AI Targeting system – There is no loop that constantly re-evaluates targets for enemies. There are a set of initial targeting clauses (which I explain in a video further down in the thread, in the kiting section) and there is target re-acqusition based on a set of conditions. You can make it so that enemies are ‘blind’ to the trap you have laid for them. The way AI targeting interacts with multiple engagements and engagement circles makes it possible to score multiple disengagement attacks on multiple opponents.

 

To try and avoid the situations that are happening at present, AI would have to run a loop that constantly checks for the closest enemy.

 

Josh Sawyer stated in one of the other Engagement threads that this issue was being addressed for build v392.

 

Not quite related, but connected to an issue that Sensuki highlighted: AIs were not updating their targeting preferences (of any sort) while moving, which made kiting extremely easy.  In the next BB update, moving AIs will periodically re-evaluate targeting preferences within a narrow range of time.  We will tune that time range as necessary and, if other common exploits become obvious, we will consider how to address them.  However, a micro-oriented player with a party of high movement characters devoted to kiting presents, if not an unsolvable problem, one where investing serious programming time to it has diminishing returns.

 

AI reevaluates on events (e.g. being hit, completing an action, etc.), but a moving character that does not stop often has no new events to re-evaluate.  It starts moving and continues moving without being able to reach the target, so it keeps on truckin'.  At least, that's how it worked before.  In the next build, the main difference is that a moving AI will say, "Hey, I'm moving, so I will periodically evaluate if I should keep doing this or peel off and attack someone else."

 

Having now tested to see if things have actually improved, I am not seeing any difference in v392 with the AI for Medreth's party, or Beetles (have not really tested many of the other groups, but I assume it's the same). Here are some videos showcasing that the AI still does not update when moving / if there were any changes made, they are not working/were not tested properly.

 

There is one thing that is different from the last version, and that is the Cowled Woman (Ranger) does in fact reacquire targets when moving more often. In v364 she very rarely did. I believe the reason she re-acquired targets in this instance is because I ran behind a tree and broke line of sight, which caused her to re-evaluate targeting.

 

 

There are also many other bugs present in the video, I have reported all of them except the animation glitches, which is another topic I need to investigate.

 

I created a bug thread with a video for the Beetles example here.

 

For posterity here is my old video on AI Targeting issues from v364

 

 

One of the issues is that the enemy AI and/or the combat state have trouble dealing with scenarios where the party is split up. If you send a single character around a corner to attack a bunch of enemies, and your party was not in the enemy group's FOV at any point, and the enemies KO that character, eventually the combat state will end, and the KO'd character will get up, and be KO'd again by the enemies - rinse and repeat. Sometimes the same enemies won't detect that your party member has gotten up.

 

Bester reported a similar issue here, where by closing a door he was able to make some of Nyfre's group return to their room, while two of the enemies opened the door to attack the rest of his party.

 

Enemies in Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 had some issues with detecting the party through the fog of war, and it was very easy to just simply leave combat (which to be honest, is fair enough). Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter improved on this. Perhaps not with every enemy, but IIRC there is no way of escaping Yxunomei in Dragon's Eye unless you close a door (of which, the combat state still won't end), or exit the area. If you run all the way to the entrance of the map, she will find you (from memory anyway).

 

I would actually like to be able to run away from combat and use area transitions in this game, but I'm not sure if that will happen, so it would probably be a good idea to give enemies some better detection of party members through the fog of war once combat has begun.

 

One thing that the designers are unfortunately doing is limiting several of the offensive and status effect abilities to Combat only, meaning that you cannot initiate combat with them until the combat state has actually begun - which means that if you are attacking neutral NPCs or from the Stealth GameState, you can't use those abilities until at least one of your characters has made an offensive action, or an enemy has. I think this is an oversight of the actual problem with those abilities. An example is Whisper of Treason, which is a level 1 Cipher ability that charms an enemy. This spell was made combat only because you could cast it on an enemy in a group, the group would kill the enemy and then everything would go back to normal and you could rinse and repeat the process. This situation would be completely avoided if the ability actually turned NPCs of the same faction/group hostile if cast on them, and if enemies could actually detect the party properly in the fog of war. There are also a lot of other status effecting spells that are either combat only or do nothing on neutral NPCs that probably could be enabled if these issues were addressed, which is why I have created this thread.

These are not the only issues with AI in Pillars of Eternity, and as I investigate various issues more, I will continue to add to this thread.

 

If anyone else has any issues with anything AI related, including but not limited to enemy ability and spell casting routines, AI targeting, detection of party members and dealing with Engagement - feel free to post them here.

 

Also a sidenote: Engagement is still exploitable the same way it was before. Not as bad due to the re-engagement delay and the Defender nerf, but still totally possible to do. Fixing the issue with enemy AI target re-acquisition should help to make it harder to achieve, but I don't actually think the exploit will be able to be removed from the game entirely.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Sensuki

[zimcub]

Are you unable to mod out the combat only flag on the spells?

[Sensuki]

Yes I can mod them to be used in combat. It's very easy to do. But not everyone is going to use mods.

 

Regardless of that, the Enemy AI needs some more work.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Sensuki

[Hormalakh]

It shouldn't be the players' responsibility to make the game work as intended. These should be considered bugs.

 

Good finds Sensuki; I haven't really liked the whole "combat-state" as it is currently implemented in the game as I think it severely limits the players' ability to freely act in the game.

 

I can't think of why it was required (other than to limit pre-buffing and to measure how many abilities you can have per-encounter. I sort of liked the old approach of contingency and sequencers and immediate pre-buffing to solve the first problem. For the per-encounter bit, I wouldn't have minded cooldowns or even a reset of the abilities after combat ended (at the end of every combat, per-encounters would reload).

 

I would also make the combat state automatically end similar to how it ended in IE - it seemed that if the enemy couldn't find you/ attack you after a set amount of time, combat state would end. In this game, the combat state only ends after you kill everything that is hostile to you.

Edited January 7, 2015 by Hormalakh

[Sensuki]

They are bugs, but rather than post these ones in the bug forum, I thought I'd bring them to public attention.

[ruzen]

Obsidian must appreciate the efford Sensuki putting into. I've been following his post and videos for a long time I have to admit I am kinda disapointed the result is coming out from dream team. I know It is beta so I am not trashing like that but I think PoE needs more time: really long time before going gold and I dont think a few months gona cut It. I dont know the budget issues perhaps going early-release will buy some time?

[Guest 4ward]

funny that the cowled woman/ranger doesn't change to melee weapon when your fighter closes in but sticks to using the bow against him. They don't give rangers melee weapons? Can rangers do something with the bow to disengage? Or could she have used 'defensive shooting' or 'binding roots' vs your fighter ?

[Sensuki]

Nah they don't. I guess it's because there's no penalty to shooting in melee.

[archangel979]

Obsidian must appreciate the efford Sensuki putting into. I've been following his post and videos for a long time I have to admit I am kinda disapointed the result is coming out from dream team. I know It is beta so I am not trashing like that but I think PoE needs more time: really long time before going gold and I dont think a few months gona cut It. I dont know the budget issues perhaps going early-release will buy some time?

Don't worry they will do it like 95% of games today. Release and than continue patching and working on the game :D Edited January 7, 2015 by archangel979

[ruzen]

 

 

Obsidian must appreciate the efford Sensuki putting into. I've been following his post and videos for a long time I have to admit I am kinda disapointed the result is coming out from dream team. I know It is beta so I am not trashing like that but I think PoE needs more time: really long time before going gold and I dont think a few months gona cut It. I dont know the budget issues perhaps going early-release will buy some time?

 

Don't worry they will do it like 95% of games today. Release and than continue patching and working on the game :D

 

Personaly I really dont like early-acses consept because developpers never finalize the game but because of the love I have for this game I could give it a slide. I accually postponed my military service ( conscription) to play the game but I wont mind play It perfectly after...

[Hormalakh]

Played some more today - both pathfinding and AI are incredibly frustrating even for my party.

 

Party members run up to cast spells even though they can cast from where they are - becoming engaged unnecessarily. They will run around enemies to "engage from the front" instead of just pivoting from their current position (incurring extremely unfair and cheap disengagement attacks). Furthermore, my priest loves throwing down a HALT spell and then running up to the enemy.

 

When a priest throws down a spell, they should NOT auto-attack. Neither should any party-member until asked to do so. But this should be particularly true of members who are usually back-line (priest, wizards, druids, etc).

 

All of this becomes incredibly important when you have enemies like stone beetles which can burrow and bypass the front-line. It's very difficult to get out of a flanked position when I cannot move (disengagement attacks hurt very much) and then I ask my fighter to help and instead of pivoting he goes around.

 

Combat is also pretty much unplayable on "expert mode" because there is no GUI that tells me whether my party members are currently performing an action or not. The heads-up display only works for non-expert mode.

 

Combat was an incredibly frustrating experience...

Edited January 7, 2015 by Hormalakh

[AndreaColombo]

They are bugs, but rather than post these ones in the bug forum, I thought I'd bring them to public attention.

I see the rationale but most of the stuff in this thread should really be fixed and posting each issue separately in the bug forum would possibly give it more visibility/chances to get looked at, imho.

[Kjaamor]

Enemies in Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 had some issues with detecting the party through the fog of war, and it was very easy to just simply leave combat (which to be honest, is fair enough). Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter improved on this. Perhaps not with every enemy, but IIRC there is no way of escaping Yxunomei in Dragon's Eye unless you close a door (of which, the combat state still won't end), or exit the area. If you run all the way to the entrance of the map, she will find you (from memory anyway).

 

I'm currently replaying IWD with HoW installed and recently did that section.

 

For the record, whether this be better or not, helpful or not, Icewind Dale enemies' AI comes in two different flavours: "Heat Seekers" (which as soon as they get a lock will always know your position and will track down your party), and "Return to Senders" (who return to their starting spot if they lose sight of you).

 

Return to Senders are desperately vulnerable to ranged attacks/Hide while Heat Seekers display a level of clairvoyance bordering upon omniscience. Occasionally they get stuck, but not so frequently as to be particularly noteworthy.

 

Again, for the record, Yxunomei is a Heat Seeker, and since I don't mind a bit of door warfare I tried the doors trick and all of them were either locked shut or locked open. In the end, I defeated her using a kitchen table.

[Sensuki]

HAHA

 

[Sensuki]

Elder Lions targeting appears to be okay, I saw an Elder Lion change targets 3 times in a fight before.

[zimcub]

HAHA

[image]

I don't get it

what is he talking about?

Edited January 8, 2015 by zimcub

[Kukident]

I know It is beta so I am not trashing like that but I think PoE needs more time: really long time before going gold and I dont think a few months gona cut It. I dont know the budget issues perhaps going early-release will buy some time?

And now that we know the Release date, we know there will be only 2,5 more months of full development. I am afraid this will be another game that will greatly suffer from a rushed release, just looking at all those threads pointing out really major issues that still need to be fixed.

[aeonsim]

I'm pretty sure I've seen enemies (mainly human, and possibly beetles) switch targets among those within melee range if a wizard get's close enough they can attack with out moving they switch...

[drunetovich]

That is the problem of most games nowdays, developers go for immitation instead of simulation and then face all kind of unnatural behavior from npcs, and forced to place arbitrary limitations like combat states and engagement. Dwarf fortress for example goes for complete npc simulation with basic needs, organs, life goals etc etc, so npcs there are actually behave reasonably in every exotic situation that player may put them in.

[archangel979]

 

 

I know It is beta so I am not trashing like that but I think PoE needs more time: really long time before going gold and I dont think a few months gona cut It. I dont know the budget issues perhaps going early-release will buy some time?

And now that we know the Release date, we know there will be only 2,5 more months of full development. I am afraid this will be another game that will greatly suffer from a rushed release, just looking at all those threads pointing out really major issues that still need to be fixed.

There is still a chance the community will be able to fix the game like they did with ToEE, VtM:B and Xcom (long war mod). Or maybe OE pulls Larian and InXile post release and work on a free big patch to fix stuff they could not before release.