New AI

[konggary]

With the advent of the new AI, I experienced quite the awesome exchange. In level 1, I'd just entered the second (third) area after getting the first key, and was looting the small supply closets. Peeking out the door, I saw a woman with a 2-hand axe wandering the room. Trying to be peaceful, I just remained still with my torch. As she advanced to attack me, I pulled out my own axe and quickly took her health down to practically nothing. Realizing she was outmatched, the woman fled through the dungeon.

Lo, later in my adventures, I found her again. In the room with the fire trap, stuck behind one of the gates. Quickly closing the other gate, I trapped her (I'm sure she realized the predicament she was in). Of course, I taunted her, for being so aggressive to a peaceful person, then lit her aflame with the fire trap.

 

[RobG]

sounds excellent, new ai has given the undead so much more character and is lending to some really hilarious moments!

 

[Don Kanaille]

Yeah, having a panicked undead bail on you can be pretty tense, as you never know if he´s coming back, probably bringing friends along... it also makes me feel guilty to pick fights when my opponent is terrified of me and clearly doesn´t want to die.

 

[konggary]

Part 2:
Level 3, wandering around, well geared. Run into a bedpan guy, slice him a few times. Hammer guy shows up, helps bedpan guy. In the heat of the battle, hammer guy hits bedpan guy, and they begin to duke it out. Bedpan destroys hammer, causing hammer to flee from battle. Some time later, I find hammer standing over bedpan in a dark bathroom.

 

[dustbiter]

Just had one fleeing zombie constantly run from room to room on level two where there are four rooms and six archways, you can't chase him down and you can't trap him. Well played Bare Mettle.

I better spell out that I think this is stupid, the only control the player has over fleeing enemies is to try and trap them off, or go on a tedious chase till the AI happens to reach a place when it decides not to flee anymore, which can take a long time as many areas are open.

 

[Parco]

@dustbiter but if you are the one being chased, does the opponent have any way to stop you? the idea is that npc's and player plays by the same rules, when you flee and the one chasing stops chasing you then its probably for the same reason you stopped chasing someone else that was fleeing.
if they add something later that makes it easier to deal with running npc's, like attacking while running for example (or maybe some sort of tackle/kick)(thaumaturgy and ranged combat will be added at one point, maybe that will help), then enemies will also be able to do the same so it will be harder for you too flee.

btw, one thing i did to stop a fleeing opponent was building a trap, i placed some chairs, planks and other rubble on the ground in front of a doorway and chased the opponent towards that place, he ran straight on it and tripped making him easy to finish off.

 

[Mikodzi]

When this new "flee" mechanic was introduced, I found myself missing charge swings (attack while running).
It is really funny to chase those poor bastards, but it's so unrealistic to take them down when they are fleeing...

 

[-Tim-]

Just had one fleeing zombie constantly run from room to room on level two where there are four rooms and six archways, you can't chase him down and you can't trap him. Well played Bare Mettle.

I better spell out that I think this is stupid, the only control the player has over fleeing enemies is to try and trap them off, or go on a tedious chase till the AI happens to reach a place when it decides not to flee anymore, which can take a long time as many areas are open.

I agree with your observation that fleeing is a bit too powerful a tactic currently. In my opinion, later on in development many ways might and should be added to mitigate this, like cripple effects (yes, I think limb crippling is awesome and should work for and also against you), ranged combat, thaumaturgy and charges/tackles.

 

[Mikodzi]

Also, this fleeing should lead to some defined results like:
- get help (attract additional npcs)
- hide
- ambush
- barricade (could be resolved with Thaumaturgy)
- heal or rearm
- prepare trap

Chaotic running across all dungeon didn't add immersion...

 

[El Maco]

Chaotic running across all dungeon didn't add immersion...

If you don't like chasing the fleeing undead across the dungeon, then why do you do it? Its not like they are a significant threat to you after they have decided to escape.

Personally I found it really cool that a fleeing undead tried to land a sucker punch on my character who had accidentally tripped over during the chase, only to proceed to run away again once my character was able to get back on his feet again. They also do set up ambushes already. I agree it would be even more awesome if they tried to hide properly, summon their friends for help etc.

Also if it was (too) easy to catch a fleeing undead it would render the whole mechanic kinda pointless. They need to have a realistic chance to get away, because if they didn't, why even bother?

 

[Mikodzi]

If you don't like chasing the fleeing undead across the dungeon, then why do you do it? Its not like they are a significant threat to you after they have decided to escape.

I do it only because it is my mission to kill everyone in that dungeon.
Leave no one alive - that's my motto.

 

[-Tim-]

Also if it was (too) easy to catch a fleeing undead it would render the whole mechanic kinda pointless. They need to have a realistic chance to get away, because if they didn't, why even bother?

I would hope that as a healthy and possibly well trained human being I wouldn't have too much trouble catching up with an untrained, underfed, atrophied and wounded bag of bones and meat. They currently run at max speed, which is a bit much imho.
And yeah, I love the sucker punch mechanic, it's hilarious

 

[Array]

Its always fun when everyone starts wacking each other in fights though I did get trapped in a toilet with tthe door shut with two zombies one wielding a crutch which it couldn't swing without hitting everything which was quite funny (until I died)

 

[Don Kanaille]

I do it only because it is my mission to kill everyone in that dungeon.
Leave no one alive - that's my motto.

But then you´re only chastizing yourself. If it is entirely your decision to chase down every last undead, then you have have no one to blame for possible frustrations arising from that other than yourself.

 

[Rod_Lightning]

Zombies have ambushed me after fleeing actually.

 

[Iscandar]

I thought the fleeing zombies were great. I've already had some fun scenarios with them.

A zombie I was fighting started running away after a nasty hit. I chased him, but he suddenly turned around and whacked me in the head with a candlestick, knocking me over. Instead of hitting me while I was down, he turned around once more and kept running. That was comedy gold for me.

In another situation, a zombie was outrunning me in the second level. I couldn't catch him, so I moved on. A few moments later in a different section of the level, he popped out of nowhere, still apparently running, and coming straight at me. He knocked straight into me and tripped over my sword trying to turn around. That was some scooby doo stuff there.

 

[dustbiter]

@Parco
Kinda missed your post, thus the late reply.
The rules are not the same, the AI has much faster transition between running and attacking than the player. The player has to come to a halt from running before getting ready to swing, unlike the AI. You can't strike the AI even if you catch up as you take a second to get ready and the AI runs off again.
There is a lack of proper counters to fleeing enemies currently, this is why some people are not happy with the game. Implementing more realism shouldn't be at the expense of gameplay.

What I posted on steam earlier:
"The issue isn't about realistic AI, it's about killing the fun of the game. Keeping the game fun is critical to game design.

Future skills may provide more counters to fleeing in the future - add fleeing in the future then."

 

[Bullethead]

I find the new AI changes generally good. As in, I can go further with fewer fights, and the fights I have are more on my terms. To understand this, you need to know how things were for me before.

Prior to 0.6, I was completely unable to pass by a zombie in a corridor, doorway, or any similarly narrow space. Coming within that distance of them always made them attack me, despite the many videos of other folks brushing shoulders with them no problem. That just didn't work for me. Also, if I was fighting 1 zombie and another was anywhere near, it would join the fight. Sometimes, luck of the draw, the zombies were in places where I could trap them behind doors, or bypass them within a large room, but most of the time I had to fight to make any progress. So I'd stalk them carefully, close doors where possible to make sure no others joined in, and then try to fight on the most advantageous terrain for me. Usually this worked but making just 1 mistake would ruin my health and with the number of fights I had to do, naking such a mistake was just a matter of time.

Now in 0.6, things are quite different. For starters, I can now finally walk right by a large fraction of zombies, as shown in various "non-violent" videos. Some zombies are still touchy about their personal space, however, but others in the same room usually don't intervene when I have to fight a berserker. And sometimes the zombie runs away after I whack it a few times, although this isn't common so far. Probably because I'm using weak weapons that require several good hits to kill one, so they don't get demoralized on taking a huge hit all at once. But running doesn't save them because I still stalk them and prepare the battlefield like before, so they've got nowhere to go

So basically, I'm finding Exanima a completely different and much more fun game now than before. Not just the AI but all the other changes as well. Now I feel like I have some control over the outcome and am making much better progress than before, instead of just beating my head against the wall.

 

[Roger The Shrubber]

@dustbiter
Bullethead has the right idea here, for me, it's not about killing the enemies, that's not the most fun part, it's about the depth of the game and what is viable. I'll kill any zombie who fucks with me, and I'll often kill zombies that have a weapon I want, but I really like the fact that some of them are just chill and want to survive as much as you do. An excellent way is to look at them not as traditional zombies, but as undead, some have more or less relation to their prior humanity depending on their fortitude. Now the new update added a lot of fun new aspects to the game for me. So don't act like you are the only one playing the game and that if you find it less fun then everybody else must, because that's not how it works. I'm sorry that you don't like what's been changed, but I really think that it is very much a step in the right direction for the game. With that in mind, one can always hope that Bare Mettle might tweak the aggressiveness of enemies, and maybe even add options like that for people who wish to play on different difficulties, but if there is only going to be one setting, then I think they've done good work. This is especially true since some of the best and toughest enemies in the fourth area are very aggressive and very fun to fight, I haven't had a single one of them run away from me.

 

[dustbiter]

@Roger The Shrubber
Erm, I'm not the only one who doesn't like how you can't chase down zombies thanks to the new AI. Zombie's just a name, I don't care how much they are like typical zombies, it probably stuck cos' the early build AI was stupid.

"So don't act like you are the only one playing the game and that if you find it less fun then everybody else must, because that's not how it works."
This is rude. First I am not the only player who holds the view that current changes to AI have adversely affected gameplay. And with that statement you are the one instructing me to change my position. I read that wall of text with zero paragraphing as I respect and wanted to hear your opinion so show me some respect please.

I like to clear areas if I can before moving on. It's the smart thing to do cos' it means you are less likely to get a tango jumping you in the back while you are engaged at the front. And anyway it's fun to kill them when you can.

Now even if I catch up to the fleeing AI I can't hit the enemy in time, because the transition from running to combat ready for the player is awfully slow... while it is very fast for the AI. Meaning you are forced to tag along with the fleeing AI till it's AI decides to stop fleeing- which may not happen such as in level two where there's 4 rooms and 6 archways. It's stupid and frustrating, implementing the fleeing mechanic currently is at the expense of gameplay when the only practical counter to the AI fleeing currently is to try to trap them.

I am not against the developer's vision of realism. How far to take that realism they want? It shouldn't be at the expense of gameplay. If fleeing can be implemented well I'm not against it, but currently it isn't.