SmedBlog (last year): NPC Enemies and Armies - Page 21

wasdie · 2013-05-13, 11:53 AM

Ah good ol Necro'd threads.

Anyways I've actually given this idea some thought when Smedly first talked about it. So here are those thoughts. The short of it, NPCs aren't a terrible idea but the amount of time it would take them to work properly isn't worth it at all. I would rather the devs just focused on what they are focusing on now and skip the NPC army. That said, they could work and add fun to this game without ruining anything else.

NPCs could fit into this game, but in only a few roles. You couldn't have a 4th NPC army that functions similar to any of the 3 as AI can never replace humans and could never feel as authentic as the rest of the combat. So that's just a pointless waste of time.

Instead NPCs could be used behind the lines as the resource logistics. They could only follow lanes that connect the continent warpgate through friendly territory. These NPCs could be driving along the roads with a very basic automatic turret defense in convoys that carry resources to the bases. If they make it to the various facilities, the facilities naturally grow stronger and could withstand sieges longer. Cutting off these convoys is a way to weaken defenses, strength of the turrets, capture timers, strength of the generators defense against overloads, strength of the terminals. Stuff like that. A cut off base would be weaker against an attacking force than that of one that is supplied by the NPC convoys. Note, this is a separate mechanic from the NTU.

So a basic logistics role that makes the factions feel like they are actually armies, not just players spawning all over the map killing each other. A connected territory to a warpgate will have active logistics going on. Something to give the usually empty space some life and to make the armies feel more fleshed out.

Very basic role that adds a bit of mechanics to the gameplay without really taking anything away.

The second way I can see them working would be more aggressive as a 4th faction, but not just a faction similar to one of the 3. They would need to be some sort of Zerg like faction with a mob mentality that just swarms over the land. That's a function that the AI could do that players wouldn't be very good at. They would attack a continent like once a day or something like that and could end up breaking the future continent lattice and just give us something else to fight over for awhile.

Think Starship Troopers. Could be a lot of fun if done right.

Those are my ideas. Both won't add too much to the overall game and neither would take away anything from the current game. Because that's the only real safe way to implement AI, where the base PvP game is not affected at all, AI is a pointless waste of time. They should just keep developing more continents, vehicles, and improving on mechanics we have already to make the game better.

I would love to see Smedly's idea of each server being one large planet where you could seamlessly travel around it over the oceans or through space. That's a much better long term goal for the dev team.

MrMak · 2013-05-13, 12:42 PM

For aliens i can see 2 options that are viable.

Zerg/Tyranid/Arachnid like swarm like mentioned above.

Ancient automatons left by the original Vanu to protect something.

HiroshiChugi · 2013-05-13, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by MrMak

Ancient automatons left by the original Vanu to protect something.

Like the Forerunner technology in Halo 4? xD But seriously, have it be the actual Vanu if anything, so you're not completely copying any games.

Gonefshn · 2013-05-13, 12:52 PM

Not a big fan of MOBA style stuff but an invasion event could be cool.

Phantomdestiny · 2013-05-13, 01:23 PM

i'm more for dangerous fauna and flora than npc armies . My example you are driving on your flash on the indar desert when suddenly a giant worm comes out of the ground and attacks you .

this kind of thing

or dangerous flora that fires poison darts at you on hossin . Something that bring atmosphere and life to the environments but no game breaking NPC armies / More Player against environement (to a small scale not huge) and less players against humanoid bots which doesn't bring anything new to the game

Shogun · 2013-05-13, 01:32 PM

you know that the devs (higby i think, but i am not going to dig up the source) already said, what kind of ai they were looking into?

they said they wanted the players to be able to get (or craft or whatever) ai companions that could be programmable. like droids. maybe you could cert behaviour patterns for your r2d2 and send it out to defend the capturepoint, or follow you as an escort or whatever.

this may sound cool, but i would prefer spitfire turrets and being able to upgrade baseturrets to autofire. means less developement time and less performanceloss.

Chaff · 2013-05-13, 02:15 PM

.
TIN FOIL HAT TIME

.....hate to burst your bubble guys ..... NPCs are already in the game ..... and when you log out .... they use your name to play as one of SOE's NPCs ..... you only play 30 minutes a week ..... well, we think you play 16 hours a day ..... they want new (and old-current) players to come in an actually "think" they're playing a real game with large pops of active players .....
(BTW.....my NPC is BR 1648, but I'm not BR 40 yet).

....however, my NPC is programmed to play like a BR 2 with no skills, so if you pown me in-game .... you know it WASN'T ME ... it was my NPC making it easy on the few "real" players on line .... so ... they think they're good .... and keep playing ... and keep payin' ........ savvy ?
.

Rivenshield · 2013-05-13, 04:31 PM

Being able to unite against a merciless alien foe -- if there was sufficient windup before the pitch; as in popup reports for a few days of strange occurrences, rumors, objects appearing in orbit, etc.; then perhaps a day or two of mass free-for-all before you get the popup telling you that we are now allied with the other two empires against a common foe -- would be wonderful.

NPC armies would be the new BFR's. They would destroy this game. Don't even.

VaderShake · 2013-05-13, 04:44 PM

I view this as an opportunity to gain some rare technology consumables to spend on special items. Whether it's fighting invading aliens or local flora or fauna it is of no consequence as long as there is a purpose.

I would probably prefer random flora and fauna attacks daily with an alien invasion thrown in every 2-3 months over the course of a long holiday weekend. Dump a certain number of NPC bots into the game and hunt them all until they are dead. Add a ticker to keep track and countdown so we know when they are all dead.

It would be great to see a giant insect or something come out of the ground in the middle of a fight or a swarm of giant wasps attack aircraft. Bring up the intensity a bit and throw in some random variables to adjust strategy.

I am also waiting on some extreme weather to affect the battle flow as well.

Rahabib · 2013-05-13, 05:49 PM

PS: I didnt read all 21 pages, and I am aware that some of this was already stated.

I think my main reservation is that once you initiate elements beyond the control of the players, it creates an imbalance. That said, I am no opposed to the ideas, per-se, but it would have to be controlled and fair.

For instance, say there is an infestation, but they tend to go after one faction more so than another, thats not fair. "YAY NC won, but only because the bugs went after VS." Wheres the satisfaction in that victory. Although in this "world" balance isn't really its strong suit. Victories are meaningless anyway, so on the other hand, it may be fun as long as you dont care about a victory objective.

As for NPC, if it was controlled it could work out - but I doubt it will. Say a leader could have a cert for "droids" or something, they could call down once every hour. A drop pod comes down out of the sky and then the leader could use the map and give them way points. They scan the area and report back. If they go out of range, they go offline (so if you see one you know you can counter it in time). The problem again is (and if anyone played Killzone series) its really cheap if you die to something that requires no skill - but again, PS2 has plenty of that still anyway.

Edit: doh, didn't realize someone necro-d. Carry on.

Whiteagle · 2013-05-13, 05:50 PM

Bah, why do we need Computer controlled Players?
Certainly Nanite Systems wouldn't recruit select individuals from each Faction to pose as Alien Invaders with 10 times the health of Normal Infantry or anything...

Originally Posted by Assist

Personally not a big fan of the invading NPC army idea. I am a huge fan of NPC/AI defensive systems at bases though.

Originally Posted by Shogun

you know that the devs (higby i think, but i am not going to dig up the source) already said, what kind of ai they were looking into?

they said they wanted the players to be able to get (or craft or whatever) ai companions that could be programmable. like droids. maybe you could cert behaviour patterns for your r2d2 and send it out to defend the capturepoint, or follow you as an escort or whatever.

this may sound cool, but i would prefer spitfire turrets and being able to upgrade baseturrets to autofire. means less developement time and less performanceloss.

Indeed, I would love to have a Consumable that allows me to automate a Turret to fire at spotted Targets.

As for programmable "Companions," I doubt it will ever come to be, too much computing needed for "pets" that would most likely be cosmetics anyways.
More likely we're going to see a Spitfire Turret on Treads that patrols a path laid out by its engineer with nodes.
The higher you cert into it, the better the Turret and the more nodes you can place.

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

What i loved to do back when i was still mapping was to insert one or two giant-ass monsters into my multiplayer maps (from cyberdemons in doom deathmatch maps to these bigass boulder-throwing dudes in unreal ctf maps). That spiced things up a littlebit without dominating the style of play (you still could just play ctf or dm without having to run into these things).
Something similar could work very well here, and as far as i am concerned traps like man-eating plants (or whatever they had in store for hossin) work pretty much in the same way. You know where potentially a monster/trap could lurk around so you avoid that area. Or not. Whatever you're on about. You still have the choice.

Originally Posted by Phantomdestiny

i'm more for dangerous fauna and flora than npc armies . My example you are driving on your flash on the indar desert when suddenly a giant worm comes out of the ground and attacks you .

this kind of thing

or dangerous flora that fires poison darts at you on hossin . Something that bring atmosphere and life to the environments but no game breaking NPC armies / More Player against environement (to a small scale not huge) and less players against humanoid bots which doesn't bring anything new to the game

This would make nice use of all that open space that goes unexplored right now because it isn't the fasted way from A to B.

Hostile Alien Fauna are much better for this then a group of Humanoid NCPs, they can't really Aimbot because they'll have few if any ranged attacks, larger ones can be a hazard for Vehicles, and they give players something to do if they get tired of the PVP competition.
Hell, you could bring back a form of Vehicle Hacking by allowing Infiltrators to tame and ride some of them.
Who wouldn't feel badass hoping on a Giant Eagle or Wasp to fly behind enemy lines?

...Doubt we could have Sand-worms though...

Originally Posted by wasdie

Instead NPCs could be used behind the lines as the resource logistics. They could only follow lanes that connect the continent warpgate through friendly territory. These NPCs could be driving along the roads with a very basic automatic turret defense in convoys that carry resources to the bases. If they make it to the various facilities, the facilities naturally grow stronger and could withstand sieges longer. Cutting off these convoys is a way to weaken defenses, strength of the turrets, capture timers, strength of the generators defense against overloads, strength of the terminals. Stuff like that. A cut off base would be weaker against an attacking force than that of one that is supplied by the NPC convoys. Note, this is a separate mechanic from the NTU.

So a basic logistics role that makes the factions feel like they are actually armies, not just players spawning all over the map killing each other. A connected territory to a warpgate will have active logistics going on. Something to give the usually empty space some life and to make the armies feel more fleshed out.

Eh, I'm against NPC active logistics...
Biggest issue is path finding, you have to make sure the NPCs can go from A to B without any hiccups, a lot easier said then done when considering the distances involved.
The easiest method is point to point navigation, but that can still be an issue.

My Centurion Spitfire idea uses the same method with its patrol nodes, but it can only go forty meters in one direction at maximum.
If there are any problems along the route the player is just going to be out of luck and need to redeploy it it better.

The little thing only knows how to follow the line drawn by those nodes, so it will keep on that track as best as can even if it leads it into a wall or into the path of a Vehicle!

While this is the simplest method, it also requires a lot of Dev work to rig up and is very easily exploitable, you only need to know how to park something in the way.
Anything more is going to require more complicated A.I., which will in-turn require more server-side computing resources.

Originally Posted by wasdie

The second way I can see them working would be more aggressive as a 4th faction, but not just a faction similar to one of the 3. They would need to be some sort of Zerg like faction with a mob mentality that just swarms over the land. That's a function that the AI could do that players wouldn't be very good at. They would attack a continent like once a day or something like that and could end up breaking the future continent lattice and just give us something else to fight over for awhile.

Think Starship Troopers. Could be a lot of fun if done right.

Yeah, I've actually been in that exact scenario on Second Life...

...You know how people complain about bad performance in Large Battles?
Imagine that, then add another couple hundred moving entities to the area...
Being killed by a swarm of warping bugs isn't as fun as you'd think man...

Originally Posted by wasdie

I would love to see Smedly's idea of each server being one large planet where you could seamlessly travel around it over the oceans or through space. That's a much better long term goal for the dev team.

Oh hells yes!
I'd even take transitional travel, where you load into one map from going over the boarders of the next, if it meant we could move and fight between land-masses!

Ghoest9 · 2013-05-13, 05:52 PM

Originally Posted by AnamNantom

I still think that programmable AI would be fun in Planetside. Maybe even allow infiltrators to program AI viruses that traverse the data lines between the bases of Auraxis, and firewalls to impede them.

You have your "hardware" war going on, as well as the "software" war.

@ original bumper
<all the bad nasty stuff the mods wont let me say about you>

necro is bad

Phantomdestiny · 2013-05-13, 05:56 PM

the sand worms were just a random idea . any kind of fauna and flora as long as it is dangerous would do the trick. i knew the devs wanted to get animals/monsters in ps1 but they idea had to be dropped why not in ps2 ?

Whiteagle · 2013-05-13, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by Phantomdestiny

the sand worms were just a random idea . any kind of fauna and flora as long as it is dangerous would do the trick. i knew the devs wanted to get animals/monsters in ps1 but they idea had to be dropped why not in ps2 ?

Indeed, I'm think more giant Rhinos and Mammoths...
Think about a tank column having to defend itself from a stamped of Infiltrator driven Mammoths on Esamir, else have their armor gored by adamantine tusks!

Meatball Mobeus · 2013-05-13, 10:00 PM

Please don't add NPC invasions, or at the very least dont allow them to be player controlled.

Part of what makes Planetside so great is the PvP. I log in to PS2 to fight other people, not computer AI. If I wanted that I have Rage and many other games to do that in.