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Some questions about the A.I.'s patrol paths


chakkman

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I'm sorry i have to criticize a little again. What i have noticed playing a reasonable amount of FM's is, that some map authors seem to implement set guard patrol paths, which means the guard always walks the same way, which is like on the original Thief games, while others seem to implement complex patrol behavior (or is it random?). From a players point of view, and from someone who admittedly likes to knock out guards, a random patrol path (or complex) as can be found in grayman's WS: In the north mission to name an extreme example (in that mission, i felt like, if i waited in a corner in the kitchen, i could have knocked out about half a dozen different people that entered and left the kitchen in any direction, finally, i was stacking unconscious bodies in the toilet...), can be quite a game breaking thing, especially in stealth games, in fact, in any kind of games, you have to expect a certain A.I. behavior, otherwise it will get very difficult, and can break the fun. In this case, it can't be really, that guards patrol all over the place, especially, when you also want to find a safe place to hide bodies. I'm playing Melan & Bikerdude's PD 2 mission atm, and again, i find people who patrol in a really weird way... sometimes, they even stick to the same place, go a metre forward, turn around, go back, and then turn again. What is it with that weird behavior? Is it random, is it programmed? I can imagine that for people who like to ghost, and like a even bigger challenge, it's cool, but for people who blackjack, it's truely a nightmare.

 

There's another issue i had in that mission, and that is, i couldn't enter a room, because the door way was exposed with candle light, and some stationary guard was facing the door, making it impossible to enter. Then i opened the door, shot a noisemaker arrow down the hallway i came from, the guard noticed the noise, came out of the door, and instead of checking the noise source, he came my way, and i tried it 3 times, and the result was always the same. Is there something i'm missing? Shouldn't he check the spot where the noise maker was aimed to?

 

There's really some weird moments you have in this mod, not only gameplay wise, but also, in most missions, there are spots you stick to, when you jump in places, you're not expected to jump. Or some jumps which are designed so that you hardly can do them. Sorry to be so judicial, even though i really like this mod and the missions, there are some things i just feel need to be criticized about it. I can only imagine how much work goes into creating a mission, and nothing is perfect, and there always will be untested areas.

Edited by chk772
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IIRC, there are no stationary guards in WS1; everybody has somewhere to go, at some point, so waiting them out should pay off. There's a non-patrolling maid sitting in the Blue bedroom, but you can accomplish what you need to in that room w/o using the hall door, and she leaves anyway once her Lady shows up to go to bed.

 

If you played using 2.02, the noisemaker should have worked correctly. Up through 2.01, it didn't, because of a major sound propagation bug and a minor noisemaker bug. If the guard veered toward you, then he must have been alerted by something that overrode the noisemaker sound.

 

As in any home, some rooms will be quiet, some rooms will be busy. WS1 has a shift change at one point, where most AI trudge off to do something different. This can clear out some busy rooms (like the guards' dining room).

 

The purpose of RIT (random interesting things) is to spice up the experience. Instead of rigid patrol routes, AI can wander around doing a variety of things, as they probably would in real life. Not all AI have RIT patrols. Guards in a high-security area might stick to a rigid patrol. An unarmed butler touring the home won't.

 

These things aren't untested.

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Oh, and I should mention that odd behavior when patrolling (instead of walking in a straight line to go somewhere, the AI takes what looks like a little crooked detour) is a function of id's pathfinding routine. When there are several ways of getting from A to B, pathfinding sometimes won't pick the shortest or most direct route. That might explain the patrolling glitches you see from time to time.

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can be quite a game breaking thing, especially in stealth games, in fact, in any kind of games, you have to expect a certain A.I. behavior, otherwise it will get very difficult, and can break the fun.

 

AI that roam around realistically might make things not fun for you, but having AI walk, turn, and pivot like clockwork robots makes things not fun for me. To each their own.

 

It's up to mappers to control how much randomness affects an AI's patrol. Most try to make AI believe in fairly reasonable ways, stopping at places that might make sense to stop, going to central locations (like a kitchen) to get things, etc. When guards behave like perfectly predictable robots, it certainly does make things easier for the player--they know they NEVER have to worry about dumping bodies in room X. They know they ALWAYS have 30 seconds of free time when the guard turns his head. For me this is boring, not to mention immersion-breaking.

 

Obviously guards have to have some predictability--you don't want them turning and looking behind them randomly--but TDM AI are fairly predictable. They generally walk straight from point A to point B. They don't suddenly turn around (unless you make a noise). Their speed is predictable; they don't suddenly burst into a run, for example, unless they get alerted. They can't see things that are behind them, they won't see things in the dark, they won't hear things far away, etc.

 

Then i opened the door, shot a noisemaker arrow down the hallway i came from, the guard noticed the noise, came out of the door, and instead of checking the noise source, he came my way,

 

If you're between the guard and the noise arrow, then he probably caught a glimpse of you as he was walking towards it and went to investigate. Noise arrows don't blind guards to other things going on.

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It may also be added that even the randomness provided by RIT's is not completely random. I've used them quite alot in the lower floor of my first FM. They way RIT's work is, that once the ai reaches a certain waypoint, it can choose from several ones to go next. In my mission this were about 2-3. So if you observe the ai long enough you get a rough idea on which ways tehy may choose. It is obviously not perfectly clear before the ai actually attempts to go to the next waypoint.

 

For me Thief or stealth games in general were always about two effects:

  1. Planning, which means you need some amount of information to do so (like predictable paths or a map etc...)
  2. Improvising, which couteracts the predictability

It is up to the mapper to find a good balance, and it is up to the player to decide upon how well he did that. But this is very subjective.

 

But a stealth game should definetely not be completely predictable. If so, we would not need flashbombs, noise arrows etc...

 

And to be honest, there is only a low amount of FM's that seem to use this feature. ;)

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RIT This must be something I have missed. Is it in the Wiki? :huh: If so I will find it and study it. I find pathfinding a fun part of mission creation, but being new at it, it seems pretty basic. IE, go to A, then B, then C, then back to A. So is RIT (random interesting things) something new, or something I just haven't found yet? Sound's like it would be a very useful tool. Thanks in advance. ;)

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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Even with RIT I find I don't need to use flashbombs or noise arrows. But I'm a KO whore so everyone gets knocked out anyways. Very few times I've been surprised.

 

Normally if I'm in a room and someone comes in that's unexpected, I'll usually mantle on top of the bed, or wardrobe and hide there instead of reloading.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Thanks guys for the explanation, actually i wrote the original post with a bit of bitterness in me, as i played a FM before i wrote it, and these things (A.I. walking forward a metre, then turning around, then walking a metre again to turn around, and the noisemaker thing) occured to me, so at one point, i was literally rage quitting. :P So sorry, if i exaggerated a bit. I get your points about including complex guard route routines, with changing shifts even, to make things more interesting, but it also makes things pretty hard i must say. In some cases, it turns pretty much to a luck thing, if the A.I. can find your hidden bodies or not. I just took a shot, and stashed the bodies in the closet, hoping that noone on another complex routine would come there agian, and maybe actually use the toilet, i hope you get the point. With this kind of complexity, there's just very few spots where you can hide bodies, because you can't know if some guard on his delayed shift might check there, even though you checked most A.I.'s patrol route.

 

I agree with Obsttorte that it's a pretty subjective thing too. Some will embrace the added complexity, some will not like it, due to their gameplay style being more fixed on being able to predict the A.I. (which i nonetheless think is an important thing in terms of playability. Hence the A.I. in most games is programmed to be predictable, to make things more enjoyable)

Obviously guards have to have some predictability--you don't want them turning and looking behind them randomly--but TDM AI are fairly predictable.

Tbh, exactly that happened quite a few times to me. It might have to do with the guard hearing me though, Especially, when having played Thief 1 & 2, the A.I.'s hearing in TDM is much more sensitive, even on lower levels of awareness set in the settings.

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there's just very few spots where you can hide bodies, because you can't know if some guard on his delayed shift might check there, even though you checked most A.I.'s patrol route.

 

As long as it's dark, you can hide bodies plenty of places...anywhere that a guard won't step on them, in fact. Sliding bodies under beds, tables, and shelves also works.

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Alright. To be honest, i didn't even know you can slide them under beds. I dropped them ON beds sometimes though. Unless that's only valid for missions where beds are designed so that bodies can be slid under them. Anyway, will check those possibilities out, thanks.

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It's a point worth repeating. It took me a while to realise that you can move bodies around without shouldering them, so you can position them precisely. In fact, I don't think I worked it out in game at all, it wasn't till I came to mess with ragdolls that I realised there was a whole new tactic for hiding bodies, obvious though it seems once you've tried it. The training mission gives you a bit of practice at object manipulation but I didn't connect that bodies.

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It's a little bit embarrassing, but i only found out that you can shoulder bodies after i played this mod for a year or so... i don't know if it's a feature which came with updates, or if it had been there in the first place, but i never noticed it was possible, always dragged the bodies.

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I'm pretty sure it's in the training mission, when you knock out your first guard it is suggested to hide the body in the little room off the hallway there. You are instructed to shoulder the body.

Maybe people should play the training mission? :P

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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That wasn't in the Training Mission originally...we added it because so many people didn't realize you could shoulder bodies (there was always a readable that explained about shouldering bodies, but lots of people missed that).

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