AI aim degradation in fog?

[Flan Man]

Someone mentioned in the general forum that the AI can shoot you with normal accuracy at distances which make them invisible in fog.
This may have already been brough up, but it might be nice if, when there is fog on a map, all AI would do a distance check when they try to fire and start to become less accurate at ranges where enemies would be barely visible, and make them completely unable to shoot beyond some range where the enemy would be invisible to them.

Sorry if I didn't make any sense there, i'll clarify if needed.

 

[WipperSnipper]

Made perfect sense , I was charging my horse befor in the snow in heavy fog when all of a sudden i hear a click then all of a sudden a arrow flys out of the fog and cops me in the face lol.

I dont think they should be able to see any better then we can either , its anoying against archers , and it is already hard enough against lancers coming out of no where.

 

[Kynes]

Same thing happened to me. Black Khergits ran rings around my squadmates and came charging out of the fog with spears before dissapearing again. I tried to rally my marksmen but they were stranded in the fog bank and after a minute they'd been picked off one-by-one.

It was intense.

It doesn't happen that often, I reckon you should just deal with it or 'tab' out of the battle. If you made it so the enemies were blind as well it wouldn't be nearly as cool.

 

[svart]

cool my ass, fog sight is AI cheating, screw that.

 

[Maelstorm]

Maybe weather can have a modifier on weapon proficiencies. Like in fog they get a -100 in rain -50 or so. Maybe in a good (not too shiney) weather they may have a +50.

Numbers may seem big but we need to get that reticle bigger for them

 

[Ingolifs]

I assume you mean a -100 penalty for just the AI players.

In that case it's a'ight. If it happened to the player too, it would be dumb.

 

[Maelstorm]

Edited the post. Heh. Yes I meant for NPC's of course. Our eyes are bad enough

 

[svart]

AI should have a line of sight, they should shoot something they can't see. (behind fog)
and inside fog skill degradation would be fine i guess.

 

[Kynes]

Maybe weather can have a modifier on weapon proficiencies. Like in fog they get a -100 in rain -50 or so. Maybe in a good (not too shiney) weather they may have a +50.

Actually that's not a bad idea. I just wouldn't like it if ranged weapons suddenly became useless in thick fog.

 

[Ilex]

I mentioned (well asked really) about this in some post. Fog should render bowmen nearly useless IMO.

 

[Kynes]

Arrows add to the excitement, bowmen should always be trigger happy (or string happy). I love the fact that they seem to be more effective in the latest version.

 

[okiN]

I don't like the idea of artificially lowering accuracy. I propose making it so that in fog, the AI is incapable of shooting at enemies that are outside a certain radius, even though it spots them with its telepathic abilities. This radius, of course, would be the maximum view distance that the player has in fog, where men are nothing more than faint silhuettes. That way it'd all balance out. Sound good?

 

[Flan Man]

Yeah, Okin, I agree. There doesn't need to be any real "loss of accuracy" as I originally said (I hadn't really thought about it for very long at the time) but there definitely needs to be a shortened cutoff point for firing range in fog. To clarify here, the reason that a reduction in accuracy is not needed is that fog doesn't make the enemy look bigger or have an ambiguous location so much as it makes them invisible. once you see the person, it's pretty obvious where to aim. The only thing I can think of ruining your accuracy would be maybe strong winds or extremely heavy rain making your arrow go off course on long shots.

Edit: I don't think that making archers less useful in fog would detract form the game. In fact, I think that it would add an aspect to the strategy side of things. You would have to have a fallback plan instead of relying almost completely on archery, and you could take advantage of the bad visibility to "surprise" the enemy and get them at an uncomfortable range (they could do it to you too) In real life, that's how it would be: If you were defending your position completely with archers and a dense fog rolled in, you would be put in a bad position.

 

[Ingolifs]

Here's the changelog for version 0.701:

Fixed troop raise quest bug: (Opcode = 20060)
Fixed horse fetching bug: (Illegal lvalue in statement; Opcode 20033)
Fixed sending companions to four ways inn bug: (Opcode = 20100)
Fixed instant re-attacking after attack has been parried.
Removed items from the chest in Zendar tavern.
Merchants are stocked with higher quality items now.
Only ranged troops carry bolts and arrows now.
Damage and range of bows and crossbows is reduced by 25% under rain.
Ranged Troop accuracy is reduced by fog and darkness.
Horses run slower under rain and at night.
Removed Armor skill
You no longer need to fight the kidnapped girl in the kidnapped girl quest.
Fixed quest XP awards.
Game brings up a verification dialog if you attempt to retreat an arena fight.
Fixed amount of gold looted from parties.
Reduced ruggedness of battlefields a little bit.
Experience gain from training skill increases non-linearly again.
New hand armor: Mail mittens
A few other fixes and improvements.

Now that this has been implemented, there is no more need for us to discuss the issue.

 

[Volkier]

The AI is still surprisingly accurate with their bows across the entire battle field (considering the enemies are pretty low level). This is not the main problem though, the main problem is that the AI will ALWAYS know where you are, so you have a really really big disadvantage if you are alone or in a small group and get a 'mountain' battle ground. So you cant really use the mountains as a cover for 'guerilla warfare' where you pop up from behind a bunch of rocks on an unsuspecting intruder, and nail an arrow into his neck before he could see you.

It is probably really difficult for a development of a 'smart' (ie. phsycally human) AI, would it be possible to make enemies 'roam' around the map if they do not have you in their 'sight' (or range). Range could be determined ONLY in FRONT of the NPC, once they get hit they will turn around and try to 'spot' you (if you fall into their range). Once they have done that, they could attempt to get to you, or if you hide somewhere again, the last position where they saw you.. I dunno, probably too complex though...