testDummy : You can set both the player's and the Bot's aiming speed. I checked again when Rhuarc mentioned that a few weeks ago, and player's aim speed was set slower to help with mouse sensitivity(many people complained about it).
The arena demo was there to let the Bots prove to you how tough they can get. In a realistic game you can set the aiming speed much lower for a more human-like behavior.


Since I've mentioned that, here's a few things I keep in my mind while trying to implement more realistic behavior in the next demo. Of course, all these are configurable through WED so you can make it easier or harder, depending on your game needs.

It's a bunch of rules that people like to call 'Artificial Stupidity: The Art of Intentional Mistakes'.

Move Before Firing: NPCs should move the first time they see the player rather than shoot them(Nothing is more distrurbing than walking into a new room or arena and being immediately shot by a Bot).

Be Visible: Although in real-life combat situations, opponents do their best to remain invisible, in the game world great camouflage makes for bad gameplay. Pixel scrubbing while searching for opponents is not an enjoyable experience, so think twice about how you're going to texture your Bots.

Have Horrible Aim: Abundant gunfire is desirable, as it keeps players on the move and the tension high, thus increasing the pace of the game. However, abundant gunfire is undesirable if the player dies too quickly.

Miss the First Time: It is not fun to suddenly and unexpectedly take large amounds of damage. In general, players often feel cheated in such situations.Missing the first time gives the player a second to react and maintains a high level of tension.

Warn the player: Either visually, by playing a short "about-to-attack" animation or aurally by playing a sound(a beep, gun click etc) or having a human opponent announce "Gotcha!" or "Take This". Making a sound is very important in the case you mentioned -the melee guy(ninja) attacking from blind spots.

Attack "Kung-Fu" Style: A technique that Half Life Really Reaally used.. Even if there's a swarm of enemies around, only 2 or 3 are allowed to attack the player, while the others do secondary goals like Reload, Take Cover, etc..

Tell the Player what you are doing: When a player a witnesses an NPC's actions, it can be difficult for the player to interpret what the NPC is actually doing. Is a running opponent going for cover, getting reinforcements, doing a flanking maneuver, or just running aimlessly trying not to get shot? Again, a Bot might yell, "Flanking!" or "Cover me!" or "Retreat" to his friends when performing an action, to help the player understand.

React to mistakes: Again, at Half-Life beta-testing phase, it was discovered that occasionally when a player threw a grenade at a group of NPCs, Half-Life's pathfinding algorithm was unable to find a path for all of the NPCs to escape. Rather than redesigning the pathfinding system, Valve's solution was to detect when the problm occured and play specialty animations of ther trapped marines crouching down and putting their hands over their heads. This was very well received by the players, as it added to the character of the game.

Pull back at the last minute: The NPCs will attack vigorously until the player is near death. The player's health and resources should be pushed to the limit but not beyond. Once the player has reached the edge, the AI will pull back, attack less effectively and become easier to kill. After winning, a player experiencing this scenario really feels like he accomplished something.


I'm not saying Im getting all these in Intense Ai right now, I just typed them cause I thought they might be a nice read for some and I'll be implementing most of them as an optional thing through WED eventually. Hopefully, when all versions of Intense Ai have been built, most of these tricks could be selected through WED.

About the melee thing, although I will not have team-tactics in the Standard version, I should be able to get quite effective melee enemies, always regarding to the 'artificial stupidity tricks' of course.. So from what I've said already, given that I have enough time for this, you might be able to see the 'ninja' guy jump out besides you, warn you audiably with a phrase "You're Dead now! haha!" and then attempt to attack you.

Every feature I'll make for Intense Ai standard, I'll make sure to use it in the next demo I'm building, so you'll be able to see how many features I actually managed to pull through.

Hope I answered your questions within all this mumbling.. lol
Aris