INF Coop

[Psychomorph]

I always loved playing Rogue Spear Coop missions and always dreamed of playing INF Coop.
Sentry Studios could have a SP department creating Coop missions that could be also palyed offline as SP.
Sure the AI is a problem, but I rather think about an infiltration style coop , where the AI are mostly guarding/standing soldiers/terrors/amateurs, that know some basic movement and just how to fire the wepons with all the at-the-time-effective stances.

Coop does not need balance, you mow down the enemies and it's fun, or it is a really hard mission. Enemies could have many soldiers, while you are one small SF unit. The enemies can use tanks, jeeps with MG's, RPG's, all what they got.

While I´m not fan if this, it would be possible to recreate past real conflicts (Somalia, ...), but I would be interessted in some fiction ones, like infiltrating an eastern base at a snowy stormy day (good old Rogue Spear times .


I prefer Infantry(player) vs. Infantry(player), but I would be interested to have an SF-Unit(players) vs. Hostiles/Terrorists/Enemies(A.I.) situation.

 

[Nukeproof]

While there are no special missions (which would be cool since this is the only way to mimik the fact that the defenders aren't on high alert when attacked by a spec ops team) you can setup teams like 'few human players' vs. 'plenty of stupid bots' already.

 

[ravens_hawk]

I think something like tower defence (a la RTS/Starcraft etc) would be fun for inf.
Have waves of zombies or something go after the two teams, the team with the highest number of kills or least number of zombies reaching an area wins (could be done through EAS objectives I think.)
I know you can restrict weapon loadout (to say a knife,) but would it be possible to have weapons spawn?

 

[Psychomorph]

The current INF bots is not what I really mean. the INF bots are combat bots, they stand and move like they are ready to kick some. The INF Coop AI would have different animations and idle behavior. They just stand, walk around a bit, smoke cigarettes (imagine sniping the glowing cig ). They can speak some words with eachother.
The coop should create a realistic atmosphere. Inf Bots are just plain Death Match.

 

[Psychomorph]

I look at Rogue Spear a bit. The Team Game has no bots, because the AI is not equal to the player. The co-op missions are actually Single Player missions and the AI fits good for the role of standing/guarding terrorists.
I think the same about INF.
The INF combat bots simulate a human player with all his tactics not well, but it could be possible to code some guard soldiers that idle around, walk around and fight more simplified, not like an elite human player replacement (which doesn't work).

The competition of such a game would not be the defeat of professional elite enemies (like it is the case in TDM), but to solve this special kind of mission which wont be easy anyway (imagine many enemies with tanks and all that).

 

[keihaswarrior]

The developement for INF Source will take a long time as it is. I'd rather not think about how much single player missions would add that.

I would much much rather the INF team concentrate on making multiplayer the best experience possible. Every ounce of developement spent on single player is some multiplayer feature we aren't getting or a bug not being squashed I would think.

 

[Mappie]

This is one thing that i think has been missing from INF for a long time. Yeah it would take extra time to code. I partially agree with KW at the same time. Maybe one or 2 missions would suffice for the first release. However, I don't want time that could be spent on making the game better (ie...bugs, code issues) spent on just adding cutesty stuff. But it would give us somthing to do if the servers were empty or somthing. I want the Golden Eye feel when playing this sort of INF single player. If you play the stage right.....nobody will ever see you. Seems lke a good idea.

 

[Psychomorph]

Well SP is not really what I mean. If the part can be done ok, but I mean more of a simplified version. Just a map with an objective, or even no objective, the non combat bots, thats all.

The important thing is, the map have to be really good, where you can move at a slow and tactical pace and eliminate the enemies as a well formed team, the gameplay would be more slowed down, since it is not about fragging, you have no need to hurry, because bots wont rush and take the good palces and they is no time limit (except it's the mission's gameplay).
A sniper would have a real sniper job, of telling how many enemies he sees in the room and taking more time to align the scope, observing the enemies walking, smoking, talking around.
The AI wont run around and hide, it doesn't learn from the past missions, because it behaves like it's in a real first time situation.
It's a total different experience, to be honest a more real one.

The second important thing is, the AI have to be not to goofy. A bad AI will destroy the experience.


To create a very interesting and complex map would be the challenge for the mappers and coders have to make the AI behaving visually like real humans.

When I speak about that I have still Rogue Spear in mind, the best co-op I´ve ever palyed, the best maps I´ve ever played (museum, victors mansion, a castle mission [where you climb the balcons]), just awesome.
The maps were really the key, you were moving slowly through the hallways, leaning around and check the corners, awesome.
All that with the realism of INF would be just the best thing ever.

 

[yurch]

The AI wont run around and hide, it doesn't learn from the past missions, because it behaves like it's in a real first time situation.
It's a total different experience, to be honest a more real one.

Which means one player will just run through and kick the living shit out all of them in short order.

 

[Psychomorph]

They have a gun and autoaim, so AI would kick the living **** out of the player in short order.
when you sneak up on them you have best chances, but they should be on alert when you just run around and pwn you.

 

[Derelan]

You people don't play INF often enough. I've been on many servers over the summer that did this.

 

[Derelan]

2500 posts!

 

[Vega-don]

do you know that bots strafe like tactical ops players do you

 

[Keganator]

It's realistic, I swear!

 

[Beppo]

just for the record...
the INF Coop game mode is able to use single player maps of course. Within these maps you can setup all kinds of AI stuff that were already possible within Unreal and still exist in UT'99. The only 'problem' would be the pawn classes that mappers can place within the maps. You would need to re-script theirs animation stuff to be able to handle our bot-anims correctly. Else you would only be able to place some scripted pawns that look like INF soldiers/bots but aren't able to move around due to the missing animations. Spawning combat bots by events/truggers would be possible. If they cannot be spawned directly with the given triggers then you would only need a little script to handle this kind of thing. The INF-soldier-look-alike scripted pawns would need a bit of coding but maybe some of you are able to make this happen

 

[Psychomorph]

Beppo, do you speak about the INF bots are leaking the 'idle/guarding walking around' animations?

Sure, this kind of co-op can be done in the current INF with the maps.
The problem is how good the AI is. Having some terminators walking around, that can spot you miles away and fire at you pinpoint, while every A.I. knows your exact location would annoy much.

A.I. have to have a communication system, where sometimes they alert their mates via radio. Those move toward the position the attacked A.I. reported and when they find corpses they spread out slowly to search the area. Meanwhile the security at the object gets better, the bots are alerted.

That requires 3 animation layers:
1) The sandart mindless guarding animations (weapons sideways). Bots aren't that tought, some kind of stupid.
2) The alerted animations (weapon ready but low). Bots are sharper and react better. They notice things better and fire more often faster.
3) The combat animations (standart in INF). Weapons high and ready. Bots moving around and fighting.

Gun fire should cause their attention, where SpecOps style knifing would become a useful thing.
Like in real life fired weapons will draw the attention of the opfor in the game they should casue bots beeing alerted for many minutes untill they check out whats wrong and get back to the idle mode.


I hope this will be particulary possible somewhen.

 

[Beppo]

The animation names are different and do not match the old Unreal 'standards'. In addition the INF soldier model has a lot of weapon type specific animations. So, you need to actually mix the INF soldier bot codes with the ScriptedPawn codes from Unreal that still exist in UT.

 

[Suzmo]

good idea, like 2 gaurds standing infront of a door sort of thing, not just walting around with guns ready to kick some ass...