PR COOP Server Changes

[TEDF]

Hi chaps,

Just a quick notification to let you guys know that in the next few following days VG COOP server will go through a few temporary AI balance changes to make the rounds a bit more challenging. 

As always any feedback is welcome during the testing which will take roughly around a week or until people get too salty.

The changes include : 

1. Bot controlled autocannon APCs / IFVs now fire at incoming enemy jets. IFVs have increased range for ATGMs and now occasionally use them against heavy armor (BMP3)

2. LATs now fire at helos that wander too close & have increased range against IFVs and MBTs.

3. AT Vehicles occasionaly fire at INF, but prioritise on vehicles.

4. Jets now do gunruns on helos.

5. Bots now use GL launchers from longer range and fire smoke rounds at light vehicles and INF that's beyond their usual engagement range.

6. BMPs now use HEFRAGs on INF that get too close.

 

Any additional changes are to be added here throughout the testing.

[=VG= Blazer]

57 minutes ago, =VG= TEDF said:

2. LATs now fire at helos that wander too close & have increased range against IFVs and MBTs

Gonna love watching all the newbies trying to land and give crates on Muttrah rooftops... Boom!

 

57 minutes ago, =VG= TEDF said:

4. Jets now drop bombs on INF.

Khami and Kashan will never be the same again. I foresee multiple squad wipes.

 

57 minutes ago, =VG= TEDF said:

5. Bots now use GL launchers from longer range and fire smoke rounds at light vehicles and INF that's beyond their usual engagement range.

Hacks I swear - They can see through the smoke man! Bots and their super-tech.

 

Love the changes TEDF, I'm sure you'll get plenty of feedback! 

[Double_13]

@ted te esai files for most of the jets are wrong as they seem to miss the trigger command.

This added to the fact most jets do not have a dedicated ai file for that vehicle. This results that esai uses the default ai command file for that jet. What in turn explains why some jets approach you like they going to kill you but do not fire as they either do not have a fire command or try to fire a weapon they do not have. 

If you want your ATGM spam back create a working AI file for the BMP and let it know it has ATGM rockets and assign the fire command to it along with a suitable range. Because the ai file now used by the BMP can’t find the rocket and all weapon range values are set the same, it picks primary weapon first. 

 

For stratigy remove move the line where it says  ticket disadvantage. This is also preventing the bots from pushing harder as they have less tickets then hoomans. Basically it is set now that if the humans are winning they attack lesser

[WCCBadploy]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions.

Why not write the script yourself and send it to TEDF?

Or set up a server and invite TEDF to observe your handiwork.

Better still, why not get some quiet time with the Master Cartographer and Brainstorm in confidence.

Any assistance in making this a success is a welcome bonus.

 

[TEDF]

From what I can tell PR doesnt use half of the esai things but rather the old default PR files. 

The jets bomb just fine, they were just missing target values for some of the ground units. Same with atgms

[Jersans]

So as someone who doesn't understand any of these technical details may I ask when exactly the changes will take effect? Now or tomorrow? Either way it sounds pretty darn interesting to me. 

[Double_13]

2 minutes ago, Jersans said:

So as someone who doesn't understand any of these technical details may I ask when exactly the changes will take effect? Now or tomorrow? Either way it sounds pretty darn interesting to me. 

easy to find out. Hover the helicopter and see if you get RPGed. O wait i forgot I still have to teach you how to fly. xD

[TEDF]

I'll apply the changes this evening. Doing some last checkups. 

The BMP3s do fire their ATGMs due to them not having any delay which is the same with some of the sp static at launchers, to answer Double's question. 

Trying to get the heavy attack helos to fire their atgms properly as well. Looks promising so far, although the gunner fires the rockets like an average COOP player with every 20th or so rocket hitting the target atm.

[=VG= Nyther]

Why not bring the old BF2 AI? When a heavy asset get hit by a rocket it pops smoke

[=VG= Fastjack]

The thing, why bots doesn't work well on maps (doesn't matter if ESAI used or not) is the basic temperatures of all stuff in the ai including SA temperatures. This is totally fucked up. 

About the wrong used ai.templates. Ok that can happen. Some modder modifying stuff without informing the PRSP team. Biggest problem is that some ai files are located in the vehicles folder and some using the generic templates from the weaponrange folder but this generics templates aren't synchron with the weapon loadout and itemindexes/Firecommand buttons of some vehicles.

Here my 2cents : 

Coop AI need a complete overhaul starting from ai behaviour setup, weapons- and object.ai and temperatures. It would be better having the focus on pure bot factions vs human factions instead keeping the current system with hybrid faction. (human and bots using the same stuff).

[=VG= m823us]

Overall I am excited to see some of the changes, and a bit scared as well due to how different the gameplay mechanic will become. I am hoping that squads will increase their communication with each other and coronate has its appropriate way to deal with this new bot AI.  These new mechanics will increase BOT difficulty for sure instead of pumping up the difficulty manually.

 As has been stated we can always go and make changes for this will be a learning curve for all of us.  Please be patient and as mentioned multiple times let us know if we can do anything to help or what some constructive critiques are, meaning please say something specific that can be changed if possible. That goes for the DEV team as well, if we can do something, please let us know!

See you all on the battlefield, or not dependent upon how much smoke is present!

[=VG= Fastjack]

4 hours ago, Nyther the Komrade Dog said:

Why not bring the old BF2 AI? When a heavy asset get hit by a rocket it pops smoke

I dont know where you came from or who you are but ..... your brilliant. In all this trouble i totally forgot about this defensive systems for AI.

Here some possible answers: 

In BF2nilla, the bots are rigged to use the PIFlareFire (X-Button) for the countermeasures like flares for air vehicles or smoke for the bigger ground vehicles (APC,Tank). Those countermeasures  are in Rerfractor technically weapons. This weapon is not selectable via ItemIndex. You can have 3 active weaponsystems that's get fired with PIFire (left mousebutton), PIAltFire (right mousebutton) and PIFlareFire (X Button) without switching/selecting any other kind of weapon. You have in BF2nilla only the main cannon, a coax gun and the smokelauncher but you never had zoom remember? All FireInput Commands are used. Also keep in mind the gunner was also the driver.

PR-BF2 doing it in a different way. First, they using driver and gunner. The PIFlareFire is for zoom in most cases for ground vehicles in the gunner position. The DEVS added a fakeweapon (zoomweapon) with zoom that is designed to shoot AND zoom at the same time with the X-Button but the fakeweapon got also a commandline to IGNORE the PIFlareFire (X) fire command input so at the end you get only the zoom. So, the gunner was able to use the main cannon, the coax and the zoom. They gave the countermeasures to the driverposition (0.97) and  later they removed it from the driver and gave it to the gunner but the gunner had to select the smokelauncher via ItemIndex because all FireInputs are already in use.

 

The bots can use only the smokelauncher/flares when they are aware about it that someone use a weapon against them. The weaponsystem that aims at the botvehicle MUST send a warning signal to the bot so bot know what's going on.

Bots doing it in choppers because they can hear the LockOn. No PR ground vehicle have this warning sound and i think the DEVs will not implement this for coop. It would be possible to give that to vehicles with an empty soundfile. Humans couldn't hear it ingame but a bot get the message secretly.

I believe, this PIFlareFire command is hardcodded for the AI and the need it on the X-button. When not hardcodded, it needs atleast the right object.ai and weapon.ai to work properly -  i mean the whole vehicle.

 

As i said. We need pure bot factions with pure bot vehicles and pure bot weapons. The DEVs would giving a shit about how the _sp vehicles are tweaked because they never use it sofar i know and when they really using it in VehicleWarfare than lets make our own pure bot assets.

 

[Xenalite]

Fascinating.

[=VG= Fastjack]

10 hours ago, =VG= TEDF said:

1. Bot controlled autocannon APCs / IFVs now fire at incoming enemy jets. IFVs have increased range for ATGMs and now occasionally use them against heavy armor (BMP3)

Problem with most apc's is that they use the ATGM's and autocannon's at the same RANGE but having different priorities against targets or one weapon overrules the 2nd weaponchoice. You need different Range settings for each weaponsystem to get the bots cycle through all weaponsystems.

10 hours ago, =VG= TEDF said:

2. LATs now fire at helos that wander too close & have increased range against IFVs and MBTs.

Nice.

10 hours ago, =VG= TEDF said:

3. AT Vehicles occasionaly fire at INF, but prioritise on vehicles.

I dont get what you mean with AT vehicles. You mean a TOW or Spandrel?

10 hours ago, =VG= TEDF said:

4. Jets now drop bombs on INF.

Wouldn't rockets a little bit more mercyfully and giving the autocannon ai only priority to helicopters xD

10 hours ago, =VG= TEDF said:

5. Bots now use GL launchers from longer range and fire smoke rounds at light vehicles and INF that's beyond their usual engagement range.

 

Nice. Nice. Nice. Please same for officer kits with th thermal smoke on a closer distance.

 

TEDF, all what you listened sounds really nice but how you modify the ai.files in the zips ??? Serverside Modding???

[TEDF]

3 hours ago, =VG= Fastjack said:

Problem with most apc's is that they use the ATGM's and autocannon's at the same RANGE but having different priorities against targets or one weapon overrules the 2nd weaponchoice. You need different Range settings for each weaponsystem to get the bots cycle through all weaponsystems.

Already did that. Made it so that they fire ATGMs at certain minimum and maximum range and once that minimum range gets breached they swap over to AP. For INF, the BMPs use HE and if the inf gets too close, then they swap over to HEFRAGs /GL Launchers if available. 

 

3 hours ago, =VG= Fastjack said:

I dont get what you mean with AT vehicles. You mean a TOW or Spandrel?

Wouldn't rockets a little bit more mercyfully and giving the autocannon ai only priority to helicopters xD

Jup. They still go for the vehicles, but will also shoot at inf if aggrevated. Changed the Jets over to gunrun the inf and choppers as the bomb didn't do as much damage as I thought it would do.

 

3 hours ago, =VG= Fastjack said:

TEDF, all what you listened sounds really nice but how you modify the ai.files in the zips ??? Serverside Modding???

Jup. You can modify the values on server files as much as you want as long as you don't add anything to it. Basically works the same way as the server.zip files in map folders, you can edit the values, but can't add additional stuff or change ingame "items"

EDIT : files have been uploaded and server is now running on modified AI settings. Feel free to post any feedback and bugs that you encounter during the rounds.

 

[Jersans]

So... I think the changes are working well. I remember tanks getting wrecked and using AA more effectively. From my simpleton point of view it's an improvement. Does anyone else have comments? 

[Double_13]

Well I think it is good to have this change for now but I also have my concerns on the long run. 

While playing saareema the random 400 m rpg shots where a bit unrealistic in the way it just comes out of dence Forrest. However it is fun for more skilled players I think it will result in more long range camping. If the tank gets shot from 400 m it will stay 402 meter away from the bots. And that’s likely 350 meter away from the inf. 

on large maps such as khami and kashan I can see the added bonus but Forrest maps not really. I know this can’t be set per map but just noting it. I think the more skilled people will find a new spot as coming closer only makes it more risky.

The main issue with the assets is the methods the bots shoot you. Trought Forrest and 1ms past the corner. This is what causes people to keep distance and camp as the distance will give you the only advantage. The pro people will find newer longer camping spots as simply 16 people can’t prevent the tank getting shot trought 6 layers of bushes.

 

Trans and cas on the other hand is more fun. Here the random rockets kinda make sense. But it will evolve to where people either start flanking outside the navmesh or don’t use trans as you get shot down. 

 

Don’t get me wrong I love the changes and I don’t mind them having even more insane values, but the people will find another way to glitch it and this will probably further reduce the teamwork required and increase the range. 

[Jersans]

Double. I think that's also a mental state as into how you want to play.

Me. But I'm kinda crazy, I like to take a team and do everything possible to win but also make it feel like it's unexpected I hit the flags work with what I got and absolutely don't want to know each bot spawn point or do a clean flow.

I hate those guys on Muttrah that steal a TOW just to get some kills from the docks. 

I like taking risks and I like it when it gets hard and we have to all work together to solve - probably an easy trick - and then feel we won. It's a game right? The main point is making it fun. To me fun doesn't mean walking around knowing what will happen at each point. Does any of this make sense? 

[Double_13]

 

3 hours ago, =VG= Double_13 said:

Don’t get me wrong I love the changes and I don’t mind them having even more insane values, but the people will find another way to glitch it and this will probably further reduce the teamwork required and increase the range. 

if you would read I do no mind these changes BUT OTHERS might now rather camp on the hill then been close.

Thats what I want to point out, that these changes can have negative effect on the server once they find out they cant support inf nearby cus the bots shoot now insanely far ranges. 

Yes i might know 2 much about this game but i don't continuously land on the same building camp on the hill , nuke main with a jet because its the most easiest solution. I would love to fight 12 T90s with just a single squad cus it requires teamwork rather than sitting on the hill on kashan.

[ZZANG1847]

It's been a couple of days since the update, and here's what I've seen so far:

1. On Khamisiyah, I was flying A-10 and got hit several times from either BMP-2 or BMP-3. The rate of fire of the autocannons aren't high and accuracy isn't as insane as quadcannons so they didn't manage to kill me but it was something to keep me flying too close to the ground, until they were taken care of. They are not as effective as anti-air vehicles such as Gopher or Shilka, but that's exactly what they meant to be so I can deal with them fine, FOR NOW.

2. On Pavlovsk Bay, I was flying CAS huey and saw 3 Russian LAT kits shooting at me. Until recently, only insurgent factions were known to use RPG-7s as an anti-air rocket so the change does require me to be careful when flying close to the ground, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem for CAS if they don't fly too slow or hold position in the air. With that said, however, TRANS might need to start rethinking their strategy when it comes down to dropping crates or troops close the flag that bots are occupying.

3. Regaring increased range for LAT kits, I can't really feel the difference as I always get shot by an RPG no matter how much distance I have from them. Maybe my vehicle has a secret bullseye target that I am not aware of. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if melon/TEDF put my name as a priority target for bots to shoot rockets at me.

4. I thought bots shooting LATs at infantry was something that got implemented a long time ago, because I've seen plenty of times way before this update where they would shoot RPG instead of using their rifles and shotguns.

 

[TEDF]

Unfortunately range is something that is and always will be an issue when it comes to fighting against bots. Only way I see that could fix it is by decreasing the view distance to insane levels and then reducing the bot engagement range to that level, which could in theory provide quite amazing INF battles, but would render the entire air arsenal useless in the process. 

The changes on the server are temporary and will be reverted in few days.

The biggest issue in COOP atm is the amount of assets available on both sides. An issue easily solvable if the COOP community was given free hands to modify the maps based on the playerbase needs, but unfortunately most of those tools have been ripped from us over the course of latest updates. (yes I'm taking the piss on devs. Sue me). If the files weren't blocked by every imaginable "code" or whatever check system, we could easily increase spawn times of assets on human side, force the bots to spawn on the foward flags, change cap orders etc.

One thing that has been discussed every now and then is to reduce the slots on the server to 30 or so and increase the bot count by the extra slots recieved. Unfortunately in my opinion it would only end up with less inf being on the field and more assets raping against the bots on human side. Again, something that could be fixed, but oh well.

Like Jersans mentioned, in the end it all comes down to the players and how they choose to play the game. We have had really amazing rounds when the regulars and usual "asset whores" went to do INF and left the heavy assets for newer / noob players (not sure if allowed to used that word in 2018, so sorry if offended anyone), so if we want to improve the teamplay even by slightest I suggest : 

1. admins running more INF maps during peak hours (I know that some of you already do that, so thumbs up)

2. On asset maps, favour doing inf and leave the heavy assets to randoms.

3. Don't kick randoms from your squad just so your usual buddies could join in. If the dudes in your squad are following orders and aren't running around on their own, let them stay and explain things if needed.

4. Don't lock your INF squad until it's full (7-8 people)

[=VG= Melon Muncher]

23 minutes ago, =VG= TEDF said:

The biggest issue in COOP atm is the amount of assets available on both sides. An issue easily solvable if the COOP community was given free hands to modify the maps based on the playerbase needs, but unfortunately most of those tools have been ripped from us over the course of latest updates. (yes I'm taking the piss on devs. Sue me). If the files weren't blocked by every imaginable "code" or whatever check system, we could easily increase spawn times of assets on human side, force the bots to spawn on the foward flags, change cap orders etc.

One thing that has been discussed every now and then is to reduce the slots on the server to 30 or so and increase the bot count by the extra slots recieved. Unfortunately in my opinion it would only end up with less inf being on the field and more assets raping against the bots on human side. Again, something that could be fixed, but oh well.

 Why can't you change the asset spawn times and stuff?

It always has been and still is entirely possible to do everything you mentioned. Don't know why you'd want to change cap orders though.

We've played around with the bot and player numbers before and found that the current count worked best for both high pop and low pop times.

You can only ever have a max of 48 bots on the enemy team without bots on the player side too.

[TEDF]

So far the spawn time changes that I've tried on the test server have ended up either not working or forcing you to CTD after loading in. The same with the flag ownership changes and swapping 1 man assets with 2 man assets. The caporder change was just an example.

EDIT : Error from my part. flags seem to work. Not sure why it didn't work earlier, propably some stupid typo somewhere. Disregard those lines on last post.

Jup everything besides removing the 1 man assets works and I'm a dumbo.  I'll be adding some ticket and respawn changes to the test tomorrow.

[=VG= Fastjack]

Can someone post our bot seetings, please?

What is our TeamratioPercentage?

Botcount?

 

[TEDF]

40 bots with ratio on 200.