AI enemies in forge and their interfacing

Community General Discussion
1

As we all know, Halo has been a thing of legends. A science fiction, futuristic look towards an advanced war between aliens and humanity, with only one cybernetic and genetically altered hero left to face against the genocide of his entire race.

One of the best things about the game is not just the heroes involved, but the enemies and allies you fight in it. We have seen most of which in firefight and campaign, but something seems to be missing. One big thing in forge mode that could make everything as epic as that one mission in CE where you see flood, humans, and covenant duking it out on the battlefield on a snow covered landscape. Thats right, I’m talking about an interfacing mode allowing the editor to place AI enemies onto a map and altering everything about it.

Here is how it would work. We all know in Reach, that players would alter many aspects of the map, and that players would be represented on the spawn points as Spartans. Now adding an interface showing AI units would come in three different flavors, and a great many ways of changing it. This process will be done through a context menu that pops up when entering the spawn point system for the three different races:

Covenant
Human
Flood

Here is a detailed layout of how one could alter the aspects of the human race as an example:

AI

-Human

–Rank

)-Marine

)-ODST

)-Spartan

)-Civilian

—Weapons

-Choose which weapons the squad will be armed with.

-You can assign individual weapons to each member of a given squad.

----Squad Number

-Between 1 and 6

-----Vehicle Usage

-Yes or No.

------Start in Vehicle

-Yes or No.

-If yes is selected, select the appropriate vehicle.

-Select the number of the soldiers that will be on the vehicle. No amount higher than the vehicle can be boarded by.

-------Health and Shield Options

-Edit health amount

-Edit shield strength (Spartans only)

-Edit line of sight options (How far they can see other players or AI enemies.)

-------- Behavior

-Passive (Does not react to players or other AI enemies)

-Defensive (Only attacks enemy players or other AI enemies if they get within a certain range.Can be edited as to how far)

-Aggressive (Attacks any enemy player or AI enemy it sees.

---------Armor Abilities (Spartans and ODSTs only)

-Yes or No.

-If Yes, choose which armor ability

-Edit armor ability attributes (example:Camo and its radar jammer toggled etc.)

----------Waypoints

-Select the area the AI units will go to upon spawning. Can make as many paths as necessary.

-Choose how long the squad will remain at waypoint before following the next.

-----------Team

-Choose color to which the squad will belong.

(To be edited and revised over time)

2

based on the halo Custom edition engine, the only one that would be extremely difficult is the aggressive setting. That would be needed to be based on waypoints, which 343 might think to be too hard for people.
I dont think they would add AI though. Its a very, very, massive undertaking

3

Actually, waypoints are very simple to use. Think of when you use the AB, hologram. You simply point in the direction they will go, and they will go there. This means you have to make multiple waypoints if you want them to get there in a certain pattern. Its not like you set a waypoint and you expect them to navigate it in any way they can, especially if there is alot of obstacles in the way.

4

i know. i was stating that the common not very savvy person might not know how to use them.

5

I don’t see how. It just requires the user to have a little bit of common sense. I did’nt know how to use everything in forge when I first started using it. But over time, I learned how and I love using it.

6

I really like this idea:

-It would’nt be any harder then learning forge for the first time

-You can get very creative with AI

-The engine could handle this easy with a reasonable limit

-Custom games needs this, Starting or finding a custom lobby is the difficult part along with finding people to play

-Needs to be number 1# goal for title update

7

The only question is how many squads the map itself can handle though. I’m guessing maybe around 40 AI units on the field at once, same as Reach.

8

in my opinion would be better of regeneration points for bots as a grunt elite hunters and others like gunfire, but in forge

9

if not in reach love this to be in halo 4

10

I support this. SPREAD THE WORD.

11

It would certainly be interesting to send multiple AI teaams of different races to engage one another on a map. It would certainly make gametypes and machinima very interesting.

12

Yes I would love to see Spartans and Elites AI in INVASION. I’m guessing that the Elites would be classed based obviously and the Spartans randomized armor, basic noble team AI code with objective setting.

343 Im to understand you have people that listen to the forums, this is a must have, I’m aware that Reach’s replayability is in it’s custom content but when it comes to those without gold live or simply want to play a custom games but no one is online or wants to play I personally believe this is the answer.

13

It would be cool, but it would need to be simplified for it to be on the disc or it would take up too much disc space.

14

It would not be as difficult as you may think. If you look at it from the right perspective, then you will find that Firefight is pretty much the exact equivellent, minus the fact that they are even aware of the player’s presence on the battlefield. It had spawn points whether it be dropped off via drop pod, phantom, or just simply materialized. Programming it into the forge mode might take a bit of effort, but would not take up any more space to add the options.

Also, btw, the Spartans in the forge mode may only look like the typical Spartan IIs, but they act very similar to the enemy elites encounter, with a different set of animations of course. I would’nt make them look like the various Spartans or it may be too complicated to program them in.

15

> Actually, waypoints are very simple to use. Think of when you use the AB, hologram. You simply point in the direction they will go, and they will go there. This means you have to make multiple waypoints if you want them to get there in a certain pattern.

Waypoint graphs are extremely inefficient. Pathing meshes are a much better and simpler solution. Both approaches would require that they give us access to some form of 3D editor, so if 343 chooses to do that, they may as well give us the reliable approach (that they already use for enemy AI) and let us make pathing meshes.

Of course, we will then need to be able to place markers in the scenery, so that the AI knows what counts as cover and what doesn’t. Slotted objects, in particular, will be a problem; the AI may think it’s hiding behind a solid wall, unaware that there are several holes in that wall through which a player could shoot it. But Bungie – like virtually every game company ever – already has such markers, which they use in their Campaign and Firefight maps.

…Meaning that there is really only one final problem: the AI themselves.

Emile snipes at Banshees with a shotgun. Kat drives into the player and splatters them, or drives the player off of cliffs, or fires power weapons directly into the player’s rear end. Jun puts more rounds in players’ skulls than enemies’ skulls, especially on Legendary or when assassinations are happening. Jorge only works fine because he’s too slow to screw anything up. Carter’s aim is terrible. Marines are utterly-incompetent and their bones are made of glass. And all of these, somehow, are “improvements” over Halo 3’s engine.

Those are the AI we would have to work with. Somehow, I don’t think it will be very easy to Forge for them.

Of course, I will be very happy if 343 manages to create competent AI for Halo 4, and I will be very happy if that AI remains competent even in a Forged setting – while also being alterable and controllable by Forgers.

16

I got halfway through your post and came up with an idea. Create a maze-like map, turn on Special FX to make the game almost pitch black, and spawn a bunch of covenant with very low line of sight in it. Call it Labrynth.

If I can come up with a gametype in a matter of minutes using these tools, imagine what the entire community could create for years to come.

17

I, vote yes.

18

Right now the idea kinda banks on two things:The AI being considerably smarter to avoid betrayals and finding cover, and 343’s ability to program it in.

19

i love the idea and hope 343 includes it in halo 4

20

this is a good idea