Occasionally intelligent AI

[BCBasher 2465]

So I'm trying to get a PvE experience out of this engine eventually.

I've been messing around on my own lan server driving around with impunity parking my ride and setting up tents wherever I want, no other player to take my stuff.

Has anyone seen infected retrace your steps like it smells you (I think mapped your sound data) like it kind of knows you were there and is checking it out?

99% of the time they seem slow to react and or all or nothing agro on your exact location. 

I've encounter two or three lone ones wander in some time after I'd killed all the visible ones and ones who agroed on noise near the edge of a spawn zone. I do my looting routine and get back in my truck where I'm safe and I believe less visible to AI, I check my IRL texts or sort ammo in the truck, go for a smoke 5-10 minutes after shooting and looting. I see a lone infected wander in not agroed but retrace my steps to varying degrees it seems. The best one was and army one who wandered in from the left walked into the long barracks that was my last stop before getting in my truck, came back out and wandered to where I spawned in, seemed to go back to normal random wander at that point.

Do they have some higher level search/sensory functions that just don't show up in large groups or for some other reason, most of the time I can kill half them in a town or base running them over before their AI even "wakes up"?

[aaronlands 55]

I admit that I do not fully understand how the AI operates in this game but I have noticed similar behaviour.  I have had experiences where I'll be stationary and crouched in an area not making any noise and they will seem to drift toward me.  
 

[hemmo 55]

I was about to die of lack of food once, but the food can in a dead zombie saved my life. 

Its well balanced atm, far better than ot ever have been.

 

/playing for 7yrs dayz

[BCBasher 2465]

10 hours ago, aaronlands said:

I admit that I do not fully understand how the AI operates in this game but I have noticed similar behaviour.  I have had experiences where I'll be stationary and crouched in an area not making any noise and they will seem to drift toward me.  
 

I'm getting the impression that they have capabilities we don't get to see because they're generally bogged down because the engine can't handle them in large numbers or other ways the system is tied together.

I'm dialling their numbers back right now to see if I can get a few smart ones instead of a bunch of dumb unresponsive one.

[BCBasher 2465]

I didn't want to overwhelm myself at first so i was just looking in the non-binazied files that were immediately openable in a text editor.

Cracked open the data files today and answered my own question more or less.

The have a calm state we've all seen, a chase state that is also very common, there's a middle alert state that in my observations gets bypassed for a few reasons most times.

Not sure if this is better for multiplayer but as they're set up now are about 12 time more reactive to visual acquisition over sound and have a very limited view distance and hearing range.

This is the kind of stuff I was looking for to tweak a meaningful PvE experience for 1-2 players personally. It looks like a very robust system that's not being utilised to its full potential and has lots of promise for making a real zombie game out of the current PvP with some ineffectual zombies thrown in game it is right now. 

[Manamosy 3]

It seems like BI are trying to incorporate some way of being able to distract zombies, like with the throw-able rocks. Sounds seem to alert zombies in different ways too from some zombies going full agro to some just wondering in to where the gun shots were. Sound suppressors are also interesting as zombies can hear the suppressed shot from further away than a player can.

I love the audio in this game. I think they've done really well with DayZ's gun sounds. I will be experimenting more with how the sounds operate in the game.

Also the lighting. The lighting in DayZ is brilliantly done in my opinion. Not over the top but realistic and dynamic. I am curious of the effects of light with zombies, whether they can detect light in their visual cones and to what extent.