Support NeoGAF

[Strangelove77]

Its funny how a lot of people go in and try and melee the humans and expect a different game. I just snipe them from afar using the already fun long range combat or sneak through the base stealth killing them as the animations are great and they're generally easy to sneak around even with stealth armor loaded with stealth mods.

Almost every open world game since Batman has Batman combat so I suppose it's expected by now. Or at least something close to it. I assume Guerilla didn't use that sort of combat on purpose. Same with stealth. Their simplicity pushes the player to focus on what's most important - shooting arrows and setting traps.

 

[Martinski43]

The human AI is laughable in this game. Surprised that not more people call this out, it is one of the worst ive seen in a AAA game. Seeing people running backwards down stairs, getting stuck in each other and enviroment, not noticing you at all etc, i can go on and on when i was actually laughing at the game.

 

[HStallion]

The human AI is laughable in this game. Surprised that not more people call this out, it is one of the worst ive seen in a AAA game. Seeing people running backwards down stairs, getting stuck in each other and enviroment, not noticing you at all etc i can Go on and on when i was actually laughing at the game.

Tons of people have called it out. Its just not a huge focus of the game and the robo combat is so well done, most don't really care. I'm one of them. I just enjoy sitting on a hill sniping bandits in camps.

 

[BakedTanooki]

I also realized you can make many Machine fights super easy. There is an invisible "arena" which they are not able leave. You can figure out where the invisible arena ends by just running away, until the enemy stops following you. Just stay on the edge outside of the arena and watch the machine doing stupid things, like running back and forth without being able to attack, while you can shoot them to death without any worry.

Not a deal breaker, but funny.

 

[Kalentan]

The human AI specifically is laughably terrible. I am actually surprised that this is the first time I have seen this mentioned here. But other than that and the gathering trees and plants busy work, it's still a fantastic game.

What? This is mentioned all the time.

 

[toastyToast]

Human AI is junk and the melee attacks are wonky as hell. No idea where the R2 attack is gonna take you when a few enemies are around.

It's a shame because the Killzone AI was fucking amazing (at the time).

 

[Elandyll]

Specifically human AI, because the dino AI is imo fantastic.
As I mentioned on another thread, it didn't seem to be that way consistently though.
Open Bandit camps have indeed a pretty dumb AI, with stealth and tall herbs regularly allowing me to kill without raising alarm, and the discovery of a corpse not sending everyone in a frenzy. Like "Weird, Rick has an arrow in his skull, he looks funny! Bah, no big deal.".

In that way, I think confining the general alarm to a system you can easily disable with an arrow at long distance is self defeating.

BUT I also have had to deal with camps and bunch of humans in Main mission or Side mission settings where the AI seemed a lot better and tougher to crack, a single corpse sending everybody in high alert and them organizing groups to go check your most likely location, and if a single sentry locates you, it keeps you pointed to everybody.
I also saw flanking maneuvers, and melee charges backed by ranged fire.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Giant Bomb was on point with the human AI.

The human AI will say, "I hope it's not one of ours" and it's hilarious that they all walk towards a pile of bodies or even machines.

I love seeing the enemies go at it in the wild or when they're all fighting in some chaotic mess. That looks awesome.

I think it's silly that they "suspect", but then again gamers might not always want a high alert phase at all times. Cooldowns allow you to rethink the layout or they give you an opportunity to progress without worrying about a timer.

 

[Quonny]

I also realized you can make many Machine fights super easy. There is an invisible "arena" which they are not able leave. You can figure out where the invisible arena ends by just running away, until the enemy stops following you. Just stay on the edge outside of the arena and watch the machine doing stupid things, like running back and forth without being able to attack, while you can shoot them to death without any worry.

Not a deal breaker, but funny.

Yeah. The game has MMO-like leashing mechanics without the resetting health part. You can really abuse it, especially with fire arrows.

 

[Soul of the Beast]

Not surprised, western developers gave up on humaniod AI after the original F.E.A.R. (which is a goddamn masterpiece). Not even Naughty Dog can make a decent human enemy AI nowadays.

 

[ironcreed]

What? This is mentioned all the time.

Pardon me if I have not seen the comments yet, as I don't read every post made about the game. But it's good to know. It is a pretty glaring flaw in what is still an amazing game.

 

[alexbull_uk]

Human ai is "meh" but the machines are awesome.

 

[WordsintheWater]

Yeah it's pretty bad and easy to cheese when it comes to humans. You can cheese the Dino's a bit too sometimes.

 

[danowat]

It leads me to wonder why they bothered putting in the bandit camps at al.

 

[OléGunner]

Yeah human AI is pretty dumb.

But no more worse than other open world stealth games of the same ilk i.e. Far Cry, Ass Creed etc.
I'm honestly not bothered that they are easy cannon fodder for me to make light work of in these type of open world games though (It also helps that nearly every other aspect of Horizon imo is fantastic.)

Can definitely be added to the ''improve for sequel'' check list overall I agree.

It's a shame because the Killzone AI was fucking amazing (at the time).

That's been reincarnated with the machine fights though.
Oozes KZ2/KZ3 AI intelligence at times.

 

[jim2point0]

Hmmmm. I thought the AI was just fine. Though I played on hard. Does it vary with difficulty?

The machines were pretty challenging and did a good job keeping me on my toes. Humans were a bit more predictable though.

 

[danowat]

.

Huh?

 

[jim2point0]

Huh?

Was going to reply here but I apparently pasted my new thread text in here by mistake. I fixed my post.

 

[hydruxo]

You mean the human AI is bad. The robot dino AI is some of the best in any game. Don't clump them together.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

Hostile human contact is terrible in this game. It really brought down the experience for me.

 

[Chamber]

It's great. I don't want to spend more time fighting the humans than I have to so the fact that they're easy to cheese works for me.

 

[danowat]

Was going to reply here but I apparently pasted my new thread text in here by mistake. I fixed my post.

Ahhh, lol

 

[JayWood2010]

Hmmmm. I thought the AI was just fine. Though I played on hard. Does it vary with difficulty?

The machines were pretty challenging and did a good job keeping me on my toes. Humans were a bit more predictable though.

I am playing on hard.

 

[BigDug13]

It leads me to wonder why they bothered putting in the bandit camps at al.

It was probably on the Far Cry checklist they were using. Love the game but yeah bandit camps are dumb. It's like they outsourced all the human combat or something.

 

[Playsage]

Saw the hyperbole coming from a mile away

 

[dynamitejim]

This was one complaint that really worried me pre-release, but I didn't find it much of a problem. It was always easier for me to just skulk around areas head-shotting enemies. It is a shame though, as I find the Bandit Camps are well laid out and the enemy placement is pretty good. GG seems to have studied other open world games quite closely and has a history of good enemy AI, so it really is surprising they didn't nail this aspect.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

The human camps were the weakest part of the game.

I'd rather the sequel just drop bandit camps and improve AI for some human fights in key story sections, but otherwise double down ones the robot combat.

I don't really want them to improve AI and have a bunch of bandit camp type places that are difficulty stealth required sections as true stealth gameplay isn't my cup of tea at all. I don't mind it if it's brain dead easy, but with good AI it's a bunch of trial and error shit and I avoid those games/sections when I can.

 

[primasaurus]

Hostile human contact is terrible in this game. It really brought down the experience for me.

Non-human animals aint great either, just tend to run away in straight lines, nothing interesting about them

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

i beat an entire bandit camp yesterday by luring them with a ton of bodies... just killed one, the next one see the body and come next to it, killed him, and so on....

not one of them ringed the alarm bell... that was quite funny, but yeah the IA is dumb

 

[danowat]

It was probably on the Far Cry checklist they were using. Love the game but yeah bandit camps are dumb. It's like they outsourced all the human combat or something.

I am only about 25hrs in, but from what I can see (apart from the interaction with Nil, and how that relationship pans out), I can't see what they add to the game.

Are they just a vehicle for the Aloy / Nil dynamic?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Yeah it's easy to break/cheese but... what is even good human AI anyway? It's super rare tbh.

AI can make a huge difference to how a World feels, this is partly why Zelda works so well, I wish more games would pay attention to AI, it's shocking that in 2017 we still have such rubbish AI but stunning visuals keep getting the attention, are we as gamers so shallow and will never change, maybe thats a topic for another thread :/

What a crappy post. The human AI is weak, but it's not even the worst I've seen (it's pretty standard, good human AI is exceedingly rare actually), and Horizon has a whole lot more to offer than "pretties".

 

[Lifeline]

I feel like Human enemies was some kind of last second addition to the game. The machine AI is so good and i've seen them do so many cool things and then you have Human AIs that forget they're being attacked a couple seconds after seeing their friend take a arrow to the head.

AI can make a huge difference to how a World feels, this is partly why Zelda works so well, I wish more games would pay attention to AI, it's shocking that in 2017 we still have such rubbish AI but stunning visuals keep getting the attention, are we as gamers so shallow and will never change, maybe thats a topic for another thread :/

lol, #SterlingWasRight

 

[NoMoreTrolls]

Yeah it's easy to break/cheese but... what is even good human AI anyway? It's super rare tbh.


What a crappy post. The human AI is weak, but it's not even the worst I've seen (it's pretty standard, good human AI is exceedingly rare actually), and Horizon has a whole lot more to offer than "pretties".

Yep

 

[ShemhazaiX]

Honestly the human AI is probably a lot more realistic than other games. It's not a hive mind where one enemy knowing where you are turns into all of them, and once you lose line of sight they don't magically know exactly where you are until some timer ticks down.

The problem with the AI is how it actually responds to knowing where you are. They need to stay aggressive once you lose line of sight, though need to focus there aggression on where they last saw you so you can juke them. Also high alert needs to be longer lasting, though that's an issue with games in general where the unrealistic "stupid" behaviour results in less player frustration.

 

[CrayToes]

The human AI is pretty much non existent. They're unbelievably stupid. The dino's are alright though, even if they are easy to manipulate and predict.

 

[void666]

Human AI is thrash in this game. I was doing some side quest and when i realized i had to fight humans i sighed so hard.

Human combat is something they need to improve for the sequel. Or remove entirely.

But the dinobots are pretty good.

 

[SuperBanana]

It's almost brokenly bad. I just whistle and kill enemy after enemy in the tall grass. The AI completely oblivious of the 47 corpses piled up in front of it before I silently murder another while somehow hidden in 3 foot tall weeds.

 

[primasaurus]

What a crappy post. The human AI is weak, but it's not even the worst I've seen (it's pretty standard, good human AI is exceedingly rare actually), and Horizon has a whole lot more to offer than "pretties".

It's bad, sorry dude

 

[Floody]

Yeah, human A.I is very weak, I just double/triple arrowed them from afar and never worried about them. The whistle is extremely op too, to the point I just forced myself not to use it and rely on the rocks and movement more. Hope the expansion/Horizon 2 improve on those.

 

[Styles]

I hope they make human enemies excruciatingly annoying and painful to deal with in the sequel. 💅

 

[Floody]

I hope they make human enemies excruciatingly annoying and painful to deal with in the sequel. 💅

I hope they do too, but make them super rare, I want them to be like the NPC Hunter you'd find in Bloodborne, capable of everything you are, but not common. Maybe even have them capable of using stealth and traps against you.

 

[comshoplesce]

Platinum baby, great game

 

[JetSetRadio]

Hasn't really bothered me so far in the mainquest because they mix them up with machines and those are great to fight. I'll just skip the bandit camps, it's not really challenging.

 

[Primethius]

Never bothered me but I went guns blazing on very hard so they did their job mostly.

 

[Lifeline]

I hope they make human enemies excruciatingly annoying and painful to deal with in the sequel. ��

I'm sure Death Stranding will make the human AI engine a lot better which the next horizon will borrow.

Also with robo AI being so good, I think the AI programmers will have a lot more time to work on the Human AI. One big change would be to have them actually hide and take cover behind ruins or trees. Out in the open they're so easy to slowmo headshot.

I hope they do too, but make them super rare, I want them to be like the NPC Hunter you'd find in Bloodborne, capable of everything you are, but not common. Maybe even have them capable of using stealth and traps against you.

This sounds amazing. AI setting up shock wires and bringing your mount down with ropecasters sounds epic.

 

[JayWood2010]

Yeah, human A.I is very weak, I just double/triple arrowed them from afar and never worried about them. The whistle is extremely op too, to the point I just forced myself not to use it and rely on the rocks and movement more. Hope the expansion/Horizon 2 improve on those.

I have heard more than a few people talk about this whistle technique. Im still pretty early in the game (level 14 i believe.) What is this whistle technique? I dont even know how to whistle lol

 

[Kinyou]

The way enemies lose sight of you is really too lenient. Sometimes I shake off enemies without even intending.

I have heard more than a few people talk about this whistle technique. Im still pretty early in the game (level 14 i believe.) What is this whistle technique? I dont even know how to whistle lol

It's one if the first skills you can learn in the skill tree. You have to select it with the digi pad (its symbol is an exclamation mark) and use it by pressing down on the digi pad.

 

[____]

Eh, it's pretty funny how simple human AI is but they've surprised me a time or two.

All in all, the human combat to me is about 2% of the game, so it's something I honestly don't care about or if they even get around to fixing it.

 

[joecanada]

AI can make a huge difference to how a World feels, this is partly why Zelda works so well, I wish more games would pay attention to AI, it's shocking that in 2017 we still have such rubbish AI but stunning visuals keep getting the attention, are we as gamers so shallow and will never change, maybe thats a topic for another thread :/

Uhhh I've already seen multiple vids of people cheesing fights in Zelda , AI isn't easy to perfect in any game . In one a guy just threw bombs at a guy* (spoiler save) while he struggled to find his way around a campfire

 

[Styles]

I hope they do too, but make them super rare, I want them to be like the NPC Hunter you'd find in Bloodborne, capable of everything you are, but not common. Maybe even have them capable of using stealth and traps against you.

Let's hope no one cries and calls the game unfair when they get their asses whipped.