Runners and Hunters require a massive overhaul

I’ve been playing this game for quite a while, and I have to say that I am very disappointed with the Runner/Hunter AI, keep in mind that I’m playing the game solo on hardest difficulty.

I’d like to point out what’s wrong with the AI, and offer a few ideas.

1.) I hate the fact that I can hide inside of a house and nullify all the threats while I’m being chased by a pack of Runners.

  • Runners aren’t huge, and I believe they should be able to get inside of the house to hunt you down. This way you have to change your playstyle, and not safely peek through the doors and easily kill the Runners that are in front of the house, because currently all what they do is stare at you while you’re peeking through the windows, constantly scanning the walls & sometimes they decide to shoot at you. I honestly don’t understand why is this still a thing and why is nobody complaining about it? It’s funny that people are complaining about Runners clipping into the interiors, I think that’s the best bug so far!

2.) Hunters should be able to get inside of the church/barns, same goes for Runners.

  • I won’t say a lot about this, it’s pretty much the same case with Runners and houses, and I understand that Hunters are way too big to enter inside of a house, it would be nice to see them busting through walls, but I know that’s not possible.

3.) Hunters become buggy once you take off their primary weapon.

  • I didn’t notice this at first, but after shooting at their primary weapon and taking it off, their behaviour will rapidly change. If you’re close to them they’ll try to slash you with their blade, if you’re 6-10 meters away they will try to jump and attempt to knock you down, however if you start running 13-17 meters away, the Hunter will just freeze and stare at you?

4.) Machines shouldn’t have that Holywood villain mentality.

  • By Holywood villain mentality, I meant that machines like Hunters sometimes different machines as well will be in a obvious position to do some serious harm to you, but instead for some reason they will run away from you and take a short break to give you a chance to get to safety, I absolutely hate this.

5.) Machine dismemberment

  • It would be awesome if we could dismember Hunters or maybe even harvesters/tanks, by shooting at their legs, so this way they don’t explode, but instead they aren’t able to walk but stay in once place and try to give their best to shoot you and harm you even if they’re in that horrible state. This is what could harvesters/tanks do, but what Hunters could actually do is to use their blade and their weapon to crawl towards you and then stand still and attempt to shoot you.

I still enjoy playing this game, but the longer I played this game I realized that the only reason why I still enjoy it is because of the music & the game atmosphere is so fucking good that it simply overshadows the fact how terrible the AI is.

  1. There are already quite a bit of topics about it. One such topic: House capable bots
  2. Since almost all churches are safehouses, they are off limits to all machines, even for those who can fit through the doorways. I, personally, don’t mind machines entering churches but there are players who don’t like that at all and want their safehouse to be a “safe zone”, void of all harm.
    As far as barns go, i’ve seen several hunters enter it when the door is open (and when all doors are closed as well. Latter is bug though.).
  3. Haven’t seen that personally.
  4. Too much Hollywood films? Since to me, giving player a break during intense combat is helpful. Else-ways, things can go way too chaotic and GZ isn’t known to be 24/7 action game.
  5. It has been asked before. Topic: Machines should react to damage components

Though, keep in mind that while GZ looks like an AAA game (scenery, audio etc), it is not AAA game and Systemic Reaction isn’t AAA studio as well.

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I’ll just quickly drop my perspective here and move on to spread my teachings.

Yes, I hate that machines can’t enter buildings, so you are instantly 99% safe. It’s cheesing and I hate cheesing. I don’t like obvious open windows that the machines give in fights. Dismemberment seems like a weird request that at this point might do good or might end up wasting developer resources, so unsure if that’s a worthy move.

Hunters becoming buggy is a strange one as I can still see the machines trying to do something, but you gotta remember that lore-wise the standard machines have their programmed behavior, which is a great cover-up for the AI behavior :smiley: FNIX is the one to think and maybe on that specific class should have it’s move-set expanded. I think it’s a simple implementation of a couple of new moves for the machines when met with specific situations.

I honestly don’t see a reason why would that be a bad thing, and why would other players complain about it? In my opinion the fact that a Hunter or a Runner could enter inside of the church after spotting you, it would be a great immersion improvement. This way the player has to be more careful about visiting his safe house, and perhaps do it the stealthy way, or simply head to the other safe house. This change would also make bunkers more special, since bunkers should be the 100% safe spots for the player, not just a place to find some loot.

Yeah? It’s cheesing at it’s finest, and it removes all the stress & tension once you’re in combat.

I agree with what you said, lore wise it makes sense that prototype class should feel programmed and exploitable, military class too at some extent. FNIX class Hunters on the other hand should feel much more threatening. They should have a set new of moves, and the dismemberment part would make sense since their chassis is way more durable than the previous class and shooting at their limbs shouldn’t result in a kill.

Regardless of the class, I want to see Hunters as the smartest machines. They’re the only “humanoid” machines in the game, and it would be a cool thing to see a Hunter leading a pack of Runners and being capable of giving them a command to raid a house in which you’re hiding.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Humorous incidents

Here’s one player who complains about area just immidiate to safehouse for not being “safe zone”,
link: A shot in the dark: Just another rant
(initial topic, 4th chapter)
And an another topic as well: Hard to leave safe house

So, there are those out there who want a “safe haven” in the game.

That’s not a real argument though? What you did was pretty much ignore everything what I said and link two snowflakes complaining about a game that’s supposed to be stressful & tense?

The first guy complains about machines being in front of the church, and the weapons machines carry? Really?

1.) Machines are in front of the church?

  • They are either there because you’re visiting that spot for the first time & they are guarding that area.

  • You were in combat and you were running towards the church, machines were chasing you, and they won’t just disappear they know what was your last location and they will wait for you & attempt to kill you.

2.) It’s hard to leave the safe house?

  • You can always suicide and spawn to another safe house, or just figure out your escape by using flares etc. Be creative.

3.) Oh, but churches are supposed to be 100% safe.

  • Why? Is there a electric fence? EMP minefield that surrounds the church? Are machines demons lore wise so they should be afraid of the church or something? I’ll repeat myself again, church should provide safety to some extent, but church shouldn’t give you the BUNKER level of safety, again that’s what BUNKERS are for?!

Generation Zero is a SURVIVAL game. And I’ll quote Kyle Reese.

“Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until you are dead!”

There are no games like Generation Zero, and there is a reason why there are no games like this, because usually they end up being a struggle for the player early on, and once he gear up it becomes repetitive and easy as fuck. Devs shouldn’t listen to snowflakes, you’re supposed to feel threatened 70-80% of the time you’re playing this game, that’s what makes it interesting and fun.

I’m gonna look forward to the follow up on this - dropping Terminator and everything!

But - your issues I think really stem from your whole point, and reference to that awful performance by Michael Bhein.

Is this actually a survival game, honestly…no.

How am I supposed to take you seriously, and not as bait? When you literally avoided everything I wrote just to cherry pick a quote that’s supposed to explain the machine mentality in this game? Besides, if this is not a survival game, then I really have no clue what it is then.

It is not really a hardcore survival. Also the devs take feedback from everyone. They can’t just look at your feedback. If the majority of players want to see a change. That change will be more likely to happen. Such with the pre patch AI difficulty. Some people wanted to keep it. Everybody has different opinions of what they think is the best for this game. In the end it is the devs who decide. And so far they have not went down the hardcore survival path.

And yes i agree the AI should be more “intelligent”. Such as less just staring

Understandable. I don’t expect devs to look at my post and say alright chief, we will do as you say.

I’d like to see middle ground when it comes to this subject, something where both sides could agree. Maybe difficulty adjustments, or perhaps a brand new difficulty?

A mod previously linked few posts about people complaining how hard this game is, if more posts like this emerge and devs decide to make this game even more easier than it is now, dark times will come for this game. I’m not even some freak who no-lifed this game, it’s just super fucking easy to exploit interior safety and make these machines look like a joke?

Those posts complaining of difficulty were pre FNIX Rising patch. Where the bots were super hard. And the Ai was very accurate, and relentless. The difficulty is fine now. And a way for the bots to counter house camping other than gas, and explosions would be great.

Exactly, and a change like that wouldn’t be even hard to implement into the game.

It really depends. If they made houses able to be entered by bots, they would have to make sure they do not clip through stuff, and cause other glitches.

No I did read it all, but it’'s all been said before. I simply went straight to the point. But, in light of you wanting more I will add this :

The balance is way off over-all. Consistency is a massive issue in both game play, online, and solo game progression. I’ve always been of the opinion that they bit off more than they can chew, and quite frankly the current state of DLC release to console only shows me to manage expectations with this title.

I think Pontus sums up the game in general:

" with a big enough time line, anything is possible "

Dark times are, sort of, already here, since compared to the launch day, current date GZ is child’s play.

Here’s one older and lengthy topic, where many players discuss what GZ was and how it is now,
topic: Why, oh why do some make to "my taste" weird suggestions

Topic does go off-topic at some point but gets back on track in the middle of it. I also pitched in sharing my opinion (#130 post). Though, do note that discussion there took place before Experimental weapons were locked behind char lvl25.