Since Oblivion, we have not really seen Radiant AI improve or evolve in any meaningful way. NPCs are still largely static, being bound by their schedules and being at certain places during the day. Beyond that and perhaps some lines of dialogue, most NPCs have little point or purpose.

Enemy AI are incredibly stupid, especially when you kill a fellow enemy NPC and they act as if nothing happened (happens in Skyrim all the time). If BGS isn't making any massive improvements to Radiant AI in Fallout 4, they definitely need to do it for TES VI. Low level enemies, for example a raider, should never even attack a Brotherhood Paladin clad in power armor. They should actively try and clear the area so that he/she cannot kill them.

As it stands, the only time an enemy will flee is when they are low on health and they will move a short distance and then duck hoping for mercy. Radiant AI needs to be smarter than this. I'd also like to see more tactics and team work employed by enemies. If the player were to go running and gunning into a raider fort, I'd like to see the enemies take up fortifications, try to flank the player, even use the environment against the player.

If enemies in Fallout 4 are nothing but cannon fodder like they've been in all the previous BGS games for quite some time, that will adversely impact the fun of combat. A couple of lines of dialogue and just aimlessly moving side to side while shooting isn't exactly what I'd call engaging or realistic.

Totally agree with you, it is silly when unmatched enemies stupidly go for one another. AI is one of the most difficult aspects of game development so i sympathise with the devs slightly with all the variables that need to be taken into account when programming it, but a module or list added to the specific AI that determines % of chance of survival matched against another, depending on weapon and armour carried vs thiers and numbers involved, must not be to difficult?

Meh never seen the issue, they are raiders, wild thugs with little know how and often high on cooked up drugs, they done know they done have a chance again a PA, so how could they understand that they should avoid it?

Agreed, while it may not be easy to implement, it would make a whole world of difference having it.

Raiders may not be the brightest individuals in the wasteland, but they should have enough sense a person wearing power armor is probably out of their league. The same applies if a deathclaw comes into an occupied city, the civilians should run and perhaps guards will try and cover them. Otherwise, I don't want to see an old granny with her fists out trying to take on a deathclaw directly. It's immersion breaking and just downright stupid. If you are going to name something "Radiant AI," that would suggest the NPCs are self-aware and should be self-interested in their own survival.

Except they should.

Raiders were, in lore, attacking BoS soliders in full power armor as far back as Fallout 1.

I love it....say granma was close to an Outcast fight with a deathclaw...she picks up the Power armor and gatling Laser and starts letting the deathclaw have it...I love it.

"Raiders may not be the brightest individuals in the wasteland, but they should have enough sense a person wearing power armor is probably out of their league."

Well, Actually, even IRL there are cases of drugged up people (Usually PCP or Cocaine) attacking people viciously regardless of how outnumbered or outgunned they are.

Common sense isn't as common as you think. Specially if the Raider in question is higher than Keith Richards on Judgement day.

First, when did BGS ever really care about the lore of Fallout? Secondly, what Black Isle did really has no relevance to what BGS does. With the current iteration of Radiant AI, a single raider with a Chinese pistol will go head to head with a paladin with the former not using cover or any other tactics to try and gain an advantage. It's fine if the raiders were using other means to try and disable the paladin, but not outright taking him/her head on.

That probably would have happened when Radiant AI did not have limits during Oblivion's development. A similar issue took place where the devs attacked a random merchant in Bravil I believe and the merchant ran out of his store. He came back ten minutes later with a extremely rare and powerful axe and began swinging at the player. It turns out radiant AI was too smart for its own good and the NPC merchant was aware of a master locked chest outside Bravil in a nearby lake. The NPC had enough sense to actually run to the chest, pick the lock of the chest, and then come back to defend his store.

I'm more than happy for this to be the case if narcotics and being high were an actual feature of Fallout. Besides becoming addicted to medications or getting drunk, raiders, at least in Fallout 3, never showed any indication they were high on drugs as far as I can remember. They certainly would have been more vicious if they were. I'm aware of the crazy effects PCP, cocaine, meth, and other drugs can have on individuals. That is real life and BGS has not adequately translated that into their games.

Chems are based off of real world counterparts. And Finding drugs on them all the time isn't an indication? Not to mention you claim for lore reasons this isn't true, yet in the post above you discredit the other posters statement because "Bethesda never sticks to fallout lore." You're quite clearly set in your opinion so you can continue your debate with the others that care.

Given that Fallout 3 is basically one giant nod to Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, and the Bible..... always. Stop with the dumb "Fallout 3 ruined le lore!" memes, even Tim Cain disagrees. Though he does think they shouldn't have used FEV and Super Mutants.

Why would raiders use tactics? They are just random idiots with guns, not trained soldiers or mercenaries. Now, Talon Company, and groups like them, using tactics makes sense, as they are organized mrc groups, but your average raider would just be some guy in leather armor rushing an opponent with whatever makeshift weapon they could find.

My point is unless they are exhibiting signs of being under the influence, it doesn't really matter if you find chems on their person. You could have chems on someone who isn't under the influence. Fallout 3 is a pretty poor showing of staying true to Fallout lore. I'm not sure what the obvious explanation of raiders not really showing signs of being addicted in Fallout 3 has to do with that. Suit yourself bud.

Recognizing what came before and actually doing previous lore justice are mutually exclusive. Throwing in a bunch of references to Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 does not mean you used those references appropriately. Super mutants, the Enclave, the Brotherhood of Steel, and much more should likely have been absent from Fallout 3. BGS essentially just took things they liked and tossed them in regardless of whether they made sense or not.

Even "random idiots with guns" have more sense than just a wild animal. Raiders aren't one-man shows. They are groups of lawless murderers and rapists who live by their own rules and do whatever they want. They generally have some sort of leader with some form of hierarchy and duties in place. If they were as clueless as you are making them out to be, there wouldn't be very many raiders in the wasteland. There are far more greater dangers out there than raiders and even a raider would have enough sense to survive in the open waste.

Pretty sure the Radiant System was just to allow for generic object NPCS to follow specific simple instructions in the game. I don't recall it ever being claimed that it was some uber-AI that Bethesda had developed to improve NPC combat skills or overall behavior to other NPCs or the PC.

It allowed them to tell a Raider to walk this path, go eat at this table at these times and go sleep in this bed at this time.....then you could use the exact same Raider object other instructions or tell a different raider to perform the same tasks at a slightly different time schedule. It was a development tool, not an overall better AI.

Now a discussion of the needed improvement for general AI of just about every video game is certainly a valid discussion but I think the OP misunderstood what Radiant AI was meant to do.

Ok, so you tell me what they should have done? Fallout 3 was a revival more than anything. If they didn't but in old Fallout aspects people would say it was to different. I like super mutants, BoS, Enclave, etc in Fallout 3 because... well... It just works!

They did kinda hype it up to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbx6-KQoRg that though.

Heavily agreed on that hopefully with the new technology we will see a large improvement.

Other way round. From what we know the Brotherhood attacked the Vipers.

Radiant AI is a lie.

The thing that comes to mind for me is the Freeside thugs from Fallout NV. I'd be wearing power armor, carrying a light machine gun, and traveling with a guy wearing the NCR's elite sniper beret, and individual Freeside thugs would always think "Hmmmm...I have a pool cue, I can probably take this guy out if I run directly at him with no armor on"

I am hoping for more interesting AI when it comes to combat. I've had this problem in a number of action RPGs where NPCs have a tendency to just sort of slide back and forth a lot. I highly doubt there's going to be much cover mechanics in F4 but one thing I have enjoyed with cover-based shooters is the pace of the combat. I tend to prefer it when NPCs make use of cover (when it makes sense - I doubt a Feral Ghoul is going to have the self-preservation instincts to worry about such concepts,) and move about in more intuitive ways.

Like as has been said, Radiant AI is more of a reference to the technology that defines how the AI makes decisions (ie, if you script an NPC to follow a set schedule then the AI can figure out how to go from place to place without you having to define a set path for each waypoint.) I don't know enough about the programming to know how much of any of that's tied to combat, but my understanding is that it was designed more for the non-combat interactions and responding to things your player does.

Personally, I'm not too worried about whether a Raider is going to attack something that's overpowered to it. It's not like I've seen tons of random NPC interactions out in the Wastes in previous games anyway. that would call for too much thought. For example, I can't remember a time I've been trekking around and seen a band of Raiders run into another party. I'm sure it's happened at some point, but if it did it certainly didn't leave much of an impression on me.

False, when Captain Maxson and his men left Mariposa after the bombs fell in 2077, it's recorded that they were harassed and attacked by various raider groups, one of these attacks resulted in his wife's death.

The Vipers also started causing issues in the Brotherhood's sphere of influence, which is why they started to go after them. However, the Vipers didn't break up and run, and actively sought out the BOS during their little war with them until they were beaten back and ran east.

These cases are more the exception than the rule though (and those people are probably already completely nuts).

They'd be more likely to jump out and talk rubbish at you until you shoot them in frustration.

Yeah, Combat AI and "Radiant AI" are different. But I don't think they can be treated completely separately. As it's a role playing game, there are many ways to turn non-hostile NPCs in combat NPCs. And similar rules should ideally apply to whether they are then fighting you or other NPCs (I believe NPCs fighting each other comes under "radiant AI")

The rules for turning a regular NPC hostile against you needs to be tied to the crime and faction reputation system. In previous games, turning a settlement against you means they all attack. There's no way to undo the hostile condition. Similarly NPCs will fight each other to the last man.

To improve it, you could add a couple of permanent stats to each NPC to govern behavior:

• Courage
• Individual Disposition

These, along with things like how badass you look, how many of them and how well equipped there are, and your recent actions (eg. have you just shot someone), affect two temporary stats for each NPC:

• Fear
• Rage

These in turn change the behavior flags, which in addition to hostile and non hostile could include:

• Surrender
• Flee
• Wary (hostile and with drawn weapons, yet not attacking)

Importantly, the behavior states, need to be able to change. So an NPC who's fleeing and runs into more of his mates could turn around and start attacking again. Maybe if they can recognize cover, an NPC would retreat only as far as a more defensible position. You could talk to an NPC who's wary or surrendered, potentially reasoning with them and turning non hostile (or just rob them).

So if they did something along those line, as well as less suicidal combatants, you get a tonne more options to role play. You could be merciful to your enemies, or be the local arsehole in town who everyone avoids until you push them too far.

The short version: Better AI is good all round.

I would add 'Mega Wary' to that last one, to indicate things like when there's a group of hostiles standing around and one gets dropped by a sniper shot.

It irks me that everyone just stays standing around milling about after someones head explodes. That kinda thing should send the rest running for cover, weapons drawn trying to figure out where the shot came from and putting them all in a very high state of alert.

"The Exodus from the accursed base was a trying time for the men and their families. While there was no radioactive fallout to contend with, they were frequently beset by the fallout of humanity. Roving bands of psychotic marauders attempted several attacks on that noble group. The company itself was in no danger, for they wore the Armor of Power. Members of their families were not so lucky. Once the vermin found out they were easily repelled, they began to fire on the unarmed civilians from a distance.

Almost like the raiders avoided engaging the power armored opponents after the initial encounters. Where are you getting the idea that the Vipers actively sought out the Brotherhood? There's no indication of that.