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The AI and NPCs in Hitman 2 are ridiculously last-gen
- Thread starter TheIdiot
- Start date
The example in the OP is a specific poor interaction. Generally NPCs do notice deaths. Go drop a chandelier in Paris and watch as a huge crowd forms to look at the body. Pull out a gun and fire in a crowded area and people will run.
Yeah but there was high degrees of randomness to it still compared to hitman 2 where it does the exact same thing every time.
Not really, because "realistic" AI for stealth games wouldn't be really enjoyable or good game design. Imagine if enemies catching a mere glimpse of you would set off alarms and get you discovered, or their patrol patterns and behavior were complex and unpredictable.
OP, Hitman has some immersive and realistic aspects to it, but it is absolutely not aiming for immersion, especially not like the way Red Dead is. Its priority is being a game above all else.
Yep, this. Hitman (and Hitman 2!) embraces the silliness to better the gameplay. It's a game first and it's better that way. Sure, sometimes things are stupid and people don't react how they should. But it's almost always more fun like that.
They do, this is an inaccurate statement through and through. The kill you're referring to is an "accident", which, while immediately alarming to surrounding NPCs, they do not cause mass evacuation like firing in a crowd or setting off an explosion would.
OP
OP
I feel like posters here don't realize that I understand the type of gameplay Hitman 2 aims for. But there aren't two extremes, hyper-realistic AI or what Hitman 2 is now. I'm speaking simply of some middle ground.
There is certainly room for improvement and I believe it's insincere to simply state that it's "the way it's supposed to be".
There is certainly room for improvement and I believe it's insincere to simply state that it's "the way it's supposed to be".
For context:
In Hitman there are two kinds of NPCs. There are the full NPCs, which appear on the mini map, have routes and fully react to what's around them. There can be 300 or more of these in the maps.
Then there are the "fake NPCs" or "crowd" NPCs. Those can be like 2000 in a map. They are usually somewhat static or with some basic random pathmaking. They don't react to distractions, for example. These NPCs will only react when there's a alarm, they see you with a gun out or they hear a explosion. Seeing you with a gun will make them cower in fear, a explosion will make them run away. They don't have reactions to accident kills, and the kill in the video is classified as an accident. The room where they happen to be only has a few real NPCs, which by sheer luck didn't witness it in that time. If they had they would freak out a bit, check on the body, run and call a guard.
Yeah, I don't remember the AI in the first game being so bad. I still liked Hitman 2, but I wasn't wowed by it like the first.
Sure, but that doesn't excuse the bland crowd reaction to pretty extreme deaths (even if they are accidents).
I like how hilariously silly the concept of disguises has gotten with Hitman and especially Hitman 2. In the Mumbai level one of the opportunities has you dress up like a popular local barber and nobody notices that this very popular barber has suddenly turned into an American white guy. Or how, in the Whittleton Creek level, you can disguise yourself as the black head of security of one target and, once again, nobody notices.
OP
OP
I did. That explains the logic from the development point of view, but it doesn't change the fact that it detracts greatly from the experience of playing the game. It makes the assassination end in a wet fart.
And your explanation only addresses that issue, there are still several more issues (see the video posted above).
True in respect to weather and variables that are not the AI
But even many aspects not AI related were predictable like changing armour based on player actions
The core gameplay is meant to be predictable in a stealth game, because MGS taught this as a core function, that the player manipulates the AI, pretty much every stealth game and even Thief that developed parallel to MGS used this function of predictable AI
I agree though HITMAN has less overall randomness that is NOT AI related, because it doesn't do things like changing weather or time of day and other aspects, but it's also a game much, much more limited in scope compared to MGSV and didn't have nearly as many person hours to be worked on, and even then MGSV couldn't get finished because it was so expansive.
OP you should play hitman 2 silent assassin. Where sprinting near a guard will get you killed on the spot.
The game would not have been possible last gen with the size the maps are.
As much as I love the Hitman games, OP is right. Most of the "high level" speed runs and stuff that I see are just people manipulating the dumb AI. Its still a great game.
One should also consider that there are "bad" predictable behaviours. One criticism of Thief Simulator is when player hide in the closet, the police will fail to notice you 100% of the time - even when it's like 20 times you have been found in that house. Alien Isolation gets noticed because the developers introduced an element of unpredictability in the game to avoid abuses like that.
It's either a scripting error or other kind of bug preventing the crowd from reacting, because even the fake NPCs react to explosions and gunfire from other sources. I would expect the crowd in that bar to panic for sure. All the same, since most of them aren't 'real' npcs and because that is a highly scripted 'accident kill' assassination (as opposed to something have to manually execute like an explosive or a headshot) the game was going to let you walk away from that regardless because that's a specific mechanic of hitman.
It feels archaic by now. I think there should have been some sort of progression in the franchise overall by this point and this many entrys. It feels like the old Hitman games but with a facelift. That's it.
So a bigger map, a handful of people that can see through your disguise and a few more environmental kills make it next gen okay lol
IO and Square Enix tried to change the formula with Hitman Absolution and it backfired enormously for them. There's nothing bad about giving the fans what they want.
There's no game this gen with better AI than Hitman 2. They have a wider range of behaviour than any modern big game I can think of. Things like noticing weapons on the floor and alerting a nearby guard or picking it up and bringing it to a safe room.
The concessions they make are largely for gameplay balance reasons, similarly to how you don't die or spend weeks in the hosptial in a shooter if you're shot once.
The concessions they make are largely for gameplay balance reasons, similarly to how you don't die or spend weeks in the hosptial in a shooter if you're shot once.
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A bigger map, a ridiculous number of fully reactive AI across those same maps in a way never done in another game before, and 10 times the freedom of previous titles is not next-gen! By that metric no game this generation applies rofl
I fully agree with you on this, and I am wrong with my original comment somewhat. So yeah, well put.
I'm being serious here, no sarcasm
Yeah, Hitman levels are elaborate clockwork puzzles. They're not realistic simulations of crowds of people, because it turns out being a real Hitman is a good bit harder than the average player wants to do with. The AI is simple enough that you can pretty accurately predict everything that's going to happen and really game the system, which is the fun.
It's fine for the game imo. If you had complex AI for Hitman I think it would make the game less fun.
Care to provide what you think a "next-gen" Hitman experience? The sheer amount of AI interaction alone was never possible in previous entries until now. It's an lateral evolution of HITMAN 2016 sure, but both games as a whole have elevated the series to new heights.
The new consoles really must be approaching if we already have uninformed people throwing around the dumb "next-gen" adjective as if that actually mean anything.
that ai was pretty dumb too. it would always react to magazines being thrown, for example.
i swear that in hitman 2016 you couldn't get away with subduing people who are that close to each other.
I'm pretty sure that's an anomaly, I have tried to do the same thing with the chokehold and characters almost always turn around.
I have played the shit out of both recent Hitman games (full mastery on 2016 game, about 2/3 mastery on the newest), and my take is...both the OP and the defenders can be right. Those aren't mutually exclusive.
1- yes, the AI is set to allow for very specific trigger conditions so that perfect assassinations runs can be planned, whether trying to do so as quickly as possible or with specific limitations. It's a Rube Goldberg machine of absurd death and it's really fun.
2- at the same time, the AI could be updated. It seems like a reliable rule for the AI could be: if volume level in this area is above x, then items y and z won't be investigated when heard. Or, if NPC dies accodental death, all NPCs in line of sight should react.
Yes, there are cases where all the NPCs react to the assassinations. But similar to the OP, I lit Suerra Knox on fire in a crowded bar and only a couple of enforcer character altered their behaviour even just a little bit. NPCs turning their attention to the target could even just become a gameplay mechanic. They could be distracted for x seconds, allowing you a free amount of time to go unseen.
Anywho, I love the games. I love the systems in place. There are still times when the game could go a step further, though.
1- yes, the AI is set to allow for very specific trigger conditions so that perfect assassinations runs can be planned, whether trying to do so as quickly as possible or with specific limitations. It's a Rube Goldberg machine of absurd death and it's really fun.
2- at the same time, the AI could be updated. It seems like a reliable rule for the AI could be: if volume level in this area is above x, then items y and z won't be investigated when heard. Or, if NPC dies accodental death, all NPCs in line of sight should react.
Yes, there are cases where all the NPCs react to the assassinations. But similar to the OP, I lit Suerra Knox on fire in a crowded bar and only a couple of enforcer character altered their behaviour even just a little bit. NPCs turning their attention to the target could even just become a gameplay mechanic. They could be distracted for x seconds, allowing you a free amount of time to go unseen.
Anywho, I love the games. I love the systems in place. There are still times when the game could go a step further, though.
You are correct. Subduing like that in 2016 makes noise and would make the guard turn around. I believe subduing was completely silent on HITMAN 2 release but it has been fixed in a patch
Yeah, I agree.
The thing is, the NPCs actually react if they find a body lying around(dead or not), and they'll be in alert. But if we kill a target instead, they'll act like nothing has happened.
The thing is, the NPCs actually react if they find a body lying around(dead or not), and they'll be in alert. But if we kill a target instead, they'll act like nothing has happened.
Generally speaking, the same player who thinks they want more realism there is the same one who is going to complain about getting kicked by a horse or 1500 other random things in a bigger simulation. As designers the only way to compensate for extreme complexity is by rethinking how the player lives though it. For example, we could call the SWAT team and permanently wreck the level because you triggered a loud accident, but the reality is that's not fun: it's just going to trigger a reload instead.
So Hitman is actually a really good level of complexity in that it's predictable 1-on-1 but quickly too complex in groups. The trick is to fix the bugs (seems like there is 1 or 2 in the video above) and the occasional "obvious, but probably scripted before the audio" issue like dropping a coin in a loud venue. But generally speaking what holds up Hitman as a simulation is that it's simulating those core 200 or whatever NPCs. They don't despawn, they don't hide in exchange for cops, they don't have one script and then stay still.
To take that video to task, it *was* surprising. It required characters in specific positions and occluded by specific hit boxes. If I choke out a character that close, typically a gun drops, everyone looks around, the NPCs start panicking...and it's time to run. May as well take Kotaku split screen videos as common occurrences if you're going to make a game quality judgement call.
So Hitman is actually a really good level of complexity in that it's predictable 1-on-1 but quickly too complex in groups. The trick is to fix the bugs (seems like there is 1 or 2 in the video above) and the occasional "obvious, but probably scripted before the audio" issue like dropping a coin in a loud venue. But generally speaking what holds up Hitman as a simulation is that it's simulating those core 200 or whatever NPCs. They don't despawn, they don't hide in exchange for cops, they don't have one script and then stay still.
To take that video to task, it *was* surprising. It required characters in specific positions and occluded by specific hit boxes. If I choke out a character that close, typically a gun drops, everyone looks around, the NPCs start panicking...and it's time to run. May as well take Kotaku split screen videos as common occurrences if you're going to make a game quality judgement call.
