Squads is a new and interesting addition to Call of Duty. In squad assault, you lead your squad, consisting of yourself and five Artificial Intelligence (AI) bots against a random enemy squad of six AI bots, in all of the standard game types. This series of posts will focus on various aspects of Call of Duty Ghosts Squads and how to gain the advantage in those tight situations. This particular installment will focus on enemy AI.
While these bots aren't going to pass a Touring test anytime soon, they are surprisingly good, sometimes frustratingly so. As to the source of their skill, I am unable to find any hard facts about exactly how the squad AI works. My personal theory is this: When a new match is loaded, the computer throws a roll to determine the reaction time of the bots (possibly other factors, but it's pretty hard to tell). The reaction time doesn't seem to be dependent on the actual level of the squad members. In fact, the level of the squad members doesn't appear to make any difference. It’s hard to tell for certain, but my squad quite often pwns against more advanced leveled teams and just as often gets pwnd by less advanced squads.
Reaction time seems to be the main thing that changes from game to game. This is important because once an enemy bot fires at you, you will die. These things are terminator machines. You have to get the drop on them before they start firing or that particular showdown will end with your character emitting an unpleasant sound and falling down.
Disclaimer: I haven’t actually timed the response. But, for most of the matches, you will find that when an enemy sees you, it takes him about three quarters of a second to notice you and wipe you from the Earth. This is usually more than enough time to terminate them. I find that the quickdraw perk can be used to great advantage here.
However, in about one out of five games, I find myself facing down an enemy squad that reacts much faster. I mean they're not just fast, they're fast fast. Winning these rounds can be quite dicey, but you can still prevail if you use cover to your advantage and make good use of your killstreak rewards.
Don’t even bother with smoke grenades; the AI’s will shoot you right through the smoke. In fact, it occasionally feels like the computer has simply decided that it’s time for you to lose (I used to get the same feeling playing blackjack on Bodog.com. You know, like the computer has a whole deck of aces up its ass and it throws them on the table whenever I start to get ahead).
When playing against human players, one can often get a lot of points by figuring out where most players go and simply camping with a view to one of these “reaping areas”. This strategy does not work very well in Squad Assault. If you camp like a boy-scout in squads, you are essentially taking yourself out of the action. You won’t get very many kills, and your squad will loose. Or, even worse, your squad will win without you, which is depressing.
I have not found it particularly useful to shadow my squadmates, except in kill confirmed. They move all over the map, but in a robotic way that causes them to go a long time without seeing any enemies. I like to stay in the same general area as my peeps, but I generally leave them to do their own thing or perhaps try to provide interlocking fields of fire from another angle
when Ghosts first came out, it was pretty easy to get bot kills simply by dropping IED’s, but that seems to have pretty much dried up. They may have updated the program for the bots, or perhaps the enemies have been equipped with the intel perk. I have had some luck with placing the IED’s on the wall about head-height and just around a corner. Even then I often only get a hit marker. Lately, I have taken to placing two IED’s on top of each other for a more damaging explosion. It’s kind of a waste, but I say it’s better to get a solid kill than a mere hit mark.
Well, that’s what I know about squads enemy AI. Please be sure to let me know in the comments if I have missed something.
No comments:
Post a Comment