Following a month of obsessive play, I’m starting to see some patterns in team-mate AI behaviour that I’m beginning to suspect are built-in and scripted…I thought I’d post them up and see if others have recognised the patterns also…All examples quoted have been seen many dozens of times…Long post, please bear with me!
1. The synchronised Die-off, or Mass Extinction Event
The radar is a mass of white and all seems well with the world. Baddies start to appear, the firefight occurs and then…your mates are down and ‘brown bread’…all of them, in a matter of seconds. You’re alone, the push is coming and you can hear the footsteps as certain doom approaches.
Example 1
Aquarium. Charge is placed and ticking. I have 5 team-mates nearby. I left-stick a refill, duck down and change mags. In the time it takes me to do so, a lone resistance nosher that looks like a court jester has spanked my lads…all of 'em…dropped like toilet seats. It’s like they received an order to embrace death from a higher power. By the time I get up and start engaging, the area around the door looks like ‘Jonestown…the morning after’. I’m a heavy, jester-boy is a light with friends en route…you know the ending.
Example 2
Terminal. The mainframe, or as I like to call it, ‘The Glass Room of Certain Death’. My heavy soldier arrives and man, I’m good! I drop baddies all over the gaff. Chuck Norris gives me a mention in his blog and Sly Stallone sends me a signed photo…it’s biblical. My entire team is there, assumedly high-fiving and making whooping noises. The hack begins and the enemy push arrives. I move to take them on and start blazing. Before I’ve even rocked a full mag, it goes quiet behind me and I hear the dreaded hissing sound of a hackbox being removed. I get slide-boned and tea-bagged by another heavy (oh, the shame!). My entire team lasts maybe 3 seconds…
2. The ‘Leave Brad to it, he’ll be fine on his own’
Your team is on the objective in force, ready to repel the push…and the rest of your team just ****s off into the distance. Where the **** are they going? Has a burger van arrived? Hello…lads? Having defended static locations in my RL profession, I can tell you that nipping off for a ‘porcelain dump’ or a swift brew is regarded as terribly poor form…
Example 1
Terminal. The 'frame is hacked and it’s time to defend the safe. We set up on both levels and are looking strong. A pair of baddies come in from the left and we drop 'em, no probs. The lads settle back down to the task at hand…for about 3 seconds, after which, seemingly following a team-vote to change rooms I wasn’t in on, they all just up and bugger off. I have no idea where they’re going, but wherever it is, it’s not on the enemies route in, as I’m rushed a minute later from all directions and from both levels - my valiant defence is brief, but worthy of the Norse sagas. My subsequent ‘boning and bagging’ is not.
Example 2
Defending the Warden’s Safe. See above for the sad tale, except that, in this case, I’m alone for 7 MINUTES, without seeing a soul. Just as I’m beginning to suspect I’ve missed the memo about a cease-fire, the baddies arrive in mob strength and I’m being issued a harp whilst terrible indignities are heaped upon my mangled corpse. sigh
3. The Specialist develops amnesia
Bots racing off to do some TDM, or perhaps their laundry? Oi, muggins…the objective?
Example 1
Warden’s Safe, different game. Myself and an Engr have cleared the room and are waiting for an Op, who appears to be travelling to the Warden’s Office by ox-cart, and a scenic route. We’ve fought off the second half-hearted baddie push when clown-trousers finally rocks up. He proceeds to run through the office, past the safe and then vaults down into the melee below. Dur…wot?
Next time I get back to the office, all is carnage, with hot lead and grenades all around. THIS time, special-boy, who clearly has the threat assessment skills of a depressed lemming, tries the hack.
Example 2
Terminal, at the safe, hacking team. Delete Op, insert Engineer, who ‘follows the sound of the guns’, making no effort to cut into the safe at all. I get a glimmer of hope as he changes direction briefly, but he leaves the room via the stairs instead and races off, presumably to his doom. The paintwork on the safe remains distinctly unscuffed. Finding myself alone, with a sense of helpless deja Vu, I cue the ‘Last post’ and have a ‘Cigar Moment’.
Does anyone else recognise these patterns…is it just me or do you see them too? I’m CERTAIN they’re scripted to add tension and make your team more dependent on you. I’ve seen them dozens of times across the maps. I don’t see them online, when each team has some people in it, only offline with bots, which deepens my suspicion! Perversely, my special-needs team-mates do the ‘follow the hostage’ thing with a dedication that borders on suicidal - especially the ‘charge into certain death’ thing they do repeatedly at the lift room on Aquarium!
Please discuss, and share any similar experiences. I’ve seen these behaviours so often I can predict them with some accuracy and now find them quite amusing, how 'bout you?
DISCLAIMER: I can hear some of the blind-defenders beginning to bristle from here…this post is not a whine, flame or troll, it is an opinion on which discussion is invited. Please keep your panties on…Brink does not need you to leap to it’s defence here, alrighty?
