A Serious Conversation About Tarkov’s AI

(Intro)

We’ve talked about this at length not only on this channel but across the community as a whole for many years. Tarkov has a problem when it comes to their computer enemies scattered throughout the game. I use that phrase instead of just saying AI because nowadays it’s becoming a little confusing what it means to simply say AI even in the context of a video game. So, bear with me because I will be repeating that phrase a lot, but today we’re talking about how all the different factions across the game are just not up to snuff and how they most likely will never be. As the years have gone on and we’ve seen battle state release more and more factions into the game that players will interact with, we’ve also seen a noticeable drop in quality when it comes to fighting most of them. From your run of the mill scavs, all the way up to the new boss associated with icebreaker and the black division. And he alone has truly shown the depths of depravity when it comes to how insanely broken, busted and just unfun it can be to fight bosses in Tarkov. Bosses and high-level enemies are what makes all the parts of this game so compelling. If you are not interested in fighting players, at least you have the chance to get some powerful gear off other enemies who walk around with it. But what good do those opportunities mean if the moment you get within smelling range of these enemies they wipe you out before you even have a chance to see them. We’ve all been there with enemies like the rogues; the goons and any of the more recent additions of enemies. They don’t play by the rules. In fact, they break about almost all of them that affect how players navigate the world. Again, none of this information is new or revolutionary. But I think it’s about time we reflect on where we are currently when it comes to computer opponents in Tarkov and in a perfect world, what could be altered about them to make fights and engagements just more interesting at the very least. They’ll never be perfect. Hell, they’ll probably never even be good. But at this point, any kind of improvement is better than nothing.

(The fundamental problems with the AI)

What makes the computer opponents in Tarkov so frustrating is that they are clearly and deliberately easy to spot. And what I mean by this is that the difficulty in discerning who is real and who isn’t, can become trivial in Tarkov once you sink some hours into it. While yes, any new player won’t know the difference for a long time; it’s not like the computer opponents are making it difficult. There has been a myriad of videos talking about this issue. A lot of these videos are old now, but they bring up issues with the computer enemies that are still relevant to this day. They just don’t feel like entities that exist in this world. People that are just trying to survive like us. No, it’s always felt so archaic, so basic and just the bare minimum of what this game desperately needs out of enemies that aren’t players. Spinning around in circles, walking aimlessly, very little animations in what they do or how the interact with the environment; I’m not saying I could do a better job, but something as integral to this game as the people, the factions you run into, you’d think at some point battle state would’ve had to clean up the tech debt. But I guess there was just simply too much of it to ever go back and retroactively fix. Another problem is that the computer opponents don’t feel fair. I mean obviously, but their difficulty is based on only two factors: the amount of health they have and how insanely fast they will snap onto your exact location and take you out. What compounds this particular problem even further is that most of the time these enemies break the rules of the game in order to get you. They don’t have recoil on their guns; they don’t have aim punch when you hit them and generally don’t obey the rules set in place for the world of Tarkov that we have to answer for. Which makes fighting them and especially the bosses quite annoying and will usually have players expressing their frustration out loud. At its core, the computer opponents in this game don’t feel like they do enough to make it feel like an immersive experience. They barely try and get to cover when under fire; they don’t work together or corral other opponents in the area to come and help them and generally feel like they don’t belong in this game. They stand out; for all the wrong reasons. So, we know for better or worse, but now the major question is where in these areas that have problems, can they fix them?

(Where they could be improved)

For me, as simple as this is going to sound, making the computer enemies just more engaging and not so robotic would be all I need. Having them react and respond a little bit more like actual people, working together, sounding each other off and trying to get others in the immediate area to come and assist in fighting you, and generally making these enemies more of a threat by existing in these spaces with you would be such an unbelievable quality of life improvement. Honestly, it would be more than that; it would fundamentally change the game forever. I mean you watch what the scavs do in this game, and it’s silly to see. They walk around aimlessly for no reason; they don’t usually walk along roads of pathways, and you can sometimes see them staring at the sky praying to lord Nikita to make their intelligence better. I understand what I am asking is basically impossible for battle state at least this deep in the game’s life but imagine if they put out some videos of upcoming content and one of the things they show off is a complete overhaul of the computer opponents. I think it genuinely would make the entire community happy. They don’t need to be ultra realistic; they need to be difficult by other means. Because right now, they’re hard for the wrong reasons. It shouldn’t be about putting as many high tier rounds into them as fast as possible; it should be about trying to almost solve a puzzle. Reshala has four guards that keep him safe. He always runs and hides somewhere away from his men, so the goal should be to systematically take them out one by one until he’s alone. In a location like dorms, it would be cool to see them hiding in rooms away, and you need to clear each room to find them. Again, working together with other scavs, flanking you and trying to create confusion in a fight; imagine if they’re attacking from your north but that’s a distraction for another one sneaking to sneak up behind you and catch you by surprise. Imagine if their movement felt more like a player; using cover properly, flushing you out with utility if they have any on them. These are opportunities to create unique and interesting fights that don’t involve other players. And where these kinds of changes would be felt the most is honestly on PvE servers. I would imagine those players would greatly appreciate all the enemies they come across to be a little more thoughtful about how they engage with you. Because the computer opponents in this game need to serve a purpose, and they should have goals in mind when fighting players.

(The goal the AI should achieve in Tarkov)

Because you aren’t always going to be knee deep fighting other players all the time, the scavs are a decent middle ground to keep you on your toes at all times. Obviously, the bosses are a couple notches even higher, but all of these enemies have the same pitfalls because of how they are implemented. I mean the worst of the worse is the new boss, the wedge; who takes all these problems with the computer enemies and cranks it up to fifteen. The clips I’ve seen online of how fast he and the other black division members will get you is beyond me. These enemies should feel like a challenge, yes, but not to the point where if you make a single mistake, within one frame you are dead. That defeats the purpose of having these kinds of elite enemies to fight. You know in the back of your head that one misstep and it’s over. And that’s always felt awful. These kinds of enemies should be deploying tactics that really make them stand out from traditional scavs. Imagine after the cutscene on the boat when the black division shows up, the lights go out, smokes get deployed all inside the boat, and they start slowly sweeping through with thermals, night vision, and anything else at their disposal to try and eliminate you. Instead of rushing you, they play slow, deliberate and wait for you to overstep before executing a plan to surround and swarm you. All these different bosses and enemies should have goals they want to achieve when they fight players. How they go about them will be wildly different from each other because of the number of guards and gear they use, but that’s what makes them stand out from each other. Each experience can really feel unique, and you can only get that from fighting that particular boss. We kind of have that now with some of the bosses, but there’s not enough of it. At the end of the day, they see you, they will shoot you from ridiculous distances with too good accuracy and you’re dead before you even really had a shot at taking them out. They are fundamentally problematic, and it’s been this way for so long.

(Will we ever see an AI overhaul?)

It’s a huge ask at this point for the computer enemies to be changed in any meaningful way. Sure, we might see some tweaks and small adjustments to how they behave, but the vast majority of the enemies we come across are pretty set in stone. It’s a shame because to me, seeing these enemies get improvements across the board to feel less like hackers and more like intelligent things walking around with you on any given map is one of the last major hurdles Tarkov needs to overcome for this game to feel so much better. There are still tons of problems, but one that we engage with every single time we load into a raid are the scavs, the raiders, the rogues, the bosses and everything else in between. The only place these enemies should feel even remotely overwhelming to the degree they currently are is terminal. The final location you will go to and the explosive and climatic finale to the game makes sense for them to not pull any punches and do everything in their power to stop you from getting onto that boat. But everywhere else should feel unique, dynamic and responsive. Having the boss just stand still and attack you from over a hundred meters away doesn’t do anyone any favors. The short answer to this question is no, there is almost a zero percent chance we see any changes to the computer opponents of this game. Sadly, if you want to experience what we’ve talked about today, your best bet is to play the modded version of Tarkov that gives you full autonomy to set the enemies and bosses to whatever difficulty you like. That’s about as close as anyone can get to this hypothetical dream experience. And that’s a shame.

(Outro)

Tarkov has had many different kinds of problems over the years. But one that has stayed relevant regardless of what period in the game's life we were at were the computer opponents. Every single one is flawed, either in their own ways or collectively having the same problems. Fighting them after a while becomes boring, tedious, and at worst frustrating. It’s a shame too because the philosophy with the regular scavs that feels right to me is treating them like zombies. One by itself should be no problem at all, but when you have to deal with multiples at the same time all trying to work together, that’s when they should feel difficult and scary. The bosses need their own gameplans other than either shooting you from hundreds of meters away or just rushing you before you have time to react. For something you play with every time you go into a raid, we deserve better. Whether or not we see any changes that have profound impacts on the computer enemies in this game is probably already gone. I guess all we can hope for is that any future projects that come out of Nikita or battle state take the lessons learned from Tarkov and apply them to those titles. Because something like Russia 2028 having better enemies to fight that are smarter, more interactive and creative with how they engage with the player, would make an experience like that a timeless one for sure. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on the computer enemies in this game, where you would’ve made changes to make them better, if there is still a chance we see anything happen to them and be sure to subscribe for more videos about integral parts of the game never getting the love care and attention they needed to stand out amongst all the other major problems the game still currently has. I hope to see you in future ones.