idk if the AI has really been improved all that much. the SWAT AI most certainly, but the suspect AI seems to have been largely unchanged, and they will still wallhack and wallbang people with laser precision and reaction times of 200ms (very fast for someone who isn't at all prepared.) at one point, even the stats were messed up: flashbangs would reduce the suspect's morale by -1, meaning they would actually GAIN morale by being flashbanged. in general the suspects feel way more gung-ho than in SWAT 4 to engage an entire 5-man squad of police all on their own, and it would be nice if they had different reaction times and accuracies from level to level (a crackhead is worse than a terrorist) and morale tactics actually worked consistently.
imo they should change the ai depending on the enemy type. like the crackheads being way too offensive and maybe charging at you but with bad aim. meanwhile the current ai could be right for the guards at the mindjot datacenter, who seem to be trained and also prepared that you are coming (as the computer screens show). could bring in some cool variation.
What's also bad about the AI atm with how it is. Is that all of the suspects feel the same. A crackhead is a much of a fight as a trained security guard. I'd be so nice of they behaved or reacted differently. Like if the Teens in Elephant while prepeared with gear, could have moral made of glass and crack easily under pressure since they're just teens.
The enemy AI needs to be reworked completely in my opinion. Swat 4 had awesome AI because it felt very reactive to the situation and map you were playing. The very first mission with the convenience store robbery, the robbers will usually surrender very quickly because they are petty criminals and don't want to be lit up by an M4... However the terrorist missions where they take control of the biolab those guys are ready to shoot and ask questions later. The SWAT4 A.I is also cool because when a suspect is outnumbered or in a bad situation they'll just run away and hide. Meanwhile ROR AI feels like suicidal psychopaths with aimbots. Like it makes no sense that the teenagers in the store robbery have fucking SEAL team six level of accuracy and are ready to die without hesitation.
6:35 The stealth aspect is before you fire your first shot. In real life you easily hear shots from very very far away even with a surpressor and it would not make sense for the ai to just go on with theyr day. What I find frustrating and unrealistic is that the moment they hear you, they all start pushing you for no reason instead of taking civilians hostage or hiding in a room or closet. There are hiding places for the suspects and civilians but i rarely see them use it.
You check that specific corner for 5 runs, yet they use that corner in the 6th run, and kill you when you suspect it the least. Had this happen many times
i think if they used hiding spots and hostages more consistently it would ruin the effect. the message is "never let your guard down." the game is trying to bait you into ignoring these special scenarios so you're unprepared (not ready) for them when they do happen. i do think the enemy AI is kinda strange tho, they just stand still and stare at a wall until you breach the room. i'd rather seem them doing things or aiming down specific sight lines. like imagine in the crackhead missions you get guys hyped up running around the room screaming at eachother. vets on radio communicating that one is going to make a ton of noise shooting at walls or something while another rushes from the other side of the map towards where they think you are. criminals that ""surrender"" but slowly move in opposite directions to surround you (like a hyena or dog pack would do)
@@carbharharbcar5867 Once they tune the AI to be more reasonable, yeah, those would be neat changes. But as it stands right now, every suspect is a martyr ready to die for a cause, and there is not much the player can do.
Rarely? More like never. I once found a suspect with a hand gun, hiding underneath a bed in the parkies home map with the crackheads. After hundreds of games that was the only time I witnessed a hiding spot being used. Closets are always empty for sure.
I love this game! Biggest issue with it is the AI. Once they start engaging you, they won't stop for a few seconds, tracking you behind any wall or door. If their using a rifle, you'll get shot through walls pretty consistently, even when they shouldn't know where you are. Worse part is that any door that isn't fully closed seems to act as invisible to the AI's targeting.
Most situations still play out like they would in real life. Real life bad guys don't follow the major firearms safety rules whatsoever. They have zero regard for any life other than their own. If you don't manage your corners properly or sound mitigation properly then get ready to be sprayed through walls and blind divides. It's rather hard to replicate such situations in real life since when we train force on force strategies and scenarios we use a special purpose made firearm that uses a cartridge called simunition. The "bullet" is around the size of your typical 9mm bullet, almost paintball size but travels faster and hits way harder than a airsoft round. Because of this the round is absolutely horrible when it comes to any kind of barrier so while training you can't really replicate real world scenarios so well but it atleast allows us to advance our training when it comes to learning proper formation, knowing your angles and getting fast, accurate rounds on target. The majority of popular calibers will zip right through most home interior walls and even defeat metal barriers like vehicles like it's nothing. The only "safe" place to take cover behind a vehicle is directly next to the engine block. That's the only point of safety when it comes to proper concealment. If I heard intruders in my home making their way to my current place of cover and I knew that no collateral damage was beyond my back stop then I would have no issue with sending some hate through the wall.
The AI is crack addicts, they either miss everything or track you trough walls, wallbang you with 9mm trough solid steel or concrete and are lazer accurate after spinning 180 degrees in 0.01 seconds. 1.0 made it much worse then it ever was, and yes i'm not joking AI gets penetration, damage and damage resistance buffs to the point you will have to put 5 7.62 rounds into an unarmored suspects chest and god help you if they do have armor... 1.0 introduced a performance drop worse then when it was Early Access, removed most gamemodes (you used to be able to select standard barricaded suspects, bomb threat, active shooter etc.). they cut the replay value not just by half but straight up 80%. From 5 modes per map down to 1
The decision to cut the gamemode selection literally killed this game for me. As in: I had this game installed since december 2022 and got scraped within 1 week of 1.0. Mind-boggling.
can you please get me up to date on if this game is worth buying? AI made me not buy it but rather wait till it gets fixed, but reading this now makes me pretty pesimistic.
@@Buttersaemmel I would say to wait and see what VOID have to say once they are back from vacation. 1.0 was very much “1 step forward, 2 steps back” and there’s a lot they need to do still in terms of fixing and finishing the game. Hell, we are still missing promised features like sniper teams
@@Buttersaemmel Yea, as NeoCreo said, the 1.0 update was overall step backwards. It actually FEELS more early access than the actual early access did - and I'm talking the very first public release. 😂 Also when it comes to AI, if that's what's problematic there is quite a few mods that modify them. 🤔 I'm confused when people are throwing shit at VOID for the John Wicky AI (might be their wallbang abilities, I don't know), when instead almost half of their game was removed after waiting for an update for A YEAR...
@@Buttersaemmel I highly advice waiting a while and keeping an eye on updates. Otherwise wait for a decent sale. Worst case the no Crack for AI mod will keep it playable If you want a good example of how broken it is, the Postal mission shows everything wrong with it right now. Occasionally they even ignore flashbangs, stingers and gas I want this game to reach it full potential man. It's got a solid core, the shooting is fun and when it works it's a replacement for SWAT4. Which is the highest praise I can give
7:05 Don't let this fool you, the AI absolutely still do this more often than not and it has been this way for years despite numerous complaints by the community. The game is unplayable without mods to give them an actual human response time.
Yeah when I heard this I was like "are we playing the same game?". At this point, you either HAVE to mod, or 4-man this and go "terrorist-hunt" mode. But seriously tho, this review strikes me as rushed
maybe when the AI stop having wallhacks it will be worth it, but being headshoted from behind blinds is still a thing in this game. It needs another year, but is almost there. I just hope they don't abandon the game now
most my problems with this game are with the AI, same as everyone else. It took me so long to realize that only half the time I got hit from nowhere was the enemy AI just cheating, the other half being my teammates.
The game really needs some hotfixes. The enemy AI super OP. They sometimes have wallhacks and can shoot you through walls and they have better aim than John Wick while moving sideways.
Played the early access here. That's always been a problem and it really sucks how unfair the AI can be. I wish they would have patched it by the 1.0 release.
I have to be honest I had the exact opposite experience with this game. My mood soured on it the more I played it. Commander Mode was a really cool idea, except all the officers act the same and holy hell do you spiral if even one mission goes wrong sometimes. Over half the content in the game got removed because maps no longer have variations and different modes like mass shooter or bomb defusal. And the AI, even SWAT, is doing dumb garbage they never did even in some of the earliest betas I played over a year ago. “Stack up” “Stack up” “Stack up” Instead they blankly stare at you half the time and you have to order them to fall in then order it again. Oh you just cleared a room and are now detaining suspects? Literally none of them are going to watch the single other doorway that a suspect could waltz through and instead stand blankly in all corners of the room while you get domed because screw you for expecting the friendly AI to do their jobs. And all the enemy AI are the exact same, a crackhead is as suicidally aggressive and tactical as a desperate traumatized war veteran. Yeah, you need to “get gud” to deal with them, but the problem is that’s not you adjusting to an intelligent AI that’s playing chess with you. It’s you learning to put up with broken garbage and exploiting the AI when you can. Sure it’s easy to deal with eventually, but it’s also insanely repetitive and undynamic. I’m exploiting the AI, not actually adjusting my tactics to fight them.
One of the guys who made the best mods for swat 4 and released them on MOdDB up until he was hired by the Ready or Not team and now hes an official dev on the game. His work alone has pushed ready or not far past what it couldve been without him
Correction: The extremely talented Eezstreet was a dev only for a few months and quit almost FOUR years ago. One of the many dark episodes on this game's development...
Really? He left the team? Thats my bad in missing that I had thought they were still on the team. I thought they were there as well just because some of the mechanics I remember them modding into SWAT 4 were things still being worked on by the team but didn't realize he no longer had involvement. Is there public articles or anything about what happened when he left and why? @@isakillo
@@CuddleMushroom Yeah, I remember he quoted personal reasons. I also remember he said that they had him do mainly menial stuff like UI and such, instead of working on AI and related systems which of course was his forte. You'll still find a lot of info if you look for it. I just did and got depressed reading all the cool stuff they had planned... Philip saying this game lives up to its promises is very puzzling, honestly, given he said he has been following since the very beginning. It didn't live up AT ALL.
@isakillo Thanks for the info and after looking into it as well I know what you mean sad to see his skills basically misused and not fully utilize him for what he was known in the mod scene for and was what he was hired for in the first place, at least one would assume. I wonder honestly how the game could be today if he hadn't left the team and how much more diverse the AI could've been.
The game is good, but has a few flaws. The suspect AI is too good. Friendly AI are able to friendly fire you, especially when crammed near doorways. Certain rooms/areas in maps are nearly impossible to reliably clear with nonlethal (due to low penetration). Once you play a level once, you can always tell which NPCs are suspects or civilians by looking at them. Despite being 1.0, it feels more like an 0.8 release. I hope they continue to improve on some of the flawed areas and continue to refine the game.
Its more like 0.5, the game is missing tons of features that were shown in the trailers and development blogs like 8 man team, ladders, lights affecting AI, trailer teams coming to help you find civilians (training only doesn't count), many guns were cut, enemies no longer do normal human things anymore, enemies no longer hide anymore, etc. Also the game doesn't actually feel like a swat successor, it feels more like a remake where nothing was really innovated; no real new game play features, mostly the same exact gameplay as swat3/4 where you just bring order to chaos, find evidence and secure hostages which were literal downsides to swat4 where evidence hunting was the worst part and it doesn't help the fact that you only have a 5 man team like swat4 again feeling more like a remake than a successor.
i love ready or not but my biggest issue with the game is the enemy feedback. they barely respond to being shot and often times just fight back with laser accuracy meanwhile you get shot at and it's as if you're in a magnitude 10 earthquake
I have never seen a crackhead miss a single shot in this game, not sure what you're talking about on that one lmao. Every enemy seems like a hardened assassin that refuses to surrender even when faced with overwhelming force
Fun fact, stealth would be broken regardless of using suppressors cause apparently. The AI have a larger range of being aggroed when you arrest someone then it is to fire an un supressed firearm
@@GameFuMaster yeah I don't think anyone would legitimately expect a "spec-ops" style experience with a bunch of commandos kitted out with SD guns. Certain situations may start in a state of "stealth", where suspects aren't expecting anything. But the moment you make entry, you stir up the hornets' nest. Your point of entry will influence suspects' reaction. I'd find a mechanic like this much more interesting. Anything but damn NPCs locking into you through walls and floors at that point...
@@imChabsthat would be interesting, if you could infil through multiple check points with multiple teams and work inwards from different angles. But you're stuck with only a group of 5 and you all spawn in one location. Honestly, you're better off just playing a game like Doorkickers for a better tactical experience
They really need to start optimizing their game if they intend on keeping their player base. It's unreal how inconsistent and choppy the game is on systems with better than recommended requirements.
I had a terrible experience on ready or not: lots of bugs such as NPCs being able to open doors across the room and throw grenades through doors or even enemies not responding to damage, with there being a couple of animations (like the one where they get out of a cover while crouched) where the hotboxes are messed up, and as a cherry on top a complete save data reset of all my save files because the game doesn’t ask you which save file you want to use (I’ve seen this is a pretty common problem, I tried addressing it to the game support through email a week ago and they have yet to respond to me)
@@NeoCreo1 how are you gonna take a break from game support right after you release an update that changes the game completely, and for some aspects not even for good?
Currently I find the game unplayable. The suspect ai is very very bad. In the video you mention that sometimes the ai will be hardened criminals that are professional killers and lazer you down, or a crackhead skipping across the room and miss every shot. Well currently in the room the crackhead skipping across the room can constantly done you and performs like a navy seal. If the ai see any crack of your body it’s instantly as if they just saw your entire body up close. On the larger maps the ai aren’t even rendered past like 50 feet so there are times where your being shot at, by someone in the open, their just not being new rendered. It’s interesting that the “mainstream” and “TH-camr” take and narrative is that its a massive upgrade from swat4 and a huge success. But as soon as you join a discord or scroll to the comment section you realized that community doesn’t agree with the mainstream take. People say it’s surpassed swat 4. This game has singlehanded gotten me to uninstall it and to buy and install swat 4. Right now I only play swat 4 and have been enjoying it much more than ready or not. RON does specific mechanics better, but it’s not a compete package at all. In overall feel swat 4 feels better. Also something I’ve realized from swat4 is that RON perps NEVER surrender unless they have been flahsbanged or gassed or something of that sort. They will ALWAYS choose to shoot when you tell them to put their hands up if they aren’t stunned. In swat 4 I’ve found that if an enemy has their back turned and I sneak up behind them I can actually get them to comply. It feels like your actually supposed to go in and arrest these people. Ready or not currently feels like its designed to be a SWAT shoot ‘em up.
@@2kliksphilip Sorry, but that is incorrect. If you had actually played SWAT 4 you would know that the AI in that game is leagues better than RON. They actually respond to things and are different depending on the situation. AI that wallhacks and has inhuman response time and accuracy is not good AI. The game is horribly optimized considering the fact I have a high end set considerably higher than the recommended specs and it still runs terribly. You sound like you got paid off for this review. This game was better 2 years ago than now.
I think you should do more 'traditional reviews' like this, Phil. You're really good at it, and it feels weird to notice this after being a subscriber for god-knows-how-long.
If they ever fix the AI it's gonna be great. Besides the suspect AI, I would also add that the AI of your mates is broken too. They are killing machines that dont care about being police officers first and foremost, subsequently the swat AI breaks the current mods that deal with the suspect AI because the game becomes too easy. It's probably a lot more fun to play this game in coop which is why most youtubers are lauding this game, but the state of AI at launch is miserable and the recent reviews on steam are reflecting that.
Ready or Not does not, in any way shape or form, render SWAT 4 obsolete, what. There's even a solid argument to made that SWAT 4 is actually the better game if we're to compare 1.0 versions.
I think the biggest difference for me is in the love put in to the little details in SWAT 4. Every cereal box, newspaper, poster, etc had legible details and was funny, and I’m glad that Ready or Not pays attention to similarly little details, but it’s just not on the same level of passion. Even the brief comments your squad would make in Swat made them all super likeable and funny, and for me Ready or Not feels more lifeless because of it
check your replay folder, this thing just saves replays of every mission you went on without telling you, which can be gigabytes of storage gone, no you can't disable it from what i can tell. in fact i might suspect thats the reason why it runs so poorly on most computers.
I grew up with SWAT 4, finding the demo on a magazine demo disc. It was the first shooter i played, and i played the crap out of the one auto garage level. It brought me to Arma and from there on my lifes direction was decided. I sometimes play RoN, but i also sometimes play swat still, i even still run a server for SEF Mod. But RoN hasn't captured me quite yet. Its good, but im not getting that feeling. It feels like RoN doesn't let me be as tactical as SWAT. RoN always pushes me forwards. The last time i played RoN we were a 4 man team. Everything went smoothly, until one room at the end. We went in, two guys killed instantly. Me and last guy pulled back. Prepared grenades, opened door... My friend is instantly dead. I throw smoke and flash everything i have in that room. Walk in, instant dead. Like wha? Havent played for a month since then.
But it really didn't live up to the promise, from the early versions to now there is a ridiculous amount of features missing. I'd argue playing Swat 4 is still a deeper experience. This isn't what we were promised it's just another bum rush shooting spree game.
i think the real main thing to take away is that ready or not perfectly encapsulates the universe and the maps are gritty and starts out superficial and as you get deeper and deeper it gets more and more sinister because most of the maps aren't what they appear to be because some underground shit is going on like giving true detective season 1 vibes and silence of the lambs in some cases its actually scary to play alone sometimes lmfao the environmental storytelling is PHENOMENAL
Yeahhhh the enemy AI is so disappointing, to the point where it actively turns people away from the game. I had a group of friends try the game with me after a lot of convincing. A lot of frustration from seemingly helpless scenarios where one doesn't even have the time nor sightlines to react. For example, we had just worked our way from the top all the way down to the basement of "Lethal Obsession". We mirrored the door, saw no enemies, flashed into the room before entering. As we entered, our pointman died instantly from being shot at THROUGH THE WALL of the innermost room. Returning fire was pretty helpless, and as the last man approached the door to the room where the suspect was held up, he died to gunshots THROUGH the door. It's so close to being a super-immersive, breathtaking game, but when the AI gas-station robber pulls a gun on you despite being out-gunned five to one, the immersion is just thrown off. The same goes for the moments where you just insta-die to some crackhead AI with lazerbeam accuracy, and with some random guard spotting you through the non-transparent blinds of the big windows on "valley of dolls". Really hope the devs polish these things out, although the rushed release might indicate otherwise.
Been a huge swat 4 fan since it came out, my expectations are so high for this I’m waiting for it to be worked on for years to come and then to play it
Don't touch it yet then, unless you don't mind "play-testing" 😅 I really hope they straighten it out, but I don't know.... I don't really believe in magic, so unless they get competent people for what the game lacks, it'll be a dud.
great video! I didn't know what this video is about before clicking on it, but I enjoyed the explanations of the game and especially your personal story with it
I'm honestly surprised you didn't mention the fact that the enemy AI morale system is completely broken and incorrectly set up. Their morale goes up every time you do something that should actually decrease it because of an incorrect value setting. Also, the terrible performance of the game. Or the fact that all AI is ex-spec ops.
i really wish the ai had a mechanic like in swat where catching them offgaurd with complience orders makes them actually contemplate life and stand down
7:30 my god yes, if I want to restart I do not want to spend over 10s in a waiting screen. Just load the level back at maximum speed and drop me in at the start asap. If I want to start a mission I don't want to wait 5s to be let into the 10s waiting screen
First time I played this game it was with an AI mod cause my friend (who already played a lot of the game) recommended it. Never had any issues with the AI feeling unfair or too quick. Never felt I got spotted or wallbanged unfairly and so on. Can't remember if it was Jug's gameplay review 5.0 or Better Enemy Behavior (on Nexus mods). I think we tried both. Either way, that's my suggestion to people complaining about the AI in this game. Always remember to check out mods if they're available for a game, there is 0 reason to not customize games to your liking if an option for it exists.
Very balanced review and I agree with most points. Finally played 1.0. The updated police station is nice. It's nice to see it open up as you progress, suspects you encountered in previous missions in the holding cell, news talking about the situations you were involved in etc. It feels alive and actually like a police station, the old design was just odd in my opinion. I also like squadmates bantering and commenting on the situation, something I missed from SWAT 4. The improved SWAT AI is also nice but they still suffer from some issues, especially threat detection or just standing there being shot at. The suspect AI is still wack though. Some behaviour I recognise all the way back from the Dec 2021 build. And it is frustrating how some suspects and missions feel easier but still deadly, while others just beam you with xray vision or see you through small gaps, while the maps have poor visibility. The map with conspiracy theorist (Sullivans slope) I remember being not too bad pre 1.0. Took quite a few attempts on 1.0 as well as the poor optimisation causing lag spikes on that map. Greased palms (The postal map) is a great example. The concept is neat, but the large conveyer belt area just doesn't feel like RoN with its methodical room clearing, not to mention the poor visiblity you have as a human player that suspect AI have no issue with. Not to mention how hyper aggressive some suspects are with a lack of self preservation, especially missions with specific hostile suspects to arrest as objectives. While pepperballs is the META in SWAT 4 I liked using lethal weapons as I found the split second decision making more fun. I don't find the pepper balls that useful in ready or not. It seems rather ineffective even if they don't have gasmasks. I haven't tried commander mode as I dislike permadeath and ironman modes. I like the missions connecting somewhat as a story too or just the general feel. The (SPOILER) mission in the beach house made me feel sad, the music is usually bombastic too, but is somber in that map. What they're doing is wrong, but they need the money for something good. Felt bad breaching the room with a sickly elderly woman and arresting her, but it needs to be done. And ended up shooting her sons cause they gave me no choice shooting at me and my squad. The gore system is nice, but I don't really use shotguns, and I wish rifle rounds still left more of an impact on the bodies. I'm surprised you didn't mention mods and custom maps. I don't think Ready or Not has made SWAT 4 obsolete. I still go back and play SWAT 4 now and then, especially with custom maps. The developers mentioned an SDK and embracing modding but that was from a promotional video years ago. But still, they haven't really supported us with modding. All the knowledge and resources on custom mapping was made by the community ripping the game's files. Last I checked we still couldn't get cover objects working and adding more than 10 suspects into a map is broken at the moment. Especially when VOID interactive hosted an official mapping contest, but didn't really give any support. Best we got is the sound guy at VOID hanging out in the mapping discord for audio related issues. I do agree with you that the gunplay is nice though. It almost feels like a waste that it isn't used purely as a shooter (the AI is so hyper aggressive you basically get into firefights anyways). It kinda makes me want to create a map designed purely for combat and shootouts even though it goes against the game. I'm guessing they must have moved some files around since the destructible objects my maps referenced from the game files are missing in 1.0. I agree some maps are huge too. I don't know if its normal in America but I felt that the gas station was huge. I recall a lot of the community asking for smaller maps, and in the comments for some of my maps people liked the small-ish size and grounded feeling like being an ordinary flat. Sorry for the long comment but I do really like this game and want to see it succeed. But it still has some issues and I have some frustrations with it.
Back at it again with a banger of a video :) To me you’re “a trusty steed” or “The ol reliable car”. There might be a more flashy or sportier alternative, they lack that familiarity, that trust, that reassuring feeling knowing she’ll always start. Whenever I see your sometimes almost satirical thumbnails pop up my mind eases up a bit knowing there’s a window to zone out a bit, sit back and just listen how the smart sounding British fella explains everything in an entertaining way. IMO you’ve only grown as a creator in seemingly every way so it felt like a surprise you’ve received criticism on some of your content more recently. People just forget to write down the positives more often so this time i didn’t forget! Muchlove-TheNetherlands
As a fan of SWAT 4, I'm in love with the 1.0 update after the long wait, but I'm not blind to the small bugs, the John Wick AI and the emotional fragile officers. At the same time, I'm really thankful for what they made: this is, by far, the best we ever got for a SWAT game (or SWAT style game) in a LONG time, just look at the joke that series like Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon became. Story mode is pretty fun, a lot of variety in missions and locations, weapons, unlockable clothes, glasses, gloves, etc. The SWAT AI became pretty good, but the enemy AI still absurd most of the time, thankfully there are quite a bunch of mods out there that tweak some values to make it more fair or realistic; the same goes for the officer's emotions. That being said, this game is a diamond! Sure, a kinda rough diamond that needs a bit more polish here and there, specially enemy AI, but we finally have this amazing game.
This game needs a lot of work, it really shouldn't have been declared "1.0" yet. It feels like a beta. But from the very first mission I played I had a ton of fun. It's brutally realistic with its difficulty and mechanics.
for me and my friends this game is less fun than swat 4, on ready or not the most effective and consistent way to do every mission is to shoot everyone and dont ask dont think just react, on swat 4 bang and following a consistent method with your friends and you will finish the game with the beanbag shotgun and a smile, a SWAT officer job is to not kill if necessary, is your job to unfuck the situation and dont put blood on the floor non-lethal in ready or not is like bringing a knife to an armed fight, its not fun and you don't have effective and consistent methods to do your job so me and my friend just kill everyone, finished the campain and uninstalled the game,
I agree so much on the ‘fast/slow’ system from SWAT3 needing to make a comeback! In addition, I'd love to see a 'talk first/shoot first' toggle. AI officers with normal guns will happily take out a guy I was successfully pepper balling or watch their buddies get mowed down trying to beanbag someone in full combat armor without considering switching weapons
I actually liked your review. When you said 'No matter what score I get, I just want to end the level'. Its exactly what I did back in playing Hitman series. 'However I wanna end' is a good freedom for gamers
I'v never played SWAT so for me the AI in this game is insane. I really love this game first time i played it i played 8 hours straight with a friend. I just hope they add more missions in the future. What I would really like is this exact game but with missions that have a random layout and random objectives every time you try it.
In SWAT 4, If you shot a suspect in the leg (mainly in the earlier missions) they will surrender. In RON you can riddle them with bullets in the chest and arms and legs and they will not surrender and continue moving as normal. Yeah the AI is insane.
The AI in SWAT 4 is nowhere near as broken as RON. Because SWAT 4 was designed around you wanting to ARREST the suspects RON was designed for straight up killing the suspects while penalizing your score for doing so
phillip i love ya, but RON is missing critical components to make it a serious contender to “replace” 4. it’s gorgeous, but that’s it. as a sim it’s goofy.
I have a shit tone of fun trying to reach S+ with my brother and friends. Its a real challenge too run Non-Lethal because one mistake with a Bean Bag Gun or long rang tear gas and next thing you know you've accidentally killed a bad guy with it and need to restart the whole mission too keep everyone alive and mostly un-injured. It a heck of a lot of fun!
Off topic but just wanted to say that Kliksphilp is one of them youtubers where I just watch all their videos no matter what they put out and have for years. Just good style to me and consistent
Important to note that the latest hotfix has removed the ability to order your AI team to open doors but not enter the room, thereby breaking the tutorial.
The tutorial never requires you to do that, so it works just fine (just played it myself). You're only ever asked to have them open and clear, not open the door without clearing.
I agree with your request for the ability to bring AIs and actual people into a mission. I’ve found the stuff with managing your AI teammates in the singleplayer to be fun when doing easier levels, less so on harder levels. The criminals seem much less likely to surrender than in Swat 4, and of course they can be very good at shooting. The idea of keeping your guys in good health just goes out the window when you’re attempting one of the more meat grinder-y levels over and over again. Also I find having to check every single door for grenade traps with the optiwand super tedious. Still fun, and even though I’m a bit of a casual, it’s neat how the guns don’t have much that distinguishes them other than caliber, because I can just use what I think looks cool.
At this point, I'm waiting for a massive overhaul to suspect/ civilian AI for the game as they make it feel heavily immersion breaking. Suspects don't really feel like they are people but rather talkative terminators. I'll consider it fully cooked once they integrate the other AI into the world so as to feel as though they belong, but what they've accomplished so far is great. My hat goes off to void.
This feels odd, it's like a review of a RoN from an alternate universe where it's actually good. Dubbing RoN "SWAT 4's spiritual successor" is a weird one, given RoN lacks most, if not all of what made SWAT 4 the legend that it is. The atmosphere, the level design, the storytelling, the soundtrack... RoN doesn't even come close to it. And for a 1.0, I find it severely lacking. In fact, I am convinced they only did this to drive sales for what remained of 2023. Does it mean it's a bad game? No. While flawed in several crucial aspects (A.I being one), it's alright. But it's absolutely barren compared to SWAT 4.
I do think SWAT 4 is the better overall package (I absolutely love its level design and suspect AI, and it still gives you better control over your squad since you can issue them commands directly through their cameras; it also has far more replay value with the mission editor and such). However, I also think Ready or Not beats it soundly in a few categories. Obviously it looks better, but it also gives you much more control over your own movements (especially with the free-lean system), has considerably better gunplay (both the feel and sound of weapons), and has more intelligent friendly AI (in SWAT 4 they don't even pie rooms or clear properly; they just waltz right in).
@@Chubzdoomer absolutely agree. That's what bothers me so. Technically, RoN is leagues ahead, it's everything I'd imagine a contemporary SWAT would look like. But they dropped the ball on everything else. It really wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't falsely call itself "1.0".
@@imChabs This really is on point. It's not a bad game, I had more fun with it that I have with many, many other games in the past few years, but there really is no comparison to SWAT 4. And frankly, the far better gunplay and graphics, while great, feel like they're more to do with being a product of its time (plenty of tacti-cool shooters with similar mechanics out now) and simply general technological development (SWAT 4 is old enough to vote, for Pete's sake). What made SWAT 4 great was that it beamed with the care that was clearly put into it. It was polished in almost every way. Even in simple things like the writing of pre-mission briefings it was superior. SWAT 4 was an experience. RoN is just decent amounts of fun.
Philip talking about my 2023 game of the year? Hell yeah! Also, pretty sure you can't shoot children in the game. In my experience at least, both Crystal Leighton at the gas station and the child in the crack den are unkillable.
2 steps forward 1 step back is what the wait is all about: - campaign, customisation, weapons, gear, swat morale & perks are best thing I ever seen compare to SWAT4 - AI suspect are only agreesive + sometimes very bot-like aim, discourage the use of swat teammate due to arbitrary morale impact, only encourages stun and clear instead having fun by move and clear in SWAT4 - UI bugs still hasn't fix - Horrible/blurry graphics when looking at distance object (no, AA and motion blur is off), optiwand picture-to-picture is still horrible to look at.
The only feature I would truly want is a co-op multi squad mechanic where everyone on your team gets 2 bots to control or if playing with ony one person, 4 bots. That would make playing the larger maps so much more fun.
You forgot to mention that mods are available in this game, so you can download endless custom maps made by the community (including maps from SWAT 4)! :)
I was wondering what your thoughts were on the AI generated artwork in this game, particularly on the streamer level with the anime stuff on the walls, and how the subtitles seem to be auto-generated, but you never brought it up!
Is there AI art? Valve effectively banned it by saying you can't include it unless you own all the resources the module was trained on (which nobody does, so it's an effective ban).
The artwork in the streamer level I totally understand. No artist would want to be associated with that character. However, what I DO have a huge problem with is the art for the preview of the hospital. I uninstalled the game quite early on due to the broken AI and generally unfinished state of the game, so I'm unsure how prevalent shoddy AI generation is.
I'm currently playing this game with my fiance and we are having a great time. Not sure if the AI has improved since 3 months ago when all these comments were made - they're definitely fast, maybe too fast, but I haven't been wallbanged and they haven't really managed to kill me more than a handful of times across the first 5 maps. What I'm really enjoying is the brutal envirionmental storytelling, it's gritty to the absolute max. And the sound is pretty damn incredible too. I'm finding myself wanting to pace our playthrough, there's only 18 maps and if we beat it too quickly I'll be sad as it's really a very special feeling game, at least to me.
I think the AI is decent, however there was a moment where I set up my teammates on one door of a room with two suspects, I went to the flank door and I used the camera to look under. I saw BOTH suspects looking at the door the opposite direction from me (where my teammates were stacked up), I cracked the door quietly (they were pretty far away from the door), and as soon as i peeked through theyre both aiming for my head and immediately kill me. The AI is a little TOO smart. Not sure if thats what you meant by wanting stealth or not but I thought it would work and it got me killed lol.
Ready or Not is definitely amazing, and has been amazing for a while even before this recent full release. Philip based on your experience with SWAT 4 and your nostalgia for now that it's going to be almost extinct, I just know you'd wanna see the video by Face Full of Eyes called "Aesthetics of SWAT 4". It's long but genius and definitely something you'd enjoy. SWAT 4 is incredible and I'm gonna miss it...
I agree with almost everything. The game is meant to be realistic, the reason why when you shoot and everyone is on high alert, is because the sound of a suppressor is still loud, let alone without it, and the enemies can communicate via cellphone or radio(theoretically).
I was following it a couple years ago, when basically all hope about it was lost, people were calling it a scam due to no communication and them for some reason deciding to focus on "pvp" shortly before alpha. I am so glad the game actually got released and came out fun.
I've been playing this one for quite a while, both solo and coop, and the AI is hit or miss, with some levels being nearly impossible (Farm, I'm looking at you). There are mods that reduce the reaction times (I think the one I'm using is "Cracked but Sweet") and that levels it out a lot more. You will die still, but at least it's not aimbot levels of unfairness, and bad planning will still get you killed. Other than that, I quite agree with your observations. I wish I could just restart from the mission failed screen; it takes too long to restart, especially with some of the more difficult levels. Still, great game, and I wish they keep on working on it.
My biggest disappointment is how one dimensional and OP the enemy AI is. Mods can help with the OP part but I feel that for a game like this in *current year* the AI needs to be more interesting. And by the way Philip, the AI IS CHEATING. There is a replay feature and you can easily see how the enemies have inhumane reactions and tracks players through walls across the map sometimes.
this comment wont mean anything but i really wish there was some kind of progression in the game. i get that it doesnt make sense for a cop to have to work his way up to get better gear, but after i've done all the mission i dont see a lot of replayability. Also i wish they didn't have 7 different AR-15 variations and actually had more diverse weapons. like why the hell would you make 3 different MP5's when all the differences between them should just be attachments slots you can change.
idk if the AI has really been improved all that much. the SWAT AI most certainly, but the suspect AI seems to have been largely unchanged, and they will still wallhack and wallbang people with laser precision and reaction times of 200ms (very fast for someone who isn't at all prepared.) at one point, even the stats were messed up: flashbangs would reduce the suspect's morale by -1, meaning they would actually GAIN morale by being flashbanged. in general the suspects feel way more gung-ho than in SWAT 4 to engage an entire 5-man squad of police all on their own, and it would be nice if they had different reaction times and accuracies from level to level (a crackhead is worse than a terrorist) and morale tactics actually worked consistently.
AI is hard in games. I do agree, they have to do something....
200ms is fast even if you're prepared!!
imo they should change the ai depending on the enemy type. like the crackheads being way too offensive and maybe charging at you but with bad aim. meanwhile the current ai could be right for the guards at the mindjot datacenter, who seem to be trained and also prepared that you are coming (as the computer screens show). could bring in some cool variation.
@@primtve_dope9568 tru dat
What's also bad about the AI atm with how it is. Is that all of the suspects feel the same. A crackhead is a much of a fight as a trained security guard. I'd be so nice of they behaved or reacted differently. Like if the Teens in Elephant while prepeared with gear, could have moral made of glass and crack easily under pressure since they're just teens.
The enemy AI needs to be reworked completely in my opinion. Swat 4 had awesome AI because it felt very reactive to the situation and map you were playing. The very first mission with the convenience store robbery, the robbers will usually surrender very quickly because they are petty criminals and don't want to be lit up by an M4... However the terrorist missions where they take control of the biolab those guys are ready to shoot and ask questions later. The SWAT4 A.I is also cool because when a suspect is outnumbered or in a bad situation they'll just run away and hide.
Meanwhile ROR AI feels like suicidal psychopaths with aimbots. Like it makes no sense that the teenagers in the store robbery have fucking SEAL team six level of accuracy and are ready to die without hesitation.
Yes I was going to write the same comment. The way enemies are willing to die in a shootout with the cops is completely unrealistic.
Those teenagers clearly played violent videogames.
True. Cue "Its the cops" or "Police!!" as the dude starts running away haha.
Absolutely. No doubt on that, the enemy AI really breaks the game for me personally.
That's very detailed analyzes bro, show truly how deep your are into this, game creators could use your help
6:35 The stealth aspect is before you fire your first shot. In real life you easily hear shots from very very far away even with a surpressor and it would not make sense for the ai to just go on with theyr day. What I find frustrating and unrealistic is that the moment they hear you, they all start pushing you for no reason instead of taking civilians hostage or hiding in a room or closet. There are hiding places for the suspects and civilians but i rarely see them use it.
You check that specific corner for 5 runs, yet they use that corner in the 6th run, and kill you when you suspect it the least. Had this happen many times
i think if they used hiding spots and hostages more consistently it would ruin the effect. the message is "never let your guard down." the game is trying to bait you into ignoring these special scenarios so you're unprepared (not ready) for them when they do happen.
i do think the enemy AI is kinda strange tho, they just stand still and stare at a wall until you breach the room. i'd rather seem them doing things or aiming down specific sight lines. like imagine in the crackhead missions you get guys hyped up running around the room screaming at eachother. vets on radio communicating that one is going to make a ton of noise shooting at walls or something while another rushes from the other side of the map towards where they think you are. criminals that ""surrender"" but slowly move in opposite directions to surround you (like a hyena or dog pack would do)
i got through every mission and not once did i see a suspect use a hiding place
@@carbharharbcar5867 Once they tune the AI to be more reasonable, yeah, those would be neat changes. But as it stands right now, every suspect is a martyr ready to die for a cause, and there is not much the player can do.
Rarely? More like never. I once found a suspect with a hand gun, hiding underneath a bed in the parkies home map with the crackheads. After hundreds of games that was the only time I witnessed a hiding spot being used. Closets are always empty for sure.
I love this game! Biggest issue with it is the AI. Once they start engaging you, they won't stop for a few seconds, tracking you behind any wall or door. If their using a rifle, you'll get shot through walls pretty consistently, even when they shouldn't know where you are. Worse part is that any door that isn't fully closed seems to act as invisible to the AI's targeting.
they are*
learn the difference
@@ieatthighs *their
@@sicknaramu please check in a dictionary first
@@ieatthighsthære*
Most situations still play out like they would in real life. Real life bad guys don't follow the major firearms safety rules whatsoever. They have zero regard for any life other than their own. If you don't manage your corners properly or sound mitigation properly then get ready to be sprayed through walls and blind divides.
It's rather hard to replicate such situations in real life since when we train force on force strategies and scenarios we use a special purpose made firearm that uses a cartridge called simunition. The "bullet" is around the size of your typical 9mm bullet, almost paintball size but travels faster and hits way harder than a airsoft round.
Because of this the round is absolutely horrible when it comes to any kind of barrier so while training you can't really replicate real world scenarios so well but it atleast allows us to advance our training when it comes to learning proper formation, knowing your angles and getting fast, accurate rounds on target.
The majority of popular calibers will zip right through most home interior walls and even defeat metal barriers like vehicles like it's nothing. The only "safe" place to take cover behind a vehicle is directly next to the engine block. That's the only point of safety when it comes to proper concealment. If I heard intruders in my home making their way to my current place of cover and I knew that no collateral damage was beyond my back stop then I would have no issue with sending some hate through the wall.
The AI is crack addicts, they either miss everything or track you trough walls, wallbang you with 9mm trough solid steel or concrete and are lazer accurate after spinning 180 degrees in 0.01 seconds. 1.0 made it much worse then it ever was, and yes i'm not joking AI gets penetration, damage and damage resistance buffs to the point you will have to put 5 7.62 rounds into an unarmored suspects chest and god help you if they do have armor...
1.0 introduced a performance drop worse then when it was Early Access, removed most gamemodes (you used to be able to select standard barricaded suspects, bomb threat, active shooter etc.). they cut the replay value not just by half but straight up 80%. From 5 modes per map down to 1
The decision to cut the gamemode selection literally killed this game for me. As in: I had this game installed since december 2022 and got scraped within 1 week of 1.0. Mind-boggling.
can you please get me up to date on if this game is worth buying?
AI made me not buy it but rather wait till it gets fixed, but reading this now makes me pretty pesimistic.
@@Buttersaemmel I would say to wait and see what VOID have to say once they are back from vacation. 1.0 was very much “1 step forward, 2 steps back” and there’s a lot they need to do still in terms of fixing and finishing the game. Hell, we are still missing promised features like sniper teams
@@Buttersaemmel Yea, as NeoCreo said, the 1.0 update was overall step backwards. It actually FEELS more early access than the actual early access did - and I'm talking the very first public release. 😂
Also when it comes to AI, if that's what's problematic there is quite a few mods that modify them. 🤔
I'm confused when people are throwing shit at VOID for the John Wicky AI (might be their wallbang abilities, I don't know), when instead almost half of their game was removed after waiting for an update for A YEAR...
@@Buttersaemmel
I highly advice waiting a while and keeping an eye on updates. Otherwise wait for a decent sale. Worst case the no Crack for AI mod will keep it playable
If you want a good example of how broken it is, the Postal mission shows everything wrong with it right now. Occasionally they even ignore flashbangs, stingers and gas
I want this game to reach it full potential man. It's got a solid core, the shooting is fun and when it works it's a replacement for SWAT4. Which is the highest praise I can give
7:05 Don't let this fool you, the AI absolutely still do this more often than not and it has been this way for years despite numerous complaints by the community. The game is unplayable without mods to give them an actual human response time.
mods will save you
Yeah when I heard this I was like "are we playing the same game?". At this point, you either HAVE to mod, or 4-man this and go "terrorist-hunt" mode.
But seriously tho, this review strikes me as rushed
@@imChabsjust like the 1.0 release lmao
@@imChabs I feel like all of the big creators have been paid off. They all give raving reviews, despite performance and wall hack/aimbot AI.
I never had a problem with ai, I don’t get headshot through walls by them and never have, I don’t run any mods and play on a laptop.
This game captures the saying "2 steps forward, 3 steps back" perfectly.
maybe when the AI stop having wallhacks it will be worth it, but being headshoted from behind blinds is still a thing in this game. It needs another year, but is almost there. I just hope they don't abandon the game now
You can see through the slots in blinds in real life...
most my problems with this game are with the AI, same as everyone else. It took me so long to realize that only half the time I got hit from nowhere was the enemy AI just cheating, the other half being my teammates.
Dumbest death i’ve had is being shot through a metal door a wall and a car and a fence. Penetration in this game is laughable
The game really needs some hotfixes. The enemy AI super OP. They sometimes have wallhacks and can shoot you through walls and they have better aim than John Wick while moving sideways.
Played the early access here. That's always been a problem and it really sucks how unfair the AI can be. I wish they would have patched it by the 1.0 release.
I have to be honest I had the exact opposite experience with this game. My mood soured on it the more I played it.
Commander Mode was a really cool idea, except all the officers act the same and holy hell do you spiral if even one mission goes wrong sometimes.
Over half the content in the game got removed because maps no longer have variations and different modes like mass shooter or bomb defusal.
And the AI, even SWAT, is doing dumb garbage they never did even in some of the earliest betas I played over a year ago.
“Stack up” “Stack up” “Stack up”
Instead they blankly stare at you half the time and you have to order them to fall in then order it again.
Oh you just cleared a room and are now detaining suspects? Literally none of them are going to watch the single other doorway that a suspect could waltz through and instead stand blankly in all corners of the room while you get domed because screw you for expecting the friendly AI to do their jobs.
And all the enemy AI are the exact same, a crackhead is as suicidally aggressive and tactical as a desperate traumatized war veteran.
Yeah, you need to “get gud” to deal with them, but the problem is that’s not you adjusting to an intelligent AI that’s playing chess with you.
It’s you learning to put up with broken garbage and exploiting the AI when you can. Sure it’s easy to deal with eventually, but it’s also insanely repetitive and undynamic.
I’m exploiting the AI, not actually adjusting my tactics to fight them.
One of the guys who made the best mods for swat 4 and released them on MOdDB up until he was hired by the Ready or Not team and now hes an official dev on the game. His work alone has pushed ready or not far past what it couldve been without him
Correction: The extremely talented Eezstreet was a dev only for a few months and quit almost FOUR years ago. One of the many dark episodes on this game's development...
Really? He left the team? Thats my bad in missing that I had thought they were still on the team. I thought they were there as well just because some of the mechanics I remember them modding into SWAT 4 were things still being worked on by the team but didn't realize he no longer had involvement. Is there public articles or anything about what happened when he left and why? @@isakillo
@@CuddleMushroom Yeah, I remember he quoted personal reasons. I also remember he said that they had him do mainly menial stuff like UI and such, instead of working on AI and related systems which of course was his forte. You'll still find a lot of info if you look for it. I just did and got depressed reading all the cool stuff they had planned...
Philip saying this game lives up to its promises is very puzzling, honestly, given he said he has been following since the very beginning. It didn't live up AT ALL.
@isakillo
Thanks for the info and after looking into it as well I know what you mean sad to see his skills basically misused and not fully utilize him for what he was known in the mod scene for and was what he was hired for in the first place, at least one would assume. I wonder honestly how the game could be today if he hadn't left the team and how much more diverse the AI could've been.
@@isakillo 100% agreed. Ready or Not is a police brutality simulator when you compare it to SWAT 4.
The game is good, but has a few flaws.
The suspect AI is too good. Friendly AI are able to friendly fire you, especially when crammed near doorways.
Certain rooms/areas in maps are nearly impossible to reliably clear with nonlethal (due to low penetration).
Once you play a level once, you can always tell which NPCs are suspects or civilians by looking at them.
Despite being 1.0, it feels more like an 0.8 release. I hope they continue to improve on some of the flawed areas and continue to refine the game.
This just killed any chance of me getting this game.
@@powerboon2k you could still enjoy the game plenty.
@@powerboon2k Definitely wait until they polish some things out first. It's got potential, it's just scuffed as it is now.
@@mania2 enjoying a half baked game is like buying a battlepass and playing because you want the rewards and not because it's fun
Its more like 0.5, the game is missing tons of features that were shown in the trailers and development blogs like 8 man team, ladders, lights affecting AI, trailer teams coming to help you find civilians (training only doesn't count), many guns were cut, enemies no longer do normal human things anymore, enemies no longer hide anymore, etc. Also the game doesn't actually feel like a swat successor, it feels more like a remake where nothing was really innovated; no real new game play features, mostly the same exact gameplay as swat3/4 where you just bring order to chaos, find evidence and secure hostages which were literal downsides to swat4 where evidence hunting was the worst part and it doesn't help the fact that you only have a 5 man team like swat4 again feeling more like a remake than a successor.
i love ready or not but my biggest issue with the game is the enemy feedback. they barely respond to being shot and often times just fight back with laser accuracy meanwhile you get shot at and it's as if you're in a magnitude 10 earthquake
true, suppression for the enemies is a must!
I have never seen a crackhead miss a single shot in this game, not sure what you're talking about on that one lmao. Every enemy seems like a hardened assassin that refuses to surrender even when faced with overwhelming force
Fun fact, stealth would be broken regardless of using suppressors cause apparently. The AI have a larger range of being aggroed when you arrest someone then it is to fire an un supressed firearm
SWAT isn't even about stealth, they're literally just a more heavily armed police force. THEY NEED TO ALERT THE PEOPLE THEY'RE RAIDING
@@GameFuMaster yeah I don't think anyone would legitimately expect a "spec-ops" style experience with a bunch of commandos kitted out with SD guns.
Certain situations may start in a state of "stealth", where suspects aren't expecting anything. But the moment you make entry, you stir up the hornets' nest. Your point of entry will influence suspects' reaction. I'd find a mechanic like this much more interesting. Anything but damn NPCs locking into you through walls and floors at that point...
@@imChabsthat would be interesting, if you could infil through multiple check points with multiple teams and work inwards from different angles.
But you're stuck with only a group of 5 and you all spawn in one location.
Honestly, you're better off just playing a game like Doorkickers for a better tactical experience
They really need to start optimizing their game if they intend on keeping their player base. It's unreal how inconsistent and choppy the game is on systems with better than recommended requirements.
Unreal, heh
I had a terrible experience on ready or not: lots of bugs such as NPCs being able to open doors across the room and throw grenades through doors or even enemies not responding to damage, with there being a couple of animations (like the one where they get out of a cover while crouched) where the hotboxes are messed up, and as a cherry on top a complete save data reset of all my save files because the game doesn’t ask you which save file you want to use (I’ve seen this is a pretty common problem, I tried addressing it to the game support through email a week ago and they have yet to respond to me)
Pretty sure VOID is on vacation
@@NeoCreo1 how are you gonna take a break from game support right after you release an update that changes the game completely, and for some aspects not even for good?
SWAT4 is almost 20 years old at this point 🤯🤯🤯
Currently I find the game unplayable. The suspect ai is very very bad. In the video you mention that sometimes the ai will be hardened criminals that are professional killers and lazer you down, or a crackhead skipping across the room and miss every shot. Well currently in the room the crackhead skipping across the room can constantly done you and performs like a navy seal. If the ai see any crack of your body it’s instantly as if they just saw your entire body up close. On the larger maps the ai aren’t even rendered past like 50 feet so there are times where your being shot at, by someone in the open, their just not being new rendered. It’s interesting that the “mainstream” and “TH-camr” take and narrative is that its a massive upgrade from swat4 and a huge success. But as soon as you join a discord or scroll to the comment section you realized that community doesn’t agree with the mainstream take. People say it’s surpassed swat 4. This game has singlehanded gotten me to uninstall it and to buy and install swat 4. Right now I only play swat 4 and have been enjoying it much more than ready or not. RON does specific mechanics better, but it’s not a compete package at all. In overall feel swat 4 feels better. Also something I’ve realized from swat4 is that RON perps NEVER surrender unless they have been flahsbanged or gassed or something of that sort. They will ALWAYS choose to shoot when you tell them to put their hands up if they aren’t stunned. In swat 4 I’ve found that if an enemy has their back turned and I sneak up behind them I can actually get them to comply. It feels like your actually supposed to go in and arrest these people. Ready or not currently feels like its designed to be a SWAT shoot ‘em up.
@@2kliksphilip Sorry, but that is incorrect. If you had actually played SWAT 4 you would know that the AI in that game is leagues better than RON. They actually respond to things and are different depending on the situation. AI that wallhacks and has inhuman response time and accuracy is not good AI. The game is horribly optimized considering the fact I have a high end set considerably higher than the recommended specs and it still runs terribly. You sound like you got paid off for this review. This game was better 2 years ago than now.
I think you should do more 'traditional reviews' like this, Phil. You're really good at it, and it feels weird to notice this after being a subscriber for god-knows-how-long.
Yeah I really hope he makes more reviews like this
fr, he always has interesting stuff to say
If they ever fix the AI it's gonna be great. Besides the suspect AI, I would also add that the AI of your mates is broken too. They are killing machines that dont care about being police officers first and foremost, subsequently the swat AI breaks the current mods that deal with the suspect AI because the game becomes too easy. It's probably a lot more fun to play this game in coop which is why most youtubers are lauding this game, but the state of AI at launch is miserable and the recent reviews on steam are reflecting that.
Ready or Not does not, in any way shape or form, render SWAT 4 obsolete, what. There's even a solid argument to made that SWAT 4 is actually the better game if we're to compare 1.0 versions.
I think the biggest difference for me is in the love put in to the little details in SWAT 4. Every cereal box, newspaper, poster, etc had legible details and was funny, and I’m glad that Ready or Not pays attention to similarly little details, but it’s just not on the same level of passion. Even the brief comments your squad would make in Swat made them all super likeable and funny, and for me Ready or Not feels more lifeless because of it
check your replay folder, this thing just saves replays of every mission you went on without telling you, which can be gigabytes of storage gone, no you can't disable it from what i can tell.
in fact i might suspect thats the reason why it runs so poorly on most computers.
I grew up with SWAT 4, finding the demo on a magazine demo disc. It was the first shooter i played, and i played the crap out of the one auto garage level.
It brought me to Arma and from there on my lifes direction was decided.
I sometimes play RoN, but i also sometimes play swat still, i even still run a server for SEF Mod. But RoN hasn't captured me quite yet. Its good, but im not getting that feeling.
It feels like RoN doesn't let me be as tactical as SWAT. RoN always pushes me forwards.
The last time i played RoN we were a 4 man team. Everything went smoothly, until one room at the end. We went in, two guys killed instantly. Me and last guy pulled back. Prepared grenades, opened door... My friend is instantly dead. I throw smoke and flash everything i have in that room. Walk in, instant dead. Like wha? Havent played for a month since then.
But it really didn't live up to the promise, from the early versions to now there is a ridiculous amount of features missing. I'd argue playing Swat 4 is still a deeper experience. This isn't what we were promised it's just another bum rush shooting spree game.
i think the real main thing to take away is that ready or not perfectly encapsulates the universe and the maps are gritty and starts out superficial and as you get deeper and deeper it gets more and more sinister because most of the maps aren't what they appear to be because some underground shit is going on like giving true detective season 1 vibes and silence of the lambs in some cases its actually scary to play alone sometimes lmfao the environmental storytelling is PHENOMENAL
Yeahhhh the enemy AI is so disappointing, to the point where it actively turns people away from the game. I had a group of friends try the game with me after a lot of convincing. A lot of frustration from seemingly helpless scenarios where one doesn't even have the time nor sightlines to react.
For example, we had just worked our way from the top all the way down to the basement of "Lethal Obsession".
We mirrored the door, saw no enemies, flashed into the room before entering.
As we entered, our pointman died instantly from being shot at THROUGH THE WALL of the innermost room. Returning fire was pretty helpless, and as the last man approached the door to the room where the suspect was held up, he died to gunshots THROUGH the door.
It's so close to being a super-immersive, breathtaking game, but when the AI gas-station robber pulls a gun on you despite being out-gunned five to one, the immersion is just thrown off. The same goes for the moments where you just insta-die to some crackhead AI with lazerbeam accuracy, and with some random guard spotting you through the non-transparent blinds of the big windows on "valley of dolls".
Really hope the devs polish these things out, although the rushed release might indicate otherwise.
lmao the end "Oh good shot! You saved the hosta-- nevermind."
I want NPCs to be able to hide in creative ways. In wardrobes, under beds, behind curtains, wedging themselves above a door in a thin hallway, etc.
i love that you used ost pieces from swat 4 :)
Love that game
@@2kliksphilipsome of the ambient music from the game could work too
@@2kliksphilip you could've used the music from pre-1.0
Been a huge swat 4 fan since it came out, my expectations are so high for this I’m waiting for it to be worked on for years to come and then to play it
Don't touch it yet then, unless you don't mind "play-testing" 😅
I really hope they straighten it out, but I don't know.... I don't really believe in magic, so unless they get competent people for what the game lacks, it'll be a dud.
great video! I didn't know what this video is about before clicking on it, but I enjoyed the explanations of the game and especially your personal story with it
I'm honestly surprised you didn't mention the fact that the enemy AI morale system is completely broken and incorrectly set up. Their morale goes up every time you do something that should actually decrease it because of an incorrect value setting.
Also, the terrible performance of the game. Or the fact that all AI is ex-spec ops.
Well, I'm sure Phil's 4090 gave him zero issues...
i really wish the ai had a mechanic like in swat where catching them offgaurd with complience orders makes them actually contemplate life and stand down
7:30 my god yes, if I want to restart I do not want to spend over 10s in a waiting screen. Just load the level back at maximum speed and drop me in at the start asap.
If I want to start a mission I don't want to wait 5s to be let into the 10s waiting screen
Even in multiplayer the 10s makes no sense because it's not there to stop accidental confirmations like the 5s level start timer.
First time I played this game it was with an AI mod cause my friend (who already played a lot of the game) recommended it. Never had any issues with the AI feeling unfair or too quick. Never felt I got spotted or wallbanged unfairly and so on. Can't remember if it was Jug's gameplay review 5.0 or Better Enemy Behavior (on Nexus mods). I think we tried both.
Either way, that's my suggestion to people complaining about the AI in this game. Always remember to check out mods if they're available for a game, there is 0 reason to not customize games to your liking if an option for it exists.
Very balanced review and I agree with most points. Finally played 1.0. The updated police station is nice. It's nice to see it open up as you progress, suspects you encountered in previous missions in the holding cell, news talking about the situations you were involved in etc. It feels alive and actually like a police station, the old design was just odd in my opinion. I also like squadmates bantering and commenting on the situation, something I missed from SWAT 4. The improved SWAT AI is also nice but they still suffer from some issues, especially threat detection or just standing there being shot at.
The suspect AI is still wack though. Some behaviour I recognise all the way back from the Dec 2021 build. And it is frustrating how some suspects and missions feel easier but still deadly, while others just beam you with xray vision or see you through small gaps, while the maps have poor visibility. The map with conspiracy theorist (Sullivans slope) I remember being not too bad pre 1.0. Took quite a few attempts on 1.0 as well as the poor optimisation causing lag spikes on that map. Greased palms (The postal map) is a great example. The concept is neat, but the large conveyer belt area just doesn't feel like RoN with its methodical room clearing, not to mention the poor visiblity you have as a human player that suspect AI have no issue with. Not to mention how hyper aggressive some suspects are with a lack of self preservation, especially missions with specific hostile suspects to arrest as objectives. While pepperballs is the META in SWAT 4 I liked using lethal weapons as I found the split second decision making more fun. I don't find the pepper balls that useful in ready or not. It seems rather ineffective even if they don't have gasmasks. I haven't tried commander mode as I dislike permadeath and ironman modes.
I like the missions connecting somewhat as a story too or just the general feel. The (SPOILER) mission in the beach house made me feel sad, the music is usually bombastic too, but is somber in that map. What they're doing is wrong, but they need the money for something good. Felt bad breaching the room with a sickly elderly woman and arresting her, but it needs to be done. And ended up shooting her sons cause they gave me no choice shooting at me and my squad.
The gore system is nice, but I don't really use shotguns, and I wish rifle rounds still left more of an impact on the bodies. I'm surprised you didn't mention mods and custom maps. I don't think Ready or Not has made SWAT 4 obsolete. I still go back and play SWAT 4 now and then, especially with custom maps. The developers mentioned an SDK and embracing modding but that was from a promotional video years ago. But still, they haven't really supported us with modding. All the knowledge and resources on custom mapping was made by the community ripping the game's files. Last I checked we still couldn't get cover objects working and adding more than 10 suspects into a map is broken at the moment. Especially when VOID interactive hosted an official mapping contest, but didn't really give any support. Best we got is the sound guy at VOID hanging out in the mapping discord for audio related issues. I do agree with you that the gunplay is nice though. It almost feels like a waste that it isn't used purely as a shooter (the AI is so hyper aggressive you basically get into firefights anyways). It kinda makes me want to create a map designed purely for combat and shootouts even though it goes against the game. I'm guessing they must have moved some files around since the destructible objects my maps referenced from the game files are missing in 1.0.
I agree some maps are huge too. I don't know if its normal in America but I felt that the gas station was huge. I recall a lot of the community asking for smaller maps, and in the comments for some of my maps people liked the small-ish size and grounded feeling like being an ordinary flat.
Sorry for the long comment but I do really like this game and want to see it succeed. But it still has some issues and I have some frustrations with it.
Swat 4 is sooo good! "Element, open and clear. Sting it."
1:21 shoots himself in the head, actually nevermind
shout out to all my boys who have the operator short-shorts and the tropical shirt
Back at it again with a banger of a video :) To me you’re “a trusty steed” or “The ol reliable car”.
There might be a more flashy or sportier alternative, they lack that familiarity, that trust, that reassuring feeling knowing she’ll always start. Whenever I see your sometimes almost satirical thumbnails pop up my mind eases up a bit knowing there’s a window to zone out a bit, sit back and just listen how the smart sounding British fella explains everything in an entertaining way. IMO you’ve only grown as a creator in seemingly every way so it felt like a surprise you’ve received criticism on some of your content more recently. People just forget to write down the positives more often so this time i didn’t forget!
Muchlove-TheNetherlands
As a fan of SWAT 4, I'm in love with the 1.0 update after the long wait, but I'm not blind to the small bugs, the John Wick AI and the emotional fragile officers. At the same time, I'm really thankful for what they made: this is, by far, the best we ever got for a SWAT game (or SWAT style game) in a LONG time, just look at the joke that series like Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon became. Story mode is pretty fun, a lot of variety in missions and locations, weapons, unlockable clothes, glasses, gloves, etc.
The SWAT AI became pretty good, but the enemy AI still absurd most of the time, thankfully there are quite a bunch of mods out there that tweak some values to make it more fair or realistic; the same goes for the officer's emotions.
That being said, this game is a diamond! Sure, a kinda rough diamond that needs a bit more polish here and there, specially enemy AI, but we finally have this amazing game.
This game needs a lot of work, it really shouldn't have been declared "1.0" yet. It feels like a beta. But from the very first mission I played I had a ton of fun. It's brutally realistic with its difficulty and mechanics.
Love this style of content from you, Philip.
Brb, convincing my old SWAT 4 group to move onto this game.
for me and my friends this game is less fun than swat 4,
on ready or not the most effective and consistent way to do every mission is to shoot everyone and dont ask dont think just react,
on swat 4 bang and following a consistent method with your friends and you will finish the game with the beanbag shotgun and a smile,
a SWAT officer job is to not kill if necessary, is your job to unfuck the situation and dont put blood on the floor
non-lethal in ready or not is like bringing a knife to an armed fight, its not fun and you don't have effective and consistent methods to do your job
so me and my friend just kill everyone, finished the campain and uninstalled the game,
em? they still spin around and headshot you instantly (most of them at least)
I agree so much on the ‘fast/slow’ system from SWAT3 needing to make a comeback! In addition, I'd love to see a 'talk first/shoot first' toggle. AI officers with normal guns will happily take out a guy I was successfully pepper balling or watch their buddies get mowed down trying to beanbag someone in full combat armor without considering switching weapons
Will never be as good as swat 4
That club isnt from john wick, its a Pulse Night Club shooting reference.. it was like a whole thing bro how are you not aware??
I actually liked your review. When you said 'No matter what score I get, I just want to end the level'. Its exactly what I did back in playing Hitman series. 'However I wanna end' is a good freedom for gamers
I don't have a computer but you make this game seem like a compelling reason to get one. Good avideo
American law enforcement simulator
I'v never played SWAT so for me the AI in this game is insane.
I really love this game first time i played it i played 8 hours straight with a friend. I just hope they add more missions in the future.
What I would really like is this exact game but with missions that have a random layout and random objectives every time you try it.
@peppi69 There's a ton of good custom maps you can download through mode so that might scratch that itch
In SWAT 4, If you shot a suspect in the leg (mainly in the earlier missions) they will surrender. In RON you can riddle them with bullets in the chest and arms and legs and they will not surrender and continue moving as normal.
Yeah the AI is insane.
The AI in SWAT 4 is nowhere near as broken as RON. Because SWAT 4 was designed around you wanting to ARREST the suspects
RON was designed for straight up killing the suspects while penalizing your score for doing so
Philip's channel are some of the few where I wish there's an app that gives an auto-like ❤
This ready or not video is what I hoped it would be but feared it would not
phillip i love ya, but RON is missing critical components to make it a serious contender to “replace” 4.
it’s gorgeous, but that’s it. as a sim it’s goofy.
I have a shit tone of fun trying to reach S+ with my brother and friends. Its a real challenge too run Non-Lethal because one mistake with a Bean Bag Gun or long rang tear gas and next thing you know you've accidentally killed a bad guy with it and need to restart the whole mission too keep everyone alive and mostly un-injured. It a heck of a lot of fun!
Off topic but just wanted to say that Kliksphilp is one of them youtubers where I just watch all their videos no matter what they put out and have for years. Just good style to me and consistent
Important to note that the latest hotfix has removed the ability to order your AI team to open doors but not enter the room, thereby breaking the tutorial.
The tutorial never requires you to do that, so it works just fine (just played it myself). You're only ever asked to have them open and clear, not open the door without clearing.
If you tell them to open the door and clear with your lead they will open the door and not enter until you do
I agree with your request for the ability to bring AIs and actual people into a mission. I’ve found the stuff with managing your AI teammates in the singleplayer to be fun when doing easier levels, less so on harder levels. The criminals seem much less likely to surrender than in Swat 4, and of course they can be very good at shooting. The idea of keeping your guys in good health just goes out the window when you’re attempting one of the more meat grinder-y levels over and over again. Also I find having to check every single door for grenade traps with the optiwand super tedious. Still fun, and even though I’m a bit of a casual, it’s neat how the guns don’t have much that distinguishes them other than caliber, because I can just use what I think looks cool.
me and my friends are saving up for this game :) thanks for the vid
At this point, I'm waiting for a massive overhaul to suspect/ civilian AI for the game as they make it feel heavily immersion breaking. Suspects don't really feel like they are people but rather talkative terminators.
I'll consider it fully cooked once they integrate the other AI into the world so as to feel as though they belong, but what they've accomplished so far is great. My hat goes off to void.
philip making a ron vid makes me so happy
This feels odd, it's like a review of a RoN from an alternate universe where it's actually good.
Dubbing RoN "SWAT 4's spiritual successor" is a weird one, given RoN lacks most, if not all of what made SWAT 4 the legend that it is. The atmosphere, the level design, the storytelling, the soundtrack... RoN doesn't even come close to it. And for a 1.0, I find it severely lacking. In fact, I am convinced they only did this to drive sales for what remained of 2023.
Does it mean it's a bad game? No. While flawed in several crucial aspects (A.I being one), it's alright. But it's absolutely barren compared to SWAT 4.
I do think SWAT 4 is the better overall package (I absolutely love its level design and suspect AI, and it still gives you better control over your squad since you can issue them commands directly through their cameras; it also has far more replay value with the mission editor and such). However, I also think Ready or Not beats it soundly in a few categories. Obviously it looks better, but it also gives you much more control over your own movements (especially with the free-lean system), has considerably better gunplay (both the feel and sound of weapons), and has more intelligent friendly AI (in SWAT 4 they don't even pie rooms or clear properly; they just waltz right in).
@@Chubzdoomer absolutely agree. That's what bothers me so. Technically, RoN is leagues ahead, it's everything I'd imagine a contemporary SWAT would look like. But they dropped the ball on everything else.
It really wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't falsely call itself "1.0".
@@imChabs This really is on point. It's not a bad game, I had more fun with it that I have with many, many other games in the past few years, but there really is no comparison to SWAT 4. And frankly, the far better gunplay and graphics, while great, feel like they're more to do with being a product of its time (plenty of tacti-cool shooters with similar mechanics out now) and simply general technological development (SWAT 4 is old enough to vote, for Pete's sake). What made SWAT 4 great was that it beamed with the care that was clearly put into it. It was polished in almost every way. Even in simple things like the writing of pre-mission briefings it was superior. SWAT 4 was an experience. RoN is just decent amounts of fun.
Philip talking about my 2023 game of the year? Hell yeah!
Also, pretty sure you can't shoot children in the game. In my experience at least, both Crystal Leighton at the gas station and the child in the crack den are unkillable.
Are you in EU or something?
1:28 Man did the smoothest transition possible.
Thanks Philip I love information
2 steps forward 1 step back is what the wait is all about:
- campaign, customisation, weapons, gear, swat morale & perks are best thing I ever seen compare to SWAT4
- AI suspect are only agreesive + sometimes very bot-like aim, discourage the use of swat teammate due to arbitrary morale impact, only encourages stun and clear instead having fun by move and clear in SWAT4
- UI bugs still hasn't fix
- Horrible/blurry graphics when looking at distance object (no, AA and motion blur is off), optiwand picture-to-picture is still horrible to look at.
Great game with friends, only problem we have is the frames dropping to
I would love to play this with friends someday!
I need friends to play are you on steam
For the time being, suspect AIs are more like aimbots instead of being clever.
Question, have you played The Talos Principle 2/EA Sports WRC (which is made by Codemasters)?
The only feature I would truly want is a co-op multi squad mechanic where everyone on your team gets 2 bots to control or if playing with ony one person, 4 bots.
That would make playing the larger maps so much more fun.
You forgot to mention that mods are available in this game, so you can download endless custom maps made by the community (including maps from SWAT 4)! :)
oh boy! A CSI reference!
They went so hard on some of these missions, Valley of Dolls springs to mind, definitely not for the faint hearted
I was wondering what your thoughts were on the AI generated artwork in this game, particularly on the streamer level with the anime stuff on the walls, and how the subtitles seem to be auto-generated, but you never brought it up!
Is there AI art? Valve effectively banned it by saying you can't include it unless you own all the resources the module was trained on (which nobody does, so it's an effective ban).
I liked that art, made me feel like we're living in the future (we are)
@@ZekeFreek in the new level there's some AI anime art posters in the streamers room
"George M., go!"
The artwork in the streamer level I totally understand. No artist would want to be associated with that character. However, what I DO have a huge problem with is the art for the preview of the hospital. I uninstalled the game quite early on due to the broken AI and generally unfinished state of the game, so I'm unsure how prevalent shoddy AI generation is.
really surprised when the classic swat games except swat 4 came to steam, but at least we have this and its actually quality
swat 4 is on gog though at least
I'm currently playing this game with my fiance and we are having a great time. Not sure if the AI has improved since 3 months ago when all these comments were made - they're definitely fast, maybe too fast, but I haven't been wallbanged and they haven't really managed to kill me more than a handful of times across the first 5 maps. What I'm really enjoying is the brutal envirionmental storytelling, it's gritty to the absolute max. And the sound is pretty damn incredible too. I'm finding myself wanting to pace our playthrough, there's only 18 maps and if we beat it too quickly I'll be sad as it's really a very special feeling game, at least to me.
There's plenty of replayability ;) 'fancy the post office tonight? Warm up on the gas station'
"I feared for my life"
Am I wrong or the background music in the video is from SWAT4?
I don't think you are
Can't wait for the kliksphilip debrief on this A/B commentary testing
I think the AI is decent, however there was a moment where I set up my teammates on one door of a room with two suspects, I went to the flank door and I used the camera to look under. I saw BOTH suspects looking at the door the opposite direction from me (where my teammates were stacked up), I cracked the door quietly (they were pretty far away from the door), and as soon as i peeked through theyre both aiming for my head and immediately kill me. The AI is a little TOO smart. Not sure if thats what you meant by wanting stealth or not but I thought it would work and it got me killed lol.
i love the absolute psychopathy in many of those clips on the background
Ready or Not is definitely amazing, and has been amazing for a while even before this recent full release. Philip based on your experience with SWAT 4 and your nostalgia for now that it's going to be almost extinct, I just know you'd wanna see the video by Face Full of Eyes called "Aesthetics of SWAT 4". It's long but genius and definitely something you'd enjoy. SWAT 4 is incredible and I'm gonna miss it...
Philip how is your game looking way clear, I tried every settings and It looks blurry unless I turn off AA completly :(
S+ rank? That sounds like bullshit school yard urban legends as the highest rank is S
I'm honestly starting to believe he's just shilling for the game...
Philip never fails to give us sleep paralysis demons
good to see my countrys biggest budget game to date do well
I agree with almost everything. The game is meant to be realistic, the reason why when you shoot and everyone is on high alert, is because the sound of a suppressor is still loud, let alone without it, and the enemies can communicate via cellphone or radio(theoretically).
I was following it a couple years ago, when basically all hope about it was lost, people were calling it a scam due to no communication and them for some reason deciding to focus on "pvp" shortly before alpha. I am so glad the game actually got released and came out fun.
Reddit is still calling this game a scam lol, so really, things still haven't changed much since the early days if you ask me.
I miss swat 4 days. good video
It's definitely not marking SWAT 4 as redundant, nor is it replacing it.
And now you can play it in VR with 6dof thanks to UEVR
I've been playing this one for quite a while, both solo and coop, and the AI is hit or miss, with some levels being nearly impossible (Farm, I'm looking at you). There are mods that reduce the reaction times (I think the one I'm using is "Cracked but Sweet") and that levels it out a lot more. You will die still, but at least it's not aimbot levels of unfairness, and bad planning will still get you killed.
Other than that, I quite agree with your observations. I wish I could just restart from the mission failed screen; it takes too long to restart, especially with some of the more difficult levels.
Still, great game, and I wish they keep on working on it.
My biggest disappointment is how one dimensional and OP the enemy AI is. Mods can help with the OP part but I feel that for a game like this in *current year* the AI needs to be more interesting.
And by the way Philip, the AI IS CHEATING. There is a replay feature and you can easily see how the enemies have inhumane reactions and tracks players through walls across the map sometimes.
this comment wont mean anything but i really wish there was some kind of progression in the game. i get that it doesnt make sense for a cop to have to work his way up to get better gear, but after i've done all the mission i dont see a lot of replayability. Also i wish they didn't have 7 different AR-15 variations and actually had more diverse weapons. like why the hell would you make 3 different MP5's when all the differences between them should just be attachments slots you can change.
Even if its a shooting game the point is not shoot but to use strategy with minimum casualties and les effort to accomplish the mission