Bot Skill

[Karma_geddon]

Ok, now I can talk from personal experience:


back in the days when I had no wideband Internet (see: before the last July) I was playing UT 2004 just against bots on local. Mainly ONS, and some DM from time to time just to not become too rusty. I did it basically since the game came out, with some interruptions from time to time.
This is just to say that I really played *a lot* against bots on ONS (and, btw, this may be one of the reasons because I'm not SO good at online ONS "^^).

In the last years, I kept the difficulty level always on Godlike.

And, on DM, I was losing everytime.

But on ONS... Even with bots on Godlike, I was easily, always, the best score player, with +50/+100 points over the 2nd placed.

I suppose that this happens because the AI is VERY optimized for DMing, but not SO optimized for a more team-based, problem-solving oriented kind of play. For example, it seems that they don't know how to coordinate to start running to a shielded node while others are building another node required to attack it.
Also, vehicle fights add many variables. For example, an experienced human players is WAY better then a Godlike bot at driving raptors or mantas: you always lock them with Avrils, and you can quite easily shot them down with the Goliath, because they don't stay in motion a lot when shooting.

I could go one with a lot of examples.

In the last couple of years, it was kinda frustrating for me to play against (and, most of all WITH) these dumb bots, so I started deliberately redesigning the node paths of the maps to create chokepoints, and activating the friendly fire, to make it more challenging (yeah, I know that chokepoints are *the bad* on online multiplayer ONS, because it's stalling, frustrating and so on. But it was different, at least for me, when I had to just play against bot: things were so easy, that "frustrating" became "challenging").

So, I can confirm: bots, on ONS, even in Godlike, are dumb team mates, and they WILL have lame scores on every ONS match where there are at least moderately experienced players.

The problem, is that they are still damn too good at fighting on foot, and that they actually cheat with some vehicles*, so, as stated previously by the server staff, deploying bots too skilled would scare and frustrate the newbies (which is bad for many reasons).

At this point I must say that I never learned how to use orders, so the bots were just going on their own. They could be decent defenders, I suppose.

But (even if now I'm just supposing), I think that Godlike bots might frustrate even many experienced players on the NV maps, or in the vehicle maps where you often have to DM with the defenders to get the node, because they are just too good at dodging and shooting down people (for the standards of non-pro gamers, of course).


*(for example, when they are on a Cicada, if you shoot them an Avril, they change to the rear turret in a fraction of second - that is doable for a human -, AND they shoot MULTIPLE AUTOFIRE DECOY ROCKETS to block EVERY Avril coming to them, that, if you ever tried, you may know that is beyond the design limits of that weapon)

[[P]etya]

Incorrect. AI can't play ONS properly even on Godlike. They rely on the same tactics as the less difficult AIs.

I was playing ONS offline too and I played on mostly Godlike. To tell the truth while they are really good in DM and TDM, they don't do well in ONS.

[Karma_geddon]

Incorrect. AI can't play ONS properly even on Godlike. They rely on the same tactics as the less difficult AIs.

I was playing ONS offline too and I played on mostly Godlike. To tell the truth while they are really good in DM and TDM, they don't do well in ONS.

That's what I was saying all over my last post... Or not?

[[P]etya]

I meant it for Zoner

[Pegasus]

Well, Petya seems to've chosen to start from a POV focused very narrowly on just one point of yours, thus framing his opinion as dissenting, but, lol, yeah, essentially I think you're both in agreement, Karma. Edit: oh, okay, it was clarified, n/m then.

Point is, there are some disciplines that bots can handle well in ONS (targeting, dueling on foot), but in terms of the bigger picture, their overall worth in an ONS match can be the sum of so many different content creators' prior diligence (the mapper and all custom gear creators) that there's little guarantees of quality to be had, or expected. Thus, if you find yourself in a small-crowd ONS match where the human players aren't well balanced between teams (as with Zoner's recent 3vs1 situation), expecting the bots to make up for that discrepancy and beating the dead horse of bot skill server setting when that didn't happen is simply not understanding the underlying factors at play. For most people this whole business boils down to a very simple conclusion: when bots start entering the game, start adjusting your quality expectations downward.

Also,

[...]I never learned how to use orders, so the bots were just going on their own. They could be decent defenders, I suppose.[...]

You'll need to bring up the speech menu (bound by default to 'V') and get into the Orders subcategory by pressing 3. Then, you just press the key that corresponds to the type of command you want to issue (defend, hold, attack, cover me or search & destroy) and select the recipient bot.

PS: Thanks to Wormbo for his previous elaborations on bot behaviour according to skill setting.

[Zon3r]

Ok, i know this has been discussed before, but the bot skill is awful, is it on experienced? i know Boss, you said this is a newbie friendly server, but this game is 10 years old, there shouldn't be too many newbies around. Asking for godlike is too much i guess(if the paths are set correctly, the bots are very useful on this difficulty), but setting it on masterful is ok i think. If i get stuck with bots as teammates, they are useless. i know, at evenings the server is usually full, but during the day, it isn't. So what you think guys? Any opinions?

So yeah, it's been 3 years, so i'll bring this up again. wormbo made an awesome mutator Smarter bots, this would be an awesome addon to the server, either way, higher bot skill is required, during the day there are 3-4 players on the server, the team that has more bots is losing. i believe that's the reason alot of players are not joining during the day, Do something

[GLoups!]

So yeah, it's been 3 years, so i'll bring this up again. wormbo made an awesome mutator Smarter bots, this would be an awesome addon to the server, either way, higher bot skill is required, during the day there are 3-4 players on the server, the team that has more bots is losing. i believe that's the reason alot of players are not joining during the day, Do something

I sometimes use to play offline with 'link me damnit' and 'smarters bots' and the 4th level of bot's skill, i think it's 'skilled', it seems to be really more realistic that way.

[Miauz55555]

[...] wormbo made an awesome mutator Smarter bots, this would be an awesome addon to the server, [...]

It is on the server: http://ceonss.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=783#p11581

Is that 'link me damnit' working online?
When you command a bot to "cover me" and you have the link gun the chances are high that it will link you while building a node.

[GLoups!]

Not sure why, but it seem that even with smarter bots, bots are pretty useless under the 4th level of skill (not sure for 3th), lots of times they are waiting doing nothing near nodes with no 'idea' to even start construction.

Edit: It can be the pathing (i don't know), if my memory is correct here is the place where it happened :

- There's no 'white line' ,go, return (two ways) to that node.

Medieval_path.jpg (204.85 KiB) Viewed 2021 times

[Zon3r]

[...] wormbo made an awesome mutator Smarter bots, this would be an awesome addon to the server, [...]

It is on the server: http://ceonss.net/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=783#p11581

Oh, i wasn't active around that time, didn't see it, but the skill is set to adept