Re: Bot Skill
Posted: Wed 15. Jan 2014, 16:04
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)
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)
