Where the hell are multiplayer/offline bots at? - Games

[QUOTE=catbarf;36060725]Bot support is no longer seen as necessary, as we live in an era where fast Internet connections are ubiquitous, and the number of people who play multiplayer games offline is minimal. More importantly, bot support takes time and effort to program, especially in more complex games. Getting bots to play Counter-Strike, where they just need to shoot and accomplish objectives, is one thing, but making them effective at, say, TF2, with its myriad items and very involved class-counter strategy, is very different. I don't mean to sound flippant, but why don't you just play online?[/QUOTE] hahaha you couldn't be more wrong.

And what's even worse is that i can't really find any user made Bot/Multiplayer AI for any game except for Killing floor I at least thought that others would want bots in a game and make them their selves And i should probably add Killing floor to the list

[QUOTE=Creeper;36075370] Speaking of TS2, you know what I miss? Games that have team deathmatch with more than two teams. Seriously, why did that disappear?[/QUOTE] Pirates Vikings and Knights comes to mind

Doom. Anyone ever used Skulltag and played on that? It defecated on any game that was in existence back then, and probably most today. I'm not trying to be one of those guys who complain about shit 24/7, but the gaming industry is very different now. Things change though.

I loved playing with bots in Skulltag when I was testing some new overpowered shitty weapon I made in DECORATE.

[QUOTE=HorizoN;36075598]hahaha you couldn't be more wrong.[/QUOTE] If a game came out with awesome bots and everything else was somewhere between mediocre and crap because the team devoted twenty people for three months to making excellent multiplayer AI, I can't imagine you or anyone else here would say 'doesn't matter that it sucks, it has bots'. Hell, most people here complain when a game comes out and it's buggy and unpolished- what do you think happens when a development team diverts time from bug testing and polish to implementing additional features? Do you have any idea how the industry works? Big features like AI in an otherwise multiplayer-only game don't get tossed in just because they can. Everything is on a schedule, and planned in advance as the best allocation of resources. [QUOTE=Frostypunch;36075765]And what's even worse is that i can't really find any user made Bot/Multiplayer AI for any game except for Killing floor I at least thought that others would want bots in a game and make them their selves And i should probably add Killing floor to the list[/QUOTE] If making a decent bot is [i]so easy[/i] that the only reason for game developers not to include them is 'laziness and planned obsolescence' as Saber15 put it, doesn't it seem really odd that user-made bots are nonexistent for most games? This is not directed at you in particular, but I find it rather amusing that people who likely have never even heard of A* want to tell programmers what is and is not easy to implement. If spending 'x' amount of resources on developing bots would result in a better game than spending that same 'x' amount on other needs, modern shooters would have bots. The unfortunate truth of it is that most games are already down to the wire when it comes to development time, and more critical features take higher priority.

[QUOTE=Frostypunch;36071108]I want a game like rainbow six, where you control a team and it's just as difficult but you can customize yourself and the other teammembers and give each one a different role/class but of course if it does exist whoever develops it won't have any AI Squadmates and it'd be multiplayer only.... cept if valve made a game like that[/QUOTE] Some missions in Arma 2 allow you to change teammates and your own loadouts before a mission. You can give each member specific orders too.

[QUOTE=-nesto-;36092735]Some missions in Arma 2 allow you to change teammates and your own loadouts before a mission. You can give each member specific orders too.[/QUOTE] I know that but arma 2 ain't really like Rainbow six, i mean yeah it's realistic and fun but arma 2 is more of a open world game than rainbow six not to mention that it also barely runs on my PC, gotta try and upgrade it

[QUOTE=Xyrec;36064513]DOTA 2 has bots. No need to do fancy console commands. [sp]they're also hard as shit[/sp][/QUOTE] Harder than real players. Honestly.

I'd honestly say the DotA2 bots are better at the game then 50% of the playerbase, and honestly it's hard to imagine whether it's the players or the bots. On the one hand DotA players are infamously pretty bad at the game, but on the other Valve has a legacy of pushing AI in games.

I'm not too fond of bots because they usually just aren't very good and it's more fun to play against human players. The only games I've played that had really good bots were the Unreal Tournaments. In most other games the bots are just a fucked up mixture of derptarded and aimbots.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;36097667]I'd honestly say the DotA2 bots are better at the game then 50% of the playerbase, and honestly it's hard to imagine whether it's the players or the bots. On the one hand DotA players are infamously pretty bad at the game, but on the other Valve has a legacy of pushing AI in games.[/QUOTE] Normal level bots play almost as good as my buddy, denying creeps a little too much. If they are unfair, they'll kill you before you're able to kill even 1 creep.

This thread is the opposite of what I thought it would be, Almost everyone who I know on real life who plays computer games hates bots and doesn't care at all that they aren't in games anymore because they will either play online or not play at all.

[QUOTE=catbarf;36060725]Bot support is no longer seen as necessary, as we live in an era where fast Internet connections are ubiquitous, and the number of people who play multiplayer games offline is minimal. More importantly, bot support takes time and effort to program, especially in more complex games. Getting bots to play Counter-Strike, where they just need to shoot and accomplish objectives, is one thing, but making them effective at, say, TF2, with its myriad items and very involved class-counter strategy, is very different. I don't mean to sound flippant, but why don't you just play online?[/QUOTE] As someone who lives in the midlands of Britain (that is to say, the worse internet in britain, and britain already has terrible internet by most standards), I often struggle to find games I can actually play. Some games, like Halo simply refuse me connection to their dedicated servers because of my connection, others I have a constant 300-900 ping on. Hell even whne I do find a server I can get onto with a low ping, my connection dies so often that it's maddening. You anecdotal evidence doesn't cover the entirety of the first world. It's a small mercy I enjoy single player games.

[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;36099389]As someone who lives in the midlands of Britain (that is to say, the worse internet in britain, and britain already has terrible internet by most standards), I often struggle to find games I can actually play. Some games, like Halo simply refuse me connection to their dedicated servers because of my connection, others I have a constant 300-900 ping on. Hell even whne I do find a server I can get onto with a low ping, my connection dies so often that it's maddening. You anecdotal evidence doesn't cover the entirety of the first world. It's a small mercy I enjoy single player games.[/QUOTE] I can appreciate your situation, but you're saying my evidence is anecdotal, when I'm talking about general population trends, the opposite of an anecdote? Whereas your evidence is... an anecdote? No, not everyone has blazing-fast Internet connections nowadays, but it's not like it was ten years ago when dial-up was the standard and most people had no Internet connection whatsoever. Of course there are still people who can make use of bot support, but it's not enough to justify diverting a lot of effort on a multi-million-dollar project towards making them.

I still play CS:CZ with the bots, since there are no good servers for it, and even if there were, the bots are always nice to chill around and play.

Time Splitters 2/Future Perfect are my favorite FPS games simply because of how fun the local multiplayer was.

I can see what everyone is saying, that developers don't add bots because it might be too much work and mostly everyone plays online now, and can work on the game to improve it by focusing on bugs and gameplay, or they want people to buy the sequel after they close a games online servers and for the people who want bots that say it would make a game more enjoyable and fun longer, talking bout their favorite games with Bots in my opinion it shouldn't have to die out, With what we can do with AI (like euphoria or making them highly smart) it makes a game so much fun i'm not saying "make it a feature in every game from now on!" but it was such a great feature back then

While it has no multiplayer, the Pawns in Dragon's Dogma are quite good. They can fill any roles you can't, pick up stuff for you, offer semi-helpful advice on quests, locations, and enemies. They can even help other players in their games, and when they come back, they share the knowledge the gained while away. Say they do a quest you haven't, when you do it, they'll remark on the solution. They're not half bad at fighting as well.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;36072886] Half Life 2 still has some of the best AI in games and it came out almost 8 years ago.[/QUOTE] no, F.E.A.R. had the best AI. the enemies actually got frightened and didn't just charge you with one move like the Half-Life AI.

With things like navigations meshes we should be seeing more bots but sadly thats not the case.Navigation meshes are better than the traditional waypoint method because the ai is not restricted to linear paths in order to navigate instead it can choose the shortest distance to travel.So far its used in CryEngine games and Overgrowth. [url]http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Automatic-navigation-meshes[/url] [url]http://www.ai-blog.net/archives/000152.html[/url]

[QUOTE=Tibbolax;36107325]With things like navigations meshes we should be seeing more bots but sadly thats not the case.Navigation meshes are better than the traditional waypoint method because the ai is not restricted to linear paths in order to navigate instead it can choose the shortest distance to travel.So far its used in CryEngine games and Overgrowth. [url]http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Automatic-navigation-meshes[/url] [url]http://www.ai-blog.net/archives/000152.html[/url][/QUOTE] That alone is not enough to make AI actually good, it just makes the paths they take smoother. Besides, it's not exactly a new technique, I know Source has had them for a long time.

The bots on Black Ops aren't smart but they're very fun to play with.

[QUOTE=thisispain;36107260]no, F.E.A.R. had the best AI. the enemies actually got frightened and didn't just charge you with one move like the Half-Life AI.[/QUOTE] I had SO MUCH FUN hearing them scream. Like, literaly, it was the best of the game at some point for me. Sending them flying while they went "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH....." that was perfect. Oh and yeah, the AI was pretty good.

[QUOTE=thisispain;36107260]no, F.E.A.R. had the best AI. the enemies actually got frightened and didn't just charge you with one move like the Half-Life AI.[/QUOTE] Holy crap i miss F.E.A.R. so badly [editline]28th May 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=dass;36111370]I had SO MUCH FUN hearing them scream. Like, literaly, it was the best of the game at some point for me. Sending them flying while they went "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH....." that was perfect. Oh and yeah, the AI was pretty good.[/QUOTE] Hilariously fun!

Where's skirmish mode? That's what I remember always had bots in it.

[QUOTE=Tibbolax;36107325]With things like navigations meshes we should be seeing more bots but sadly thats not the case.Navigation meshes are better than the traditional waypoint method because the ai is not restricted to linear paths in order to navigate instead it can choose the shortest distance to travel.So far its used in CryEngine games and Overgrowth. [URL]http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Automatic-navigation-meshes[/URL] [URL]http://www.ai-blog.net/archives/000152.html[/URL][/QUOTE] Pretty much no games in the last decade have used pre-made linear paths to travel, they have always chosen the shortest distance, so navigation meshes change nothing with that. Pathnodes are used in conjunction with an algorithm like A* to find the shortest route. There are a couple of different ways it can be implemented, but the simplest is for each node to correspond to an arbitrary point. Basically the actor looks at nearby nodes, then nodes near those nodes, and so on and so on until it reaches the destination. It then optimizes to determine which path is the shortest, and follows it. Navigation meshes work pretty much the same way. Instead of using discrete nodes for calculating paths, however, they use the boundaries of polygons to limit the actor movement rather than discrete nodes. So basically, instead of going from node to node to find the best path, the algorithm follows the walls from polygon to polygon to come up with a path, which results in much more natural movement. What the article trying to sell navigation mesh as the best thing ever glosses over, though, is that this isn't too dissimilar from the behavior used with pathnodes- actors never follow perfectly linear paths in any decently coded game, they generate their own paths using the collision map and proximity to the nodes. What the navigation mesh offers is basically a hybrid between pathnodes and collision mesh, more detailed than the former and better optimized than the latter. If anything, the navigation mesh implementation makes it harder to create bots for multiplayer, since the polygons used to limit movement have to be precisely built and placed in the terrain to fit the boundaries of the level, whereas pathnodes can be simply dropped into place and then connected to their neighbors. That's the main problem- creating pathnode maps or navigation meshes for a map takes a lot of time and effort, especially on complex three-dimensional maps like in most modern games. Even if you already have passable AI you can recycle from single-player, pathing has to be done for each map and takes a lot of fine-tuning to work properly. But yeah, navigation meshes are definitely the way forwards.

[QUOTE=KommradKommisar;36113396]Where's skirmish mode? That's what I remember always had bots in it.[/QUOTE] Hmmm i don't know, i thought i saw some games with it but i don't remember

It would be good to have official functional bots in Day of Defeat:Source.

The World Is Not Enough for N64 had bot support, and was pretty damn fun