Bot Improvements
CrazyEddie
Join Date: 2013-01-08 Member: 178196Members
Join Date: 2013-01-08 Member: 178196Members
Thanks again for adding bots. I think it will help with the long-term success of NS2 by giving new players a chance to try out commanding in a low-stress learning environment.
Obviously, there's a lot more work to do to make them smarter. My recommendation for the next feature to add to their tiny little robobrains is being more aggressive about killing cysts. Right now it's very hard as a commander to get new RTs up in anyplace that already has a harvester or infestation, because your marines just plain won't do anything to clear out the area. So you're basically stuck on whatever RTs you happen to get to first, unless you want to spend a couple minutes babysitting your squad over a single spot in hopes that they finally agree with your instructions to shoot the cysts. In the meantime, the harvester grows back, but you can't kill it because the marines have wandered away. Arg.
This is completely unlike an actual game, where you have to beg marines NOT to kill cysts, and where once a room is free of lifeforms then the harvester will be down and the floor swept clean of infestation before you can say blueberry pie. Since the purpose of the bots is to train new commanders, giving the bots some "clear out the room" logic would be good.
Obviously, there's a lot more work to do to make them smarter. My recommendation for the next feature to add to their tiny little robobrains is being more aggressive about killing cysts. Right now it's very hard as a commander to get new RTs up in anyplace that already has a harvester or infestation, because your marines just plain won't do anything to clear out the area. So you're basically stuck on whatever RTs you happen to get to first, unless you want to spend a couple minutes babysitting your squad over a single spot in hopes that they finally agree with your instructions to shoot the cysts. In the meantime, the harvester grows back, but you can't kill it because the marines have wandered away. Arg.
This is completely unlike an actual game, where you have to beg marines NOT to kill cysts, and where once a room is free of lifeforms then the harvester will be down and the floor swept clean of infestation before you can say blueberry pie. Since the purpose of the bots is to train new commanders, giving the bots some "clear out the room" logic would be good.
Comments
"Clear room" "defend room" "attack room" etc etc.
It won't bring in new players to try out the game and it won't retain new players either. Those should be the 2 biggest goals UWE should be working towards.
Very few people actually use bots. Bots in other FPS games mostly just get used to make a server "appear" full when there aren't enough players to fill the server. I stay away from those servers with a 10 foot pole.
Very few people actually load up their own server to practice playing a game with bots on any FPS game.
I know a number of people who play many FPS exclusively offline with bots (there are a few benefits, mainly you can often set bot difficulty to suit you, and both teams will be far more balanced than many online matches will ever be).
That said, while I would love to see continued development on bots, I would also agree that bots won't add much value unless they're really good.
L4D1/2 did bots best imo in which they are simply placeholders till an actually player joins. My view on how they would work best in NS2 is:
In theory that's how they work. In reality, most people don't really enjoy playing with bots and would rather be playing against other players.
If I see a server with bots, it's an immediate disconnect for me and I'll never play on that server again.
If it comes down to that choice, then I play a different game or find a different server (if any) that actually has players instead of bots.
The goal right now is to help new players learn the game, especially commanding. We don't intend for them to be used in pub games with other live players. We also don't intend them to be useful to competitive practice.