What's this talk about hating bots?

By aLap on May 31, 2009 2:52:50 AM from

Demigod’s impact on Elemental

2. I’m killing off the bots concept. People hate them. I thought they were cool but they’re too much work only to be hated.

Note: persistent bots were planned to be included in some areas of the game, besides the normal AI that would always be necessary for a game like Elemental to work.

http://forums.elementalgame.com/352655

I hope that this is not a decision based on a really loud minority of hardcore gamers, since multiplayer games are often riddled with these kind of complaints.

As a casual Demigod player, I don't see what's the big deal and I don't think that hating bots in Demigod is a universal consensus. I can understand why the more hardcore players would not like them, but then Demigod is to cater them exclusively?

Here are some suggestions to improve Bots:

1. Issue commands

On right-click (or whatever makes more sense), a menu opens up with a list of requests that could be heard by allies (or just by using shortcut keys):

- Need help!

- Do not cross enemy territory

- Destroy enemy defenses

- Capture flags

2. Ability to call targets: hold down control and select targets, which would be any number of enemy buildings.

With that, real players could quickly coordinate attacks and BOTS could follow instructions so that they wouldn't suck so much, with minimum AI programming.

3. A better use for bots

a) In games where there's an uneven number of players in different teams. Team A has 4 players. Team B has 2 or 3. The team with less players could choose to summon a bot and be able to issue commands (see previous suggestions).

Master of bots versus Master of bots. Two adversaries mano a mano ordering their bots onto the fray. The last Master of bots standing is the winner (this one might need some work).

c) As indicated on reply #6, bots could be used by groups of friends as training grounds for different strategies, among other possibilities suggested by Sly_Squash.

Cheers.

+16 Karma | 20 Replies

Edit: Miss-read.

I think they are just learning from Demigod. Yeah we hate bots because like he said .. it takes way to long to make GOOD bots ... im sorry but nightmare demigod is even a joke (and i hear they cheat!).

I think it would be better ... most of my Demigod games turn into AI at some point ... someone always rage quits (or the drop connection to)

So, "reasonable" players are able to spam kill a bot and get overpowered. The same would happen with a noob.

Bots are dumb, but so is a noob.

This game is definitely catered for more than casual players and it was my mistake to think otherwise. The message on the wall is if a player doesn't have time to invest in this game and learn its quirks, you'd better stay off it.

That's what I will do. Trying to catch up with things only on weekends doesn't seem to be enough for this type of game. I'll show my casual self out the door, thank you very much...

AI has no place in competitive multiplayer.

Bad AI has no place anywhere.

No AI is better than a bad AI. True, but what about the casual player. The vast majority of people who buy games are not hardcore online players and want at least a decent gaming experience.

Until multiplayer has a system whereby a casual player can play other casual players like for like, you will always need an AI.

AI has no place in competitive multiplayer. Bad AI has no place anywhere.

Well. this is not exactly an MMO, so maybe you're right. In comparison, what do I know or understand about Demigod? Hopefully the bots would've been improved, but since everyone hates them, might as well remove them all together.

There's an update coming that will better separate pros from non pros, right? Let's see what that will do.

Maybe they should wait until GPG releases the new patch with improved AI and sees if we still hate the AI so much before they make these kinds of decisions. They shouldn't nix AI just because we don't like the current one... it's so broken, especially if you play a demigod with stun to stop their teleports. If it were semi-competent, then I'd reconsider.

I like AI sometimes. For example, sometimes I don't have internet and/or am just in the mood for a SP skirmish. And sometimes (again, especially with competent AI) it's fun to play with some friends and do a comp-stomp. These types of things are especially enjoyable in games that have more configuration options though... for example, what if we give the AI a ton of money but me and a friend play against just one AI player? Or play around with things like who gets better strategic locations, access to resources, starting bases, etc. Sometimes it's just fun to mess around with that kind of stuff, and the AI is always willing to comply, whereas it might be tough to find a player willing to try your setups.

The AI as is in Demigod is pretty horrible. They run head first into a horde of creeps, towers, and two demigods to get killed. They love to cap portals but not make attempts to recapture a portal in their own base. I've watched an AI Sedna do a good 10+ circles in the middle of a battle and not attack anything. They don't understand that UB's spit will remove their 1500 hp they just healed up to. And this is just general stuff they should do automatically - It doesn't even taking into account stuff that makes Pro players Pros(and trust me, Im no pro) such as when to fire an ability, how to work together as teammates, or when to actually buy new creeps(the AI loves to buy priests like 3 mins into the game). In a game such as demigod I think it would be near impossible to create AI that is as good as a decently skilled player. There's simply too much to take into consideration in real time.

Bots are not needed....

I never played Dota, so i was 100% noob when i get this game. Second game i won against normal AI without any problem. Then lost 2 games against Hard AI.... After that, i didn't loose any game against AI.

So... without online gaming i would have played no single game after this till yet. So if you can sell a game cuz there is no competition.... it's not worth it.

i hope everbody can understand my reply... i have some kind of feeling, that this post, was the most ugly english i've ever written.

sry

I like bots, because sometimes I just want to boot up the game for a good old fashioned comp stomp.

The problem with AI is not whether they are good or bad, the problem is they give no satisfaction when beaten, like it does beating a human player. single player games do not have the same popularity as multiplayer games have, unless they have massive contents sometimes, like oblivion. The reason multiplayer games are more popular is because it gives more satisfaction beating other humans than beating an AI will EVER do. unless no one else has beaten a certain AI perhaps, and the victory is recorded somewhere for other humans to see. then MAYBE it would give some kind of satisfaction.

If we're talking about AI's that can be added at the request of players, then those are fine as they are. It'd be a shame to lose'em.

If we're talking about roving AI-controlled players that join competitive games and/or sentence people who want to match wits with other 'people' to random comp-stomp games, then no thanks and good riddance. AI players should be an option for custom games as they've always been. They shouldn't be randomly replacing human players (the people I actually get online to play with) and as was said, they absolutely should 'not' be in a competitive arena.

In my opinion, of course.

Quoting NeoVain,

reply 10

No, it's not as satisfying, but it isn't as demeaning to lose either. Some of my friends are very competitive, and if we arranged games where we played each other half of us would go home pissed off. If we do a comp stomp with a well-regulated difficulty (be it we gave them more money, better positioning, more players, etc.) there seems to be less pressure to win... the computer's not gonna gloat about their awesome comeback for weeks to come.

It isn't so much people hate AIs, people hate having to rely on AIs, especially since 90% of the people who play multiplayer can easily curb-stomp the normal-level AIs they get stuck with.

AI enemies are of course ok (assuming they're a challange), as are third-party AIs. I don't know what role they where origionally intending to put AI players into, but if it's on your team, they're right in predicting that people would have hated them. Can you think of one game where you liked having a "teammate" AI? Think escort mission. Or those annoying tag-alongs in FPS games. Or those stupid AIs you get stuck with in Demigod.

EDIT: Looks like the only thing about the bots they're removing is to not have them randomly join multiplayer games without the player's consent, like in Pantheon. I think that's a wise decision.

BoogieBac

What it comes down to is this: People dont play MP to play the computer. We can put the saved time into a better in-game AI, but developing the external bot architecture, just to have people complain that they end up playing AI in MP, is a waste of resources.

So, here's what I think that could be done about the Bots and overall gameplay...

1. Issue commands

On right-click (or whatever makes more sense) , a menu opens up with a list of requests that could be heard by allies (or just by using shortcut keys):

- Need help!

- Do not cross enemy territory

- Destroy enemy defenses

- Capture flags

2. Ability to call targets: hold down control and select targets, which would be any number of enemy buildings.

With that, real players could quickly coordinate attacks and BOTS could follow instructions so that they wouldn't suck so much, with minimum AI programming.

Any thoughts on this?

Quoting InfiniteVengeance,

reply 3

AI has no place in competitive multiplayer.

Bad AI has no place anywhere.

/signed. Short and to the point.

Isn't Elemental a turn-based 4x game? I don't play those kinds of games online, so not having bots would render it unplayable for me. Also Demigod is in a completely different genre so it would be insane at best to make game design decisions like that based off of it. It's just a bizarre thing to do.

Quoting Wexmajor,

reply 16

The reference from my initial post was taken out of context and it might be misleading...

As I gathered from the Elemental forums, persistent bots were planned to be included in some areas of the game, besides the normal AI that would always need to be there for that kind of game to work.

The question here is specific to Demigod and the "hate" towards bots by Demigod players. I believe that bots could still work in different ways:

1. In games where there's an uneven number of players in different teams. Team A has 4 players. Team B has 2 or 3. The team with less players could choose to summon a bot and be able to issue commands at them (see my previous post).

2. Master of bots versus Master of bots. Two adversaries mano a mano ordering their bots onto the fray. The last Master of bots standing is the winner (this one might need some work).

3. As indicated before on reply #6, bots could be used by groups of friends as training grounds for different strategies, among other possibilities suggested by Sly_Squash.

Bots will still be in Elemental.

He's just removing the concept of Bots joining the game like real players, which they did in Pantheon, and no one liked that idea.

Remove from competitive multiplayer? Yes. Remove from everything? Heck no. Bots are excellent to learn with, and the occassional comp stomp can be amusing.

I also see a lot of NO NOOBS comments in the custom games. I think that's the wrong idea. Some of the noobs actually want to become pros. What it should be saying is NO Perma NOOBS, which is more or less what casual players are...

There's an update coming that will better separate pros from non pros, right? Let's see what that will do.

Well, those specific games don't want noobs, which is fine. I'm willing to play with very new people most of the time, but sometimes I just want to know every single player on my team is good.

Quoting OrleanKnight,

reply 18

Bots will still be in Elemental.

He's just removing the concept of Bots joining the game like real players, which they did in Pantheon, and no one liked that idea.

Which was totally the correct decision. While I think a mode against a variety of learning, custom, unique bots could be interesting, when I click the Multiplayer button instead of the Singleplayer button, it's to play against /with other humans.

Hate to double post, but for some reason the board wasn't using my totally legitimate tags?

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

What's this talk about hating bots?