the multiplayer and the bots

(kilL_888) #1

hello again folks.

the recent gameplay footage releases made me a bit more curious about some details of the game. i know, you cant tell us everything about it yet, but i am wondering about something specific.

i know this game has a singleplayer mode where you can invite friends to join you. i guess singleplayer is equal to the mutliplayer part, except you play with bots… i guess… but thats ok. play with your friend online, with and against bots.

ok, so far so good. then, theres the multiplayer part. i read that when you play, lets say, a 8vs8 game (which is totally enough for me personally) and one guy from your team quits, he will be removed by a bot. and i have a big problem with that.

when i play a multiplayer game, i want to compete against other human beeings, not against ai controlled bots. i see theres an imbalace between the two teams when one guy is leaving, but thats totally ok to me, it always was. we have the “even teams” server option, havnt we? so, 1 person more or less is accepteble. adding a single bot though kills the atmosphere of a pure multiplayer shooter, imho.

well, thats what i guess how the “add bot” system will look like. correct me plz if im wrong.

what does the rest of you think about bots in multiplayer shooters?

(system) #2

May I add a question to this and ask about the capabilities of Brink’s bots, can they move around like using the smart button, etc…

(DarkangelUK) #3

I would rather a slot was fileld by a bot to keep the teams even than have someone AFK all game or being a man down, because tbh (and Quake Live is a perfect example of this) no one ever switches to the losing side when the winning team has an extra man… raping or not. Stats drive people to make sure they get that win, no matter what.

(Rahdo) #4

by default, a standard server has bots turned ‘on’, and so all non-human slots will be filled by bots. it’ll always be a full 8v8 game. however, players will have access to a bunch of game settings when starting their own server (dedicated on PC and peer2peer-ish on console), and one of them is turning bots off, for those who’d rather not see them :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #5

Will players be able to advance their characters on those servers?

(Nail) #6

as you can advance on single player I would assume so

(tokamak) #7

There’s a difference between playing against bots or just running through empty levels completing objectives though. It also seems logical to hand out more experience to bots on a higher difficulty.

(Nail) #8

ah, I get it. Maybe only advance with X% of players on a server would be better

(tokamak) #9

I like that. Maybe better to only count players on the opposing team.

And there is of course ALWAYS a way around these things, but let’s not make it too easy to exploit.

(Rahdo) #10

the main thing i don’t want to do is punish ‘normal’ players to wage a war against ‘exploiters’. normal players just want to have fun, earn xp, level up, and get new abilities. i think there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had from working your way through the ranks, climbing that mountain, and a lot of satisfaction and meaning. but for people who genuinely want to turn what should be a fun progression into a boring grind so they can ‘climb the mountain faster’, fine, go ahead and do that, but do it away from the normal people.

that’s my overriding philosophy on this anyway, which is why my intent is that you can earn XP on any server. and so if you want to make a private server where you and a few fellow exploiters make a 5v1 game where the one defender ignores the attackers and lets them win, great, knock yourself out. just do it away from the mainstream. don’t ruin the game for them.

(tokamak) #11

Aye, if people find it worth to waste the time of a whole bunch of accounts to farm to something then they can do it.

I’m more worried about what players are able to do alone, off-line. Imagine buying a game where immediately at the start you could chose between a campaign void of enemies or a normal campaign with enemies. And playing both would give you the same rewards for completing, that would greatly devalue the sense of beating a challenge. Even if you picked the ‘right’ way, the idea that there’s an easy alternative keeps gnawing at you.

(kilL_888) #12

thanks, thats all i wanted to hear :slight_smile:

i didnt expect to start a different discussion about grinding and exploiting though. but im absolutely your opinion. if people want to ruin their fun by exploiting whatsoever, let em do it. those people will stay on their private servers and play in uneven teams, play singleplayer against easy bots (if theres a difficulty level) and stay away from the masses. if its fun to them, its ok, they get owned anyway if they join an “official” server.

and well, i believe the splash damage community (or pc shooter community in generell) isnt about how to get the highest level in shortest time. its about competition and fun. this isnt world of warcraft, this is still a shooter, even if it has some elements of an mmorpg. :slight_smile:

(NCosca) #13

I have one issue about the bots matter. If a player leaves that’s fine, put a bot in there, even if it works only has a distraction. Better to have a bot than to be 7v8.

BUT!

And this is a big but to me, let’s say you are playing in a team of randoms against a team of friends. Usually this results in your team getting it’s ass kicked. And what happens? One player rage quits. No problem, just a put a bot in there! But the bot isn’t very good, so it doesn’t really helps that much. So another player rage quits.

What now??

You are playing 8v8, but 2 of your teammates are useless (for the most part) bots. Now that looks like an increasingly disadvantage to me.