Will the Cheating AI ever be balanced?

(Faux) #1

I was just in a co-op game with a full team of humans vs. the bots on Aquarium as Security.

Until tonight, I have never seen a team of human players on Security lose that level.

Universally, the enemy bot scores were 2x to 3x! higher than the player scores. Bots were doing instant-kill headshots, their hyper accurate ‘run and strafe’ nonsense, the ‘let me slide into you then run around inside your model as I shoot’ idiocy, and of course the beloved ‘shoot an enemy bot who then immediately knows where you’re shooting from and headshots you’ trick.

This was on Normal and I’m Rank 4. It’s getting to the point where I have to put the game on Easy just to get a match where the bots don’t cheat with such unapologetic abandon. Oddly enough, I see this problem much more when playing as Security. (Maybe their maps just favor the enemy team more? I don’t know.)

Is this ever going to get fixed? I see patches coming down for other balance tweaks but nothing for the cheating AI? :frowning:

(Oh, and just to add insult to injury, when I restarted and found a fun map on easy with bots and humans, I crashed out with the ‘Unable to Allocate Renderer’ error. :mad:

(GreasedScotsman) #2

Bots are situational, I’ve found.

On the safecracking objective on Terminal, they can be amazingly hard to get past because of the design of that room and the fact that by the time you reach that map, you have some abilities worth having… and so do they. Yet, on other maps and other objectives, you’ll be able to waltz right over bots on Hard skill.

I’d say it’s really more about the map layout and the whether the bots are designed to set up well than the “OMGHeadshot!” accuracy they tend to have at times.

Anything out in the open = screwed. Anything w/ even a crate for cover = laughs as you pop out, headshot, pop back from behind it. Bots are almost always late if you’re quick enough.

I do like it when. if you’re sitting around waiting for a health recharge, they’ll rush you. Good times.

(EnderWiggin.DA.) #3

There is a whole thread stickied for bot feedback at the top of this forum.

Heh, my friend and I just finished messing around the bots, playing 2 humans vs 6 bots using the bot_uinumresistance/security commands. bot_aimskill 3, si_botdifficulty 2. It was pretty fun. The hack objectives were really difficult but we got refuel up to 99% once before they stopped us.

It’s interesting to watch what the bots focus on. On container city they completely ignored the doc carrier because he went all the way around and came in to transmit from the crane side. I just peppered them with shots and they completely ignored my friend carrying the docs and all the standing bots focused on me.

(wolfnemesis75) #4

Bots are cheaters. I love when Medic Bots can instant revive themselves. A light bot tore me up last night on Resort with a minigun, lol. Despite all that, Me and some friends tore through the bots last night on Hard on Security side. Their lock-on headshot ability is a given.

(Faux) #5

Maybe I’m going crazy, but I swear I’ve seen non-Medic enemy bots revive themselves. Also, enemy medic bots seem to have an infinite pip supply and their self resurrection not only fires faster, but also has a shorter cooldown. (I’ve seen the same thing with cortex bombs on enemy operatives.)

And yes, I’m aware of the thread about the AI, but it’s suggestions for improving it; suggesting it still won’t be balanced for a while.

(peteXnasty) #6

I snuck up on two bots the other night that were staring ar a door…I was an operative in disguise, and as soon as I broke disguise to hack the turret behind them, literally the moment I broke, they both turned around and annihilated me. No aiming, no shots fired, they just knew right away

(wolfnemesis75) #7

The Shining.

(They always knew you were there but lulled you into a false sense of security and to teach you a lesson of their true powers)

(Jess Alon) #8

Yeah well it’s gotten so bad that the bots are teabagging people and giving them the money shot BEFORE they stomp out their lights. If you run back to your dead body fast enough you can usually spot them spooning with your corpse as they one shot you again before the process is repeated.

It’s like groundhog day.

(H0RSE) #9

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;333207]Yeah well it’s gotten so bad that the bots are teabagging people and giving them the money shot BEFORE they stomp out their lights. If you run back to your dead body fast enough you can usually spot them spooning with your corpse as they one shot you again before the process is repeated.

It’s like groundhog day.[/QUOTE]

Do they give you cab fare when they’re done?

(Jess Alon) #10

They don’t even let you use a phone to have your mom come pick you up from the spawn.

(wolfnemesis75) #11

[QUOTE=GreasedScotsman;332772]Bots are situational, I’ve found.

On the safecracking objective on Terminal, they can be amazingly hard to get past because of the design of that room and the fact that by the time you reach that map, you have some abilities worth having… and so do they. Yet, on other maps and other objectives, you’ll be able to waltz right over bots on Hard skill.

I’d say it’s really more about the map layout and the whether the bots are designed to set up well than the “OMGHeadshot!” accuracy they tend to have at times.

Anything out in the open = screwed. Anything w/ even a crate for cover = laughs as you pop out, headshot, pop back from behind it. Bots are almost always late if you’re quick enough.

I do like it when. if you’re sitting around waiting for a health recharge, they’ll rush you. Good times.[/QUOTE]

I have noticed similar things too. bots will make a strong push in the last 2 minutes as if they think: “Its Go Time!”

(Exedore) #12

Bots scale upwards when you have more humans on the opposing side, so yes they are very difficult against 8 humans… but that’s no accident. You’ll not be able to beat them on skill in a fire-fight, but you can certainly outsmart them with your abilities and coordinated teamwork.

In a way, 8 player Co-op on Hard is our ‘Hardcore’ mode.

(peteXnasty) #13

So basically the team with8 players vs the team with 5 players has a unique disadvantage in that there are aimbots with complete situational awareness on the other team just waiting to stop our progress in ways human players can’t? I.e. knowing the exact moment an operative out of sight breaks disguise, or perfectly landing grenade throws on defensive turrets before they’re finished building, or juggling a player with coordinated slide tackles?

And when those bots are filled with human players, the 5 man team now suddenly can’t perform as well because the bots are capable of gameplay feats that humans cannot do?

Bots ruin the game for me. I hate them. And this system im place is retarded, and i’m sure the diminishing number of players will agree with me.

Games with all people = amazing unmatched fun. Games with bots on either side? Terrible.

(peteXnasty) #14

I mean hell I am tired of getting the jump on a bot and getting the first shots off only to have him do a 180 and headshot me with a kross instantly while i’m emptying a clip into his back. That is not a 1v1 firefight, that is a guaranteed kill for me but yet again, bots break the rules. Im tired of it.

(Bettik) #15

Tweaking the way bots work must be a very delicate process. I don’t envy the devs on that front. I mean, unless they find a way to actually construct a sentient AI that’s capable of rational thought, learning, and adapting, the most they can really do to scale difficulty is give the bots some cheating power. Even if they were capable of constructing an AI for a video game that the brightest minds in the world have yet to accomplish for scientific purposes, they’d still have to find a way to dynamically make it stupid or smart. Obviously, I’m exaggerating, but I think the general notion is valid - constructing AI ain’t no walk in the park.

Perhaps one thing they could do is give server operators an easier method to manually set bot difficulty and turn off dynamic scaling. Otherwise, it seems that the default is to let bots scale to the highest reasonable difficulty at all times based on number of players and average level of players.

As for people in the same camp as peteXnasty, we can really only blame server operators as it is fully possible to run a server without any bots, no? There just don’t seem to be many if any out there.

(Exedore) #16

This is precisely why we have the game settings that let you set Min Players at the same level as Max Players, so there are no bots. This is one area where it’s simply impossible to please everyone.

(Oschino1907) #17

Yeah I agree with others on many points, mainly when (its happened many times now) i am behind enemy lines capturing command posts or trying to flank them (usually offensive maps) and at times i sneak up to 1-3 totally oblivious bots, just staring off or caught up in a fight with others and I figure “wow do i have the advantage of surprise here” but if i even fire a single shot they all suddenly turn and end me in about 1/10th of a sec, i mean come on.
I know they shouldnt just roll over but having them all react with 100% accuracy on a split sec just Grinds my gears and knowning that I cant sneak up from behind to kill high level bots because they have Demi-god abilities just ruins going behind lines to do anything except to spot and capture command post. Just dont see any reason for bots to have any advantage that a human player couldnt have for any reason. Just make them more aware rather then 100% accurate and quicker then a split second reaction.

(Jess Alon) #18

That’s not a bad work around.

(AmishWarMachine) #19

Giving them Dead-Eye accuracy is bad enough, but allowing them to react as quickly as they do is absurd.

I got killed by a heavy last night who, in 0.1 seconds, turned around and one-shot killed me with a chain-gun. Couple problems with this:

  1. Where’s the mobility factor. Flipping around like that with a handgun could be understandable… but a chain-gun?
  2. Don’t chain-guns have to be spun up (no, his gun was not spinning as I took my first shot)

The auto-headshot thing has to be worked on… the bots have got to have some form of inaccuracy when whipping around like that while getting blasted on.

/sigh

(Bettik) #20

Do you see how you contradict yourself here? As I said earlier, they are bots, not people. Without AI equivalent to the human mind, the only way to make them more difficult is to give them cheats.

You have to treat how you approach bots differently than human players, that’s all. They are not impossible. They are just very difficult.

Ah, but it isn’t. Good news is that you’ve already found part of the solution - let people please themselves! :slight_smile: (EDIT: Re-reading this, I can see how this might come off as passive-aggressive. Really not my intention.)

As I said before, perhaps you could allow the option of setting a static bot AI level. We know that it’s based on number of human players and their player levels/ranks (average? highest?). That must translate in to a number somewhere. Let server operators set that number and keep it from going down or up throughout the course of play. Call it a “custom” game mode so that there aren’t any issues with unlockables/achievements being earned unfairly.

Actually - in case I’ve just put my foot in my mouth - is there any ability to do something like what I’ve just suggested already?