What abilities should Bots have?

While I am playing around with the Universal Cost function, it occurred to me that perhaps we need to think about the Bots.
Playing with Bots will never be the same as playing with sensible teammates, but I might be able to tweak what abilities Bots can buy, and what preference a Bot should have for them.

So, obviously there is no point a bot buying awareness, medic awareness or engineer awareness. Probably not denial, or air control or fast weapon switch. And not different subclasses.

For engineer bots, spawning sentinels could be useful - the players could boost the health of the sentinel as bots will not. But summoning vehicles/turrets/blocks may be a bit pointless. But that will require a code change.
Perhaps Bots ought to prefer to be some other class than engineer?

I am in two minds as to whether bots should be restricted to only the abilities that come with a class. Perhaps let them buy any ability, as they will not have the intelligence to abuse it?

Perhaps their preference ought to be for abilities like vampire, regen, enhanced damage, enhanced reduction, shield regen?

let's keep it simple. I've been on with several class bots, including medic. Worthless as a medic...........let the bots be all weapon masters only, with the skills of a weapon master.

I agree. Limit them to passive abilities like the ones for wep masters.

For the issue with finding abilities to spend points on:
A special dummy ability only available for bots.
Would need to add a bot only flag to the ability lists

Do bots ever try and save points, or do they have to spend their points right away to avoid the iteration crash?

Couldn't the abilitymenu recognize if a bot can't buy anymore abilities, and force the bot to reset?
This could help increase the diversity in bot levels, so that if a single player is playing with 3 bots, they are more likely to have a lower level bot on, and the bots might have a chance to survive wave 3 on their own.

greg11 wrote:

For the issue with finding abilities to spend points on:
A special dummy ability only available for bots.
Would need to add a bot only flag to the ability lists

Yes, that is what I agreed with Druid. Two extra abilities just for Bots. Very very slow forms of Damage Bonus and damage reduction.

greg11 wrote:

Do bots ever try and save points, or do they have to spend their points right away to avoid the iteration crash?

I think they can save - the code looks like it makes provision for having an ability it is saving for.

greg11 wrote:

Couldn't the abilitymenu recognize if a bot can't buy anymore abilities, and force the bot to reset?
This could help increase the diversity in bot levels, so that if a single player is playing with 3 bots, they are more likely to have a lower level bot on, and the bots might have a chance to survive wave 3 on their own.

On DC, I think all the Bots have persistent levels and abilities - so you will probably end up with different level bots when you play. I will have to check next time I am on with Bots. The big problem arises on sites with FalseBotLevels - so each game the Bot config is create new based on the player level.

I don't see a good reason for bots to be engineers. At the very least I'm happy that they don't spawn random crap everywhere. If they did summon sentinels, they'd be sure to spawn them in the least useful places possible, probably blocking the efforts of human players. And there would still be the issue of them not understanding how to heal or link the sents. Overall, they are the least useful bots, because they don't have the survival skills of other classes and don't provide support because they don't know how to heal shields with the link gun, and I've never see one summon a shield blast.

Honestly I'd like to see just medic and adren master bots, with a preference to using their adren on spheres and blasts. I've found Jakob's healing spheres to be quite useful when soloing as an engineer.

I don't see a problem with giving them a few cross-class abilities to help with survival and support. If bot engineers had adrenal drip, they might be ok doing shield blasts.

Szlat wrote:

On DC, I think all the Bots have persistent levels and abilities - so you will probably end up with different level bots when you play. I will have to check next time I am on with Bots. The big problem arises on sites with FalseBotLevels - so each game the Bot config is create new based on the player level.

Having bots with different levels would be the point. if all of the bots are 300+ then when only bots are left, they have no chance to win the level. If there was a level 30 bot combined with a higher level bot they would have a better chance.

I believe that AM and WM would be the best suitable for bots since they require no special skill since Medic and Engineer rely on complicated team-based combat and defense. In other words, bots are useless and have no attention to defending other players except to bug them and take kills. Bots have no mind in using medic and engineer since these classes rely on teammates to cooperate. AM and WM do not. They are self-wandering classes that do not need to assist real players. Never will a bot heal another player or build a base for a player. A bot WILL wander the map and use their supply of weapons, adrenaline, and artifacts to steal as much kills and deaths as possible.

On the other hand, MM would be the only other class for bots if they were knowledgeable on how to use it. I have at some times seen a bot create a medic weapon and use a healing blast, but this is very rare.

I have had 1 Bot Medic create a healing sphere....but I'm sure that's just was in his active inventory and engaged it just to do it. or something.
So ya, WM and AM for bots. Unless you can program a bit more I in the AI for them...cuz they lack a lot of I.

Bots do need a lot more AI on the use of artifacts. I mean, do some checks from the bots, check their health, their adren, and anything else necessary to make them smarter and choose what the best thing to do is rather than whip out a shield gun and use alt fire in front of 20 titans.

I want bots to simply run around and kill anything that moves. Like most players, if I'm playing with bots I will give the "search and destroy" order so they leave me alone.

Other than killing things, I would like if they had enough AI to keep themselves alive as long as possible. So WM and AM would be the logical choices for abilities. Using globes and other artifacts would be good so that they stay alive.

It's pretty rare that I end up playing with bots. Most times, I will try playing later when actual players are on. It's just more fun.

I agree with Electrician about the bots needing to just stay alive as long as possible. That is why I think they should all be medics. Medics seem to be the ones that can survive longest without trying too hard (high intelligence not as crucial for survival). Medics would also have a much higher chance of accidentally healing real players with their healing spheres or stray medic weapon shots.

Is there a way to disable the friendly fire auto responses too? Although they are not nearly as bad as the recruiter monsters on tony's server

greg11 wrote:

Is there a way to disable the friendly fire auto responses too? Although they are not nearly as bad as the recruiter monsters on tony's server

Wow. That makes my look upon Version 4 of the monster pack go down quite a bit.

Version 5 should own all in its path.

Is it worth modifying some abilities specifically for bots? For example, medic bots should shoot themselves and others to give them health. However, that might be difficult to implement. If instead a medic bot had a better rate of health regen, and more efficient use of healing spheres, would that improve the situation, and help mimic what they should be doing?

Also, should the Medic Weapon Maker be single use for bots - since there is little point them keep using it? Or should we go one step further and say that for a medic bot, all weapons should inherently be medic weapons (except the link). This will increase the chance of them using the correct weapon.

Likewise, if bots are monster masters it would be useful to stop them spawning pupae - perhaps always spawn the best monster that they have points for - regardless of adrenaline and which summoning artifact they used? Or should bot medics not be allowed to spawn pets?

Likewise engineers could be changed so that bot engineers only summon sentinels, not turrets/vehicles/blocks. Which could spawn fully healed for bots, since they haven't got the intelligence to heal them. Or even just allow them defense sentinels?

So perhaps for each class, limit what artifacts are given to bots to those we consider useful.

So AM bots will get a lot more benefit from the rod or bolt than they will from the beam

ok I have played with bots that have done a small heal with sphere and mini maybe something else as a accident cuz it was basicly behind me when swamped! the idea with all weapons for them is good increase chances of being healed!! now for the eng if you find a spot and tell them to cover you could they do a basic base there? coupla blocks and a defenese sent or two?? that would make a better choice in my train of thought and I have had bot use damage sphere. surpised me it did! but like mentioned above a little more commen sense as to RUN when faced with large nubers and better weapon chioce....( BUT a BOT is a BOT and not much can be hoped for

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