T:v Ai?

T

TopoGeigeo

Veteran X
In Tribes 2, the bots were rather dumb. Granted it wasmore of a training, but there was still a single player there. The bots would just run way points and you always knew where they were going. Now that they are using the UW engine, well, a modified version, how are they going to do the AI? Is it goign to be like tribes 2 when they just run the same thing over and over? Or will it be more like UT 2k3/2k4 where you can give the bots orders and stuff? I'm just wondering cause advanced AI would sure improve the experiance when there are only a few people, ie. a small lan. So has the dev team said anything about the AI yet?
 
They did say, however, that early on, the AI was TOO powerfull.. They toned them down for the press conference demo.

The hardest part, will be getting the bots to effective manage their energy and use the terrain (skiing).

They mentioned, that atleast in SP, the bots they make will have specific roles. So each bot won't necessarily know how to to everything, but a task they can be very good at.
 
They have already addressed this, guys. They are putting a lot of effort into the AI to make sure the bots play intelligently, can ski effectively, are not too powerful, etc.. If a game is emphasizing single-player, you can be sure that they want to make sure the AI is good.
 
Sojourn said:
That is really stupid, but okay.
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Seems reasonable to me. Why do you think the skiing won't suck? Because they've obviously been spending a lot of time talking about it and working on it. Or that's why I do anyway.

We know the bots are SP only. When folks talk about the SP, they talk about it being fairly heavily scripted and about the story and about "wow" moments. I haven't heard anyone talk about how they are continually surprised by the bots' tactics.

I'm not trying to talk anyone down, and I'm sure the AI will be good for the role it's playing. Relying on having very good AI is probably a risky thing to do, so they probably just decided early on they weren't going to focus heavily on that.

Obviously I'm extrapolating a great deal.
 
KillerONE said:
The solution to crappy bots.. is an abundance of them to cover it up! :)
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Considering your role involves mowing through bases, this is pretty true.

The bots are too powerful because it's easy for them to just calculate where you're going to be. Artificial stupidity is much harder than artificial intelligence. They have to include random aiming error.

Right now they just kinda hop around like noobs and suck, although they can MA-juggle you if you crank their aim up.

The AI designers have stated that they're aiming for "good enough" bots; making genius bots would probably be a time sink and a waste of processor cycles, and who really wants to play against bots online anyways?

One thing I do remember is that they have favored roles.
 
TopoGeigeo said:
I'm just wondering cause advanced AI would sure improve the experiance when there are only a few people, ie. a small lan. So has the dev team said anything about the AI yet?
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They're designing maps so that you can have fun with just 1v1 or 2v2
 
I can't imagine 2v2 being very fun... even if it is a small map. For example, how many peoplle join a UT game when they know its only going ot have 4 people in it...

But then again, I could be completekly wrong. We'll have to see...
 
That's why such gametypes often support multilpe instances on the same server. Like duel mod, where it's practically one on one but there are a lot of opponents to choose from.

Rocket arena had the same idea; lots of people on the server, but the action is divided across a number of rooms.

If they don't do a similar thing to the lesser gametypes, those gametypes probably won't be used outside of arranged occasional games.
 
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Shoddy said:
Seems reasonable to me. Why do you think the skiing won't suck? Because they've obviously been spending a lot of time talking about it and working on it. Or that's why I do anyway.

We know the bots are SP only. When folks talk about the SP, they talk about it being fairly heavily scripted and about the story and about "wow" moments. I haven't heard anyone talk about how they are continually surprised by the bots' tactics.

I'm not trying to talk anyone down, and I'm sure the AI will be good for the role it's playing. Relying on having very good AI is probably a risky thing to do, so they probably just decided early on they weren't going to focus heavily on that.

Obviously I'm extrapolating a great deal.
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Ed talked about the bots tactics at the Press Con, about how he was surprised how well they're already playing.
 
Shoddy said:
Seems reasonable to me. Why do you think the skiing won't suck? Because they've obviously been spending a lot of time talking about it and working on it. Or that's why I do anyway.

We know the bots are SP only. When folks talk about the SP, they talk about it being fairly heavily scripted and about the story and about "wow" moments. I haven't heard anyone talk about how they are continually surprised by the bots' tactics.

I'm not trying to talk anyone down, and I'm sure the AI will be good for the role it's playing. Relying on having very good AI is probably a risky thing to do, so they probably just decided early on they weren't going to focus heavily on that.

Obviously I'm extrapolating a great deal.
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First off, how can the Dev team be "surprised" by the tactics of the bots when they are the ones writing the programming and discussing what a bot should and should not do? They have mentioned how far they have come with the bots, and that initially the bots were very overpowering. You're using conjecture over something that neither you, nor I, know. They haven't mentioned a good deal of things, like some new features the game will have. They have said there are some surprises in store for us, but other than that.. the things they are focusing on is information that they have made public. What you seem to be ignoring is that T:V's single-player will not be linear. It will not have huge limitations as to what you can and what you can not do in the game. In fact, they have made it clear that you will have an objective, and it's up to you to complete them. What that means is, the AI has to be able to handle a great deal of situations. Part of the single-player's success will depend on good AI.
 
The bots in T2 are too funy. Start up a game of CTF on Sanctuary with 16 bots and you are almost guaranteed to see one of the bots be in heavy armor standing in the doorway. You tell them to move so that you can get to the inventory station, they will look at you, pause and reply "No!". When you cap the flag, all the bots on your team dance around. Nothing is more fun than talking to the bots:
(VDM)Lonewolf: "Cover me!"
Dogkiller: "Command declined!"
Dogkiller: "I'm defending!"
 
Sojourn said:
First off, how can the Dev team be "surprised" by the tactics of the bots when they are the ones writing the programming and discussing what a bot should and should not do?
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How can anyone be suprised by strategies in chess? It's not like the rules aren't clear as day.......
 
Marc, the guy doing the AI, is not only kinda funny (although on the shy side), but very intelligent from what I saw when I met him back in Nov. He is very talented, I am certain he is going to do a great job :)
 
I'm kinda sad there won't be any bots available for solo/offline play. I'd love to try some 2 or 3 on 1's. Plus it might be a good training tool for the new people. I hope they do something like a short campaign on the MP map that will be released in beta. I wouldn't mind if it was a very simple version of what america's army did. Just to teach the basics of how to shoot, what to shoot, and how to move.
 
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