Should [more] online shooters have bots?

[Gorilla Gunk]

So I've been playing a lot of Killzone 3 and Crysis 2 lately and while the online is still pretty active, it's nowhere near as active as CoD or BF's. I've been running into a lot of half-empty games lately and I've been thinking, why don't more developers put bots in their games so that you're never in an empty or even half empty lobby? They'd just take any empty slots and if another person joined the game they'd take that bots place.

I know Brink and the L4D games kind of tried this already and that turned out to be a disaster (Well, at least in Brink's case, the L4D bots are mostly alright) but done right I think it could be great. For one, bots would never have good weapons. They'd usually just use the default weapons and would only pick something else up if they had absolutely no ammo left. And they'd never be too good or too dumb. Somebody could design a system similar to the AI Director in the L4D games. They'd start out with average stats and if your team is doing great maybe their accuracy and speed may go down a bit. And if your team is doing awful then the opposite happens. But they'd never get impossible to deal with, like Dark Sims in Perfect Dark that always get instant headshots with 100% accuracy and move around impossibly fast. They'd be no more difficult then the average mook in a single-player campaign. They're mostly there to make the game feel more alive.

Of course this would all be optional and you could go further and make it so that bot kills/deaths don't count towards you K/D ratio, give no XP, or even count towards that games final score.

Thoughts?

PS. Like I pointed out, some games do this already, but none that I know of on the level of CoD or BF.

 

[Daget Sparrow]

I don't always have access to a reliable internet connection, so I'd love bots simply so I could still play the multiplayer component of a game whenever I don't have access to a handy modem.

 

[Naranja797]

Yes, yes totally. Bots are a great way to learn the game and hone your skill, especially if you don't have great internet

 

[godofallu]

Bots offer the opposing team unending, game ruining, free kills. A 5v6 game is no big deal balance wise. A 5 +1 bot vs 6 is a nightmare. Add more bots and it gets worse and worse.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

Yeah, but like I said, bot kills wouldn't really count towards anything. They can kills the bots all they want but they aren't going to win the game or level up that way. And if the game is going that badly the system would make the bots a bit tougher to aid the only human player.

Again, this idea is a work-in-progress and would require some sophisticated AI. Something for the next generation of online FPS's perhaps?

And I want to point out that I'm not just talking about an offline bot mode, I'm talking about joining a 8x8 game with only 6-7 players in the lobby and when the game starts the rest of the roster fills out with bots until a human joins the game and takes their place.

 

[Squilookle]

Every online arena shooter, whether 1st or 3rd person, should have bots. Without fail. Some people don't have a good enough internet to play online. Some simply don't like playing with abusive 13 year olds online.

And yes, some players simply aren't that skilled.

In any case, these players should not be denied all the multiplayer modes, maps, vehicles and other features just because they don't go online. Before Halo came around, it was pretty much standard practice to have competent bots in multiplayer matches. The only reason they've fallen out of favour is because devs have gotten too lazy to put in the little extra bit of effort.

Two games with full bot support across all multiplayer modes, able to take on human players and beat them, too. Released in 1999 and 2000 respectively. One for PC, the other on a console.

If they could do it back then, there is no excuse games can't do it now.

 

[Zantos]

Yes! Gears of War 3 managed a bot system with a fair amount of success, though how it will be with more than one or two bots in a game is a different question. Though I'm not sure if the bots can be used offline, or only to bolster online teams.

 

[Twilight_guy]

It'd be nice. Having bots to play against defiantly makes transitioning to real opponents easier and provides a good simulation experience to test out strategies. Unfortunately technology and games are a monotonically increasingly diverse field (go comp sci education, whoo) and AI techniques in games are lagging like a horse in the pony race who had a heart attack at the gate. It is difficult to program AI especially diverse ranges of AI. Even when you get a good AI going, Artificial stupidity tends to be a real ***** to design making levels of AI skill difficult.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Not really, i mean it's alright for practice but take Gears 2 for example. The bots in that game were beyond terrible, unless they picked up a sniper rifle that is... Then you're in "no scope headshots from across the map" territory.

And they had the occasional shotgun rampage, when they decided to go shotgun (which happens very rarely) it was like FPS Doug was BOOM HEADSHOT!-ing across the room.

So not only were they terrible they were also terribly inconsistent (ba dum tish!)


As a side note it really takes away the enjoyment of when you pull off a sweet "how the fuck did i do that?" kill and it was on a bot... It's nice knowing that someone somewhere is staring at his TV going "the fuck just happened?" You don't get that with bots

 

[Dandark]

You know what game did a brilliant job of bots? Section 8: Prejudice.

Usually when I play that with my friend we try to find a 32 player game with about 20 or less humans and then all bots. It's great fun, they usaully are not as good as players but they still provide a challenge and make great cannon fodder, we have tactics that actully rely on allied bots.

It would be great if they added bots to more games. Although some games may not be suited to them, I'd say bots in Cod would be a bad idea.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

Not at all. Bot's ruin the online multiplayer experience.

 

[TephlonPrice]

Yes.

There are times where I'd like to know the maps (and some vehicles) better without assholes anonymous spewing random crap in my earpiece, or times where my internet connection gets weird & screws up. Or times where I simply don't want to deal with other players.

 

[Jdb]

Yes. If Unreal Tournament did it in 1999 it can be done today.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The Star Wars Battlefront bots were braindead, but they filled out the teams, and when playing the XL mode in Battlefront 2, they posed quite a challenge.

 

[Dalek Caan]

Yes! Gears of War 3 managed a bot system with a fair amount of success, though how it will be with more than one or two bots in a game is a different question. Though I'm not sure if the bots can be used offline, or only to bolster online teams.

Yes, you can play verus games offline with Bots only. Which is good if just feel like messing around and not having to worry about running into anyone with a shotgun.

I wish Halo games had online and offline bots to play with. Custom games would be a lot more fun and rewarding.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Why aren't bots more common?

Simple, they're damned hard to create. I'm by no means an expert on bots, but just the work that goes into making them capable of moving around and navigating the map is already boggling. it used to be a lot easier, since being able to move around and shoot in boxy rooms was all they needed. But these days shooters are a lot more complex: more complex architecture, all kinds of game types with different objectives, vehicles, classes, abilities, cover mechanics, and so on. You need to take every gameplay aspect into account when creating your bot. If you don't, the bot will appear dumb and incompetent. You need to make sure it works properly on all maps, through all gametypes and can do everything a human player can.

After that is done the work still isn't over because now you'll have to work on making your bot appear human. If not you'll end up with a bot with the perfect aim and inhumanly fast reflexes you'd expect from a computer. This means a long process of testing and tweaking the bot to essentially program in flaws, like a human player would have.

In short, creating bots is complicated, time-consuming and because of that, probably also expensive. Unfortunately, 'too expensive' is the main reason why questions such as 'why don't devs put in feature x or y?' exist. I doubt it has anything to do with devs being lazy. I'm pretty confident most devs would relish the opportunity to create the best, most complete game they possibly can. Most can't though, because of limited budget, imminent deadlines and trying to please their publisher, who will be breathing down their necks the entire time.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Yes, yes and yes! All the coutless hours I spent on games like Timesplitter and James Bond Nightfire practicing for the next multiplayer torney with my mates!!! Hell I think I was an expert at flying the remote controlled missiles in 007 by the end of it!! Damn they were good! I want those experiences back!