I'm always happy when a FPS has bots. Sometimes I just don't feel like playing online. It also means I can play splitscreen with a friend and we can do something other than one versus one!
Poll: Bots in FPSs
- Thread starter Avida
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The dearth of bots is just another thing that I hate about the video game industry's pigheaded refusal to spend any time that could be used to make something else shiny and reflective on competent AI. It's a great way to play when you can't access the internet for whatever reason, and it's a great way to pad out games that don't have enough players.
There's bots in every single player FPS ever made - or do you think the enemies you were gunning down were being moved telekinetically from the developers at the office?
Maybe what you're saying is specifically bots that play alongside you. Well, maybe the reason why we don't see too many of these is because making a bot intelligent enough to trust to watch your back is very difficult.
Computers can't do anything without extremely detailed instructions, and you'd be surprised how much detail it requires to inform a calculator how to transverse a virtual room and shoot straight without shooting you in the back.
In this way, when a developer doesn't have time to work out those details (which is apparently all the time) the omission of bots is often for the good of the game.
Maybe what you're saying is specifically bots that play alongside you. Well, maybe the reason why we don't see too many of these is because making a bot intelligent enough to trust to watch your back is very difficult.
Computers can't do anything without extremely detailed instructions, and you'd be surprised how much detail it requires to inform a calculator how to transverse a virtual room and shoot straight without shooting you in the back.
In this way, when a developer doesn't have time to work out those details (which is apparently all the time) the omission of bots is often for the good of the game.
Alternatively, they could keep it in development until it's actually finished.geldonyetich said:
geldonyetich said:
"By this im meaning Quake-style multiplayer AI"
Read the OP!!
Anyway i'd argue that other things should be cut back on rather than doing a bit of re-programming to the campaign AI, or rather that modern games need a big 'ol slice more budget as far too many seem to feel rushed out nowadays.
I'm torn between saying, "you're damn right, they should" and "yeah, but developers have these things called 'deadlines' and they're really bad at finishing games on account of how games cannot be reliably timetabled and besides you can keep a game in development infinitely with each cycle improving the game."Good morning blues said:
Yeah, my bad, I should have read the OP better [though (in reading my post) you'll notice I eventually got there anyway].Avida said:
All I can say in my defense is that there's actually a really thin line between a Quake-style multiplayer AI and your typical in-game FPS enemy. The Quake-style multiplayer AI might have quite a few more lines of code developed to reflect their behavior, but ultimately it's the same thing: an enemy in the game with AI code.
You could argue that the Quake-style multiplayer AI "bots" had the same health, armor, and weapons than you - but if that's what you're arguing, it's really not about the bots anymore, is it?
That's true, you can keep developing into infinity, but these people have investors and publishers constantly breathing down their neck to say when it's done. A good game designer will know the line between what will improve the game and what's just feature creep.geldonyetich said:
How often have the games that you've truly enjoyed - the games on your list of all-time favorites - been released on time? The companies with really great reputations are also the companies that always have a development schedule of "when it's done." You don't want to increase your development costs by keeping a game in a perpetual development cycle, but you also don't want to reduce your revenues because your game was shitty.
This is perfectly true. There is not very much difference between a singleplayer AI and a multiplayer AI; mainly, the bot needs to be able to navigate the map, identify and prioritize objectives, and defend against several kinds of attacks at once, while the enemy generally only really has to follow general paths and defend fixed points. The way I see it, it's not going to cost very much to add bots to a game that already has singleplayer AI, and if you have a purely-multiplayer game, it is not finished unless there are bots in it.geldonyetich said:
It always gave me something to do once I'd completed the campaign of a game when I either didn't have internet or didn't like other people.