What ever happened to AI/Bots in multiplayer games? Also why no spectator modes?

[Rebel_Raven]

I wonder now and then why some games don't have AI opponents to them for online?

I get that a bot can't really match a human opponent, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the option to fill a game with bots and just play with a friend, or friends without worrying about a full lobby of people.

Then there's some games that do have AI in them, but am I alone in wanting to just sit back, and watch them fight?

Sorry about cramming 2 pretty diffirent notions into one thread but making 2 threads might not've been kosher.

 

[hazabaza1]

Online multiplayer happened, and devs couldn't be bothered to make new AI for not story mode when not that many people would play it. Dunno about spectator stuff though, that seems like it'd be easy to implement.

 

[Soopy]

I also dislike the lack of Bots in modern day games. I despise most online audiences and the game play styling brought about by them. I also liked Bots to get used to the game prior to multiplayer.

Unreal Tournament did it perfectly, everything since has been a backward step in this regard.

 

[Teoes]

Why spend money designing the AI for bots when you can charge money for squishy mortals to take the bots' places?

Besides, even in this day and age I doubt bots could be programmed to fling racist, sexist and/or homophobic tirades about like a real-life teenager or pre-teen.

 

[piinyouri]

I loved playing multiplayer with the bots in Perfect Dark.
So very customizable with the relatively large amount of different bots, you can create any kind of hectic hell your little mind can come up with.

Or just leave the 64 on all night and farm AI kills in the Facility.
*snickers*

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've been asking myself this for a long, long time. I see it as a way of punishing people for trying to play a game's multiplayer mode offline. I hate when a game is being touted as the greatest multiplayer experience of all time...then it reveals that no, you can't play multiplayer offline...no there are no bot matches. Yes, I know there is friendly AI programmed into this game. Yes, I know friendly and, enemy AI are capable of piloting the game's vehicles. No, we're not going to let them play with you in the multiplayer mode.

Duke Nukem 64 is my favorite version of that game specifically for the Duke-Matches.

 

[Colt47]

Bots are actually kind of important as they necessitate certain features like bot pathing, which in turn gets used by the modding community to build things like the beloved monster madness mod of Unreal Tournament. When the game isn't built with bots in mind they likely don't include the programming necessary for bot pathing in the map creation tools, which limits some of the initial possibilities for modders.

That's not to say that a modder couldn't create their own code for bot paths, but they'd have to retroactively patch every single multiplayer map in the game in order to use the developed code: not exactly a fun prospect. Also, the mod wouldn't be compatible with user generated maps later down the road unless those people also make use of said modders bot pathing code.

 

[ChanTheNoob]

Well if you look at the bots in Black Ops 2...yeah

 

[ellers07]

I loved playing multiplayer with the bots in Perfect Dark.
So very customizable with the relatively large amount of different bots, you can create any kind of hectic hell your little mind can come up with.

Or just leave the 64 on all night and farm AI kills in the Facility.
*snickers*

I loved the multiplayer with the bots in Perfect Dark! My brother and I played that more than any other multiplayer since. You're absolutely right about the customization too. We were able to create enemies that almost seemed to have a personality. I wish we could see another game like that.

 

[ThreeName]

I'm playing a lot of Counter-Strike: GO with bots because it's excellent stress relief. I remember back in the day when I was sick in school I'd load up Counter-Strike: Source with bots and have a merry old time. I remember an even earlier time being devastated at the lack of bots in BF1942 LAN... *sniffle*

 

[runic knight]

I loved playing multiplayer with the bots in Perfect Dark.
So very customizable with the relatively large amount of different bots, you can create any kind of hectic hell your little mind can come up with.

Or just leave the 64 on all night and farm AI kills in the Facility.
*snickers*

god I miss perfect dark. It was an amazing sequel to Goldeneye.

I think timesplitters would be worth mentioning here as well. Less programable, but fun and perfect for added cannon fodder during a multiplayer match.

I like bots, but only when fairly spread out. A team of people v bots is cheap, but a team of half and half can be delightful fun.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Less features saves time and therefor money, with accountants at the design table you really can't miss how things suddenly get cut down to bare bones minimum.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Just play TF2 man. it has it all, even hats.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Huh, really? I pretty much only play Team Fortress 2, which has bots and a spectator mode, so it didn't occur to me that that might not be universal. I'm not sure why they'd be absent in a game, makes a lot of sense to have them.

 

[Amaury_games]

I loved and still love to play againts bots in my Bomberman/Tetris Attack games for SNES! I wish more games today gave me the option to play against AI if I want to.

 

[josemlopes]

Well if you look at the bots in Black Ops 2...yeah

Dude really? "HURR DURR COD SUKS XD!!1!"

The bots in Black Ops 2 arent actually that bad, these ones are on the lowest difficulty and they are like retarded players that shoot at shit and dont pay attention to anything. If you play on Hardened they are actually quite serviceble, on Veteran they are a nice challenge but somewhat unbalanced, you can still manage to kill them but from time to time they pull off an headshot with a pistol from the other side of the map.

They are not the best bots but they certainly arent bad bots.

 

[Playful Pony]

I also guess AI isn't that simple to do and it's not worth the development costs. CS:GO has bots and they feel really unnatural.

Fair enough, but for games like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty I can't possibly see a problem. They already have AI in the singleplayer part of the game! Surely it wouldn't damand that much effort to enable bots on the multiplayer maps too, and let people invite eachother for private games against the AI. I have only modded Bethesdas Elder Scrolls and Fallout games so I don't know much about how they get AI to work on new maps in those games, but It's simple enough in Skyrim, and doen't require much skill or effort!