Ive been playing all bot matches on plains quite a bit too- they kick ass
couple of things:
-when the player commander dies, that players bots should all go on auto AI - atm they just seem to hold position, they dont even react to other players unless you walk right up to them, they should either attempt to flee the battlefeild or just go off charging at the enemy. ive won a game before when i was the last man alive vs 15 bots because I killed their commander, i just walked up and headshotted the bots one by one without them even attempting to fight back.
-Vieger infantry bots are terrible, they are the weakest unit on the feild- crossbowmen in melee can take them on with minimal casualties. often you see them using javs or even their fists in combat when they have perfectly good spears and clubs.
-If this bot commanding gamemode is made as a whole new mode, I suggest that each player should be given a high starting gold amount (like the 1000 gold safety net, but higher), the players are supposed to be commanders, but the bots are using better gear than them. atm you identify who the leaders are by who has the worst armour on.
Actually testing this could be done on any private server or even on the TW official ones, if they are empty so there would be no need for Taleworlds to add/change a server just for this. Just get an official admin/admin of private servers to change the settings and such, I'm sure that many guys who have their own servers are more than willing to test this out
Perhaps the bots should have always the same equipment as the player who's controlling them?
Usually, Armagan, the trouble with arranging this sort of game is that setting up who controls which bots can be really confusing. Some sort of special, more comprehensive system for allocating command would be awesome! Even if it was just as simple as a window with a pool of bots players can draw from for command.
The way we did it was to nominate a general for each team. The general would then nominate a sergeant for each command (inf, cav, arch). Would work fine with multiple groups, and allows for sneaky surprises like having an all player team pretend to be bots (which is hilarious, if not necessarily effective).
AFAIK if you have multiple commanders for a group it either divides them equally or gives them to the last player to choose to command them. It would be nice if this could be made more useful though, like say if multiple players choose a troop type it's either split evenly between them all, or allocated according to score so most go with the higher player, a few less with the mid ranked player and a couple for the lowest.
Also remember not every player needs to control bots. It's always useful to have one or two guys who can run off and scout the enemy position without leading your archer contingent into the middle of a cavalry assault.
The way we did it was to nominate a general for each team. The general would then nominate a sergeant for each command (inf, cav, arch). Would work fine with multiple groups, and allows for sneaky surprises like having an all player team pretend to be bots (which is hilarious, if not necessarily effective).
AFAIK if you have multiple commanders for a group it either divides them equally or gives them to the last player to choose to command them. It would be nice if this could be made more useful though, like say if multiple players choose a troop type it's either split evenly between them all, or allocated according to score so most go with the higher player, a few less with the mid ranked player and a couple for the lowest.
Also remember not every player needs to control bots. It's always useful to have one or two guys who can run off and scout the enemy position without leading your archer contingent into the middle of a cavalry assault.
But there's not much room to customize control. If you had a pool of bots to choose from at the start, each player could take his/her pick of multiple troop types, and customization of command would be more in-depth than just the even districution of the troops.
All you have to do to test this is add 50 bots to each team and have a handful of players in the server. It works fairly well, you can set up shield walls and do cavalry charges and things, the few bugs that exist are annoying but manageable and there's always the AI pathing to contend with. You don't need a reserved server or a specific gametype to test it, you can do this on any server, we do it all the time here in lonely oceania.
qwerty 说:
-when the player commander dies, that players bots should all go on auto AI - atm they just seem to hold position, they dont even react to other players unless you walk right up to them, they should either attempt to flee the battlefeild or just go off charging at the enemy. ive won a game before when i was the last man alive vs 15 bots because I killed their commander, i just walked up and headshotted the bots one by one without them even attempting to fight back.
They default to the last order given by the player, which is usually a hold position order. They do the same when you spawn without control, which can be handy considering if that wasn't the case they'd just charge and die The control bug is annoying. Spawning late (ie taking lots of time to select equipment) exacerbates it, but sometimes it happens for no reason at all at the very beginning of a round.
ScientiaExcelsia 说:
But there's not much room to customize control. If you had a pool of bots to choose from at the start, each player could take his/her pick of multiple troop types, and customization of command would be more in-depth than just the even districution of the troops.
To an extent you can already do that. In the equipment screen you can select which troop types you want to command, and they're split between the number of troops you have relegated to you - if there were 30 bots per side with three players on each team, you will command ten at a time, and if you choose archers and cavalry you'll get five of each to command at your leisure. It's not as complex as it could be but it works well when you have an organised group of players. If you don't select bots at all you don't spawn with any under your control, and I don't think it spawns the remainder for the rest of the team either, so your team would be ten bots short.
To an extent you can already do that. In the equipment screen you can select which troop types you want to command, and they're split between the number of troops you have relegated to you - if there were 30 bots per side with three players on each team, you will command ten at a time, and if you choose archers and cavalry you'll get five of each to command at your leisure. It's not as complex as it could be but it works well when you have an organised group of players. If you don't select bots at all you don't spawn with any under your control, and I don't think it spawns the remainder for the rest of the team either, so your team would be ten bots short.
Also remember not every player needs to control bots. It's always useful to have one or two guys who can run off and scout the enemy position without leading your archer contingent into the middle of a cavalry assault.
I strongly disagree with this, since human players can go off and disrupt enemy bots and kill enemy commanders without any penalty to their team if they don't control bots. Its very easy to get a courser and go couch enemy bots. Believe me, we've done this a lot during testing. When you have bots under your command, you have incentive to say alive and not go get killed. Plus when you are out there, you can't issue orders to your troops.
We were playing yesterday and i was WAY ahead of my guys. In fact my guys were not even following me. Then MoF came up. I quickly held "F1" press "Shift" to zoom in and told them to cover the flag ;D
But thats the only command that works right whhen your far away.
I recommend having each round 10 Minutes. This would allow the team to plan the tactics, have the troops set up and flank and do what they need to do.
One tactic to use is this: Kill the squad leader. Meaning the Human that is controlling the bots. This way when he dies, his bots do their own little thing. Either rettreat or attack or whatever. This works like the "Moral". When the Human player dies, thier "Tactic" will not work as planned due to the bots doing their own thing.
When ever a Human dies he/she would respawn as a bot and continue fighting until the other faction is defeated.
Terrible, just terrible to my mind.
55 enemies with different heavy and sharp things to kill. The chance of random kill will be high. And it will be even higher for players when all will try to disable players first 'cause they control bots.
5 minus of idleness in battles are already too many for me. Here it is supposed to be 10 minutes of popcorn and watching the last bot standing match. Twaddling over teem speak may help while away the time, but I would prefer less talking, more raiding. Something more dynamic I mean.
Here is a respawn variant.
Commanders(players) choose their bot settings (class for each bot) and at any time can change settings for their bots. New settings for certain bot become active after it respawns.
All (players, bots) whenever they are killed respawn after small delay(5-25sec) just like in sieges, tdm etc.
Bots have “moral” that is they obey commands only if they are near their commander. If they far from commander they neglect commands and start searching they commander. If commander if out, they temporally do by themselves. They also could be fuzzy if they are not near but not far enough they more likely obey hold position, but more often neglect charge.
There are plenty space for planing and tactics on any castle map. Lots of ladders, breakable doors, towers are just perfect for squad base attack and defend. The drawback that bots at the moment are a bit more stupid (I am sorry for that word, but I don't have another) on maps with a lot of obstacles and multilevel ways.
We were playing yesterday and i was WAY ahead of my guys. In fact my guys were not even following me. Then MoF came up. I quickly held "F1" press "Shift" to zoom in and told them to cover the flag ;D
But thats the only command that works right whhen your far away.
Yes, but what I mean is if you are going cav to try to couch bots or assassinate commanders, its hard to command your bots (which is should be, since rambo behavior in this mode should not be encouraged). Its still possible, but hard. Believe me I do it a lot This should not be changed.
Terrible, just terrible to my mind.
55 enemies with different heavy and sharp things to kill. The chance of random kill will be high. And it will be even higher for players when all will try to disable players first 'cause they control bots.
5 minus of idleness in battles are already too many for me. Here it is supposed to be 10 minutes of popcorn and watching the last bot standing match. Twaddling over teem speak may help while away the time, but I would prefer less talking, more raiding. Something more dynamic I mean.
Here is a respawn variant.
Commanders(players) choose their bot settings (class for each bot) and at any time can change settings for their bots. New settings for certain bot become active after it respawns.
All (players, bots) whenever they are killed respawn after small delay(5-25sec) just like in sieges, tdm etc.
Bots have “moral” that is they obey commands only if they are near their commander. If they far from commander they neglect commands and start searching they commander. If commander if out, they temporally do by themselves. They also could be fuzzy if they are not near but not far enough they more likely obey hold position, but more often neglect charge.
Have you tried the Tactical Mode yet? I recommend doing so before saying its boring. Its a very fun mode. Once you try it you will be able to see what we are talking about.
There are plenty space for planing and tactics on any castle map. Lots of ladders, breakable doors, towers are just perfect for squad base attack and defend. The drawback that bots at the moment are a bit more stupid (I am sorry for that word, but I don't have another) on maps with a lot of obstacles and multilevel ways.
Well I got a PM from Great Daegoth saying that some of the bot bugs were fixed in the next version. And since the next version isnt out yet im assuming they are giving us a suprise for Christmas
But we'll test some more with the bots, maybe more commands will work better
Played on that Zombie server and it is indeed a lot of fun, but the only problem is that teams can just camp on top of a hill and wait for the enemy to come (like in Battle mode). There is no incentive to attack first or anything, so the camping team will always win.
I'm going to shamelessly bump this thread and point out some issues:
Many new Warband players (the ones that entered with beta being opened) are expecting a mode like this. Actually, I've seen comments implying that they are surprised not to see this in game. Well, the thing is it IS in game. It's easy to play and only needs the right settings to be played. The problem is there aren't servers to play commanding bot armies.
Warband is coming out in 15 days, and one of the big attractions for players like myself, so fond of Singleplayer, is the possibility of clashing with armies of bots, just like in Singleplayer, but against human opponents commanding these armies. Having a server running with appropriate settings to play this "mod" (which is actually battle, with bots) is really important in my humble opinion.
That server should have, in my opinion:
- Limited (10, 5 for each team, sounds like a good number) spots for human players, so the amount of bots each player commands is reasonable.
- Cycle only through random maps, since Bots don't get along with maps with many obstacles.
- Having 50 bots for each team would be ideal, but I've heard that it can affect the performance of other servers located physically in the same server...
I am aware that server 5 is the bots server, but
a) it's set to team deathmatch
b) has many spots.
Just some little tweaks would make this server fit.
This way of playing Warband is actually what I thought it would be the main focus, since it's what battles in single player would turn into in multiplayer, intuitively. It's the most fun I've had playing Warband, the few times I was able to play.
I've talked with players that played on one private server which was set to play battles like these, which also wondered why no server was available to play this mode.
I ask the developers and rest of the team not to overlook this, let's say, mode inside a mode, since many players expect this from Warband and it's easy to set up (it needs no development, just server settings). I know, too, that LAN games will be possible, I'm also aware that private servers can be setup to play this. But it is, in my opinion, a must to have official servers set to play commanding bot armies in random maps. As I've said, it's the very heart of Mount&Blade, and deserves it's place in this new expansion.
Well, here's the problem I see with setting a server up right now with the game in its current state:
1) This is the big one. If you add 40 bots per side, they are always there. Always. If it's 1 player or 10 commanding them, they are present. This means when you have 10 players on a team, each one commands 4 bots, and when you have 1 player on a team he commands all 40. This makes it either too difficult or too limiting, depending on which end of the spectrum you're on.
2) Bot equipment is rather awkward. Nord Archers have two one handed melee weapons, a bow, and arrows. Their melee capability is disappointing as it is (which is OK, they're archers) but they suffer at range because they have half as many arrows as other factions. Nord infantry on the other hand is dominant on the field, as they have heavy round shields, throwing axes, and (for some reason) two one handed melee weapons. Rhodok infantry won't use their pikes, but instead can toggle between a pick and a two handed hammer. There are all other kinds of silly things I could mention, but I want to keep this short-ish.
3) The only server that doesn't have regular activity is Conquest, and nobody plays it because it's boring. I don't know why it's so boring in M&B, as it's my favorite mode in the Battlefield series. Unfortunately this means we don't have very much feedback on the forums about it, so it's remaining that way. I won't be swapping it over to a new mode until somebody plays it and gives good feedback.
This is what I suggest to fix the problems I brought up:
1) In a new game mode (or maybe just as a server option), have Bot Count for Team 1 = (total players / 2) * team 1 Bot #. If this doesn't make sense now, let me explain. Like said before, if you set team 1's bots to 40 they stay at 40 regardless of how many players are there. This means if nobody is playing on that server, it's still causing a bit of lag for any other servers on the same line. This is bad. It also means one player can be commanding 40 bots all at once, and that's clumsy. So, have a "Bots per player" number. If you run a 10 player server (which I think would be the most you would want for a game mode like this) you could have 8 bots per player. This means when you have a full server, both teams have 40 bots each (8 per player, 5 players per team). This would give you plenty of room to customize your troop ratio between Archers, Infantry, and Cavalry. Strong archer factions would likely have two or three archer commanders, with one or two infantry and one cavalry. The reason I have (total players / 2) is because teams might be unbalanced. If you have 7 players on two teams, you have 4 versus 3. With just "team 1 players * 8 per player" you get 24 bots, versus team 2's 32. This isn't fair at all. With the (total players / 2) you would have 7 / 2 = 3.5 (rounded up to 4, I'd imagine) times 8 for 32. This way, both teams get 32 bots. That means the 3 players on one team have a little less control over their ratio and a slightly more cumbersome load of bots, but numerically they're a lot more even.
2) Remove doubled up weapons (like the hand axe and nordic sword on Nord archers). If you've got to fill a troop's 4 weapon slots, like for example the Nord infantry, give them a one handed weapon, a shield, throwing axes, and a war spear. I know this makes them generalists, but a spear was commonplace for infantry as it was cheap and easy to produce. This leads me to my next suggestion, which is that you should be able to order your men to use polearms. We have "use blunt only" and "use any weapon," but Rhodok infantry don't use the pikes they have. Other infantry won't use a spear if they have another weapon. I want the ability to tell my Rhodoks to pull out their pikes in anticipation of a cavalry charge, and then put them away for their sickles and shields when confronted with archers.
Well, here's the problem I see with setting a server up right now with the game in its current state:
1) This is the big one. If you add 40 bots per side, they are always there. Always. If it's 1 player or 10 commanding them, they are present. This means when you have 10 players on a team, each one commands 4 bots, and when you have 1 player on a team he commands all 40. This makes it either too difficult or too limiting, depending on which end of the spectrum you're on.
2) Bot equipment is rather awkward. Nord Archers have two one handed melee weapons, a bow, and arrows. Their melee capability is disappointing as it is (which is OK, they're archers) but they suffer at range because they have half as many arrows as other factions. Nord infantry on the other hand is dominant on the field, as they have heavy round shields, throwing axes, and (for some reason) two one handed melee weapons. Rhodok infantry won't use their pikes, but instead can toggle between a pick and a two handed hammer. There are all other kinds of silly things I could mention, but I want to keep this short-ish.
3) The only server that doesn't have regular activity is Conquest, and nobody plays it because it's boring. I don't know why it's so boring in M&B, as it's my favorite mode in the Battlefield series. Unfortunately this means we don't have very much feedback on the forums about it, so it's remaining that way. I won't be swapping it over to a new mode until somebody plays it and gives good feedback.
This is what I suggest to fix the problems I brought up:
1) In a new game mode (or maybe just as a server option), have Bot Count for Team 1 = (total players / 2) * team 1 Bot #. If this doesn't make sense now, let me explain. Like said before, if you set team 1's bots to 40 they stay at 40 regardless of how many players are there. This means if nobody is playing on that server, it's still causing a bit of lag for any other servers on the same line. This is bad. It also means one player can be commanding 40 bots all at once, and that's clumsy. So, have a "Bots per player" number. If you run a 10 player server (which I think would be the most you would want for a game mode like this) you could have 8 bots per player. This means when you have a full server, both teams have 40 bots each (8 per player, 5 players per team). This would give you plenty of room to customize your troop ratio between Archers, Infantry, and Cavalry. Strong archer factions would likely have two or three archer commanders, with one or two infantry and one cavalry. The reason I have (total players / 2) is because teams might be unbalanced. If you have 7 players on two teams, you have 4 versus 3. With just "team 1 players * 8 per player" you get 24 bots, versus team 2's 32. This isn't fair at all. With the (total players / 2) you would have 7 / 2 = 3.5 (rounded up to 4, I'd imagine) times 8 for 32. This way, both teams get 32 bots. That means the 3 players on one team have a little less control over their ratio and a slightly more cumbersome load of bots, but numerically they're a lot more even.
2) Remove doubled up weapons (like the hand axe and nordic sword on Nord archers). If you've got to fill a troop's 4 weapon slots, like for example the Nord infantry, give them a one handed weapon, a shield, throwing axes, and a war spear. I know this makes them generalists, but a spear was commonplace for infantry as it was cheap and easy to produce. This leads me to my next suggestion, which is that you should be able to order your men to use polearms. We have "use blunt only" and "use any weapon," but Rhodok infantry don't use the pikes they have. Other infantry won't use a spear if they have another weapon. I want the ability to tell my Rhodoks to pull out their pikes in anticipation of a cavalry charge, and then put them away for their sickles and shields when confronted with archers.
1) I've played on european servers with 50 bots on each side, with teams that weren't balanced (amount of players). Yet, the bots always being enabled, we were able to battles with the same amount of soldiers, even if one team had 4 players and the other had 7. Granted, I preferred being on the team with less people, because I had more bots to command. I think that it's not bad having always the same amount of bots, regardless of how many players are playing (always considering that you have a reasonable player limit, like 10 or 12)
2) Yes. The equipment, or the inability of ordering Bots to use some of that equipment can be problematic. Vaegirs are mostly fine. I remember commanding spearmen that were close to the group of archers. When Nord Infantry advanced near the archers, I unloaded a rain of javelins and then ordered to charge. I don't remember, though, what melee weapon they have, I think it's a mace. Khergits, well, I don't remember honestly. But these problems can be spotted easily and fixing them is a piece of cake, as long as you have players noticing these problems
3) Well, but US Server 5 could be modified to play battles with bots. Only setting it to battle would make a huge difference. The not cycling between random maps can be controlled by the players, all it takes is voting for a random map.
And about your solutions:
1) Hm. Well, it's another solution. It is difficult to command 40 bots alone against 40 bots commanded by, let's say, 4 players, since you can't keep track of every single movement. I don't know how much effort it takes to create a new game mode, though, and given the date, this should be via patch.
2) Yes, I agree. We need a "Use polearms" command, specially for Rhodoks. Strangely enough, i though I had suggested this, but looking in the bugtracker, I didn't. I've noticed, though, that lately bots in general use their polearms more often. But, even more control is needed about what weapon they use to make battles between bots in multiplayer smoother.
3) Or, turn the mode on servers with bots to battle honestly, I don't see the point of bot servers being TDM...
2) Yes, I agree. We need a "Use polearms" command, specially for Rhodoks. Strangely enough, i though I had suggested this, but looking in the bugtracker, I didn't. I've noticed, though, that lately bots in general use their polearms more often. But, even more control is needed about what weapon they use to make battles between bots in multiplayer smoother.
You did mention a use-polearms command in my "two ai problems I've noticed thread". But it probably deserves its own entry into the bugtracker as a suggestion thread. Of course if the bots were smart enough to use polearms and their big weapons at the right time it wouldn't be necessary but that isn't guaranteed to happen so the command would be helpful.
As to OP I would love to see a gamemode like this. Actually combining it with a conquest type gamemode would be pretty awesome.(hopefully a revamped one that puts more benefit to capturing flags and less to running around ninja'caving people on horseback.)
