Yeah, I''d agree with that. With so few choices, and so few inputs, there''s not that much you can decide about what your bot is going to do. Some things would obviously make the bot better, others obviously wouldn''t. Since there''s no advantage to updating faster (as long as you don''t go over the time limit), I wouldn''t be surprised if a lot of bots act pretty much the same as each other.

John B

There''s are all good thoughts and exactly what I''m looking for at this point. I''ve already considered such options as less bot processing time, adding another weapon or two, adding health packs, and altering some of the game dynamics. Discussion here somewhat solidifies the need to act on some of these options.

I would like to see a system of movement where you make tradeoffs, in terms of visibility, field of view, accuracy and speed.

A stealth mode where you can't move fast, but are more accurate and can see the enemy before he can see you.

A normal mode where everything is normal.

A rapid mode where you can move fast (retreat?), but are less accurate and are not as able to spot the enemy.

I'd also like to have event reporting. While currently, my bot can see that my it's health decreased, but doesn't know why. Grenade? Mine? His? Gunfire? From where?

It doesn't seem that the bot can see off to the side. I'd like a small circle FoV added to the current one. It might be an optional, temporary thing... the next frame, your normal 90 degree FOV is gone, but you can see behind you a bit. Or, be able to turn your head.

Improved obstacles... make them stop all fire. Already said, so just another vote on that matter.

edit: And a thought for the future... instead of just one bot per side, a whole squad of bots. Being able to coordinate your team's movement would add another dimension to it. Instead of having Q3A-style fighting going on, we could have actual strategy. Maybe different bots would have different weapons.

Bigger arena would be nice. Camera work should be added.

[edited by - TSwitch on August 6, 2003 11:57:59 PM]

quote:Original post by ZealousElixir
The issue here is not over the approximate simplicity of the bots. But, this is a major concern: it is extremely difficult to construct a bot that can consistently beat the best of the bots that use the above strategy (see Leftie).

This is the problem i''ve seen as well. Its all very well contructing a fancy bot which will create an internal map of the arena, pathfind its way around it and such - but up against the above style of bot it''ll be toast as soon as its spotted because it just cannot run away fast enough. Even assuming you spot the other bot first and try and remain hidden, the obstacles provide so little cover that you can''t remain hidden for long.

I''m not sure how to combat this - perhaps giving the arena more complex layouts (so running and hiding is actually possible) or perhaps by having different movement modes like TSwitch suggested.

quote:Original post by TSwitch
I would like to see a system of movement where you make tradeoffs, in terms of visibility, field of view, accuracy and speed.

A stealth mode where you can''t move fast, but are more accurate and can see the enemy before he can see you.

A normal mode where everything is normal.

A rapid mode where you can move fast (retreat?), but are less accurate and are not as able to spot the enemy.

This is something I''ve considered, but it probably would be something that went into the rewrite, which I may decide to start sometime soon.

quote:
I''d also like to have event reporting. While currently, my bot can see that my it''s health decreased, but doesn''t know why. Grenade? Mine? His? Gunfire? From where?

This is another rewrite feature, and I''ve been trying to think of the best way to do it. Probably a parameter to the Update()..

quote:
It doesn''t seem that the bot can see off to the side. I''d like a small circle FoV added to the current one. It might be an optional, temporary thing... the next frame, your normal 90 degree FOV is gone, but you can see behind you a bit. Or, be able to turn your head.

That''s considerable for this version.

quote:
Improved obstacles... make them stop all fire. Already said, so just another vote on that matter.

This has been fixed in the next update. Rocks don''t block grenades, though.

quote:
edit: And a thought for the future... instead of just one bot per side, a whole squad of bots. Being able to coordinate your team''s movement would add another dimension to it. Instead of having Q3A-style fighting going on, we could have actual strategy. Maybe different bots would have different weapons.

Already been planned.. CTF, team deathmatch, and more..

quote:
Bigger arena would be nice. Camera work should be added.

Both of these are also rewrite functionality.

I think the main concept that needs to be understood here is that this beta run of the arena is very much a prototype/proof of concept in that I didn''t know if it would go over well enough to continue development, nor did I know if the concept was solid enough to implement. Apparently, it''s a solid concept and it seems to be going over well, so I''m already thinking about how it will be rewritten. This doesn''t mean we can''t have contests with the current version.. it just means that as the current version matures, I''ll also be reimplementing the arena for more extensibility and cool features than are possible right now.

Anyway, my point is that these types of gameplay issues were very much expected, so I''m glad people are pointing them out. They also seem to be similar to the same issues that I''ve identified during my testing, so they all fit under my "watch" list. Based on feedback in the forum and elsewhere, I''ve started to tweak values and modify the bot DLL interface a little (including possibly having the compiler issue fixed), so some of the issues identified here either may not be issues any longer, or they may be issues on the other end of the spectrum. We''ll find out.

If there are going to be multiple bots then each bot is going to need some kind of unique identifier...my whole bot right now is based on the fact that there''s only one enemy, but I think adding multiple bots would be worth it. I also wish the GetVisibleObjects returned a single struct...not that its that big of an implementation problem currently (i could add it myself, and sort of have), but if any features were to be added, my codebase would be invalidated...I''d just like it to be more extensible.

Brian J
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