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A Brief History of Bots
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
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This video is a retrospective on bots, the guys you never wanted to play with but eventually you'll have to.
Featuring a voice interview with Chad Lion of Bohemia Interactive, and email interviews with Steve Polge of Epic Games and Steve Ellis of Rareware/Free Radical.
In my journey through this video, I discovered that the wierd new free-to-play-in-development Unreal Tournament is actually coming along pretty darn nicely. There's wall jumping, it's fast as hell, enforcer is your starter weapon and fps is way faster than it looks like it should be. If you want to disagree with me, check it out: www.unrealtourn...
Last week on the TOVG podcast, we argued about Hyper Light Drifter and I was the only sane one: www.thatonevide...
Large bot battles are what made the original battlefront games for me.
It's why they're so amazing, you can come back to BattleFront 1 or 2 any day and have the same experiences of 10 years ago, while playing the new one, you have the few singleplayer missions, but Online will be a empty wasteland, a reminder of what once was.
Man Of Imperium it's also a good thing when you don't have the good online to enjoy said online game like me I'd rather play bot mode then be left out entirely
Eh... Battlefront 2 on PC is maddening. Soldiers randomly take cover with their backs to the only threat, enemy NPCs wade through swarms of allied PCs to seek you out and kill you, which makes them hard to see in the mass, without attracting any allied attention... it's just bad. I don't remember it being so atrocious on PS2 when I played it, though.
*@General Turd*
Amen to that brother, amen!
Joshua
It's not great, but it's not horrible. The bots (for the most part) are go for the objective, and once they have finally managed to locate the player, they shoot at what I think is perfect accuracy for what a bot should have. It's not unrealistically good or un-fun. It's just decent "will kill you in a few seconds if you don't react" accuracy.
I think they nailed the bots for SWBF 2 (PC). They get stuck sometimes, and they sometimes stop and stare at a wall, but it's easily playable nonetheless. It's just inconsistencies and loopholes in the programming.
Keep in mind I have never played the game on console, and it might very well be better, but I don't mind the PC bots.
dude you're going to hit 200k soon! that's awesome. keep up the great videos
Haha he's now at 400k
Yooo now you guys are both doing so well. Jakey please come on the Dad N Sons podcast!
hi nakey
I love that you actual do journalistic work. You're filling a great niche.
There should be some rule in place where games old enough, or with sufficiently diminishing player-base should become open source.
If they worry about privacy they could open source the enginge but not the art assets. Problem for a lot of old games now is that the source code is lost.
God yes
Here's a thought. Why hasn't anyone created a "bot engine" for developers to use when making multiplayer-centric games? There's software for making games have realistic physics, lighting, and graphics, so why not bots? Also, as e-sports are gaining in popularity, bots could be modeled after the play styles of pro gamers to create a more realistic experience offline.
Actually a really interesting idea
+Ryan Rardin Unfortunately it's not quite that simple. There's no easy way to create a single "bot engine" that would work with different styles of games. Even if you limited the scope to just a "FPS bot engine" things would still be tricky, since different games all have very different mechanics. On top of that, developers don't use the same engines (there's a surprising number of ways to actually construct a game), so it's tricky to make a generic bot AI. You never know what will be possible in the future (especially since we're moving towards self-learning AI) but at the current time something like this isn't really feasible.
Some engines already have AI integrated, but I guess it's still hard to make good bots
There are AI solutions, which is mostly pathfinding. The biggest issue would be coding it into the game. Physics, lights and graphics are pretty static, while AI bots are supposed to be dynamic.
Also, a REALLY good programmer could make this happen with very little lines of code, so it might not be necessary.
However, I'm just guessing.
While thats a neat idea, its not possible to do. And its not possible for similar reasons as to why you can't use GPU power for CPU functions (i.e. use the same computing process that's used for simulating light effects and applying it to AI algorithms)****
They're inherently different problems with different solutions and require completely different techniques to solve.
Its the difference between applied mathematics and pure mathematics (i.e. the difference between algebra and discrete logic).
And as others have mentioned, the dynamic nature of bots and AI basically mean that they need to be programmed on a "per basis" function for the most part. Path finding can be pretty universal but everything else is extremely contextual and cannot be applied universally.
Still a neat idea tho.
****you can techincally use CPU power to do functions that a GPU would normally handle but thats a very inefficient use of CPU power so most people wont.
#BringBotsBack
+NotaSkeleton
#BotLivesMatter
+NotaSkeleton #makebotsgreatagain
#PlayerForBot
+NotaSkeleton NotAllBots
#4thebots
Look at all that journalism going on there. Good show.
+Teckniphobia George "Super Bunnyhop" Weidman - "Always asking the right questions."
Hmm.. this makes me wonder. If we had bots ~20 years ago that basically just studied the players' actions and movements over the course of the games to learn proper pathfinding and tactics, could that not be a thing of the future as well?
If we figure out a cheap "modulated" way of having a game record mass amounts of multiplayer data from players, tracking aiming patterns, movement, pathfinding, strategy and things like that into a big massive lump of information, a bot feature could make use of that information and basically grow and adapt as the life cycle of the game passes.
During launch bots would be almost non-existent and the focus is on online matchmaking, but 10 years from now the bot algorithm would've grown to the point of functionally echoing the tendencies of players back in the day, and keeping the game "alive".
+Shilag
Half way through reading your comment I immediately thought about mass multiplayer data accumulation, and then your comment ended with the same conclusion. That is a great idea! If only there was someone that could implement it somehow.
What about closet hackers
Your content feels like journalism, rather than game journalism. Because you actually look for information, talk to people, and not wait for publishers to feed you with hype for their next release. That's special and very cool. Keep it up !
Hence why the term "games journalism" is often seen as a punchline. Besides, the way Bunnyhop operates, he doesn't need the same money or exposure big sites do when choosing to hype up upcoming games.
Since what he does is real journalism
inoffensive coddler how do you know this
Really enjoyed the interview segments. Thanks SBH
+VidyaBox Interview segments dragged out a fair bit if I'm honest.
I dunno, I found them very interesting.
Yeah, the pacing on the beginning was perfect, I watched 2 minutes and i thought 5 minutes have passed, but the interview segments while interesting they seemed to go for like 10 minutes while in reality they're only a couple of minutes
+Uncle Fassbender yeah "L" "L" "L"
It's funny how your 90's era bot-heavy games were also some of my favorites. Especially Perfect Dark. Somehow, many features of that game are still ahead of its time, and even ours.
I got my nephew Rare Replay for his X1. He scoffed at Perfect Dark until I showed him what you could do in it. He said the same thing. 'Why don't modern games have this stuff?'
Here is why there are no more bots in games:
1. Game developers these day's seem to be unable to programe a AI. I mean in shooters. Look at CoD. Massive budget...yet their AI is retarded to the max in the singleplayer. Compare that AI with the AI in FEAR. Huge difference...FEAR beign rather old now still has the best singleplayer campaign AI in a shooter.
2. Do you think publishers want players able to keep playing the game they love? No they don't. They to sell the next installment a year later. Same reason why the modscene got taken out of most AAA games. Cause they don't want competition on the DLC side of a game and they don't want you to play number 445 of Shooter X, they want you to buy 446 next year for the full price again. Yeah this doesn't apply to every game, but sadly the truth is that compared to the late 90's and early 2000's you have only a minor ammount of mod scenes left.
3. Boardmembers don't know shit about games. They only see that game x scores well as a online game. There for they assume everyone only wants Multiplayer only games against players only.
I miss bots, i would love to see them return. Yeah it might be costly...but come on....some games make so much money they could get all of Africa out of poorness, and they wouldn't have the ability to put a minor side of the profit aside to make a fun AI bots so we can play against AI without having to go up against other players? Or even have AI mixed with real players so you have big armies again without the need of 64 players being online.
I mean it's not just shooters who have a retarded AI problem. RTS and TBS AI suffer from artificial increase of difficulty...meaning that they simply cheat and get more resources at the beginning. My brother pretty much prefers the Shogun 1 and Medieval AI from the total war series over their more recent titles. I also remember that the AI from Deus Ex HR wasn't really the best.
This is one of my biggest problems with online only games, the developers don't care about making a good game to last anymore, with the frequent releases of expensive online only titles with very little content the studios have created a financially viable option that forces the player base to buy the next game if they want to continue playing. It isn't about the long term value of a product anymore, so why try and make it good when people will gladly buy it at full price and continue doing so?
Ironically I think the very thing Battlefield, with its recent single player focus, needs is bots. If they put their time into developing a good AI system then they can still make a good campaign by simply designing a large map and an objective without any of the cinematic fluff - which will emulate the far superior multiplayer experience and increase customer satisfaction. Of course if they do that there is no reason not put bots in multiplayer which is great for the extended lifetime value of the title, everyone wins.
With the next generation technological advancements should not just be limited by what can be done graphically, AI should have been one of the biggest improvements this generation because what we still have at this point in time seems inadequately primitive.
777boman also bots in an online game would actually allow a lot of people with no online connectivity to enjoy said online game like me to actually play the game.
777boman
Hell, even if they made a shitty bot system, it would still be better than the campaign or nothing.
For all the shit people give COD, it's one of the very few games that seems to be preserving this very important feature. I can go back and play Black Ops 1, my favorite online shooter, in 10 years and have a shit ton of fun, that means something to me.
Black Ops 1 have bots? Mine doesn't. I know Black Ops 2 and 3 haves, but 1?
+Select WTF Yes it does
OMG this is amazing. How do you put them in the game? It's like on the menus? It's available on XBox and PS3?
+Select WTF I believe its called combat training
+Select WTF It's in Combat Training, not private match. Which sucks because private match has bad ass shit like speed modifiers. You can sprint across a map in like 6-8 seconds with max speed.
Something about booting up old MP games without bots and finding empty servers terrifies and depresses me, honestly. I think about it a lot but I still don't even know if there'd be a possibility of a solution. Bots help but a lot of online games don't suit them, like MMOs.
R.I.P. Singularity
+MrRudiMentary modding in the future?
World of Warcraft Single Project exists, there is one that has amazing bots that do their work very well, and completely offline, there is one thing you can't do but, aside of that, you can do all the PvE content
I like that you seem to have a good respect for your sponsor and actually listened to the product they ask you to showoff, it feels genuine.
When german CZcamsrs do Product Placement, the get a lot of hate. I don't get it.
+Polyblank59 German CZcamsrs? Why that nationality?
With so many multiplayer-focused shooters released every year that are quickly abandoned for the next one(s), there would be a load of dead servers and the games themselves will be useless waste of space. The first two Star Wars: Battlefront games have contextualised bot-matches and will likely still be played for decades to come while EA's recent Star Wars: Battlefront shall be forgotten in a few years time in favour of a sequel.
+Stephen Mc Devitt It was forgotten by 80% of the people who bought it a week after release
+Stephen Mc Devitt Not that EA gives a fuck about making a game that will eventually have a legacy behind it, they just want easy money.
Lol I still play battlefront 2 on pc with mods that let u play with like 200 bots.
Dickbeard the Merciless
Is EA too big to implode within?
I've stopped buying multiplayer shooters for this very reason.
+Blahidontcare11 AIs are becoming Skynet :p
The fact that the new Doom has bots is great.
+Davi Doom
the new Doom has bigger problems. It's multiplayer is fucked up on release.
Bethesda screws it like Fallout 4.
Well, it seems that we played a different beta. It's a different game, what do you expect after 12 years?
Would you like the same thing over and over or try something new? Maybe you will like it, maybe not, but talking shit about a videogame that is not even released it's stupid.
So you did not see the "demon"-shit?
Neither the Killmove-Rubbish?
Nor the 3 Multiplayer DLCs that are already announced. With exclusive weapons, deamons, armor and equip? Pay2win at it's best.
And no rocket jumping or plasma climbing... ...double jumps with way too much air time instead... No weapon pickup... ...
+mister cow
Well... Doom is a simple game... no matter how much Graphics you improve... it is still a Fundamental Arcade Shooter.
Important Broadcast
So, I do gotta think that you already tried the DLCs and know exactly that this is going to be a Pay 2 Win multiplayer?
I'm not trying to defend the game, but just saying that before someone talks trash about something, should try the game first.
And don't think that I defend Doom everytime because the name of the game is on my nickname: I do consider the BFG Edition shitty.
this was so incredibly interesting. no other channel makes videos of your sort George
+Matěj Rytych for CS:GO context, there's 3kliksphilip. But still, good video journalism about reasonably different kinds of video games pretty much starts and stops with SBH.
I'd love to see him make a video about DRM, specifically in relation to preserving video game history.
I'm all for DRM-Free, but I wouldn't mind games using DRM for the first few months, or even until demand dies down, then receiving a DRM free release.
Man, the UT99 soundtrack is so awesome. I wobble whenever someone puts it in a video.
This is one of your finest yet, George. Well friggin' done.
Unreal Tournament 1999 has one of the most amazing soundtracks out of any video game, hell, out of any type of soundtrack. So frantic, melodic and catchy all at the same time.
worth mentioning that you're referring specifically to FPS bots here, in games like RTS bots (well they're usually just called AIs, but it's not that big a diufference) haven't gone away in the first place and are not going anywhere any time soon either.
+Drakan R
well multiplayer bots in RTS games arent really well developed, 99% of them dont even come close on beating an average player without cheating ressources. the best RTS multiplayer bots i saw so far are the ones in SSCAIT, its a university project for AI in sc1 which started like 10 years ago.
quake free
arenar
+jo hu arenar lol
I miss bots. Even if it's just to be able to set a specific challenge for yourself.
We get horde mods now that just throws masses of AI at you but it's the quantity that makes them tough not their intelligence.
ReppeNThA707
Sure but that's not exactly the same thing. One of the joys of bot matches is that not everyone is JUST out to kill you.
After spending quite a bit of time in Star Wars Battlefront II I have to say it's a rather special feeling to just be in fights that are simply dense from both sides. But it's not like half the confrontations end up in death.
Again there are games that I'd like to try out, but apparantly the playerbase is just dead...
ReppeNThA707
And you're right. I also think there's better games just built around some kind of horde (I've had quite a lot of fun with Orcs must Die). Otherwise if kinda feels like a single player part without much context. Inevitably it also just feels like you're fooling the weaknesses of the AI. I wouldn't say pre-mentioned Battlefront II has great AI but it does feel more like you're actually taking part in a battle. Immersive isn't the word to use here. It's just a great singeplayer experience.
i love bots - i love starwars battlefront I & II bots especially. I miss bots!
It never got better than them did it.
Sure it did. Unreal Tournament has the best bots around on PC, and on consoles it's a toss up between Timesplitters and Perfect Dark.
brok2 How I miss the Unreal bots.
Timeslpitters still looks and plays like a dream to this day.
Perfect Dark (N64) shows what content we should be getting.
Halo and Fear are superior to anything else. That's not even an opinion, that's objective truth, judging by variety of factors.
Adam Frisk
Like say... bot support, the subject we're all talking about? Hahahaha dream on mate..
"Dune comes out" my head shot up so fast... Nope. It says Doom. False alarm.
you've outdone yourself yet again
Funny they talk about Arma bots
Oh, the good ol' days of bots doing 30 point K-turns and clogging up the road systems
It's a goddamn crime to release a Star Wars Battlefront game without bots. If there is a large scale combat FPS/TPS that needs bots, it is Battlefront.
The Ai was retarded In the old games
Yes, but it didn't need to be hyper advanced AI. Just enough to simulate large scale battles. The new Battlefront feels incredibly empty without the masses of suicidal bots.
John Cole playing against Ai was like playing a whole army of 1 armed blind kids
It just didn't feel like a fair challenge specially when you are a hero character. The Ai don't know what to do
Still better than no ai at all.
+Al Malone That was half the fun
Before I start this video. If I don't see Perfect Dark mentioned I'm going to be disappointed.
congrats
I feel you but it doesn't make sense to bring it up.
+John Smith Which console multiplayer shooters had good bots before Perfect Dark and Goldeneye on N64?
+NeuroticLobster I can't think of any good games. Only one bad one. I can't remember the games name but StopSkeletonsFromFighting covered a multiplayer only N64 game with bots.
Duke Nukem 64 had bots. While it wasn't the best game, it was fun setting up traps for them. PLUS you could play them on any level from the single player mode.
There's also Turok Rage Wars. A very good bot battler. It's pretty hard to get hold of unfortunately.
Timesplitters Future Perfect. Disco map. Everybody has shotguns/flamethrowers. Fun times.
Brb, gonna play another 1000 hours of Future Perfect.
ts2 ice station with a friend and fill out the rest with bots. i estimate like 500 hours just in that.
@@amolinya Dual flareguns. 'Nuff said.
why wasn't csgo or overwatch mentioned? They are the two biggest modern titles with bots besides cod.
+holben27 Overwatch has bots? Really? This alone makes me want to buy it
I think most ""new"" multiplayer focused source games have bot support (tf2)
The bots in over watch are trash tho but they do the job
when did I comment this
im not sure if you can play overwatch offline, so that don't count i think.... but cs go is fully playable solo in almost all of the game modes except the danger zone.
The guy from behemia interactive sounded like he had a mix of an australian and a southern accent. Holy shit it sounds so weird
+IFFMF the way he slides into and out of those r's is crazy. i wonder where he's from?
+Jacob Dunn haha ya new zealand maybe?
He's from New Zealand. But on top of that he seems to have a speech impediment / nervous stutter
+Jacob Dunn Interestingly, the southern accent is actually descended from English accents of groups like the Cavaliers.
+IFFMF Southern New Zealand most likely.
As someone who has had ZERO interest in playing against bots in shooters (and most other genres really) I found your video interesting.
I can understand now a bit better why there are people who like bots, even if I still don't plan to touch those game modes.
Bliced at least Bots give people who don't have the internet to enjoy said multiplayer like me a chance to see what this game is about
Misakiii save me..
Sucks to be you.
My bots crazy fun times.
Time Splitters 3 : Set all weapons to Mines, Bombs, Grenades. Explosion Fun imminent.
CS : Source and CS 1.6 : Set Gravity to very low that you can fly like in the moon. Set auto-balance to no. Set opposing team consist only bots. Your team must only consist you or your real friends. Set bots to knife only. Have fun.
UT : Set all weapon to The Redeemer only :)
I don't play multiplayer games so I use bots all the time. I'm sad no one makes them any more.
the bots in gears of war 2 and 3 made getting into multiplayer games so seemless. More games should copy that system.
I feel like playing some UT99 and Quake3 right now.
halo and battlefield with bots would be so good...
Don't worry guys, AIs will play with us in the future.
One day.
Just like they did in the 90's? I can't wait!
+theowest AI in the future won't play with us... they'll *toy* with us.
On some level, yes they will toy with us. Until we have direct neural interfaces, letting us react at the speed we think, any AI or bot is going to have an insurmountable advantage of information processing, decision making and reaction time.
Look at 'Perfect Play AI's' from 2d fighting games. Such bot's can only be overcome by exploiting their 100% predictability of response or holes in their AI design. (AI Breaker moves that the bot doesn't have a response, or has a bad response, for.)
If someone made a human level sapient AI to fill the bot role, it wouldn't be possible to defeat it conventionally. It would have to LET player's win, because the only edges humans have over a bot are inventiveness and adaptation. It's a challenge in enemy design today to make challenging, rather then 'good' enemies. A technically proficient enemy is likely frustrating (MK Walkers for example) rather then good design. I hate resorting to TV Tropes language but it makes an effective short hand here.
Sort of a sidenote, but direct neural interface would still be limited by the speed at which electrical signals can pass through meat.
Even if future AI were to run on computers that ignore superconductors like carbon nanotubes or even fibre optics in the construction of the informaion processing hardware, copper wiring in modern-day PCBs still has a *much* faster signal throughput than neurons do, so even if you could interact with a system where action were practically simultaneous with human thought, you'd still be limited by the hardware bottleneck of the human brain.
Okay, point taken. I'd set that aside for the example.
The real only way to get on the same level is brain uploading, but at that point you hit the 'what makes you different?' problem.
In short: Human hardware, for this job, sucks compared to the hardware the bot runs on. This has always been true and likely always will be true (barring the case mentioned above and a few other edge cases) thus bots and 'video game AI' will always be striving to provide challenge, not to make the best possible plays.
XCOM and XCOM2's (the recent ones) AI is throttled on every difficulty setting (barring mods) because otherwise it rapidly hits 'Perfect Play AI' and makes the game objectively worse for 99.9999% of players. (partially because of the intended uneven playing field) The remainder can just mod the restrictions out.
That being said, it's important to remember that the challenge of making this 'play AI' is something to strive towards rather then being upset about. I don't get pissed that a duck I'm hunting is better at flying then me, I just shoot it. I think making such a 'Play AI' would actually be notably harder then making something sapient, because the Sapient AI would learn on it's own that being too good or too bad at the game doesn't work out, while an Expert System would have to be fine tuned to tune itself to some degree.
Then again, Sapience is such a nightmare to understand I'm probably wrong. Still thanks for being polite about it Siledas, I appreciate that.
Quality journalism, SB. You really deserve more views/subscriptions than you currently get.
easily one of your best videos
I heard a story about someone who kept a quake (2 or 3 I never remember which) server filled with bots up for an absurd amount of time. After a while the bots just kind of stopped.
They just stood where they had last spawned, their AI curve having dictated that the only winning move was not to play.
They joined the server. And then the bots all gunned the player down and the server crashed.
+Spiny Justspiny Red that too - my guess is: creepypasta.
"Actually"
+ResistReact "Akshuly akshuly akshuly"
+ResistReact What?
actually!
+ResistReact Typically typical.
10:25 "...dynamics, and _actually_ what customers _actually_ wanting from the _actual_ product..."
I think you've invented a new drinking game.
That bot at the very end of the video is actually extremely impressive. I would've been caught completely off guard by whatever that maneuver he pulled off at the end was.
While bots have been disappearing from shooters they have only gotten better and better in fighting games. From the old days of simple scripts and reading inputs to AIs who learn playstyles and act accordingly.
Also in racing games, PCars AI sucks in some way, If you play a 24-hour endurance race, you can't just sit for 24 hours, even though there is a option to swap your seat to AI driver, which will drive your car like real endurance race is(in real endurance race like Le Mans, driver only can drive 2 hours consecutive, and they must swap driver.) but their skill is horrible,a example: I built 4 Laps lead in Le Mans, and in last 2 hours, I gave my seat to AI, but they blew the lead, from 20 minutes, to merely 30 seconds, so I took it over and just go to finish to prevent my lead become complete vaporized and even got overtaken by other AI.
Unreal Tournament was amazing to me because of the bots... Used to love playing CTF games and telling my team mates to "hold position" in good spots to guard doors and stuff. Of course when you downloaded new maps like giant bedrooms and stuff you'd just see the bots standing there in the distance, not doing anything. Honestly though, Unreal Tournament was AMAZING when you download a Xenomorph character model, and just have a huge battle against a ton of them.
when you're such an early bird you gotta deal with that 360p for a bit
+Game Addict Penguin The early bird gets the low res worm
+Game Addict Penguin I'm early and I got only 720p
Game Addict Penguin I'm watching this at 144p because that's as much as my internet can handle
I'm watching this on my Gameboy.
Awhile back I played _E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy_ , which also structured itself almost entirely as a multiplayer arena full of bots made to look like a singleplayer map. The bots were pretty sophisticated, with random placement and proper patrol patterns. Of course, it also meant it could have crazy stuff like *32 player co-op in the main campaign*. It was a weird, weird game.
+Fors Clavigera EYE owns. Gain Brozoufs every day
The insanity of that game is what makes it so very charming. But it's also a great game :D
Ah I too remember the year 19902000. Good times ❤️
I still remember playing unreal championship on insta-gib (1 shot kill railguns) with 'godlike' bots. Very unique and challenging gameplay mode, you could literally die several times in fewer seconds (was common to be fragged within miliseconds of spawning), so winning felt like a real victory.
Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2 are my personal bot murdering games
I've gotta say, you have been at the top of your game for the last few months. You have been doing some incredible editorial work on games and their history that has gone largely unexamined.
Seriously - you are an incredible treasure to thoughtfully addressing games.
I still play Battlefront 2 with bots.
honestly, I had bought some dead games thanks that there are bots.
I think the most interesting thing about bots is that the skillsets required to take them on can diverge from the skillsets used to take on real players. I remember quite well that in Super Smash Bros Melee, I thought counters were useless because they NEVER worked against bots, you basically just had to be lucky. This was completely different with humans, humans proved much easier to trick, misdirect and confuse in that specific way, while the bots in that game required a much more direct approach. I remember a few games where I would master taking on the bots and then taking the skills i learned from them, I get creamed in multiplayer. It's not necessarily that bots are "easier" than humans, it's more that they act in a fundamentally different way, killing bots and killing humans are two distinctly different matters
The AI in melee can be a special kind of annoying. It appears to work by performing very specific actions with literal flawless precision (because it's a computer ofc) in reaction to the EXACT part of the map you are on and the EXACT move you use. For example: If you are playing against link and on a flat surface while shielding, then he WILL use his hookshot at that exact moment if you are in range. It's a pain, because link's hookshot is incredibly fast in melee.
I think the best way to beat the AI in melee is simply to play as unpredictably and mobile as you can while exploiting predictions on what the AI itself might do in response. If you keep changing your moves and attacks, then it will have a harder time adapting.
I've actually managed to exploit links' AI a few times by shielding to get him to hookshot, then rolling behind, c-smashing and repeating until I get a KO.
George, you are the best.
+Writing on Games ^^^ everybody go watch this channel. It's nothing to sneeze at either.
I'm really surprised that there was no mention of Counter-Strike. In CS:GO if there's not enough real players (or players disconnect) the game fills the slots with bots to keep the teams even (numbers wise, anyways), and when a player dies they can take control of a bot if there are any on their team. I'd be curious to know how they are programmed into the game.
It's a great counter-point to Siege where if someone has connection problems or quits you end up with lopsided numbers.
Souls game had increasingly good player-like AI for invasions and NPCs, but, I guess, those games have a much more limiting number of situations and tools needed for the AI to behave good and some of them are pretty heavily scripted to be exploited (some a pretty life-like, though). FPS bots are just more sophisticated, I guess. And yeah, it is incredibly sad that official bots are more of a rarity now and the much more limited amount of tools available for the players also often means that player-created bots are impossible to implement in any official and sometimes even unofficial way properly. But I get the logic - even if your team still exists 15 years after the game is released and you still own the rights, who's going to buy it, right? At least, this was a very strong way of thinking before GOG showed up, maybe things will change for better eventually.
FPS bots are sophisticated, sure. But did FPS themselves differ so much in game mechanics from the ones of yore that born AI should be rewritten? Honestly, don't think so. And if not, then why isn't there a massive library of installable bot AI routines to plug in, work around with hammer a little and go? That's what I don't understand.
+Klarden Man, you don't know how much i would love the existence of some kind of "bots" for soul games, so a person can emulate the "invasions" before go for "real multiplayer". The same for FPS. In fact, i would love to see all those multiplayer games with a bot features if possible.
Rocket League is one game that comes to mind that does bots well. The bots are fillers for human opponents that basically keep a seat warm and try not to lose the match for you, and they do admirably.
My favorite bot was the CS Bot that launched with the Steam Beta and CS 1.0. I believe these were made by Turtle Rock or Gearbox, and they played fairly realistically, traveling in groups and doing things that human opponents would do. It was disappointing when Valve dropped support for them.
>called super bunnyhop
>doesn't even bhop/strafejump in quake
Nice use of Unreal Tournament music there.
Back when I was 11 or 12 I played that game offline for dozens of hours, and although I certainly didn't get thrills as intense as those that played it online, that was an absolutely perfect introduction to arena shooters. It's still the reference of its genre as far as I'm concerned and I still come back to it every once in a while to kick some bot ass.
Don't even get me started on all the joy a single player could squeeze out of Perfect Dark's multiplayer.
Man I miss bots.
Wooo go Unreal! One of the most under appreciated games of all time
1. I always had a funny feeling about how Halo never had bots.
2. I always had a good feeling about how Dark Souls still allowed npc bot invasions in offline mode
3. I miss games like Time Splitters
I do indeed miss bots. Either have a campaign or add bots, worth the added cost..but try telling that to corporate
depends on a per game bassis ... often doing a campaign is THE most expensive part of any game
now let that same game have a propper multiplayer with complex ai and the cost skyrocket ... pretty good example imo would be something like starcraft 2
I am so happy that all the Killzone games have bots. Though I don't remember if the PSP one did.
I find that the bots in Insurgency if not very intelligent are challenging. They make for a good gaming experience. My friends and I have a server and almost exclusively play in Coop mode against bots. When playing ArmA we have the most fun against the AI. Even when we played Joint Ops back in the day that was also played against bots.
+Stephen Morrish (PendragonUK) Insurgency co-op vs AI is fun as hell, the way they programmed the bots was fantastic. Even on normal difficulty the bots have quick reaction time and good aim.
I love how you keep tying subject matter back around Siege so we can see more videos about it. I can't get enough either.
I really wish bots were in more games. Some multiplayer focused games should just scrap campaigns and use those resources on multiplayer and bots. Especially the Battlefield games should do that. They always have very mediocre campaigns and no bots in multiplayer. And that means you might play through the campaign once and the multiplayer will be dead in a few years and after that you can never enjoy the game again.
Agree, I'd take bots over campaigns any day!
When you talk about how the exclusion of bots is mainly just a reaction to what the main stream gaming market wants these days, it makes me wish I was in some sort of gaming community where other people shared our interests that were separate from the main stream market.
That stab at the new DOOM ouch
To be fair, the devs thought it was a smart idea to integrate stuff like kill animations that leave you vulnerable, a 2 weapon load out system with only 1 gun as a map pick up, a pacebreaking demon kill streak and leveling in a supposed arena multiplayer shooter without being able to rocket jump
+Suwat Saksri
I see we both watch WorthABuy..
+Ace3DF
It is not a stab to be fair. it is obvious.
+Suwat Saksri timesplitters didn't even have jumping
With bots an MP game practically has an infinite lifespan. Considering most big MP games now are yearly installments, if they had bots, they wouldn't be able to force everyone into moving onto the new installment, since if people prefer the old version they would stick with the old one. And that is less money for the greedy guys on top of publishers. So just like everything else wrong today, greed is to blame.
Bots as a preservation of history is cool and all, but I wanna kill some things in dead games. I find it fun.
I look forward to the future, where there's groups of people that just get together to play old multiplayer games together, different games every get-together.
I sell Martian propane and Martian propane accessories
UT4 is dope, anyone who hasn't given it a look should do so immediately.
I'd say this also applies to the NPC invasions and summons in Souls games.
+Jamster the bots is dark souls 2 and 3 got sick good, in many time you just can't distinguish then from players
It would be nice. So far NPCs invasions aren't any different to a black knight chasing you.
NPCs in the Souls games are pretty smart as far as bots go, but I guess even they are extremely easy to overpower in most cases. I didn't grow up playing games like these, I was really young and stuck to PS1 and PS2. It's a shame that bots aren't as appreciated though
200 years from now you'll have bots that can play any game like human so no need to worry. :)
I love your reviews, but this is THE kind of content that you make that just leaves me drooling.
In-depth analysis of the whole thing. Love it.
That star with the Unreal Tournament tune... the nostalgia :')
Toxikk has bots. Thankfully too, since there is usually nobody to play with :(
+Hieronymus di Colonna It's funny because there's tons of people with the game and they all say that no one's playing it.
It has pretty good bots, actually, so it's not terrible
Bots where pretty important feature to me back then. In fact I would not have bought the original Unreal Tournament if it did not have bots since my internet connection was so bad. Most of my games where against bots which where not bad and provided a decent challenge when there where several of them in a chaotic battlefield. They where pretty easy to beat 1v1 though.
Nice video dude. Well done!
One thing for me that was missed overall is that Bots can be intensive in terms of CPU, which in turns up the computers requirements, servers can go from dealing with simple numbers from players doing their movement processing on their side and updating on the server to the server computing and sending out 32-64 bots information as well as computing what they're actually doing. Which in turn requires more development time to optimize bots online.
+Super Bunnyhop
On the topic of bots (as a developer).
Programming bots is not difficult, whoever expressed that, it's clearly not well informed (At least that's not so true in the current market). The main problem is making bots flawed, a bot can work by reading input (The A.I. on starcraft 2 or the bots on league of legends, or even the counter strike 1.6 bots), reading input is just too perfect to fit a game, so making them flawed is the real challenge.
There are many free A.I. libraries than can make bots without that much effort. What you show in the last vid (I believe it's unreal tournament) is just that, it's reading input.
The interesting thing I think you kind of missed is that bots started out as mods, and I think that is where bots are going to end up. Right now it is rather impractical to mod in bots because it's rather inefficient trying to imitate 30 clients of these games on current hardware and studios are super protective of their code and blast anyone trying to hack/mod their games. In the future, when studios stop caring about people hacking into the code of these games and hardware is far more powerful, real bots will start to be created for these games.
Maybe this is a stretch, but I think that this ties into the modern ideas surrounding modding. Modding is a fantastic way to keep games alive and to offload some of the problems of game development to a passionate community. Imagine a new Battlefield game that released with a robust map editor. Instead of making the team focus on creating a bunch of huge maps and remakes of old maps, the team could focus on creating a few very polished maps, some decent bots, and let the community create the remakes and polish the bots.
Oops I thought this was going to be about robots. 😉
I can't even begin to count the hours me and my brother put into 007 Nightfire bot matches back in the day. Those crazy, overcrowded, laser fueled grapnel fests were the most fun I had with the game. Oh how we don't know what we got till its gone...
I can imagine how hard it may be to program all the possibilities with destructible environments. Arena shooters' AI bots have been pioneered, but no one is willing to invest into an open-source larger-scale deep AI that could be implemented into the games of today. If that is at all possible, of course. Great video, btw.
that kinda stuff is being pioneered somewhat by engine developers like those who make unreal engine and unity.
I like that it's not a corporate, souless marketing decision, but a very practical one. Even Ally NPCs in Bloodborne, who are temporary bots that are basically enemy hunter AI's that have decided to be friends. They are more than a little creepy in how they behave, because their AI wasn't programmed to have them stay around too long after their target is killed and it clearly shows. Watching an NPC block a doorway to do 3 transform combos with the Kirhammer on the corpse of a basic enemy makes it pretty obvious why someone might want to spend the time, effort, and money needed to get more human behaviors out of bots make literally anything else
Most players won't appreciate the effort it takes to make real teammates and enemies outside of the main campaign, but it will never stop being hilarious to watch a summoned NPC dash attacking the boss, drawing all the aggro until the boss falls on him dashing around the body until the boss corpse despawns, and then the NPC despawns in the middle of the same animation for the same attack that he's done for 5 minutes straight, only with no boss to fight, he was menacing a 2 meter line on the ground instead.
I love it so much
ALSO, BATTLEFRONT 2!!!! DID YOU FORGET ARGUABLY ONE OF THE BEST SHOOTERS OF ITS GENERATION WITH SOLID BOT AI. Especially since its focus split between 4 teams, 24 unit types, 12 land vehicles, 16 space vehicles, at least 10 heroes, and special critters, along with having no RAM/processing power and 25-50 individual units to control at once. All of that with a great campaign and without graphics that appear to be cobbled together with sticky notes and old gum, that's impressive on the PS2, no matter how you slice it. Even though you can out-think every enemy with relative ease, I still do at least 3 full Galactic Conquests a year just to relive the fun my friends and I had years ago
ah yes good old 19902000 such a good year.
What is clearly going to happen in the next 5 years is that simulated intelligence programming will become a modular field where a specialized program (IE path finding) will be developed to peak industry standards. Game companies will then buy the behavior module assets for the kind of Bot they need in their game, plug in a small number of super adaptable modules which make up the experience their bots require, and then program their own tweaks to make them their own. Another 15 years from now will see human brain emulation, and not long after that the end of only fighting against just bots and or multiplayers: by then Microsoft & Google's AI programs will have virtual thinking beings able to work round the clock as opponents to the human players, capable of providing a plethora of difficulty levels and tactics, meaning for the first time we will be the ones who have to learn how to adapt as opposed to the game learning from us.
That guy being interviewed sounded like the Mandarin from Iron Man
I would like to add that Killzone 2 Multiplayer had bots, and they were damn convincing.
Like If I remember correctly, if you unloaded your clip on a friendly (you couldn't damage friendlies), it would turn to look at you for a second and then went back to whatever it was doing.
I miss bots, I really liked playing by myself sometimes with dumber opponents and rest from the frantic online gameplay (and the behaviours of players..). That's why I still like CS:GO, it does have bots and they do serve their purpose; mindless fun and simple training for new players
Actually George, I don't think the lack of bots is going to be a problem for historical accuracy because we're starting to get good at learning AIs. By the time we get to 10-20 years in the future I think software like PlayFun will have advanced enough that you could give it any old game without bot support and it'll provide a reasonable simulation of what playing with humans actually was like. Even in 2007 Team Fortress 2's bots could be given a level that they had never seen before and work out how to navigate and play on it. It's only a matter of time before bots can be let loose on third party technology and they'll have it sussed out by the time you come back from work to play a round.
The UT music was perfect, that game is gonna die one day because its outdated. I cry just at the thought.
Great insights and commentary, thank you! I do miss bots, I remember how they would happily fill out a match balancing out teams and make for great cooperative games, like in UT. BF1942, Battlefield and other games that supported bots made playing at odd hours on servers still enjoyable.
I am really glad that some devs are still trying to do some good for the gaming community by supporting bots and continuing their development.
Bunny for bots!
It is a shame that Weidman has not touched upon the necessity of open source/Free Software even bit in the case of hisgorical video game preservation. Quake and Doom series are the great examples of that topic. Those games will be played on the systems of upcoming decades thanks to source ports and customizability while Battlefield series will be obsolete at all.