I have a question, LO why have you not added NPC bots?

[AveragePlayer 21]

I am not talking about the NPCs that walk and drive around. I am talking about EN/CR bots. Ok so I went on to the servers and water was empty. now I need to level up my water contacts so I can open up new contacts to get access to higher level stuff.

 

Now if I was a criminal there is lots to do and ways to make money and level.  But as enforcer there is not way to level as the contacts will not give you a mission unless there is a Crim on the server.  

 

What is needed is to have NPC crims and enfs so that you could get missions. If you could join a NPC mission or have a NPC join you then you could actually do missions. Other games automatically fill out the holds to insure you have a team in battles.   

 

This would help APB out a lot as the game would no longer be empty.  There is no downside to filling out 4,5, or back to the glory days 10 v10 battles with bots.

 

[Yapopal 165]

Dude, what are you talking about? One person is working on the game. He was told to do an inter-district matchmaking. He does.  I think in February we will see an entry on this forum that nothing happened.

The game has broken the system of selection of players and the level of danger. The server part of the game runs on firewood and steam traction. Anti-cheat prohibits artists from using a translucent window in the character editor. The game is terribly bad. What NPCs are you talking about)

[ninjarrrr 248]

1 minute ago, Yapopal said:

Dude, what are you talking about? One person is working on the game. He was told to do an inter-district matchmaking. He does.  I think in February we will see an entry on this forum that nothing happened.

The game has broken the system of selection of players and the level of danger. The server part of the game runs on firewood and steam traction. Anti-cheat prohibits artists from using a translucent window in the character editor. The game is terribly bad. What NPCs are you talking about)

there *was* one person working on the game ayy lmao

[Yapopal 165]

1 minute ago, ninjarrrr said:

there *was* one person working on the game ayy lmao

Is there any information that the developer is not working on the game?

 

[TheMessiah 430]

they was 3?2 devs and the 3rd was something else(info from the roadmap)

[Yapopal 165]

16 minutes ago, TheMessiah said:

they was 3?2 devs and the 3rd was something else(info from the roadmap)

One employee, one boss, one dude from another company to support the employee.

 

[MACKxBOLAN 426]

2 minutes ago, Yapopal said:

One employee, one boss, one dude from another company to support the employee

They're suppose to be working on mm, but nobody's seen any staff in forums or game, n I don't mean gms.

They don't show up in forum or game, then they aren't at Work. 

They Refuse to fix the joker voice, he just gets louder each day.

Ya never see Support or 'Report-Support' in game Investigating.

No sign of staff since the 5 yr celebration, when there was a rare appearance of 

a support personnel in forum, but never In-game in the late evenings.

Nobody seen Matt since the install of the fake anti cheat.

 Time to start putting up Missing Posters on phone poles  

[PingOVER9000 189]

14 minutes ago, Yapopal said:

31 minutes ago, TheMessiah said:

they was 3?2 devs and the 3rd was something else(info from the roadmap)

One employee, one boss, one dude from another company to support the employee.

 

 

There is nothing and nobody, expect usual bs spammed from SPCT in good or bad whatever faith, 

And in case there are devs they are probabily all working 90% of time working on STFU aka SHIPS THAT FIGHT UNDERGROUND

[TheMessiah 430]

7 minutes ago, PingOVER9000 said:

And in case there are devs they are probabily all working 90% of time working on STFU aka SHIPS THAT FIGHT UNDERGROUND

dat game have some sort of frozen status as well..i think this 4 games under G1 are all dead from dev standpoint(stfu was supose to be released feb/march)

Edited July 10, 2023 by TheMessiah

[PingOVER9000 189]

Just now, TheMessiah said:

dat game have some sort of frozen status as well..i think this 4 games under G1 are all frozen

Well no... but I can understand why you have the idea a little confused, the story is sort a of a headache to understand quick at first ear about what happened with the studio was  developing STFU...  but the ""finale showdown"", there a pair of videos and this is the last one,   is quite entertaining I guess  

 

[Hexerin 1140]

MattScott did say that AI enemies are a planned feature, which means player vs AI matchmaking (was implied pure player team vs pure AI team, not mixed teams). Was in the most "recent" Q&A, IIRC. Considering how simple this game's gameplay design ultimately is, the AI wouldn't need to be very complex yet still provide a satisfying experience for those who enjoy coop vs AI. Unfortunately, LO has their priorities completely out of whack with that they're working on, so don't count on this happening anytime in the near future (if it ever happens at all before the game is shut down).

[BlatMan 706]

3 hours ago, Hexerin said:

MattScott did say that AI enemies are a planned feature, which means player vs AI matchmaking (was implied pure player team vs pure AI team, not mixed teams). Was in the most "recent" Q&A, IIRC. Considering how simple this game's gameplay design ultimately is, the AI wouldn't need to be very complex yet still provide a satisfying experience for those who enjoy coop vs AI. Unfortunately, LO has their priorities completely out of whack with that they're working on, so don't count on this happening anytime in the near future (if it ever happens at all before the game is shut down).

That would be the final nail in the coffin for me. Was for PUBG, and that game still had a decent player pop.

[R3ACT3M 489]

 

16 hours ago, Hexerin said:

not mixed teams

This would kill the PVP element for sure. No body likes it in Battlefield nobody likes it here. Now, that's not to say a separate queue for Player Vs Ai simulations wouldn't be fun. Just don't force AI on people who are queueing for PVP. Unless it kinda like For Honor, where there are lesser AI opponents then the real players (which is clearly shown)

 

16 hours ago, Hexerin said:

AI wouldn't need to be very complex yet still provide a satisfying experience for those who enjoy coop vs AI

I still think an great test would be on Halloween to do a huge PVE (all 50 crims and all 50 enf) vs Zombies. It's "simple" its Cooperative and different (for APB's standards). And would only be around limited time for players to try and give feedback on. Then just bring that event back every Halloween if it does well, and if not. Don't just give up on it. (Unless it's really that bad)

[PingOVER9000 189]

18 hours ago, Hexerin said:

MattScott did say that AI enemies are a planned feature,

Honestly when I read that some time ago, the first thing I tought it was (without being offensive  to no one ) :" SeRioSly, LO or Matt whatever... do you want to sh't blood?... and more of the necessary already?... 

 

15 hours ago, BlatMan said:

That would be the final nail in the coffin for me. Was for PUBG, and that game still had a decent player pop.

the Exactly feedback Matt  shall have looked for and read before writing anything about AI opponents in missions... 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by PingOVER9000

[Hexerin 1140]

Apparently common sense has left the chat again. The AI matches would obviously be their own separate queue you would intentionally have to enter into (or their own district entirely).

[Thial 176]

I disagree. Creating good AI for something like APB is very very difficult. The map is big, it has verticality, it has a lot of hiding spots, lots of different strategies. The gameplay itself is also complex at the high skill level. The AI would need to understand the verticality, how to cover points from good camping points, how to use mods, how to drive and where to park cars to utilize things like mobile spawner. It would need to be able to coordinate with other bots to storm points as a team rather than just rushing in one by one. It would need to understand throwing nades or suppressive fire. It would need to understand weapon types and switch them depending on the location/situation. It would need to be able to actually play the game which involves dodging, taking cover, corner popping, using mods at the right time, switching between main and secondary weapon etc etc. The missions are also very dynamic with cars being griefed or destroyed, items stuck in the middle of the road, points being blocked by cars and a bunch of other things which the bots would need to understand. I could keep going. There are tons of little pieces which would all need to work together to create believable bots. Anything other than that would result in braindead bots just storming points one after another and being butchered. And if that's the case then what's the point ? Sure maybe it would be enough for bronze or even silver players but if you approach high silver / low gold level you need the bots to do a lot more, not to mention making them be able to play against veterans.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Thial

[Hexerin 1140]

On 7/12/2023 at 2:35 AM, Thial said:

-snip for not having a clue what formatting is-

Expecting AI in a game to be capable of actually competing against players is absurd. That's not the point, and no dev with even a single functional brain cell would actually waste time trying to make it so (because it's literally impossible). It's why games have their AI use pseudo or full on cheats, because it's the only way to make AI work. Look at something like the infamous Mario Kart 64 for a prime example of this in action. Every game at least tries to hide it, to varying levels of success. MK64 was... very bad at hiding it.

 

In the context of APB, bots simply need to be capable of doing the objectives, path in from whatever angles are available, and make a loose attempt at sticking together.

 

The only complicated bit is making them dynamically adjust their strength to account for the players they're fighting. If the bot is losing fights, it would have to react faster to the player (whether the player passes its sight cone, or it starts taking fire from the player) and fire upon them more accurately once it has reacted, until it's actually trading kills with the player. The system would also need to keep records of individual player accounts, so that the bots would automatically know at the start of a mission how strong they need to be (could use existing threat levels as a baseline).

 

Or LO could just take the easy path, and just set up a fixed set of difficulty levels. Logically, there would be four, one for each threat level. Then the player would simply choose what difficulty level to queue against, based on what level of play they feel comfortable playing at. Could even put in bonuses to mission rewards (APB$/standing) for attempting the higher difficulties.

[vsb 6170]

3 hours ago, Hexerin said:

bots simply need to be capable of doing the objectives, path in from whatever angles are available, and make a loose attempt at sticking together.

it feels like you’re vastly underplaying how much work it would be to add even just this trash-tier bot you’re describing

[Thial 176]

7 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Expecting AI in a game to be capable of actually competing against players is absurd. That's not the point, and no dev with even a single functional brain cell would actually waste time trying to make it so (because it's literally impossible). It's why games have their AI use pseudo or full on cheats, because it's the only way to make AI work. Look at something like the infamous Mario Kart 64 for a prime example of this in action. Every game at least tries to hide it, to varying levels of success. MK64 was... very bad at hiding it.

 

In the context of APB, bots simply need to be capable of doing the objectives, path in from whatever angles are available, and make a loose attempt at sticking together.

 

The only complicated bit is making them dynamically adjust their strength to account for the players they're fighting. If the bot is losing fights, it would have to react faster to the player (whether the player passes its sight cone, or it starts taking fire from the player) and fire upon them more accurately once it has reacted, until it's actually trading kills with the player. The system would also need to keep records of individual player accounts, so that the bots would automatically know at the start of a mission how strong they need to be (could use existing threat levels as a baseline).

 

Or LO could just take the easy path, and just set up a fixed set of difficulty levels. Logically, there would be four, one for each threat level. Then the player would simply choose what difficulty level to queue against, based on what level of play they feel comfortable playing at. Could even put in bonuses to mission rewards (APB$/standing) for attempting the higher difficulties.

It's not impossible, it's just difficult. From programming standpoint you have full control over the accuracy, awareness and response time of bots. You could easily adjust those values to match the real players which includes veterans.

 

Even creating braindead bots includes nearly all of the things I have listed as the bots would need to be able to use the features of the game. They would need to use the guns, switch them, use the mods, know how to drive around the whole map, how to reach/defend/push objectives and of course play as a team and understand dynamic scenarios like blocking objectives with cars as they would have to destroy them.

 

Otherwise you would have the bots just run around like headless chickens, get stuck on things, storm points one by one etc. And if that's the case then literally nobody would want to play with bots. People would just spam abandon just like it is when a gold has a team full of silvers.

[PingOVER9000 189]

20 hours ago, Hexerin said:

blabla

 

Talking of common sense... "you have less idea than the no idea of what people above were talking about IA implemented in APB"