Adaptabe AI vs Bots?

[Wippit Guud]

Seeing as how everything is kept online anyways, you would instants have statistical data on every character - what skills they used, what area they hit, and how often they were in a particular area in any given time.

Human players are adaptable. Bots are not.

The game environment should mimic the real world somewhat. The creatures in it should be able to learn and adapt to repeated 'attacks' by the same tactics. It's a war in the game, it should be treated as a war would be in the real world - tactics adapting to combat tactics.

Ok, that's the lead-in...


Your average bot is going to do the same thing, the same way, over and over again. They find a nice farmable spot with a certain creature criteria - usually melee-only creatures is the easiest - and then hit the area over and over and over. I don't care if you're as dumb as an ettin, a bunch of attackers doing the same things repeatedly is going to force them to learn to protect themselves.

So, if the same character is tracked doing the same thing over and over, have the game adapt to those tactics. If it's the 10th time in an hour that someone has gone into an area alone to beat on the poor melee creatures, have those creature use some of their loot that hasn't been taken yet to hire a mesmer mercenary. And have it spam energy drains and enchantment strippers mercilessly while the poor beasts pummel the botter to death. A live player will beat a retreat. A bot player will bite the big one.

And the more often that account is the target of the 'mesmer mercenary', the faster and more frequent it will show up - dumb ettins will pay for results. Bot-man dies over and over. No more easy botting.

[Shanthe]

You are suggesting that the ettin I kill remember my tactics so he can be prepared against me? But he's dead! How would he remember! This makes no sense :P.

On a serious note, the botters would just keep going. They die, big deal, load again and that's it. Even if they die 50% of the time, the other 50% they are getting stuff...

[Ratix0]

Maybe, but its hell hard to programme such an AI that changes with the metagame...

[michaeldt]

plus, its a lot of data to base on each char. since changing it for everyone based on bots would make the game obscenely difficult.

and, if you had a farmer in your party, it would have to spawn according to his habits, which would be really complicated.....

[Wippit Guud]

You are suggesting that the ettin I kill remember my tactics so he can be prepared against me? But he's dead! How would he remember! This makes no sense :P.

"Hello. My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. And my mother. And 4 of my brothers. And half the rest of my tribe. This mesmer is going to fry your brain. Prepare to die."

It's not the ettins you kill, is the rest hiding out, waiting... remembering... plotting....

[Wippit Guud]

plus, its a lot of data to base on each char. since changing it for everyone based on bots would make the game obscenely difficult.

and, if you had a farmer in your party, it would have to spawn according to his habits, which would be really complicated.....

It's not really all that much...

... if character A enters area B x number of times within a given time period, and kills x number of creatures each time, add additional creatures of differing abilities to combat said character - most likely a mesmer or 5.

... if character A then enters an area with characters B, C, and D, as long as those 3 do not have the same circumstances, revert to regular, as they weren't bots if they were acting normally.



Note: screwing with the area would only be aimed at people who enter areas alone 6 or more times in an hour. If the bots are eliminated by removing their ability to use basic tactics (see any monk video), then drops as a whole increases, and regular players needing to farm is reduced - better to join a party.

Besides, it's "Guild" wars.... go in with a group :)