BOTS for MULTIPLAYER - BETA update now available!

[Bodikai]

Hi Everyone,

We recently announced that we would be working on AI Bots for multiplayer and we're happy to announce that we've been making great progress! They're still a little bit rough in places, but they are already a significant challenge and with your support we fully intend to make them even better! Before we make an official update including these Bots, we want to get as much feedback from our awesome Steam community and improve them as much as possible, so we have made a Beta update available for anyone who wants to try them out. To use the Beta just follow these steps:

• In your Steam Library, right-click on 'Scourge: Outbreak' and select 'Properties'.
  
• In the new window, select the 'Betas' tab.
  
• Where it says 'Select the beta you would like to opt into:', select "beta_bots - Bots_Beta - Work In Progress" and then close the window.
  
• Your copy of Scourge: Outbreak should begin downloading the Bots Beta update.
  
• Once the download is complete. Just start the game as normal.

Here is a quick video showing the Bots in action in the 'Perimeter' multiplayer map. Please excuse the low resolution! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6DTFq93_Ac

A few things to keep in mind:

• While you are playing the Bots Beta, you will NOT be able to play with players who are NOT playing the Bots Beta.
  
• You CAN play with other players who are playing the Bots Beta. If there are public games in progress with spaces available (ie. less than 8 players), you should be able to find and join them via matchmaking.
  
• You can switch back to the non-beta version at any time.
  
• Since this is just a test, we haven't re-built all lighting in the modified maps, so the lighting might be a bit inconsistent in some places.
  
• This is the first version of the Bots functionality, so you will almost certainly see some issues. See the list of known issues below, but please consider letting us know in this thread if you see any bugs, problems or possible improvements that are NOT included in the list of known issues.

Known issues:

• Bots don't use the Shield ability. Please note that even though the AI uses the Shield in the Campaign, making them use it in Multiplayer could potentially be very complicated and we cannot guarantee getting this to work in the future.
  
• Sometimes, on some maps, the Bots will stand still at the beginning of the round until at least one player starts fighting with enemy Bots.
  
• If you switch teams, the Bots do not currently switch teams to maintain fair teams.
  
• Bots sometimes activate the Static Shockwave when there is no enemy within range.
  
• Bots sometimes activate Shockwaves AFTER their current enemy dies.
  
• Right now Bots are enabled by DEFAULT. If you want to turn them off, you can only do so if you run the game in ENGLISH. In any other language, the option for turning Bots ON/OFF will be blank. This will of course be fixed.
  
• Bots currently work as intended in Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. In Capture The Flag, they will run around and fight, but they currently do not attempt to take or capture the flag. We're working on this.
  
• Bots currently only work in the 5 core maps (Crash, Gauntlet, Override, Perimeter and Showdown), not in the 6 'Blindside' DLC maps (Backbone, Epsilon, Intrusion, Nexus, Omega and Station). We will include support for these DLC maps later on.
  
• Bots currently do not pick up any weapons. They start with their default inventory (slightly different per character) and have infinite ammo.

Here is a list of fixes that are also included in this Beta. Thanks to all you guys who helped to point out and provide details about these issues:

• Cross-hair now changes back to default color (white) when enemy is dead
  
• When launching for the first time in full-screen mode the monitor's current resolution will be used instead of the default resolution. Fixes start-up black screens noted by some players and minimization to the task-bar on launch.
  
• Game will not process input if Steam overlay is closing. Fixes the ESC button issue when closing the overlay which also (unintentionally) closed the currently focused game UI scene.
  
• Potential MAC fix for gamepad issue addressing inverted mappings. Not a final fix though, so please provide feedback on this!
  
• 'Resume' button issue noted by some players now fixed.
  
• Searching for a Co-op game will now always show the Server List. If there are no available games, the list will be empty and you'll get a 'No games found' message.

Changlog for new update - 26/04/2014

• Added support for four maps from the 'Blindside' map pack: Backbone, Intrusion, Nexus and Omega. The remaining two maps Epsilon and Station will be added soon.
  
• 'Preview quality' lights have been built for all core game maps and the four newly supported 'Blindside' maps. While not as high quality as full 'Production quality' lights, they are better than in the initial Bots beta update.
  
• Max number of Bots (up to 7) now configurable in Pre-Game Lobby. Note that for Public games this defaults to 7 and cannot be modified.
  
• Bots now use Shockwaves more effectively. Previously they would often do Shockwaves after killing their target, and Bots with the Static Shockwave would often activate it before the target was in range.
  
• In TDM and CTF, Bots previously would sometimes stand still and not do anything until the Player had engaged an enemy. Now they should begin moving and searching for enemies right away.
  
• Bots now have more varied inventories. Previously they all had the Firefly Submachinegun and the Piranha Pistol. Now some characters have Reaper Assault Rifles and Barracuda Shotguns.
  
• New fix for Audio crash experienced by some users (thanks slimak), which should resolve some of the crashes.
  
• New Controls option to disable Gamepad Button icons even if you have a Gamepad connected.
  
• Matchmaking for a Public Versus (multiplayer) game now doesn't wait so long before creating a game even if you don't find other players. It used to wait 3 minutes, but now it should be between 1 and 2 minutes.
  
• Players can join private games from the friend list without having to receive an invite first. Please note that this one is just a test and not final!
  
• Graphics options let you scroll down to the custom values. Once user selects a custom value, 'Level of Detail' will be changed to 'Custom' automatically.

That's all for now, so what are you waiting for? There are Bots in the Beta that are itching to Shockwave you into oblivion! :-)

Have fun!

- The Scourge: Outbreak Team

PS: If you have any friends who own Scourge: Outbreak but who don't visit the forums often, please let them know about this! Thanks!

[slimak[PL]]

"dude, sweet!" :D fooling around with these bots is unexpectely more pleasant exerience than I initially anticipated.

[Bodikai]

I forgot to mention that currently the Bots work as intended in DM and TDM, but not CTF. In CTF, they will run around and fight, but currently they do not attempt to take or capture the flag. We're working on this.

Also, Bots currently do not pick up any weapons. They start with their default weapons (slightly different per character) and have infinite ammo to compensate.

The original post has been edited to include these known issues.

[TOM.S]

Hello.
Thanks for Bots for Multiplayer Beta update, Tragnarion team.
(And thanks for your reply to Community Support forum, Bodikai :)

First, I'd like to say thank you to Moss, Bodikai and Tragnarion team for Server List support. I'm really sorry I stuck to my opinion this time. But I sincerely appreciate your team for listening to our ideas and making it possible.

And I did not expect the Bots would be available so soon. Just played now, it's simply amazing for me. I read the release notes and still WIP at this time though, everything looks promising.

Your team has been working hard on the improvements of this game since its release almost every day. Have a nice Easter weekend. And I'll enjoy playing New Multiplayer this weekend too :)
Thank you !

[Fideo]

Thanks by this great support

If you have the game in spanish, in combo bots appear none and none and never can change it to on. If you change to english work fine.

[B_Thax]

@BigCjnS: Yes, this is because we will do the final localization (translations) once all features are finished, this way we only have to localize it once :D

[swenor]

It already sounds great. Since you are going to add bot support for dlc maps I will buy it, as well as digital extras. Damn, I love devs cooperating with community - it's a fken win/win situation. Keep it up.

[M]

I've played a couple of matches against bots, AI is pretty nice but it seems they are not affected by the respawn time limit, and it would nice to add an option to decide the amount of bots in-game.

[B_Thax]

@Mustaine: We are looking into the respawn time for bots and how many options do we require. The tricky thing is with public matches and the automatic matchmaking, where the player always uses the default options for the game mode either for searching or hosting.

[slimak[PL]]

these bots are really great. as much time with them as with UT'99 bots when played it for the first time on launch, and this really means something.

[gl3nnium]

First impressions of Bots.....Match set-up is really simple and very good.
The bots themselves are really really freaking hard. Hit location not making much of any difference.
Numerous times (in the short period i played) I was picked off by a bot as I was emptying almost an entire clip directly into their face....I found that frustrating and unfair...bots seemed to be able to take me out easy while I was having to unload at least a clip into them before they went down. A bit of blood splatter and a nice thud sound to signify a hit would be nice.

I guess thats just me....i would always get frustrated in games like halo where I would empty a clip into something and it would do nothing...the games i loved were the ones where the right shot could drop a target and you immediately search for the next....games like that let you build momentum and get your adrenaline going....games where every opponent is almost bullet proof just feel like one big 'boss fight' after another (for me boss fights are something you have to endure to get to the fun stuff.)
Everything ran solid...audio was nice. (if a gun sounds powerful then you believe it is ... theres nothing worse than a whimpy sounding gun)
I really liked that you could select a player that wasnt one of the four main characters.
Graphically very nice.
Because you have access to many more characters to play, have you considered expanding the available weapons to ones that werent avalable to the main four characters? (like a cheap infantry rifle or something like that.)

Anyway..will play it more tomorrow and let you know if I come up with anything else..hope I was of some help.

[Bodikai]

Thanks for the feedback, gl3nnium!

I'm not sure why it feels as if the Bots are hard to kill. They have the same health as the Player, so (for example) 2-3 bursts of the Reaper should kill as long as most (not necessarily all) of the shots are on target (less if just a couple of those hit the head). Do you tend to fire from the hip or fire in Ironsight/Aimed mode? Could you maybe try enabling Friendly Fire and try teamkilling a friendly Bot (who won't try to avoid you) to see how long it takes to kill them?

Expanding the weapon selection is technically possible but in all honest unlikely unless we can somehow justify the effort (2-3 weeks modeling/texturing/shaders, few days audio FX, few days to week visual FX, possible special animations, testing, AI usage behavior, testing, etc).

Perhaps you're already aware, but every time you pick up a weapon for the first time, be it in Campaign or in Multiplayer, you 'unlock' that weapon (except the Guardian Sniper Rifle, Chimera Gatling Cannon, and Manticore Plasma Cannon) for multiplayer and can select it in your inventory. Most weapons have multiple variants which enhance different stats. The Guardian, Chimera and Manticore are always available to pick up in strategically important locations in the Multiplayer maps and respawn 60 seconds after being picked up if I recall correctly.

As for the difficulty of the Bots, we do intend to allow configuring Casual, Normal and Nightmare variants that can be selected in LAN and Private matches. Normal will be used Public (ie. matchmaking) matches. In my opinion the current Bot difficulty is probably somewhere between Normal and Nightmare, but they do have some predictable behaviour which makes them easy to kill 1-on-1 in many situations. I'm sure you'll get the hang of them with a little bit of practice.

[slimak[PL]]

try CRASH, and polish your skill, gl3nnium. currently bots have perfectly fit ( for me ) for pleasant experience. and this level its big enough to not make you gunned down by 3 bots at he same time that could bring impression of difficulty being too high. only thing that multiplayer needs is some music actually - good thing we have winamp for that ;)))

[gl3nnium]

Yes just played it again...I don't know if it's just me but it seemed easier to get a kill when playing as one of the main 4 characters instead of the enemy soldiers...don't know if there's a reason or because i was just tired when I played it last night. Anyway..very nice work Bodikai...like slimak I will probably crank up the music next time I play....I can only imagine the amount of work that must have gone into this. I hope that you are getting some decent money back....It must be like raising a child and then watching it go out into the world.

[Bodikai]

Originally posted by gl3nnium:

I can only imagine the amount of work that must have gone into this. I hope that you are getting some decent money back....It must be like raising a child and then watching it go out into the world.

@gl3nnium: Haha... Check 2:15 in the documentary that Dan Bull did of us on our XBLA launch day last year. My good friend and fellow Designer Rafa said almost exactly that! :-)

As for the health of Echo vs Nogari characters, that's interesting and something I hadn't considered or noticed. I'll check that out at work tomorrow. Thanks!

[slimak[PL]]

@gl3nnium ( I'm posting like a pro ;) I recommend trying free Trackmania Canyon soundtrack for botmatch - it adds a nice flow to funning around arena. ;) about diffrent difficulty when using diffrent models - didnt notice anything like it also.

@Bodikai : sir, the longer I play this game the more I feel embarassed about my first postings on this forum regarding this game. it really is more than meets the eye, transformers style ;)