Where did the vs. bots mode go?

[Firaeveus Carron]

title.

[Nin]

Use a mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857465858

[Firaeveus Carron]

The mod says that the bots don't register as players, meaning that you can't get into a game outside of warm up mode.

You can already add bots via console anyways (same problem as above though).


However, I'm wondering why the developers decided to remove the vs. bots feature for the game. They even had Alien and Marine commander bots – now they're gone. Doesn't make sense to me.

[Belemonguin]

So there is no way to train offline against bots? That sucks. How am I supposed to train to be a commander and not bother anyone?

[BeigeAlert]

We removed training vs bots for a few of reasons:
1) They absolutely tanked performance. As they are now, bots are very inefficient, and we didn't want players to leave the experience feeling that the game doesn't run well. We know it's not the most optimized game out there... but bots could be giving people the wrong impression. From my own experiences, before I recently upgraded my pc to have a better CPU, playing a regular 8v8 bot match would cut my framerate in HALF (~50 from 100)... and I had a fairly powerful system!
2) Bots suck. More specifically, OUR bots suck. Certainly nobody is expecting bots to perform as realistically/fairly as human players, but the bots as they were in the game were so far off the mark, we felt it was better to simply remove the option alltogether. I've wanted to redo bots for quite a while now, just haven't had the free time to put into it.
3) We didn't think people were actually using it. Every feature that goes into ns2 has to be tested. Every time we release a new update, we also have to test all the existing features that are in the game, to ensure we didn't break anything! Simply keeping a feature in the game has a cost: it means we have one more thing to test before releasing.

To be quite honest, we didn't anticipate people would miss it that much. However, we have seen a few posts asking this same question, so clearly we've underestimated the number of players actually using this feature. I had wanted to at some point re-work bots and add them back to the game, but seeing this response has made this task a much higher priority for me now.

TLDR: We didn't think people used the mode, the bots severely lower performance, and bots aren't that great at teaching the player the game, in our humble opinion. After seeing the response, I will make it a higher priority to get bots where they need to be so we can re-add this feature. :)

[Belemonguin]

Thank you for the reply! This game have so nice devs :)
I used bots as a target dummy. They were fine to try fighting 1vs1 in a narrow space and now I need them to get used to commanding because people keep ejecting me even on a rookie server.

[Ghoul]

Originally posted by Belemon:

Thank you for the reply! This game have so nice devs :)
I used bots as a target dummy. They were fine to try fighting 1vs1 in a narrow space and now I need them to get used to commanding because people keep ejecting me even on a rookie server.

You can still start a local server with bots:

1. Create a Server via the Server Browser
   
2. Open the console via ~ or whatever key is above tab and next to 1 at your keyboard.
   
3. Enter

   addbots 5 1

   - this will add 5 marine bots
   
4. Enter

   addbots 5 2

   - this will add 5 alien bots
   
5. Enter

   addbots 1 1 com

   - this will add 1 marine commander bot
   
6. Enter

   addbots 1 2 com

   - this will add 1 alien commander bot
   
7. Close the console via ~ or whatever key is above tab and next to 1 at your keyboard.
   
8. Join a team

You may want to decrease the amount of bots by one for the team you want to join. Keep in mind bots drain alot cpu performance so don't add too many.

Generally I recommend to just join a empty server and check if it has bots enabled by joining a team. After that just jump into the chair and wait for the round to start. When other players join just tell them that you are new to commanding and they should not eject you. Everybody has to learn it at some point, right?

Make sure you have played the commander turorials though to have a basic understanding what to do.

Commanding is often less about choosing the right tech research or placing structures correctly but more about communicating with your team which you can't really train with bots.

Often other players are even willing to help you out in case you got stuck at something while commanding if you ask.

If you still have access to rookie only servers you can also jump out of the chair midgame and let a bot take over in case you get overwhelmed and feel like you are slowing your team down. At normal servers just ask somebody else to take over.

[Firaeveus Carron]

Originally posted by BeigeAlert:

We removed training vs bots for a few of reasons:
1) They absolutely tanked performance ... We know it's not the most optimized game out there... but bots could be giving people the wrong impression. From my own experiences, before I recently upgraded my pc to have a better CPU, playing a regular 8v8 bot match would cut my framerate in HALF (~50 from 100)... and I had a fairly powerful system!

I actually recall this happening from time to time.

I have a very powerful system (gtx 1080, 6700k processor, yada yada), yet I would notice that I would encounter random stuttering whenever I was in a game with 15 or so bots. I would not encounter this problem when playing on servers with other players, but the reason why I was stuttering didn't really click in until you explained why just there.


I think having bots, even if they're mediocre at best, is a nice addition for ANY game. I have a couple of friends who still play Savage 2 with me but we can never get a full server going because of the extremely low number of active players. In the past, we used a mod that added bots, but the mod has disappeared and now we're back to just the 4 of us in one match.

While Natural Selection 2 doesn't have the problem of an inactive player base, bots are still great to just relax, toy around with things and play by yourself (in a way) without bothering anyone or having anyone bother you.


However, knowing now that the servers full of bots were causing the suttering issues I encountered in the past, would there even be a way to put bots back in and have them impact performance to a far lesser degree?

[XORsum]

Sorry fo the necro, but I seriously hope you guys are considering improving the bots still. The ONLY thing that keeps a game going after the playerbase has left, is Bots. They are fun to screw around with. I know it's hard to implement decent AI, and it can tank performance severely. But I think if you focused for a while on that you would smash it ;)
I've always loved the Natural Selection games, but nobody seems to play them much anymore (at least in Australia, so ehh, not keen on high ping), so yeah, I really do hope you add their functionality back

[xstar960]

Originally posted by BeigeAlert:

We removed training vs bots for a few of reasons:
1) They absolutely tanked performance. As they are now, bots are very inefficient, and we didn't want players to leave the experience feeling that the game doesn't run well. We know it's not the most optimized game out there... but bots could be giving people the wrong impression. From my own experiences, before I recently upgraded my pc to have a better CPU, playing a regular 8v8 bot match would cut my framerate in HALF (~50 from 100)... and I had a fairly powerful system!
2) Bots suck. More specifically, OUR bots suck. Certainly nobody is expecting bots to perform as realistically/fairly as human players, but the bots as they were in the game were so far off the mark, we felt it was better to simply remove the option alltogether. I've wanted to redo bots for quite a while now, just haven't had the free time to put into it.
3) We didn't think people were actually using it. Every feature that goes into ns2 has to be tested. Every time we release a new update, we also have to test all the existing features that are in the game, to ensure we didn't break anything! Simply keeping a feature in the game has a cost: it means we have one more thing to test before releasing.

To be quite honest, we didn't anticipate people would miss it that much. However, we have seen a few posts asking this same question, so clearly we've underestimated the number of players actually using this feature. I had wanted to at some point re-work bots and add them back to the game, but seeing this response has made this task a much higher priority for me now.

TLDR: We didn't think people used the mode, the bots severely lower performance, and bots aren't that great at teaching the player the game, in our humble opinion. After seeing the response, I will make it a higher priority to get bots where they need to be so we can re-add this feature. :)

I had to switch for to bot only games as I don't like playing with mods and that was the only option to play un-modded NS2.

I think the most inportant thing to fix is allowing the bots to move through gorge tunnels and phase gates.

As currently they take the long way around the map as they don't see the shorter route.

[Varaosa]

WTF? You remove bots in the game? That the only reason why, i installed the game, now you can't play this game any more. I like to host & play multiplayer with co-op but, i can't because hosting not working & that was hard so, neather way you can't play this game any more.

[XORsum]

When was the last time you played it anyway? :P The bots have been removed for like, over two years now I think?

[Hurrsia]

Really sad that they never put bots back in. Game is literally pointless to have now.

[fairking]

I think we need a single player mode for noobs, where you can choose the race and then if you want to play as a commander or as a solder.
All those console commands are not a solution for those new players.

[ROG (New Player)]

Originally posted by BeigeAlert:

We removed training vs bots for a few of reasons:
1) They absolutely tanked performance. As they are now, bots are very inefficient, and we didn't want players to leave the experience feeling that the game doesn't run well. We know it's not the most optimized game out there... but bots could be giving people the wrong impression. From my own experiences, before I recently upgraded my pc to have a better CPU, playing a regular 8v8 bot match would cut my framerate in HALF (~50 from 100)... and I had a fairly powerful system!
2) Bots suck. More specifically, OUR bots suck. Certainly nobody is expecting bots to perform as realistically/fairly as human players, but the bots as they were in the game were so far off the mark, we felt it was better to simply remove the option alltogether. I've wanted to redo bots for quite a while now, just haven't had the free time to put into it.
3) We didn't think people were actually using it. Every feature that goes into ns2 has to be tested. Every time we release a new update, we also have to test all the existing features that are in the game, to ensure we didn't break anything! Simply keeping a feature in the game has a cost: it means we have one more thing to test before releasing.

To be quite honest, we didn't anticipate people would miss it that much. However, we have seen a few posts asking this same question, so clearly we've underestimated the number of players actually using this feature. I had wanted to at some point re-work bots and add them back to the game, but seeing this response has made this task a much higher priority for me now.

TLDR: We didn't think people used the mode, the bots severely lower performance, and bots aren't that great at teaching the player the game, in our humble opinion. After seeing the response, I will make it a higher priority to get bots where they need to be so we can re-add this feature. :)

How about you add bots now that the game is dead

[XORsum]

Yeh thatd be real good