Are players Bots?

[Onthax]

Noticed some odd behaviour by "players" when i join a hotgame one of our bases has 30%, the other can have 79% or 30%

I finish a game, join in a "Hotgame" and there is the same guy i was supposably playing with already with a score of 1000+ 5sec later in a new game.


Kept seeing the same names but none responded to chat.

Anyone else seeing the same?

[Mage]

People without the [BOT] tag are players, if you attempt to add the [BOT] tag to your name, or copy a name of a bot, then you will have an "Invalid Username". So players are players whether they respond or not

[Onthax]

That's the part that got me, these players wernt tagged with [bot] but theres no way in the 20sec between games they could rack up 1000+ points repeatedly. Looks like the devs are trying to push player numbers maybe?

Strange also that every hotgame i joined for about 2 hours, either their base or our base was at 30%, like i wasn't joining an actually game every time, just a setpoint

No players responded in chat during this time.

[Taco Tony]

I am sad to say but yes, I am very positive that this game has bots possed as players. This must be to make the game feel more populated than it is and help real players get acheivements. I didn't realize this until after I grinded all the way to rank #1 and I finally came to the realisation that I was mostly playing against bots. I felt dirty and used. In either case, this is a great game and I wish more players were playing it.

[✪♤MechPilot524♤✪]

I have been at this conclusion for some time. But there is good reason:

If nobody's on, you can't get achievements, or wings, or daily tasks.
Furthermore, it creates the illusion that people are playing this game, if nobody actually is. This way, you ALWAYS get a game within a few minutes.

I think Bankler was fully justified in doing this. And part of me fears that if word of this gets out, people will boycott it because of a perceived lack of real players. Killing a fledgling game before it has a chance to fly.

[Xam Huad]

Personally, I find it remarkable if one has to start a thread to find out whether 'players'
are bots or not. Doesn't that just mean the dev designed the AI in a great manner?

Of course, people will start missing the random "suka", "bliat" and "gg" barks,
so those are likely to be implemented soon. *nudgewink*

As for me, I don't mind players getting substituted by lifelike-placebo(t)s
(you know, not the beyond-obvious-bots in Navyfield 2).

[Onthax]

After winning your 10th game in a row you start to wish you could wait to play with players.

[Xam Huad]

Originally posted by Onthax:

After winning your 10th game in a row you start to wish you could wait to play with players.

I disagree, mostly on the note that AI matches generally generate more XP for the player.
3000 pts in an AI match goes a long way for new players, and I've never been able
to say that I could get even close to that in a PvP match.

There's the low amount of wings that are rewarded for playing PvP matches,
which can be used for the 100 wing box that contains 1.. illustration motif for your plane.

Really, talk about low incentive to play multiplayer.

If those winged boxes contained more planes, like the Chinese or European
versions of the planes currently in-game or some advanced skills (like alternate maneuvers)
then that'd be something.

[Onthax]

Originally posted by X4MHD:

Originally posted by Onthax:

After winning your 10th game in a row you start to wish you could wait to play with players.

I disagree, mostly on the note that AI matches generally generate more XP for the player.
3000 pts in an AI match goes a long way for new players, and I've never been able
to say that I could get even close to that in a PvP match.

There's the low amount of wings that are rewarded for playing PvP matches,
which can be used for the 100 wing box that contains 1.. illustration motif for your plane.

Really, talk about low incentive to play multiplayer.

If those winged boxes contained more planes, like the Chinese or European
versions of the planes currently in-game or some advanced skills (like alternate maneuvers)
then that'd be something. :tva_pilot:

If you were wanting to Grind for rewards then definetely having BOTs that look like players for the purpose of accruing PVP which is really PVE rewards is a positive.

Otherwise, just play against AI, bots labelled as bots.

I would rather know if i'm playing against AI or players, because i want fun challenging games, and thinking i'm playing against players but actually not just sweeps the rug out from under that in a way that feels deceptive.

[AgentAllAmerican44]

If that actually is true, thats terrible.

[Bankler]

There are indeed a couple of robots in disguise lurking around. Well done spotting it, Onthax! If you feel misled, I apologize.

Primarily, they were introduced for new players to ease up the learning curve and the sometimes painful process of entering pvp against already experienced players.

From a development perspective, these AI dudes have been absolutely invaluable as experimental platforms for testing and evaluating new AI features before they got carried over to the official bots. The results from these tests were a huge factor in the development of the new "intermediate" difficulty bots that we now can play against.

They (the robot dudes) aren't always on, but sometimes I remotely activate them during low server activity (which unfortunately happens during the early days in most smaller multiplayer games), to make starting a game as simple as possible (i.e hotjoining). As soon as there's one open player server available, the bots stand down and only servers hosted by players are listed.

If you want to make sure these guys stay out of your game, you can press ctrl-alt-b in the main menu, and then host a game as normal.

[Floyd ^A^]

I wouldn't even buy this game if it didn't have bots. Always good to build skills that way and always a game available even if real players are scarce.