Bot Skill Adjustment?

[Xenithar]

Alright, I have been playing UT3 for about a week now, and have an issue with either the engine itself, or the bot settings. It seems to me that the bots are WAY too accurate, even on the lowest skill settings. I can fight the bots on Inhuman in UT04, but even on the lowest setting in UT3, they tend to know where I am all the time and actually fire at me prior to my comming around a corner or from behind cover. This makes no sense on the medium to lower skills and makes the game extremely tough since we cannot see through walls and fire in advance.

Examples of such behaviour:

• I teleport from the city area to the jungle area on one map and am greeted with a rocket almost at me, while the bot is up by the rocket launcher continuing to fire. My bot was actually back in the city area and was the only other player on my team, indicating that the enemy bot was tracking me while I was in the city area, knew I was teleporting, and fired a rocket in advance, which is not possible by a human unless they are cheating.
• On Torlan I have been shot in the head and killed instantly from halfway across the map, sometimes right after spawning.
• Bots that drive the manta are insanely accurate
• Bots driving the scorpion almost never miss, and considering the fact that the primary weapon is arced, that's inhuman, aside from cheating

Now on the lower skills, their accuracy does not seem to decrease, or if it does it is VERY little. All I notice that changes is their ability to move and to complete goals, such as capping power nodes. They're still pin-point accurate from miles out. This should not be on the lowest settings. The bots are WAY too accurate.

In the previous UT games, you could adjust bot accuracies in one of the INI files. I do not see that here in UT3. Is this possible, or are we stuck fighting aimbots? I mean I actually do better online against humans, but I'd like to complete the storyline, which currently is almost unattainable due to the Krall being able to fire before you're visible and other such nonsense. I am running the latest patch, so I do not need to patch up.

[Vzur]

• Bots that drive the manta are insanely accurate.
• Bots driving the scorpion almost never miss, and considering the fact that the primary weapon is arced, that's inhuman, aside from cheating.

Takes a lot of skill to drive and aim, especially with weapons that arc, or just act weird like the viper primary. I do so-so with the scorpion turret, although it's tricky while speeding around. According to my online turret stats, I've never killed a single person with the viper primary, yet bots kill me (and each other) with it all the time.

They don't seem to get any accuracy penalty for being in motion, or shooting at moving targets, even at the lowest skill levels. They should get accuracy reductions for shooting at a moving target, which should get factored with how fast they're moving themselves, thus missing as much as human players do when speeding around in a scorpion or manta.

In the previous UT games, you could adjust bot accuracies in one of the INI files. I do not see that here in UT3. Is this possible, or are we stuck fighting aimbots?

Yes, in the customchar ini file, bots have an accuracy setting. However, it doesn't do much. You can change it to 0.00, or -1000.00, or whatever, and it only seems to have a marginal effect. It's like they're not coded to know how to miss much, no matter what their settings.

In my opinion, it's the most annoying flaw with this game. I'm one of those players that likes playing offline a lot, but offline gameplay just flat out sucks because of the bot AI issues, and lack of ways to adjust them, customize them, vary them, or anything.

[Xenithar]

Well I've been smoked by botters in other games, bot older UT games and CS, among many titles of the past, and I get that feeling while playing the campaign. I feel like I am fighting against a human who can't move or dodge, but has an aimbot. That's on the lowest setting of course. They pretty much see you and start firing, but stop all movement while doing so! I try to play on skilled or adept so they mvoe around and complete goals at a decent pace, but they're so **** accurate!

Does anybody know if the bot aiming code is in UScript or the actual sources, because if it is UScripted, it should be able to be modified by a mutator. Then it's only a matter of making the mutator load during campaign missions.

[TPSFan]

Welcome to My and Others Frustration

[Xenithar]

Very nice threads, and I agree with a LOT in them. I will post my personal concerns and issues once I get back to my desktop where they are documented. One of my biggest and most aggravating is the one you mention where the bots get more powerful weapons. I mean three flak shots to the chest to take down one bot while if a single piece of shrapnel hits me a mile away I die? What the hell?? Also, I get REALLY aggravated when one plasma shot takes 52 health every single time, but I can shoot numerous times before they die, indicating they are doing more damage.

[Contra]

Adjusting the bot skill (dodging, aggreession, aim etc.) like in ut2k4 would be very helpful.

[antych]

I was just playing godlike bots in instagib and it's a bit ridiculous. I see him facing away from me and BANG, they seem to have a spare weapon in their *** and extra pair of eyes in the back.

[capthappy8p]

well when i pl the bots on average or skillfull i notice they retardedly accurate with in accurate guns, link gun, stinger alt fire and flak cannon. but they are not very accurate with the sniper rifle or the enforcer.

example i standing still not paying attention behind me when 4 sniper shots wizz right by my, i turn around and one shot from mine kills the bot dead, even the most noobiest noob would have killed me or atleast hit me.

wierd

[Vzur]

Adjusting the bot skill (dodging, aggreession, aim etc.) like in ut2k4 would be very helpful.

Problem is, I can see them adding UI sliders, like in UT2004 - and they'll change the AI settings, just like changing the ini files - which is to say, they won't do much good at all.

Something a lot of people probably don't know about UT2004, the bot settings were capped by the UI, but if you went into the ini files, you could make huge changes. Like if you set a bot for +5.0 accuracy, it would be a few skill levels above the rest of the bots, like a Godlike bot running around owning all the other bots on the Adept level.

You can't do that in UT3. You can give them +5.0 accuracy, but it doesn't matter. They can add sliders, but it still won't matter unless they code the AI to differentiate.

[Contra]

There was no need for huge changes to the bots, the sliders were enough for ut2k4. That is, if you wanted every bot on the same level (adept, masterful etc.).

But it's been quite some time since I played ut2k4.

[TPSFan]

Problem is, I can see them adding UI sliders, like in UT2004 - and they'll change the AI settings, just like changing the ini files - which is to say, they won't do much good at all.

Something a lot of people probably don't know about UT2004, the bot settings were capped by the UI, but if you went into the ini files, you could make huge changes. Like if you set a bot for +5.0 accuracy, it would be a few skill levels above the rest of the bots, like a Godlike bot running around owning all the other bots on the Adept level.

You can't do that in UT3. You can give them +5.0 accuracy, but it doesn't matter. They can add sliders, but it still won't matter unless they code the AI to differentiate.

We need to keep posts like this bumped up. I am fully aware UT3 is primarily an MP game...

But this is still no excuse to let Epic/Midway slack off in terms of trying to give more options to adjust the bots in future patches to be more human-like as they are in UT2004.

[Xyx]

they retardedly accurate with in accurate guns, link gun, stinger alt fire and flak cannon. but they are not very accurate with the sniper rifle or the enforcer.

They have crappy aim but aimbot-like prediction. This is very noticeable in rockets, plasma, tank shells and stinger shards.

[AnubanUT2]

I like this thread ... I thought I was alone but I see we are all noticing the same thing. The thing is in Ut2K4 I was **** good at beating bots ... since I do not play on line ever I had time to perfect my skills against them and I could win pretty easily on Godlike and actually against bots that I had made perfect by the sliders. Now along comes UT3 and I set the bot setting on skill so I can look around the level without being too bothered by the bots (thinking the skill levels were like they are in UT2K4) ... boy was I in for a rude awakening. I got destroyed and really had a hard time with them because they were moving faster than they do in Godlike on Ut2K4 and they were hitting me with NO problems ...

So yeah now I am better and I can play on Skilled but it is too much work ... these bots are like jackrabbits that don't miss. I tried Inhuman once ... I can honestly say I will probably never be that good with this version of UT. At some point though I would like to be able to DM on masterful. On VCTF I do play on adept but you can figure out why ... it actually isn't that big a deal since going after the flag is usually top priority so they don't fight quite as well on these maps at least it seems that way for me ... that is probably the key reason I like VCTF more ... the bots are challenging but you can win since it is just one flag and you have a hoverboard.

I spectated a godlike bot match a couple of times and it was funny because the accuracy pretty much stayed the same but it was the movement that greatly changed. So even on experienced the game is challenging in DM because these bots never lose their accuracy ... I find Experienced the right mix of the bots jumping to avoid stuff but not so much as to drive me insane and their slower turning speed a trade off for their uncanny accuracy. I don't get frustrated and I have fun. TDM I crank up to skilled since I am getting some help. Well I hope Epic addresses this as well but that is why there are great mutators for the PC that let you set your starting health (and soon starting armor amounts) and this way you can play at higher skill settings and stay alive long enough to actually improve ... then one day you won't even need the extra boosts.

[TPSFan]

What I find ironic is I have started two threads like this myself and see the same people posting (like Vzur and AnubanUt2) along with newcomers... And there is STILL no word from Epic on whether they consider this something that needs looking into.

I know it is a Holiday week (and has been for the last two), and developers shouldn't have to answer every single post... But then patches like the 1.1 come out and they have absolutely no bot tweaks in them except for maybe navigation issues like using the Darkwalker, or other vehicles better -- That make the bots even more frustrating considering these kinds of issues were not where the problem for the majority of players to begin with.

However, what irks me the most is the state the bots are in is a clear indicator this game was not finished, yet like most companies they decided to "release it now and patch it later" -- Except some of the basic functions like bot skill adjustment and bot team selection were completely ignored and might never be implemented because of time constraints and splitting the budget between the PS3, Xbox360 and PC versions.

Basically, I've said it before and I will say it again:

-Line of Sight limitations
-Reaction Time
-Aim Offset (accuracy)

I don't have any clue how UE3 works -- and as a consumer should not have to -- But these seem to be the areas the bots need the most help in changing and or giving players the ability to customize via .ini fles or a bot customization GUI like UT2004.

[rhiridflaidd]

I agree with the first 3 and there needs to be a few others
-Bots need to be able to act in groups (not just try "covering" which makes them ridiculoausly vulnerable)
-Bots need to be assignable to zones in the map. If you can do it in Fifa 2008, surely zonal play should be doable in UT3.