Some musings
 

I haven't been playing too long, but have a few thoughts about Fritzbot.

It seems to me that the bot should emulate the actions of a human as closely as possible. For the most part they seem to that remarkedly well. But I am bothered by the height of their jumps, which go as high as their body height, if not more. Makes their actions look more like something out of a sci-fi movie instead of WW2. And they are accurately shooting while they're in the air! Is it possible to subdue this factor or is it necessary to enable the bots to navigate the broken landscapes found in the maps?

Sometimes there will be several bots jumping up and down as if they are on trampolines, making enormous jumps out of multi-story buildings without apparent injury. Makes one think of the old silent Keystone Cops movies.

The Lumber Factory map layout is a small, enclosed courtyard surrounded by 2-story buildings with only three checkpoints. This is an ideal scenario for small stealthy teams of two bots or players on each side. But the map as currently set up is loaded with bots, all running around at full speed making loud trampling noises as they do it. Do bots ever walk or try to be sneaky?

In Destruction, control of the central courtyard is essential to winning the game. The machine gun nests make it possible to attain this control. I've never seen a bot use a heavy machine gun nest. So we human players can take advantage of that and usually win the game. If the enemy bots used the machine gun nests, it would make for a more realistic scenario.

It seems to my unpractised eye that the bots, even at the EASY skill and aiming level, are much better than I am. I ofter encounter an enemy bot so far away that my aiming dot almost completely covers him, while at the same time he is accurately making hits on me. And I can hardly see him well enough to tell where my shots are going. Am I being paranoid aobut this?

All-in-all, I and my buddy are really enjoying being able to play on the same team against the Fritzbots as we begin to develop our gaming skills enough to be able to play with other real human opponents. GOOD JOB to you all!

Re: Some musings
 

The physics in Q3/Wolf are weird - at certain frame rates, you can do jumps you normally can't do (frames like 49, 125, etc). I found that ppl who were pro players were abusing this advantage against the bots, so I gave them (the bots) the jump physics of someone playing on a computer getting a steady 125 FPS, hence the high jumps. They shouldn't be able to jump anywhere you can't at the same FPS - and if they do, its a bug.

They are subject to the same rules of gravity as players - if they fall from a high place, they take damage. They ARE clients to the game.


Currently no - they follow the pub server model, not the clan server model, so you see more the tactics you'd see on your average pub server, which is more chaotic.


This is a pathing issue rather than a bot issue. IIRC, we all prefered the map to be flowing fast, so while the mg42s were marked as usable to the bots, the bots wouldn't camp them, but instead were on the move to cap flags. So, unless the bot was close to the gun when he got in combat, chances are he wouldn't use it. We could easily make it where they would camp those guns, but that would be up to Denny (the author of that particular path file). OR, you could tweak the path file yourself (for your own use).

This is a issue thats I've been working on for a while: trying to find the right balance for ALL skill levels. For every complaint that the bots are too hard, I get one that says they're too easy. Its something I've been tweaking in the latest patch, which should be released within a week.

Thanks for the comments and the support!

Cheers!

Re: Some musings
 

There is an annoying "bug" in wolf where if you are playing on a non-dedicated server, these physics don't apply. So even at 125 fps, a player won't be able to jump up on boxes. This can be corrected if you set pmove_fixed to 1.

On dedicated servers, the "magic" numbers for higher jumping are 43, 76, 125, and 333 FPS. 43 being the smallest benefit and 333 the largest.

Re: Some musings
 

I'm currently playing on a non-dedicated server using my home computer, with my buddy connecting via my IP. I usually get 90FPS unless there are a large number of bots running around (graphics card is a couple of years obsolete). We're planning on setting up a private rental server to use for our Firtzbot map playing to avoid the lag problems we're encountering due to my low upload speed (about 130kbps).

I don't seem to have problems jumping on boxes at 90FPS. If I turn on pmove_fixed, does that mean the magic numbers would work on my non-dedicated server?
Not that I'd want to do it, anyway.

Is there a way to set the bots jumping physics to match those of a human player? Could it be included as an optional switch for those of us who are bothered by the Superman-like jumps they make?

And, even further, is there a setting that will cause the human player's jumping physics to be nearer what a REAL human could do (say, jump half his height)? If I force the FPS to a value that is NOT one of the magic numbers, will the human jumps be more realistic?

Those players that take advantage of the bots are really fooling themselves. I can see no pleasure in taking advantage of the bots that way (they're only software, anyway - if you want to slaughter bots, set their skills to easy and mow 'em down with a heavy MG). They're only cheating themselves.

My expectation in playing against bots is that they should behave much like humans. The bots in the SP version of RtCW are an example.

Re: Some musings
 

Well it's an interpretation really. Most players that I play with use com_maxfps 125 or one of the magic numbers because its what we play against online. People have been using those since a little after Quake 3 came out. And online play is much different than the SP version.

pmove_fixed from what I understand simulates 125 fps for the host on a non-dedicated server no matter what your current fps is.

It's the taller boxes that are difficult to jump on if you dont have the right fps. Like the ones in the allied garage on mp_assault.

I suppose that you could up the gravity on your server so they don't jump as high, but that may cause some adverse effects as well (i.e. fall damage, slower movement if you jump while running, etc). The command is g_gravity. Default is 800. So you may want to experiment by upping it by 50 each time until you find a number that you like.

For the server lag you may try setting your sv_maxrate a bit lower (if you haven't already). The default is 25000, but you can have a decently smooth game with as low as 5000. 130kbps upload should be able to handle a single client connecting at sv_maxrate 10000 without any problems.

Re: Some musings
 

I'll try the pmove_fixed setting. Haven't played much online, so not too familiar with the usual configurations.

I'll also try gravity and see what effects it has on the human & bot jumping and other effects.

I set the maxrate to 6000 last night and it helped considerable for num bots+players <6.

Thanks for your input. It helps a lot and we really appreciate it!

Re: Some musings
 

hmmm. I thought when a map is selected and loaded, you have to add bots manually or setup a cfg for each map. I know each map has its own <map>_bots.cfg file but they don't load automatically on my machine anyway.

As I said in a previous thread I setup a map rotation cfg and a bots cfg to correspond to each map and add chosen bots because my maps were just loading with no bots at all.

Whats the deal?

Re: Some musings
 

When you play as a listen server, i.e. you start the game thru the menus and play, the game adds the bots.

Re: Some musings
 

Seeing that you've never played online, I can understand how this was confusing. I have worked really hard tho to make sure the bots behave like human players, and online - thats how human players behave. ;)

And thats the beauty of Fritz, especially if your learning the ropes before going online: you get a pretty good idea of what online pub server play is like, because thats what I've modeled Fritz on.

Cheers!

Re: Some musings
 

In response to postings #7 & #8: I've had some puzzling behavior loading a map rotation config.

If I load any single map thru the menus, it runs properly and loads its bots (as specified in the map_bots.cfg file).

If I then execute my map rotation config from the console, the maps cycle properly and the bots are loaded.

If I execute my server config (which execs the map rotation config) from the command line of my Fritzbot shortcut, the maps cycle properly BUT about 50% of the time the bots are NOT loaded for any of the maps.

Doesn't make sense. Last night, no bots loaded. Tonight, the bots are there. I can't figure it out.
Any suggestions? I intend to use the map rotation config on a private dedicated server soon, and it has to be foolproof and consistent.


Maleficus, I appreciate the work that you've done to make Fritzbot emulate the actual play on public servers. So I'll stop wailing on the bot physics and accept it as it is. I and my buddy want to prepare for public play and using Fritzbot is the way to do it without embarassing ourselves or annoying the other players. I'm in no way knocking the program!

"While I breathe, I hope"

Thanks again!
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My command line:
WolfMP.exe +set fs_game fritzbot +sv_pure 0 +exec server.cfg
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My server.cfg:
set sv_maxrate 6000
exec CPmapRotate.cfg
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My map rotation cfg (to be expanded to run multiple rounds of each map):
set d1 "g_gametype 7; g_usertimelimit 10; g_warmup 20; map mp_destruction; wait 3000; say Next Map is TRENCH TOAST; set nextmap vstr d2"

set d2 "g_gametype 7; g_usertimelimit 15; g_warmup 20; map mp_trenchtoast; wait 3000; say Next Map is LUMBER FACTORY; set nextmap vstr d3"

set d3 "g_gametype 7; g_usertimelimit 10; g_warmup 20; map mp_lumber-factory; wait 3000; say Next Map is WiILD WEST; set nextmap vstr d4"

set d4 "g_gametype 7; g_usertimelimit 10; g_warmup 20; map wildwestctf_beta; wait 3000; say Next Map is DESTRUCTION: set nextmap ; vstr d1"

vstr d1
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