Bot AAs

[GurkhaPanzers]

Are there plans to work on Bot AAs?

[Criimson]

What do you mean?

Bots as they stand have all AAs for their level at max. I was planning on adding bot commands at some point for activated AAs and skills. For instance adding a command to activate defensive stance for a warrior bot.

Is this what you are referring to?

[bad_captain]

I am currently rewriting the bot AAs so that they match clients (aabonuses and getAA) . As criimson stated, most are currently there. I have added in a couple more active ones, but for the most part they are in up to 65-70. If there are any you want added that arent in already, post them here and they can be added. I just haven't had time to go in and check all AAs to see if they are in.

There may be some custom code posted that allows you to select the AAs for bots, but I doubt it will be added in to the main branch.

[GurkhaPanzers]

I am sorry I didnt realize bots had all AAs for their level. I figured it was the opposite.

[bad_captain]

Rewrote the Bot AAs to use aabonuses and GetAA(). I added a couple AAs that weren't in there, but I'm still working to put together a complete AA list. Does anyone know of any sites that have full lists of AAs with the level they can be obtained? I'm using the following to try to piece together a lot of them, but I haven't been able to find some a good list for some classes:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:AA_Costs_A
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spre...E&f=true&gid=2
http://www.bonzz.com/alternateadv.htm

[louis1016]

With these new changes is there a way to disable bot aa's altogether? My server is kunark based and I'd like for the bots to not have any AA's and i was wondering if there was an easy way to disable them without going through the entire bot code and changing all the required levels to 80 or something

[bad_captain]

This is one example of why I rewrote the AAs. Instead of the aa code scattered throughout, how AAs are given to bots is now within 2 functions: GenerateAABonuses and GetAA() within bot.cpp. Change them to enable or disable any aa you want. Just make sure getaa returns 0 for all aas if you dont want any, and disable the code for aabonuses.

[Caryatis]

Should add a rule to do that as it would be a pretty common thing for people to want to disable, especially since I see at least one AA that clients dont have access to, havent really gone through it all yet to see what else is in there.

[bad_captain]

I'll work on that. I could probably add a rule that would allow server admins to pick which expansions they would want AAs up to / from.

But I'm not too comcerned about bots having an AA or two that clients dont have. In doing this reasearch, there are a lot of AAs for clients that arent exactly up to date. Bots are decently behind clients in terms of damage and defense that I'm not sure it would even matter. (My mage pet does comparable damage to some of my lower end melee bots). Bots have access to even fewer because of how AAs are coded within mob or added only to client code.

[Caryatis]

The one I saw was innate corruption, which wasnt a deal at all but if you went and added all 33 ranks of combat stability for bots while clients only have access to 8, then its going to be an issue. I don't really care enough about bots to actually check your code more though.

[bad_captain]

To be fair though, to reach that level of an AA, you need to be lvl 80+ and a server that allows that high of a level should have client AAs that high as well. I see what you're saying, but I could give them all levels of every AA and they would still be deficient.

Btw, the update nerfs bot damage 15-20% because of the chancetohit fix, so overall, they're still down even with new AAs.

[Caryatis]

lol so I had a look since your response made it seem like you did exactly what I said and you did.

you need to be lvl 80+ and a server that allows that high of a level should have client AAs that high as well.

I'm not sure how much you play on other servers but there exactly 0 servers that have full support of AAs past DoDh. Changing the maxlevel rule is alot different than adding 400+ AAs so its not really fair to say if you have a max level of 85 then you should have matching AAs to go with it.

I could give them all levels of every AA and they would still be deficient

I think that's faulty logic. Since the bot system as you have re-imagined it is easily scalable now, it would seem like it should support client AA only and as new client AAs are added, they can be added to the bot system(are bots not supposed to be client copies?).

Bots will always be underpowered compared to clients because they don't have a person controlling them directly and I dont think giving them powers not available to clients is the answer(might as well remove your whole system and just multiply dmg and avoidance by a rule value so people can change that on the fly, if the goal is simply to boost their power).

Great job on the update, dont get me wrong. Just my view.

[bad_captain]

Originally Posted by Caryatis

I'm not sure how much you play on other servers but there exactly 0 servers that have full support of AAs past DoDh. Changing the maxlevel rule is alot different than adding 400+ AAs so its not really fair to say if you have a max level of 85 then you should have matching AAs to go with it.

You're right, I've not played on any other servers with a higher max level. I just thought I remembered seeing different servers post how far they are with regards to AAs and expansions. But, to be honest, to add the AAs I've added would take an hour or two maybe, so it's not like they couldn't. So far, I don't think I've added any new AAs (except the corruption one and mental stamina), just additional ranks of existing AAs, so they should be able to easily be added.

Originally Posted by Caryatis

I think that's faulty logic. Since the bot system as you have re-imagined it is easily scalable now, it would seem like it should support client AA only and as new client AAs are added, they can be added to the bot system(are bots not supposed to be client copies?).

Ideally this would be the case. Unfortunately only maybe half of the important code is shared between the two (bots have their own attack, melee mitigation, etc. functions, and many of the client AAs within the shared mob code are enclosed within unnecessary if(IsClient()) checks, so the bots don't use them at all. This is something I'm trying to fix. Most developers who would be adding support for new AAs wouldn't be coding with bots in mind, so someone such as myself would then have to go back in and add support for bots. I don't particularly want to have to go in every few weeks to add in bot support for an AA that was added for clients just so bots don't have one that clients don't.

Originally Posted by Caryatis

Bots will always be underpowered compared to clients because they don't have a person controlling them directly and I dont think giving them powers not available to clients is the answer(might as well remove your whole system and just multiply dmg and avoidance by a rule value so people can change that on the fly, if the goal is simply to boost their power).

My goal wasn't to boost their power. It was to enable bots to have AAs that scale with their level so no one has yo to continuously monitor code submissions to see what AAs can be added for bots.

I think a rule for which expansion to allow AAs from would be a reasonable addition that would allow AAs to be coded and ready in case anyone wants them, but default to GoD or whatever so others don't have to worry about them if they don't want to.

Or, someone just need to go in and get up to date on all client AAs..

[louis1016]

Hey any update on bot expansions rule? Im really looking forward to finally having bots with no aa's.

[bad_captain]

I got a little sidetracked working on bash / stun, which was something I noticed working on these AAs. I need to verify one or two more AAs then I will be committing it. Just change the rule and no more bot AAs.