Important stuffs about EQoffline.

As I'm actually working on the next update wich will have 3 important changes, I would like to have your advise.

1/ The mana regen.
As you ve probably noticed, some fights are really easy in raid. That's because the bots do exactly what they have to do under certain situations. But that's because, also, of their mana regen. To give more fun, more challenge, I could drastically remove the mana regen of the bots. But that will mean that we will have a real downtime instead of the actual version wich is more arcade.

2/ The bot melee's damage.
Actually, if a bot uses a crappy weapon or a very good one, the damage output is the same. STR/AGI/DEX etc... are not criteria for the melee output in the actual version of EQoffline.
Looks like some peeps want to keep the melee damage like it is right now while others would like to make it so it will force the player to equip his bots with the right stuff.
I think it could be more fun to make the melee dps depending of the stuff, caracs and buffs...

3/ Bots managment
In the next update, you won't be able to spawn two times the same bot in a zone.
Also, someone asked me to make the command "#bot spawn" unavailable if we're engaged. What do you guys think about that ?

Mag

I would suggest a command that can turn these features on, or off. Maybe something like:

#bot regen low
#bot regen high

Or

#bot use item damage on
#bot use item damage off

I think this would work well, then if you did not want to use these options you wouldn't be forced to :)

Well I for one would love to see the management/itemizing of the bots to be a part of the offlne experiment.

What else would I do with all the stuff I find ;)
As for the manaregen rate. Sure its a bit too easy now. But then again it shouldnt be boring either. Need to tune it. Lets try low for a patch and see...

Spawning as in combat is too a bit easy. Sounds fair to have it removed/unavailable as you are engaged (witha DE female at least ;) )

Spawning same bot isnt realy a problem if you choose not to have them gear dependant. But IF you do. Then suddenly they can become too powerful in masses if you get your hands on some uber gear for a specific type of character...

I vote for not being able to spawn same bot over and over again. ut in the same time. Needing 40 or so bots equipped for a major raid just seems stupid... Maybe raids could limit it to 3 or so per botnpc?

I think you should make them all rules and let the server op decide. Botregen and a value, botstrictcombat true or false, spawnlimit and a value, and canspawnincombat true or false. Something along those lines.

I would definitely like to see a bot benefit from enhancing it's gear. If it's using a rusty dagger, or an Ifir, the Bot should be far more effective with the latter. Loading your bots up with stats gear makes them more effective fighters, or should right? This would inspire the player/bot owner to continually upgrade their bots with new stuff.

As for regen and strict vs lazy bot melee rules, I agree with cavedude - if they were rules, the server admin could decide globally.

Updates:
--------

For a best challenge, I've done some changes.

1/ Items, stats and buffs became very important criterias for the melee damage output. Better will be the stuff of your bots, better will be the dps. The buffs will seriously augment the DPS of your bots, also.
2/ Spawning bots while engaged (you or your group) isn't allowed anymore.
3/ Spawning the same bot in a zone isn't allowed anymore.
4/ The bot's mana regen has been reworked. Engaged, their mana regen will be slow. Not engaged, it will be very fast.
5/ As asked, the way the bots are following their leader has been reworked. No more bots in front of the leader wich caused targetting issues.

Window's Binaries: http://eqoffline.free.fr/Build.rar
Source's package: http://eqoffline.free.fr/EQEmu-EQOffline.rar

G'day,
Mag

/grovel

I bow before thee.

;)

Any news on someone making this work into a diff file, or the latest updates to the emu source into a diff file for Magoth.... would be nice to run an updated server with the eqoffline bots, instead of the, now quickly becoming antiqueted, server....

Zengez, can't you diff the version Magoth is using against it's original source, and merge the changes into a current version? I don't think Magoth should bump all his changes from version to version just so we stay on the latest... and, I am not sure this will become "core" because it is so very custom (though it could be a nice addition). The problem for over a year has been no one has labeled anything a "stable" version. I personally use the 931 build as an anchor point because it matches the Luclin PEQ database... but even that is not tagged as "stable". No one has gone through and tested every feature to give it that tag in some time.

Maybe when we go Anniversary, we'll branch to 0.8.0 and start all over. :)

Little but important update:

1) Each bot has now a real leader who is an unique character. Other characters won't be able to deal with the bots they don't own. Only the bot owner will be able to spawn/group/degroup/equip/unequip his bots.
2) #bot list, will show all the bots. You will can see the tag "(YOUR BOT)" if you own a bot in the list.
3) #bot listmine, will only show your bot.
4) To own a bot, that's simple. Create it, then spawn it. It becomes your bot, definitly. For the bots that you have already created, just spawn them one time, they will become your bot.
5) As asked, DPS casters have been upped a bit (they cast a bit more in fight).

Window's binaries: http://eqoffline.free.fr/Build.rar
Sources: http://eqoffline.free.fr/EQEmu-EQOffline.rar

Database update:
-- Table "botsowners" DDL

CREATE TABLE `botsowners` (
`botnpctypeid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`botleadercharacterid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`botnpctypeid`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

(http://eqoffline.free.fr/README.txt upgraded)

All thoses things need to be tested but they seem to be working well.

Later and good week-end,
Mag

Well I for one don't know how to diff, although I think there's a wikki part somewhere that can tell me, but that's not really my point...

Haven't heard anyone say they wouldn't want to use this on their server, and if they didn't it seems to me to be fairly straight foward to just make a rule for bots on and bots off to enable/disable the entire bot structure, then fold it into mainstream... don't even need bot update work done every time magoth does something, just diff it once a week or two weeks of work or whatnot at his discreation (or someone else if they feel like doing it themselves) and that way you can fold in the newest diffed version into the newest server version and life is peachy, best of both worlds... Seems to me that any version released as pre-constructed binaries is 'stable' by any test definition, so I don't see the need to have to wait for someone to lable it stable before doing the above... and I'm not suggesting we update the binaries under download every time anyone makes a change to anything... it's merely been a while, something like 3 months or so between magoth's version with his bot's folded in, and the latest compiled version availible to download under the download section, so I was suggesting an update... wouldn't even have to be a continued update, a one time update would help... Although it seems silly to go that route when building into the mainstream fold seems to be just as easy....

/shrug it's somewhere on the order of a billion degrees in my house right now, so perhaps i'm not thinking straight, but makes sense to me is all.

I'm going to implement this on my server. I'm excited to buff up Kurns and do lower level raids :) . Really really great work, thanks for spending so much time on this.

Anyhow, I have a question about bot ownership. Let's say that I own 5 bots and someone else owns 5 bots, can we raid together with our bots?

You can raid together (1 raid per player) but you can't raid a single raid for both of you.

What you can do is instead of creating a raid of 24 bots bots, just create 2 of 12 bots. Both of you will be the raids leader.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Adams (Post 136300) ...

Now that sounds good - we've been on 0.7 for ages..

Thanks for the continuing work on the offline bots

GeorgeS

I was just wondering what happends to loot issues then... SInce the mob will be tagged for either one of the 2. Since they cant be in same raid. Or am I completely off the charts?

Bjerlk> I see what you mean. Well, the issue there is if your raid (let's say 12 bots so 2 groups) has the most damage, you will be able to loot items on corpse then equip your own bots. The other guy couldn't loot and so, equip his own bot.

Actually, that's the way EQoffline is working. The other guy should wait to be able to loot.

But, I think I will make thoses command working on Player Character, in a soon future : "#bot group add <target_who_is_a_player>" while grouped, or "#bot raid group create <target_who_is_a_player>" while raiding.

If EQEmu ever decides to go on Anniversary, that could be a cool thing because I would rewrite the entire EQoffline code base. This way it would be easier for me to create a separate project that people could add easily to the EQEMu code if they want to play at EQoffline.

If you mean like a plugin (or maybe like GuildWars was?) that would be perfect. If the code was not so dependent on EQEmu, admins could turn it on and off easily, and it could become a part of the core, too.

There is no question, this is a fantastic add-on to EQEmu.

Is there any issue with the Bot code for if you update (source into MySQL) to a newer version of the PEQ database? Will they still work since the database was modified (create table botinventory, botleader, and botsowners)? I'm not a coder and wouldn't want to source the most recent PEQ database and have all the information (equipment) on the bots be lost. Thanks and great work.

The PEQ updater only drops the tables it replaces, so if you use the update system files rather than the create new database tables you should be fine. At least so far as I remember of how PEQ works...

Yes, the newest PEQ database is compatible with eqoffline. However, if you have existing bot data then you do not want to run drop_player.sql. I would suggest running drop_system.sql and then load_system.sql against your current db (back it up first before doing this of course) and then you should be set. The bot tables are considered player and not system, so sourcing drop_player.sql will destroy that data.

Will it actually drop the bot* tables? That would mean someone would have added those tables to drop_players.sql. If they did not, the PEQ drop_players.sql should just skip anything it is not told to drop? Or is that sql a "drop everything"? I can't remember.

Yes, it'll drop them because I added them to the file. By newest PEQ I assume the CVS is meant.

If the older Luclin package is implied, then no those bot tables will remain after running drop_player.sql.

Oooh, do I sense a Bots-Core merge?

/rumor on

Bots stop responding..
 

Has anyone had an issue where your bots stop responding to anything but the attack order?

Normally I dont have this problem, but the last couple of night I have been camping spawns in Charasis and at some point my bots will:

- Quit buffing and/or healing
- Stop following me

I can summon them and use the "attack" order, which they will respond to. But nothing else. Not sure why this dungeon seems to be the one place this happens in, I did fall through some of the pit traps. Anyway, thought I would mention it.

When it happens, do the following things please :

- target the bots that don't respond
- type #hatelist
- say me what you see

Thx,
Mag

Tha tis because you have gott aggro bug. Well you"magically" have got aggro from some mob in the zone that is out of reach for the mobs.

Thus they are in combat and try to get to the mob. But since it is to far away. They just stand there, but in combat mode. And since they are in combat. They dont buff...

Yes that's why I'm asking to have some reports.
But, that should'nt happen because mobs or bots test the Line of Sight with the mobs in their hatelist. If they don't have a los, the mob is wiped from the hatelist and it continues its normal AI.

Awesome work Mag.

I have a question though. Does eqoffline now support more than one real life player in the group.

My wife and 2 kids play EQ with me, but we are limited in what we can do with just 4 people.

I know this project started with the intention of being just able to play solo with the bots, but I was wondering if the project would move in the direction to allow us to use 2 more bots to fill out our group, and then eventually spawn 3 or so more groups of bots to raid??? (can you say run on sentence )

Thanks for any info!

I know a while back someone had mentioned adding the item link feature to the items that are returned with the #bot inventory command. Is there any work planned for/on this?

Also, I was able to kill the Fabled Emperor Crush twice. I gave both of the Fabled Screaming Mace to my ranger bot. When I do #bot inventory he says that in both slots 13 and 14 (main and off hand respectively) that he has the Fabled screaming mace but the graphics only show it in his off hand. Is this a bug or will bots not actually equip a lore item in both locations. Thanks Mag.

oghog> Create a group with your family and try a "#bot group add" on your bots. You should normally invite 2 bots. I didn't test it yet because as you mentionned the project was initially based to be solo with bots.. but I'm actually modifying some stuffs so you can play with other people.

Once your group is created, just create a raid with the command #bot raid create", etc...


sonicvt>an eqemu server can't send item links for the moment so it is not something that will be implemented to eqoffline.
Concerning the dual wield stuffs, be sure that your bot has the right level/class.
I've also noticed that when a bot is wearing an item that can go to the secondary slot, it equips it even if it's not a weapon/shield/totem/cristal.
I'm going to fix that so weapon are shown in priority.

Btw I'm actually doing some debug on weapons, melee dmg formulas and a new version should appear soon.
Mag

Mag,

Thanks for the reply. All my bots are level 34 and rangers dual weild at 14 or so. The same goes for the warrior (also 34). The inventory list says he has both Fabled Screaming Maces in slot 13 and 14 but it only displays the offhand one.

As a side note, the cleric and shaman bot both display their primary weapon (slot 13) and their sheilds (slot 14). I haven't found a weapon suitable for the ranger and warrior to replace the fabled mace or i would test it with a new weapon. Thanks!

It's likely that same-typed weapons get the bot confused on what to display... which would explain why a club+shield show up ok. I remember pets had a problem long ago with dual weild gfx, but had been fixed on live.

As for grouping humans with bots, I think it works fine at the moment, but your human groupies won't see the Bots in the group box... which makes interacting with them a challenge... but should work still.

Now, getting humans and bots on the same raid will pretty much solve 90% of the population problems in EQEmu. Magoth needs to have a shrine to him in game somewhere we can all go pay homage.

Thanks so much for the replies and info guys. I will try it out this weekend hopefully!

Ok I will. I went to a bunch of different dungeons last night with no issues. I'll go back to Charasis tonight and if it happens again I will do what you ask and give you the info.

Edit: If I remember correctly I fell through the floor of the east stairs pit trap at the entrance. My bots jumped on a skeleton down there and I took the teleporter back up, I then summoned my bots. This may have been when the issue occured. I will test it tonight.

Ok got it working, sort of.

I had a level 14 rogue and made a cleric and warrior bot.

The cleric bot keeps casting yaulp and courage as it wore off. No other buffs, and he kept casting a low level heal.

I then logged on my level 70 GM character, and created a new cleric bot. I added her to the group, and did a #bot update (where the bot said she was updated) followed by a #bot group remove, then respawned and regrouped her.

She still casted courage and yaulp, no other buffs. When fighting, she casted a small heal and thats it..

So what am I not doing. I did drop and source the npc spells from the website so I dont know what im doing wrong. Its basically like they are staying at a low level and the #bot update isnt working.

Thanks for any help!

This is at level 70...

Update : Looks like you have to ZONE after you do a #bot update for it to take effect, still testing....


Update 2 : She seems to cast resist buffs, (fire, cold, magic, poison, and disease) and frienzied strength...but isnt casting any HP or AC buffs at all. She does cast a higher level heal tho.....still testing...

Dear Magoth,

You are awesome. I've been waiting for a long time for something like this to hit the EQEmu world. It makes life so much easier for people who want to play on their own server with live level content.

I've begun playing on my server with the bots, and I'll let you know of things as I see them to help out.

My other question though is are you accepting donations for this project? This is a lot of work, and I would like to see you rewarded at least a small bit for all the effort you are putting into this!

Thanks drakelord but for the moment, I don't need any donation.

If you really want to donate, you can still donate to the eqemulator's crew for the nice whole Everquest emulator project.

Mag

Updates:
--------


EQoffline is now at version 1.02.

- Fixed some minor bugs.
- Warriors bots are now able to do critical hits. Some other melee classes do critical hits after level 60 also.
- Weapons should be shown correctly.
- The melee dmg formulas have been reworked a bit.
- Unequiped bots (bots that don't have any weapon) will do minor damage. That rule doesn't apply for monks of course.
- High level clerics and shaman should now cast more buffs.

Build: http://eqoffline.free.fr/Build.rar
Sources: http://eqoffline.free.fr/EQEmu-EQOffline.rar

You need to replace the old npc_spells_entries table by the new: http://eqoffline.free.fr/npc_spells_entries.rar

Have fun,
Mag

I did some more playing today. I have a few issues here and there, a lot to do with class dynamics, which I will type up a seperate list for each class later.

Main issues though were with the combat formulas. I made myself level 50, and geared myself accordingly, and made a bot with the exact same level and gear and class. I was hitting the mob for 40-70ish damage per hit, while the bot was hitting for 200-400. I could understand that damage at level 65 with epic lewt, but at level 50? Ouch.

And the bots do still have combat issues sometimes in confined zones. I was in Sirens Grotto, and a mob would agro me, and the bots would do nothing in some areas, despite the mob being on their hate list and them being right next to me.