bot improvement suggestions

[bad_captain]

I'm glad you enjoy using them. Since I've done a lot of work in these areas, I thought I would chime in.

1- As far as I know, bots get the full rez effects that clients get. If there's an effect that's not working, then we definitely need to look at that. The only issue I see with how it is currenly, is that bots always respawn with their items equipped, and don't require a corpse run. I guess an additional timer to simulate a corpse run or from bind would be okay, but having to equip bot equipment again might be a bit much for what it's worth. Ideally, bots would leave corpses and would need to be rezzed, but that's a low priority right now.

2- A rule could be added, but it would be really hard to prevent exploits, and would be a major headache.

3- I fixes this issue so that bots use the same code as clients for misses a while ago when there was a problem. If you can provide some parses showing bot misses are much lower than clients, maybe I can take another look.

4- Many of the limitations are due to the spell handling code, and the lack of intelligence bots use their spells. I've done some work on this, but it's a major project. But specifically, bards ahould be able to be given mez, but would probably require some special coding rather than just adding the song to their lineup. As far as cleric casting IvU, they should be able to via #bot command. If not, it could probably be added pretty easily copying the regular invis spell command. You dont want the cleric running around cadting IvU all the time.

Overall, I guess I still don't see how bots are so overpowered, as I can think of many ways they are deficient. And if you've had a tank merc on live, you wouldn't consider bots overpowered. I tested a tank merc with a shaman, and didn't have to heal it unless I pulled more than 3 mobs at a time up to level 33. If I can see a parse where bots significantly outperform equivalent clients in offense or defense, I'll investigate.

I appreciate the feedback, even if I may not completely agree with you. But it would help if you were able to provide some evidence for your argument. With 2 jobs, a 4 year old, and a 9 month old, I don't have the time to investigate everything, nor do many others. I will take a look if you provide some more info.

[louis1016]

Thanks for the reply, I dont mean to sound like im complaining or anything, i love the bots and youve fixed so many things that were wrong over the last year and if it werent for the work youve done on these bots me and probably many others wouldnt bother running our own private servers. My RL schedule has me tied up but I'm currently in the process of learning c++ and I hope to eventually be able to contribute to the bot code myself once I really have the time learn what I need to learn

Heres some more feedback to your reply

1 -I'm real happy to hear that the bot res effects are supposed to work like client res. I was thrown off when I saw that my ogre SK at lvl 50 still had his maximum STA and HP though, I'll test it out again tonight and see if it happens again. Maybe clients dont lose STA from res effects? i dont know for sure but anyway I guess its really not that important. If any bot summon timer can be implemented at some point that would really solidify the bot death penalty in addition to the res effects. As of now, if my bots die, i can summon them back immediately and send them immediately to deal with any hostile mobs that might otherwise attack me while I'm running to zone out. At least with a few minutes in between clients will really feel like if everyone in the group died you would have to stay safe and possibly zone out while waiting for the bots to recoup from death.

2- As for the bots getting aggro, is there a small change I can make to my server code to make them get aggro? If this is something that can easily be done then that would be great but otherwise I suppose I'll wait until I learn more c++ to be able to do this myself.

3- Honestly i havent checked out the bot misses recently but I didnt see anything in the changelog to indicate a change so i assumed they were still hitting 99% of the time. I'll look into it again tonight and provide parses if theres an issue.

4- I understand the bard mez would be pretty hard to do and I suppose its not really that necessary. The cleric, however, does not cast IVU with the bot command, saying I need the other classes to do it. I wasnt sure if this was intended or not but it would definitely be nice getting IVU from my cleric bots.


Tonight I'll look into the misses/res effects and see what i can parse. Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into all this, its much appreciated

[Taurinus2]

I would like to point out the following in regard to #2.

I am not a griefer, but if I were my job would be made easier by this change because I no longer have to train a player - training their bot(s) would get the job done. Or, even better, have my bots do it for me.

I also would no longer have to camp a contested mob, because my bots can do it for me. The number of mobs I could tie up in a zone would be limited only by the number of bots available to me.

In other words, it would bring the same problems that multi-boxing brings, but it would make it only worse.

It would be fine for a personal server, but I do not see this as being appropriate for general consumption.

[Criimson]

Originally Posted by louis1016

2- As for the bots getting aggro, is there a small change I can make to my server code to make them get aggro? If this is something that can easily be done then that would be great but otherwise I suppose I'll wait until I learn more c++ to be able to do this myself.

Hello there is a variable under rule_values in the DB "Aggro:SmartAggroList". Set this to false and Bots will agro like a PC

Criimson

BTW I am back. What with having a new baby in Sept my time was very limited, but I am getting more time so will begin helping again on the bots.

First I am going to be adding bot commands per class with a help window for each class that lists said commands.