Bot Discussion

[Criimson]

Originally Posted by pfyon

I agree that roles are probably the next step, but disagree that they need to be infinitely customizable. I think for the average user, it would be sufficient to provide some basic roles (eg melee dps, ranged dps, healing, etc) with secondary roles (which could be the same as the list of primary roles).

Primary/secondary roles would just define the expected behaviour of the bot.

I think, if people want to be able to finely customize their bots' behaviour, it would be easier to just write a text only client which would run on the player's computer and allow people to write scripts for their own bots. We already have all the opcodes and knowledge of how the client communicates with the server, so it shouldn't be hard to write a client like this.

I actually like bad_captains ideas about having presets. It allows customization (and keep in mind I would like to give some options to those that couldn't code Hello World in a GUI) without making it over complicated. After thinking about the "aggressive/passive/balanced/off" idea I began to see it as a nice way of allowing freedom and control without undue complexity for the average user.
This would also allow for a personal connection with the bots and encapsulate an individual players style in a given situation.

EDIT: Oh yea since we are discussing
I had an idea that I am going to work on but want to know if you all would like to see it in the main code or as custom code
WHen grouped with a live ranger/druid or bard and they track something they say like its to the left or right or whatever. I was thinking of altering the bot tracking window to function like the find function. That goofy gold trail. Its like someone say go left. It kind of points you in the right direction but its AI is so goofy that its more like getting directions from someone. It isnt live like just knowing a mob is up somewhere imo. What do you guys think?

[bad_captain]

EDIT: Oh yea since we are discussing
I had an idea that I am going to work on but want to know if you all would like to see it in the main code or as custom code
WHen grouped with a live ranger/druid or bard and they track something they say like its to the left or right or whatever. I was thinking of altering the bot tracking window to function like the find function. That goofy gold trail. Its like someone say go left. It kind of points you in the right direction but its AI is so goofy that its more like getting directions from someone. It isnt live like just knowing a mob is up somewhere imo. What do you guys think?

I think that would be categorized as custom, but I think the current tracking code could be tweaked to at least give the direction, as it's fairly worthless as is. It basically only tells you if a mob has spawned or not (and the common spawn filter is pretty bad)..

[pfyon]

Originally Posted by bad_captain

I think that would be categorized as custom, but I think the current tracking code could be tweaked to at least give the direction, as it's fairly worthless as is. It basically only tells you if a mob has spawned or not (and the common spawn filter is pretty bad)..

I think it would be easier/more live-like to just call whatever functions are required to track on the client so the player would get the tracking messages like they would if they were a ranger/druid doing the tracking themselves.

[Criimson]

Originally Posted by pfyon

I think it would be easier/more live-like to just call whatever functions are required to track on the client so the player would get the tracking messages like they would if they were a ranger/druid doing the tracking themselves.

Sounds good to me. I was looking for input on this before I started.

I think the next thing I am going to work on is more investigative anyway. I have noticed that the chanter's pet (and only chanter's pet) seems to be grabbing strange agro and I have no clue on what or why. It keeps giving messages about invalid target and the chanter begins trying to mez her pet. Its odd. I added a string to the invalid target message so later I'll see what it is trying to attack.

[bad_captain]

Originally Posted by Criimson

I think the next thing I am going to work on is more investigative anyway. I have noticed that the chanter's pet (and only chanter's pet) seems to be grabbing strange agro and I have no clue on what or why. It keeps giving messages about invalid target and the chanter begins trying to mez her pet. Its odd. I added a string to the invalid target message so later I'll see what it is trying to attack.

Check IsBotAttackAllowed(). I know it needs work, as I had a report of a bot's dire charmed pet attacking itself. I never got around to trying to figure it out. I made a couple changes in there before to allow bots to cast spells and bot pets to attack in the arena (I was trying to parse some stuff and they wouldn't attack the test dummies correctly).