SmartStockBots mutator

[Old UT Veteran]

More difference come in gametypes like CTF, where need bring something. Or CTF-XV. Dodge make unpredicatble movement. Projectiles fly slow, so this increase chance of miss.

For DM for only faster collect items on level or more hard aim to dodge target. Also they can more fast reach you and paint your face with flak cannon.

I haven't done enough playtesting but what is best noticed is how much more challenging and fun the bots are now. With the ways bots are retreating and charging, they seem more complex now when complemented with their behavioral states. Basically what i'm saying is that they are far more responsive to the decisions they make, and can adjust/manipulate combat environment to suit their states better:

They charge you with flak cannon? they can now dodge forward and close the distance much faster.
They retreat? they can dodge back and turn the corner faster, find health etc...
Similarly, what is the point of a bot that knows 100% belt timing if they are slow to get there - now that doesn't happen.
Map control wise and objective play is far more difficult and important.

I did notice rarely that bots would use the opposite animation of the direction they were going diagonally. For example, Dodge Left animation plays when bot is moving towards right direction.

As far as more features, some full health players (no armor) do use the crouch feature to avoid getting headshotted by a player with a sniper from time to time.

Ah yes. Update include this as well. In level on which it is possible. Can not work with some weird custom models. With stock models and close to it - must work good.

Thanks. I think this works and looks very good.

Keep up the great work

[Que]

so does this include (fixCTFBots) and (FixBots) Mutators already?
can we remove the others and use only this instead or does it run with other mutators FixCTFBots & FixBots?
update first post if we remove these please.

[Buggie]

You need remove it. Also suppressed mutators deprecated now and not update anymore.

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First post updated.

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As far as more features, some full health players (no armor) do use the crouch feature to avoid getting headshotted by a player with a sniper from time to time.

Not quite familiar how and in which situation this need use for not make harm to movement speed and other stuff.

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v2

- Make proper choose direction of dodge animation for match actual movement.

Update in first post: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15400

[Old UT Veteran]

Not quite familiar how and in which situation this need use for not make harm to movement speed and other stuff.

You are right, its specifically situational. If this can hurt any other features, its not worth it. Briefly mentioning for interest, I believe all next iterations have bots crouch from time to time on/near defense spots that have bSniping set to true. Point being bot shoots back or reacts to the player that shot him - no insta kill due to crouching nullifying headshot bonus. This is/was in combination with bigger maps like facing worlds where there bot might be exposed to multiple angles. ex. Top of facing worlds towers.

[Buggie]

Detect real player environment is hard or complicated task. For this - answer no.

Defense point with sniper - possible yes.

Also it can be used during fly in air, but here need look how it affect to players, for not make another bot cheat.

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v3

- Swap right/left dodge direction for more natural look.

Update in first post: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15400

[Buggie]

Gameplay with this mutator:

[Berserker]

Great mutator i hope you continue to improve it! Some things which can be improved:

- Bots sometimes instantly respawn after they get killed, this happens with stock bots as well and its quite annoying. Would be good to have an option to toggle this.

- When bots in SmartStockBots detect a player around a corner, they instantly stop and stand still for 1 second until they aim at me. Real life players never stop like this and continue to move around. (An idea to improve is, when they detect a player, they can slightly change their direction while still moving, this is what real life players do, when they dont expect someone around a corner and they see a player - they switch direction and never stop standing still)

- Bots in SmartStockBots will still walk in a straight line while they aim at you or go for the flag, but not as often. They will "lock on" to you and walk in a straight line all the way. I want them to use left and right movement more while they aim at me, they are pressing W key too much. It is definitely better than stock bots, but I wish there are more improvements to the movement.

- Bots spam dodge way too much. In some maps I do like that actually, an ini toggle would be great. I wish there was something implemented to stop the frequent dodge spam, they dodge 3 times instantly when they land.. I want a dodge cooldown when they land on the ground to prevent the dodge spam abuse. You can maybe borrow some of the code on a mutator called BTPog which addresses dodgeblock for real players and reverse it somehow to bots: https://github.com/mbovijn/BTPog

[Buggie]

- Bots sometimes instantly respawn after they get killed, this happens with stock bots as well and its quite annoying. Would be good to have an option to toggle this.

Time of respawn determined by game (GameInfo), not by bots.
Players respawn instant. Bot - mostly - no.

Code: Select all

function float SpawnWait(bot B)
{
	if ( bRatedGame && bNoviceMode && !bTeamGame && (Difficulty <= 2) 
		&& (NumBots > 1)
		&& (B.PlayerReplicationInfo.Score > RatedPlayer.PlayerReplicationInfo.Score) )
		return ( 7 + NumBots * FRand() );
	return ( NumBots * FRand() );
}

So it is feature. If (as mention above) bot must mimic human behavior, then they must respawn instant.
Currently they use delay from code above + 0.25 seconds.

This thing can not be changed by external mutator.
Best what we can do - make bots loop in wait state, but this can produce very long time of respawn. So it can be nobody respawn for long enough time.

- When bots in SmartStockBots detect a player around a corner, they instantly stop and stand still for 1 second until they aim at me. Real life players never stop like this and continue to move around. (An idea to improve is, when they detect a player, they can slightly change their direction while still moving, this is what real life players do, when they dont expect someone around a corner and they see a player - they switch direction and never stop standing still)

Need more info for found exact condition for this situation, for say something.

- Bots in SmartStockBots will still walk in a straight line while they aim at you or go for the flag, but not as often. They will "lock on" to you and walk in a straight line all the way. I want them to use left and right movement more while they aim at me, they are pressing W key too much. It is definitely better than stock bots, but I wish there are more improvements to the movement.

They always go straight, you sometimes not know real goal and they use Fallback state, so it look as not straight.
Current diagonal dodge just make diagonal dodge when space enough to do that. It is still in straight line to movement target.
It is in bot nature.

Bots can do TacticalMove, but it is different story and often lead fall from cliff or into hole.

- Bots spam dodge way too much. In some maps I do like that actually, an ini toggle would be great. I wish there was something implemented to stop the frequent dodge spam, they dodge 3 times instantly when they land.. I want a dodge cooldown when they land on the ground to prevent the dodge spam abuse. You can maybe borrow some of the code on a mutator called BTPog which addresses dodgeblock for real players and reverse it somehow to bots: https://github.com/mbovijn/BTPog

You mean diagonal dodge for movement or TacticalMove dodge for avoid enemy hit? It is different things.

[Que]

- Bots spam dodge way too much. In some maps I do like that actually, an ini toggle would be great. I wish there was something implemented to stop the frequent dodge spam, they dodge 3 times instantly when they land.. I want a dodge cooldown when they land on the ground to prevent the dodge spam abuse. You can maybe borrow some of the code on a mutator called BTPog which addresses dodgeblock for real players and reverse it somehow to bots: https://github.com/mbovijn/BTPog

You mean diagonal dodge for movement or TacticalMove dodge for avoid enemy hit? It is different things.

Bots do indeed do some quick dodges (left , right , left) , right very fast... not human like at all.. there should be a slight delay 0.10~0.25 between dodges to make it more realistic.

[Old UT Veteran]

- Bots spam dodge way too much. In some maps I do like that actually, an ini toggle would be great. I wish there was something implemented to stop the frequent dodge spam, they dodge 3 times instantly when they land.

As a movement skill add-on from this mutator, from what I've seen, the timing is pretty good. You lower the bot skill and they will do this way less if prefered. This is more tied to bot combat state, not movement as Buggie had implemented. I have noticed what you are describing when bot dodges during combat. Whenever a regular bot dodges as part of a combat or fight, they seem to dodge the same distance all the time, either right or left. You could fire 3 rockets, a bio sludge or flak secondary, they will dodge same distance and they can do so 1-3 times with 0 cooldown/delay.

From this mutator, they can move on the map and dodge close or far based on distance to desire location or path node. Instant dodges with same distance is innate to bot code. In other words, when u fire a rocket or projectile, and bot dodges 5 times in 1 second, thats the "Combat" dodge.

- Bots in SmartStockBots will still walk in a straight line while they aim at you or go for the flag, but not as often. They will "lock on" to you and walk in a straight line all the way. I want them to use left and right movement more while they aim at me, they are pressing W key too much. It is definitely better than stock bots, but I wish there are more improvements to the movement.

Bots will do as programmed as they move on a certain path. So maybe we can cause bot in someway to react, get it to move from a predicted path. Say for example bot detects player crosshair, and starts to move erratically when fighting against hitscan. But this starts to tie more to bot combat code. Maybe we can trick bot to behave certain way perhaps to cause more random movement when it is in a particular state.

As for the bot standing still sometimes, may be referring to the StakeOut bot state. They trace target through wall but stand still until enemy is visible again.

[Berserker]

Time of respawn determined by game (GameInfo), not by bots.
Players respawn instant. Bot - mostly - no.
So it is feature. If (as mention above) bot must mimic human behavior, then they must respawn instant.
Currently they use delay from code above + 0.25 seconds.

No I dont think you understood me. What I mean is that they are respawning quicker than humans are allowed to, sometimes they respawn instantly in less than a millisecond after being killed. Human Players cant instantly respawn that quick and its kinda unfair bots respawn faster.

You mean diagonal dodge for movement or TacticalMove dodge for avoid enemy hit? It is different things.

What I mean is that bots do actual dodgebot moves, they do it on both tacticalmove dodge and also on diagonal dodge. I will send video as an example.



With SmartStockBots, they spam dodge like this when they move across the path nodes. I've been playing with SmartStockBots for couple days now on Godlike.

[Buggie]

From what I see, Player restart after 1 second + ping time, since you need click.

Bot restart from 0.2 + 0.25 + NumBots*FRand(). Which in worst case is 0.45. In general it is 0.45 + 0.5*NumBots.

I not see big problem.

Maybe you see another bot respawn after you kill some other bot and think they respawn instant. It is coincidence in such case.

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Well, whey try dodge away from enemy hit, they use less distance from player do. Which too unfair.

Also there no way stop use dodge after diagonal dodge or vice versa. There no any timer for that.

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Bots do indeed do some quick dodges (left , right , left) , right very fast... not human like at all.. there should be a slight delay 0.10~0.25 between dodges to make it more realistic.

This can not be prevented from external mutator.

It can be reduced, but not totally prevented.

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Automatically merged

Also wanna note, we can not alter bot walk direction. This can lead to bad stuff. Bot walks exactly as mapper set nodes. In best case what we can do - shortcut already defined path if engine determine shortcut as reachable. But that all.
Any proper change direction of bot must take in account all geometry which near and so on. It is hard task. Sometimes even dangerous.
So bots always be run straight to goal.

Even on TacticalMove often they fall into lava and die. If it be on moveent it can be disasters and make them too stupid or weak.

[EvilGrins]

This is how SkyNET starts.

[Berserker]

I've tested this and made a video for you Buggie. Do you think this dodgebot abuse can be fixed? In my video when bot respawned, I counted 10 dodges in less than 3 seconds, that's just really unfair and unplayable if bots do it every time they fight you.



I've used Adept difficulty settings in this video with Cautios combat style for Archon.

Of course this video example also happens with original stock bots too, but with smartstockbots it got even worse as they combine the diagonal dodges with the stock spamming dodges and essentially they can do infinite dodges with no pause.

[Buggie]

Adept difficulty is less from Masterful, so it not enough for use MoveWithDodge here, except if this bot adjust skill modifier to +1 or more.

I will try reduce such stuff. But anyway full stop not possible with external mutator.

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Also mutator able work only via polling. There used frequence of 10 times per second for make checks. So this rate can be not enough for prevent all things.
Increase polling rate can produce CPU load and server lags with reduce or not stable server tick.

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Combat dodge can not be fixed by external mutator.