8 replies to this topic

[JumpingHunter]

Make simple AI bot take control over mechs of disconnected and AFK players. MWO treats itself very seriously, even the QP matches are "arena-styled", with no respawns, very limited playtime in every match (only one round) and with both general penalty and rank loss for "non-participation" by leaving match in a middel of battle. So how in the world does MWO STILL don't do anything about players who disconnect from game or go AFK, aside from punishing them? And more importantly, why MWO, while being so "competitively" themed, with so restricted playtime in matches.

I suggest to make a simple AI and let it take control over mechs of disconnected players and players who were AFK for more than a minute. I know that MWO doesn't want to have an actual AI for actual combat-based offline practice gamemode (for some weird reason), but MWO DOES have both combat and targeting AI (practice mechs from Academy's mode where you run around with damaged CT and FP's Defense Turrets) and movement AI (practice mechs from Academy's target practice mode where you shoot waves of mechs who run around and VIP from Escort gamemode). So why can't we have these 2 existing and well-working parts combined together in one simple combat-capable AI who will be able to get control over disconnected and AFK players' mechs?

This would probably require some polishing, but in the return game would be much more consistent with it's current vision of QP matches. For now when your teammate disconnects, or when you see a bunch of your teammates, especially in assault mechs standing AFK at the start of the game, you just srug it off and say "welp, GG, guess i die now", because you know that with 99% chance you will be outnumbered and outgunned by your enemy for the entire duration of the match. And it really goes in opposite direction of where game tries to bring QP with it's ranked matchmaking system, Arena-styled matchs with ONE round only and even with existing report reason for "non-participation". But if player get disconnected and his entire team is now going to get snowball-steamrolled the best game can do is to punish a disco player with totally unnecessary 2 minutes of time-out, and all his buddies with red arrow pointing down. Very fair.

Give us the simple AI, and game would feel much more fair than now.

Edited by JumpingHunter, 20 July 2023 - 12:53 PM.

[w0qj]

Sounds interesting...

Just make AI better than that of the MW5, and disable AI hurting your teammates (AI will shoot your back to target enemies!).

Perhaps AI is better than a permanently disconnected teammate...

[JumpingHunter]

w0qj, on 24 July 2023 - 09:51 PM, said:

Perhaps AI is better than a permanently disconnected teammate...

Yup, that is the point of this suggestion, anything is better than permanently disabled ballistic dummies in your spawn. Even a Defense Turret in target practice mech's body is better.

[simon1812]

Not worth the effort to implement something like this. Even if PGI had the resources for mething like it, such effort would be better put into a better game mode, that would mesh PVP with the elements of a PVE game.

[JumpingHunter]

simon1812, on 29 July 2023 - 12:20 PM, said:

Not worth the effort to implement something like this.

I don't see why. If PGI doesn't change the structure of their matches and doesn't make them not CS styled, then this AI thing should be their top priority, as it literally will fix the balance of games with disconnected players. Of all other things, this QoL improvement is more important than any new gamemode or weapon or other mechanics, because this will just make game treat players fair, no matter what gamemode they play.

simon1812, on 29 July 2023 - 12:20 PM, said:

Even if PGI had the resources for mething like it...

As i said in original topic post, there are already both needed parts of AI that just have to be glued together with very minor tweaks. Game already have targeting AI, which is probably the most complicated part of bot's intelligence, and already have moving AI, which just have to be either tweaked to follow his lancemates or given some sort of simple nav mesh, which is not THAT hard to do. First option is better, since then AI will help his lancemates more, but no matter how this would be done, it would already be much better than nothing.

I'm not so naive to think that PGI would make an ACTUAL bot AI from scratch - they're either too lazy or lack will power to do that. But i specifically pointed out that there are already existing parts of AI bots in MWO, only thing needed is to glue these parts together, which should not be nearly as hard and scary as making an AI from scratch. It won't be as good, but it would be enough to make game not punish teammates of disconnected player for doing nothing wrong.

Edited by JumpingHunter, 30 July 2023 - 04:34 AM.

[simon1812]

It wouldn't be fair dude...like how? I have seen 12 players absolutely demolish another 12 players with zero casualties. Lets say for the sake of the argument, that the lossing team had 1 disconnected just sitting there the whole match, what difference would it make if the AI took control of the mech?

The opposite is also true though, have seen team with 2 disconnected players absolutely beat the crap out of a full 12 team of active players.

[KursedVixen]

JumpingHunter, on 28 July 2023 - 11:15 AM, said:

Yup, that is the point of this suggestion, anything is better than permanently disabled ballistic dummies in your spawn. Even a Defense Turret in target practice mech's body is better.

speaking of that I wish turrets were in assault like they use to be. it deters noobs in lights from just capping the base, you can still do it if your good and know how the turrets work but yeah.. it deters base rushes.

Edited by KursedVixen, 02 August 2023 - 08:04 AM.

[VectorStrike]

I vote Aye!

[JumpingHunter]

simon1812, on 01 August 2023 - 09:05 PM, said:

It wouldn't be fair dude...like how? I have seen 12 players absolutely demolish another 12 players with zero casualties. Lets say for the sake of the argument, that the lossing team had 1 disconnected just sitting there the whole match, what difference would it make if the AI took control of the mech?

The opposite is also true though, have seen team with 2 disconnected players absolutely beat the crap out of a full 12 team of active players.

Yes, i've seen that too. But if nothing else AI-controlled disconnects would improve average team's spirit, if they will lose a man before fight even started. It just feels wrong to face bigger opfor simply because there is nothing game will do to even the odds. And because recently i've started seeing much more (relatively to previous 1-2 years, of course) good quality matches like 12-8, 12-9 or even more evenly balanced, i also noticed that a lot of unbalanced matches like 12-3, 12-2 is accompanied by some players disconnecting from losing team. It would just be better to do something to improve matchmaker than to not do anything at all, especially if the game already have decent spare parts for this specific task.

KursedVixen, on 02 August 2023 - 08:03 AM, said:

speaking of that I wish turrets were in assault like they use to be. it deters noobs in lights from just capping the base, you can still do it if your good and know how the turrets work but yeah.. it deters base rushes.

Turrets are nice addition to base, i agree. Sometimes they don't feel like useful assets, but some other times they do get surprising kills of damaged players. Faction Play turrets are genuine MVPs sometimes, taking out retreating sniper mechs.