How do you feel about bots being masked as human players?

[Alek]

I recently loaded up Spellbreak for the first time, and it was pretty evident that the first game that you play, was against bots. The game makes an effort to make you feel as though they are human players. They have human, ish names like TheScrubKiller and things like that. But on close inspection, you can see that all the names follow the same format. Additionally, the player behaviour isn't typical.

They don't jump where you might expect them to, they don't react to your attacks in a way that you might expect (e.g. if you get shot you might try to reposition, but a bot does not).

As a user researcher I've run usability tests on games where players thought they were playing against real players. In mobas especially the bots were much more convincing to new players than in first person shooters, likely due to the freedom of movement. So while in Fortnite and Spellbreak they might be predictable, they can be made to be convincing and I suspect the AI in shooters will improve over time to the point that they are also, convincing.

In any case, how does this affect your enjoyment of the game? Do you regularly recognise that you're playing against bots, and does that matter to you?

For me, if I can tell that I'm playing against bots, the experience is ruined and it makes me feel like I'm wasting my time. It immediately makes me want to play something else. I think it's better in scenarios where the game is open about what's happening, telling you to play one bot game before playing against real players, but games that do that are quite rare, with most games I see opting to try to fool the player instead.

 

[Nugnip]

Depends on how long they make you play against bots. I don't know how Spellbreak deals with it, but if it's for the first few games and never again, as a kind of tutorial, that's OK. Actually I remember a study that showed that new players are much much less likely to stick with a game or come back to it if they don't score kills on their first game.
But yeah, if I'm still playing against bots after a while because they can fill their slots or whatever, fuck this.

 

[John Caboose]

Depends on how long they make you play against bots. I don't know how Spellbreak deals with it, but if it's for the first few games and never again, as a kind of tutorial, that's OK. Actually I remember a study that showed that new players are much much less likely to stick with a game or come back to it if they don't score kills on their first game.
But yeah, if I'm still playing against bots after a while because they can fill their slots or whatever, fuck this.

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IIRC, new players in some game (Gears maybe?) actually had more damage to help them get kills in their earliest matches.

 

[BeI]

Is Fortnite similar in that it gives you an easy first game? My husband and I both won our first Fortnite games, but it totally felt like bots. They felt like cheap wins.

 

[Th3BranMan]

At first I thought I had to buy the games battle pass in order to play against humans!

Now that I know better, I feel as though it's a good stepping stone to fighting human players that already have more experience than you, as a fresh player.

I imagine folks would be a lot less willing to play competitive multiplayer titles if the skill barrier was too high at the outset.

 

[Alek]

I think in some games bots or artificial advantages can work... though I'm not sure about increased damage as you suggest, as that might mess the experience up for other players. In Rogue Company your first game is against bots too (I think?) but it's not so obvious. They aim and shoot at you, I couldn't tell. I think in those Gears of War style arena shooters, it's hard to notice, and they can give you a good game.

But if your bots are bad, then it just doesn't work. Like in Spellbreak, because the game features a large 'open' map, pathfinding can't realistically be scripted, which makes the AI harder to design. They need to be able to design AI that can adapt to a wide variety of terrains and make decisions that at least make them look like human players. Most of the AI in Spellbreak just move in a straight line to the zone, then stand still and shoot at you if they see an enemy. It affects the dynamism of a battle royale, fights don't flow as they should, and in my opinion, it's really unenjoyable.

In Paladins, the bots are the worst because they can't actually use many abilities. For instance Evee is a squishy character that flys around, but the bots controlling her have no programmed pathfinding for her flight ability, so they simply don't fly around. It makes the game seem very dull until you get to play with human players.

I think the best solution is a bottom tier SBMM pool, for the players who are either new, or really bad at the game. New players can enter that pool and get a kill or two before moving into the rest of the community. But players who can't play the game well, or say, players with disabilities can stay in that pool and play with folks who they have a chance of killing. Maybe you could mix bots into that pool to make up the numbers, but I don't think it's satisfying for it to be all bots, especially if the bots are very poor like in Spellbreak or Paladins.

 

[Alek]

Is Fortnite similar in that it gives you an easy first game? My husband and I both won our first Fortnite games, but it totally felt like bots. They felt like cheap wins.

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I played Fortnite before they added bots so I don't know, but I think so. Yet I feel that Epic's AI would probably be fairly capable? In Spellbreak the bigger problem is that it affects the atmosphere of the game. It not only feels like a cheap win, but an entirely unenjoyable one, bots don't run around frantically searching for fights, so the game feels very quiet and empty compared to matches with real players which are much more dynamic, and engaging.

Depends on how long they make you play against bots. I don't know how Spellbreak deals with it, but if it's for the first few games and never again, as a kind of tutorial, that's OK. Actually I remember a study that showed that new players are much much less likely to stick with a game or come back to it if they don't score kills on their first game.

But yeah, if I'm still playing against bots after a while because they can fill their slots or whatever, fuck this.

Click to shrink...

I'd really be interested in studying whether how convincing they were as an AI affected players sense of competence.

It all relates into social determination theory of motivation. Social determination theory posits that among other components, players need to feel component in order to feel motivated to continue to play. Featuring bots at the start enables players to get a kill, and therefore, attain a sense of competence.

However, I would hypothesize that awareness that the AI is in fact AI, and not a human player, would detract from that, and possibly even have the inverse effect.

 

[SapientWolf]

I would rather see more games incorporate AI into the design, like Titanfall.

It's also much worse when it's all bots rather than a few bots sprinkled in with humans. In fact, the bots in Unreal Tournament 2k3/2k4 were more helpful than the actual players. So I was usually relieved when I saw a bot on my team because it meant I would get a free heal.

 

[shoptroll]

Yet I feel that Epic's AI would probably be fairly capable?

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They had better be at this point. They hired some of the early Quake AI bot developers to work on the Unreal Tournament games.

 

[Gradon]

Is Fortnite similar in that it gives you an easy first game? My husband and I both won our first Fortnite games, but it totally felt like bots. They felt like cheap wins.

Click to shrink...

Fortnite has bots yes.

I played Fortnite before they added bots so I don't know, but I think so. Yet I feel that Epic's AI would probably be fairly capable?

Click to shrink...

Fortnites bots are awful. They are so obviously bots when you find one because they'll be too busy harvesting random walls when you're directly next to them.

 

[SapientWolf]

They had better be at this point. They hired some of the early Quake AI bot developers to work on the Unreal Tournament games.

Click to shrink...

I was literally thinking about that comic the whole time I was posting about UT.

 

[Gloam]

It's good, this way we are prepared for our android infested future.

 

[laxu]

Long time ago when bots started appearing in games like QuakeWorld I had a ton of fun playing against them. You can set them to your desired difficulty level and they will do a good enough facsimile of playing against other players. I think for practice modes we should see competent bots more and sometimes you just want to have a bit of overpowered fun rather than having to deal with some toxic assholes (real human players).

 

[shoptroll]

I was literally thinking about that comic the whole time I was posting about UT.

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Great minds... I think we were writing our posts at the same time

 

[Lobster Roll]

I think they can have use cases in just about any genre, subgenre, or game mode depending on their implementation with one exception. That exception is a Battle Royale game. I understand what Spellbreak was going for with its first game, but a singular Battle Royale match is a serious time investment and it requires a ton of strategy to win against others. Getting that first win in Spellbreak, followed by an achievement popping up on my screen, just felt like I kind of wasted my time. I was much happier when I got to human opponents that were turning my mage into ash in seconds.

 

[Nephtes]

I think Spellbreak uses bots in your first match to give every player a win.

That win feels good.

You're going to want that feeling again, so you keep playing to experience it again.

Unlike say Apex or Fortnite, they don't want to discourage you from playing by getting stomped on your first match because they want you to play their game, but most importantly, they want you to give them money.

You can't give them money if you bounce hard off the game because you got embarrassed your first match.

 

[Alek]

I think Spellbreak uses bots in your first match to give every player a win.

That win feels good.

You're going to want that feeling again, so you keep playing to experience it again.

Unlike say Apex or Fortnite, they don't want to discourage you from playing by getting stomped on your first match because they want you to play their game, but most importantly, they want you to give them money.

You can't give them money if you bounce hard off the game because you got embarrassed your first match.

Click to shrink...

I won my first 3 games before I found a player that I felt acted like a human, and even in that game I felt like some of the players were not human.

Apex uses a very low skill / new player queue instead, which I think is a viable approach too.

 

[GokouD]

I think Spellbreak uses bots in your first match to give every player a win.

That win feels good.

You're going to want that feeling again, so you keep playing to experience it again.

Unlike say Apex or Fortnite, they don't want to discourage you from playing by getting stomped on your first match because they want you to play their game, but most importantly, they want you to give them money.

You can't give them money if you bounce hard off the game because you got embarrassed your first match.

Click to shrink...

Shit, I was impressed I'd come second in my first match on Spellbreak, now I feel terrible lol. I really don't like bots that pretend to be real, when Paladins was first on the Switch I played a few games and thought I was doing quite well, when I read that it was all bots for the first few matches I just felt like I'd wasted an hour of my life and never went back to it.

 

[mnemonicj]

It's wack.

 

[Alek]

Shit, I was impressed I'd come second in my first match on Spellbreak, now I feel terrible lol. I really don't like bots that pretend to be real, when Paladins was first on the Switch I played a few games and thought I was doing quite well, when I read that it was all bots for the first few matches I just felt like I'd wasted an hour of my life and never went back to it.

Click to shrink...

How did you come second? Maybe a real player slipped into your match. The bots do shoot, but they often just kind of stand still.

 

[Musubi]

Like a billion game developers have said before me If your first experience with the game isn't positive you probably won't come back for seconds. So making sure your first go at the game makes you walk away feeling good seems very smart to me tbh.

 

[GokouD]

How did you come second? Maybe a real player slipped into your match. The bots do shoot, but they often just kind of stand still.

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Maybe it wasn't all bots then? Most of the people I encountered were jumping around and shooting a lot. It was my first solo match, but I'd already played a squad match which we won easily.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'm mostly playing team games like World of Warships or War Thunder, and... honestly, bots in those games would be an improvement sometimes. Regular players rarely listen to any attempts at coordination - bots might at least take note of map pings. Regular players will do stupid crap like getting their battleship into a six-way brawl with torpedo-armed cruisers at close range, which bots might at least be less inclined to do.

I tend to play all my games like I'm playing with (and against) particularly humanlike bots that occasionally swear in chat. It really helps with that whole-body headache that typically results from expecting your teammates to act like a team.

 

[Alek]

Like a billion game developers have said before me If your first experience with the game isn't positive you probably won't come back for seconds. So making sure your first go at the game makes you walk away feeling good seems very smart to me tbh.

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I agree with that. However, running around a ghostly quiet arena searching for terrible bots isn't exactly a good experience either. At least not for me.

I think the bot has to be convincingly challenging to instill that sense of competence in players. That's my experience.

Maybe it wasn't all bots then? Most of the people I encountered were jumping around and shooting a lot. It was my first solo match, but I'd already played a squad match which we won easily.

Click to shrink...

Yeah perhaps not because after my first game it seemed to be a mix of both bots and players. With mostly bots, but occasional players.

It's not altogether clear though. Since bots are mixed in there, it's hard to tell who is who early on. Obviously the first game is a bot game, but after that, I don't know.

 

[KartuneDX]

Hate them, it lead to me dropping Fortnite

 

[Deleted member 49611]

don't really mind. if it helps you learn the game and fills out a match if there aren't enough players. i mean like say you only have 90 out 100 players and there are 10 bots. that's fine.

i really think i've been playing against bots in Fortnite because i can actually get some kills now lol. i could see why they might want to give people easy kills to get them hooked. i've been playing so much fortnite recently. hardly touched it before but now i can get some kills it's got me coming back for more. must be their strategy to keep people playing and spending money...not that i spend money but i'm sure plenty of people will.

 

[Shadow]

Fortnite has bots yes.



Fortnites bots are awful. They are so obviously bots when you find one because they'll be too busy harvesting random walls when you're directly next to them.

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On the other hand I've seen people that I thought were 100% bots, even the names looked like bot names, but then I'd have eyeballs on the bottom left showing they were real people.