Simply put - BOTS

[Shen]

Suggestion: Bots
(Something every game needs sometimes)


Bot basics:
Lobby:
Much like in warcraft 3, you should be able to use these bots as you will. However, I'd not like to see them in public games. So the only way to use bots to "train" would be to have them be used in Sandbox / Practise mode.
Picking screen:
There should be a "Counterpick" and "Effective pick" table:
Counterpick:
IF player = Scout THEN Counterpick 1-5 OR Effectivepick
Counterpicks:
Accursed, Slither, pestilence, madman, Pyromancer
Effectivepick:
Any stunners, holders mostly IMO.

Ingame:
Now, we need to have the "Shopping phase", "Laning Phase" and the "Roaming phase"
Shopping Phase(SP):
SP1) The bot chooses which starting items it should get, so there should be a starting item table, which tells the bot the best choices.

SP2) The bot returns for the first time back to base, may it be due to low health or having enough gold to form an item it needs. Here we'd like to have it attempt to take together boots for example or if it thinks it won't need boots, that it starts on some item, which will make it possible for the bot to kill the enemy easier.

SP3) The bot returns now and then back to the well and begins to form "Highlevel" items such as savage mace, Sacrificial Stone or Behemoth's heart.
Laning Phase(LP):
LP1) The bot determines health of the enemy units around him (Non hero) and begins to last hit. Of course, it's a bot, so it shouldn't be a lasthit and deny wonder. 44% chance to lasthit on each creep should be enough chance. And 44% chance to deny on each creep too.

LP2) Now, we all know what happens while laning, mid is level 5, thinks it's good enough - GANK. Now we need to have the bot determine danger with zones. Let's say we're hellbourne and at the bottom lane, between the outpost and the wall of trees to the left of the lane. Now, we visibly see that an enemy hero is coming from the middle, through the Legion forest (not river) to us. The bot has got the "danger zones" there and will go back once the enemy hero has visibly entered that zone or if a player pings in ~800 range of that zone on the minimap.

LP3) Ganking, we want the bot to do that too. For that we need to know how it will determine on how to gank. There we have to invent the "Support me" function. This will tell the bot to follow and work down it's rountine combat skill-line against enemy heroes in sight, which are away from the tower, or if they are close to the tower and under 10% HP, will be chased for X seconds.
Roamingphase(RP):
The bot will, if no enemy heroes are in sight, go and begin to farm the forest, if it has got the right hero or the mana with the said hero to farm the forest for X seconds and then to return to the well or help where lanes need to be defended in case the tower might be destroyed or any building, determined by your usual "Tower under attack" ping.
Advanced Bots:

Summary:
Advanced Sequels: In addition to the BASICS, we want the bots to advance too. We do not want stupid bots, we want SMART ones. Bots, which TRULY ARE a challange!
So, I will be going through another 4 programs the bots will have to go through at the same time.

Watchtower-Sequel:
The Watchower-Sequel is what it sounds like, a watchtower is watching out and we'd like the bots to do that too. So we take this in like in the aura system. Let's say, the Aura has an effective sightrange of 1250 rangeradius around the bot. So, let's say said bot happens to somehow see an enemy player within this effective radius, it will ping the player 2 times where he had seen the player (on the minimap) to alert ally bots or ally players. The "Watchtower-Sequel" the bot used at that moment will have a cooldown of 3 seconds OR will refresh itself if a not same hero is seen. Meaning, that if the bot first sees Puppetmaster(enemy) and then sees Pestilence(Enemy) that he will ping both, but will have a cooldown for a specific enemy player.

Effective Teamplay-Sequel:
Every X seconds we would like the bots to scan enemy and ally player health and calculate the chances of death or a score(we will get to this sequel once I figure out how it could work). Now, if an ally hero is being persued by an enemy hero, which is in sight of the persued ally hero longer than 2 seconds (persued means either being followed by enemy or being actually attacked) the bot will attempt to be on it's way towards the enemy. IF however the ememy count exceeds the 1:1 count (aka, if the bot's ally was being persued by 5 heroes and he alone is in the effective range of, what, let's say 3000 range? Then he will however not help the ally and get into defensive stance at least).

Now, if we catch an ally player having a situation where he is allmost killing an enemy hero or is in a fight with an enemy hero for X seconds alone, then the bot will come to help and preferably NOT "steal" the kill.

Defensive-Sequel:
Every X seconds we want the towers to send the "heartbeat" to our bots. This heartbeat will indicate an enemy in 1500 range around the tower (counting creepwaves greater than 2 waves or/and enemy heroes) and the bot will notice this. Now, if the bot realizes danger to a tower that is not going to get him killed (we take in what the bot learned through the Effective Teamplay-Sequel) then he will go there to defend.

Traditional Sequel:
All bots are giving "Heartbeat"'s to the whole AI system every X second, alerting Death and Alive-Status.
Furthermore, we'd like all bots to have a "silly"-level :) You know what I mean. All Bots will have a Stupiditylevel of 1-5, while 1 will be the most stupid level, level 5 will be the most smart. Level 5 will cause bots to notice everything way faster, work together and survive more. Level 1 will be absurdly stupid, it will have a certain "cooldown" on how long it takes the bot to notice something, let's say 2 or 3 seconds. And then he will be slow in his actions.
Heavy Bots

Summary:
Heavy bots are supposed to use certain countermeasures in order to defeat the enemy bots and enemy players they are against. I would like to mention that I've taken this kind of "Behaviour" from the L4D2 Infected bots. I've been playing it recently and it kind of inspired me.
How?:
How did these L4D2 bots inspire me? I'll tell you! They've got certain lineups and tactics together in specific situations to defeat the survivors and to stress as hard as possible. I'd like to see this happen with these bots, too.
Short Example:
We've got this situation: heavy Bot 1 is a Scout, by Now overfarmed. Runed axe, Savage mace etcetera. We'd like to see the enemy bot "team" counter this by chosing pestilence against scout and going therefor for a tankbuilt which includes bound eye and another bot choosing Succubus in order to disable scout. Sounds simply? No. This requires the KI to understand what the enemy does and desperately assign it's bots to have 1-2 "carries" then a "tank" and some bots who support. Which isnt that easy to accomplish.

Training mode:

The training mode will be a No-stats Multiplayer mode, which can include bots. Now as to explain it further. The training mode also includes the practice mode's Panel in order to assign Gold and level. Once all this is set, the user can click ready and the gold will be reduced to 603 based on player/botcount.

Furthermore the Training mode will be able to decide between:
Starting phase, Early Game, Mid game, Late game. This will assign recommended items and levels to the bots and players in order to compete/train.

The Training mode should include several things such as sucessful juking, saving people and the "WHAT IF" Commandline where the player can set 1-5 bots of the enemy team to do X Y Z after another to create a simulated teamfight and let the "Squire" counter it.

I haven't thinked this all through. But that would be neat (The WHAT IF command would be just a simple command lineup, just for several units/heroes/bots)
Conditions to use bots:


Must be a practice Game
It's up to debate if they could be used in NOSTATS games. For example:

Botcount must be the same on both sides.
There must at least be 1 player on each team
The playercount on each team must be even
Games including bots MUST have an icon in the Games-List
Games Including bots can ONLY be enabled by the Host of the Server.


Should bots have specific grades? Easy mode, Easy, Light, Medium, Heavy, Hard, Expert, Suicidal?

More to be added when I can make up more, please share your feedback and IDEAS please.



Changelog:
17:11, Sunday the 04.04.2010 -
Topic created.
Basics introduced.
Advanced Bots will be added later on when I can be bothered to do so.
Screenshots will be added later too, so the dummies understand everything just slightly enough.
20:54, Saturday the 10.04.2010 -
Introduced Advanced Sequels.
Asked for a bit of feedback.
Added Special Conditions for use of bots.
20:00 13.04.2010 -
Added Traditional Sequel
Need some ideas from community
16:09 20.04.2010 -
Added the "heavy bots" sequel
Explained with:


Summary
How?
And a short Example

14:12 17.10.2010 -
Added the training mode and further explanation.

[Blebleman]

I definitely agree with this.
The AI DoTA map helped me learn the ropes. I agree with your idea that they should be disabled in public games, although maybe they could be allowed only on condition that "No Stats" is enabled. That way newbies can play with their newbie friends, learning together versus a team of bots.

I'm really nowhere as good as I was in DoTA years ago... and I definitely can't go back to DoTA! =)

I'd like an official comment on this... even a "Sure, down the road" would keep me happy. :)

[EDIT] Quick! Put a poll! :)
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=33944

[SwampRaider]

I support this, Fully

[Shen]

Added more. Would like feedback and some ideas from the community.

[AtroCty]

Simply: Yes.

[Adbeth]

^ This

[koisoujiro]

100% agree... only if the bots do some trashtalking, that way new players are pretty much ready on how the real game plays out.

[stopfeed1337]

agree

[Ek1noX]

I hope there are coming soon !!!
This thread is just a suggestion or are they in preparation?

[Shen]

I have seen, that, in the tutorial IS a botsystem. But I am not sure how intelligent it is.

[priming]

Amazing idea, may I suggest having S2 just create an api/doc for end users to play with. That way we might see some pretty amazing AI's.

[Shen]

Amazing idea, may I suggest having S2 just create an api/doc for end users to play with. That way we might see some pretty amazing AI's.

I'M pretty sure that'll be part of the SDK

[Shen]

Added more. Would appreciate to hear some ideas from the community.

[Kevinn]

Agree fully, my brother just started playing and it would be helpful for him to learn without getting flamed in games for being bad, even in no-stat games...dont know why =D

[Nymphus]

Yes, yush, yaaaar! However you want to put it. This is heavily needed.

[Shen]

I am glad you guys support this.. Any ideas? :P

[priming]

All you need to do is release an API and put some prize money for the best AI (mabye $500). You will see enough students who apply standard AI tricks to the problem and tada.

[Shen]

Yeah.. LIKE I HAVE THAT MONEY XD

[Thysios]

bots are always good.

[Anizer1]

Yes but have fun making bots S2. So many items, so many choices.

[Shen]

Uh, its actually not much. A bot only has to have 1 itemsetup each. And then maybe 1-2 alternative items or so.

[Shen]

Also, not like it could be hard <.< Just have to make a list.

Most "carrysets" and so on are very alike.

[Asrial]

Bots in DotA was win, so why not here too?
Also, make them able to give simple chat commands too! They should work like a regular player, in terms of warning:
-10 seconds "miss"-rule.
-Tell to push or get back. (chance of unreliability on low-skilled AI)
-Programmable to get whatever items suits that character the most. (And NOT BH with codex!)
-Good pinpoint-system, so if a bot spots another bot/player walking around in forest, it pings it as a signal for "gank-able".
And of course just try to emulate a real battle as good as possible. :x

[Shen]

Thanks for the info. But I already wrote most of that.

Voted yes, ofc. Solves many problems and by playing against bots I learned to play DotA.

[priming]

Items are easy, you have hundreds of thousands of matches. Take just look at the items bought in thoes ones. Oh you have these heroes, these items won 70% of the time and were used 90% of the time.

ALSO, bots would allow a campaign mode. Campaign = tutorial but fun = used & can include more info.

[s7efaka]

question when there will be bots

[s7efaka]

and if how to put

[s7efaka]

waiting for reply

[priming]

Success, so who is going to move this to popular suggestions.

[Shen]

Hahah thanks priming :P And you can only ask S2 that question. So go write a personal message to ze Fielding or Maliken. Or maybe the red je-- Idejder!

And I'd really like to know who the two lone souls are that voted NO and WHY. I'D really like to know -why- exactly o_O

[Shen]

Oh and :P Thanks for mentioning this suggestion in your note.

[Shen]

Going to add some more to this in the next days. Stay tuned.

[HyperMusic]

Totally Support This, the DotA AI map helped me lots when is was startin' to play.

[Shen]

^

This is the most important part of this all :P

[Shen]

Right, I added some explanation issues as to how the "heavy" bots could react to stuff and so on. I am pretty sure there would have to be different reactions such as "IF Enemy buys Carrybuilt & IS carry THEN pestilence builds tankbuilt and goes Anticarry"

And so on. But I am not sure how to write that out yet. So I'm leaving that to a few days untill the lightning strikes me again.

[priming]

I really think that an requesting an api is much better than telling them hard coded rules. This problem has already been dealt with countless times.

[Quindoo]

Yes but have fun making bots S2. So many items, so many choices.

If this increases the skill level of new or bad players, why not?

Heroes of Newerth is a competitive game and they should focus on getting as many players to participate, so you would get more players who match your skill later on, and should make the slighest changes between clans make the outcome of a match!

Btw, this thread has more than enough votes and follows the rules to be in the Popular Suggestions section imo :) It will rise even higher when it's there..

[traztaw]

am loving HoN massively atm but my biggest problem is some of my mates who never played DoTA find it impossible to get into HoN cause of the learning curve... they get owned every game and its no fun for anyone. Especially cause every person out there will just flame the hell out of them for being terrible...

If there is a way to get bots happening so i can get more of my mates into the game then Im all for it!

[Shen]

Bump

[SysAdmin]

Man, of course everyone wants bots. I bet S2 thought about adding bots when this game was first conceived. Unfortunately, coding in the bots is not easy and will cost a lot of time ( = money). So for now, they are focusing on getting the primary game running (such as matchmaking, more heroes, bugs) so that the game will be ready for release. S2 wants the game to be releasable ASAP, and worry about extra features later (such as the map editor). Other minor changes are probably more likely to get in because they are easy to fix.

But I will say this. The more support people put into this, the more important (ie. higher up on the to do queue) this subject will become.

[Shen]

They've announced it allready early:

There will NOT BE A MAPEDITOR

But worry not friends



























There will be a WHOLE SDK!
(for the sillies: A software development kit (SDK or "devkit") is typically a set of development tools that allows for the creation of applications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_software) for a certain software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software) package, software framework (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_framework), hardware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware) platform, computer system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_system), video game console (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console), operating system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system), or similar platform. - Taken from Wikipedia)

Which not only means mapeditor, HELL NO! Skilled coders will even be able to recreate the whole game with this thing so S2 said. On top of that, you likely will be able to alter heroes to your liking and therefor create your own heroes. let's say. You take the Regular HON and advance it by 30 heroes from Dota by yourself if you can do that! Why NOT? That's exactly why, because there's no reason why you shouldn't. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to "port" your own favorite Dota heroes by yourself taking existing graphics etcetera to help on that.

[koisoujiro]

Cant stress enough how much help an AI would bring to HON. But I hope not as stupid as LoL's AI, much like DOTA's AI maps would not only be sufficient but would also prove capable even for the experienced players.

[Shen]

WOuld really LOVE to hear what those six say who say No and with what specific reason.

[Shen]

Will soon add more x.x Just not feeling like it atm.

[Shen]

94/6 :P Lol..

[SysAdmin]

They've announced it allready early:

There will NOT BE A MAPEDITOR

But worry not friends

There will be a WHOLE SDK!
(for the sillies: A software development kit (SDK or "devkit") is typically a set of development tools that allows for the creation of applications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_software) for a certain software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software) package, software framework (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_framework), hardware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware) platform, computer system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_system), video game console (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console), operating system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system), or similar platform. - Taken from Wikipedia)

Which not only means mapeditor, HELL NO! Skilled coders will even be able to recreate the whole game with this thing so S2 said. On top of that, you likely will be able to alter heroes to your liking and therefor create your own heroes. let's say. You take the Regular HON and advance it by 30 heroes from Dota by yourself if you can do that! Why NOT? That's exactly why, because there's no reason why you shouldn't. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to "port" your own favorite Dota heroes by yourself taking existing graphics etcetera to help on that.

You sir, I believe are mistaken. S2 said there WILL be a map editor AND a SDK. The map editor will be user friendly with an nice GUI. It's ability will be fairly limited and could only really make a different map of HoN.

The SDK will NOT have a nice GUI. It will be a lot harder to use, but it can do pretty much anything with enough patience.

So, The map-editor is for people who want to make their nice cool maps. The SDK is for hardcore coders/editors who want to make custom games. Also, it's been a while since S2 said anything about the editor, but I believe they said that the editor was coming first, some time after the full release of HoN.

[Shen]

the SDK is quite simple. It will use C++ and not even C#.. So its not "hardcore" at all, sorry to pop your bubble.

And S2 mostly said that there will be a map editor within the SDK.

[SysAdmin]

"hardcore" is in quotes, because it is not really hardcore programming. Just that there are two tiers of map making. The basic one that has not knowledge needed (map editor), and one that needs some skills (SDK). SDK is MUCH MUCH harder to use than an editor.


And S2 mostly said that there will be a map editor within the SDK.
I don't remember S2 ever saying that. Please post a link.

[Klama]

I have seen, that, in the tutorial IS a botsystem. But I am not sure how intelligent it is.

As inteligent as a creepwave.

[AndrewReily]

only thing is bot should be able to last hit like wonders.

that's how i learned in dota -_-

[InaneDugong]

AI isn't easy to code, and nor is AI of such a magnitude described in this thread. If S2 has the resource power/money to implement AI, that'd be fantastic, however I don't see it happening as it isn't an integral part of HoN.

[Flupke]

definitely agree

[SysAdmin]

PimPYOo, exactly. It's would cost a lot of money for them todo. They might do it in te future, but not for a long time. Also, HoN would not just take any fan made AI, they will have to edit/remake it no matter what. It's all about the money.

[Shen]

I never said this has to be out for release at all. All I am saying is that it would be a great improvement to the whole game as it would also allow ALOT MORE to be played other than just "dotastyle"

[Attila]

bump bump bump it up

[Blazz]

I love bots, they are a handy accessory.

I'm glad they made the full game before considering bots seriously, though.

I can't wait to get my hands on that SDK and tear it a new one, haha.

[Blazz]

We's gonna have upgrades to units an' towers... maybe get a third faction in there... yeaaaah....

[Vanarchy]

There are 50 000 bots online atm, why adding more? :)

[priming]

Could you link to the announcement of the sdk/map editor?

Also, a fan could just submit the source of the bot and S2 could just tweak it to their liking. Tweaking takes much less time then making it.

[Shen]

It's on paper that there will be a SDK :) don't worry about that. I don't have an announcement right now. But you can ask any S2 peeps. It's official, that there will be a SDK

[priming]

Im really shocked that they didnt release the sdk before the release. I guess its just that they are really rushed trying to beat starcraft 2 to market. Unfortunately they are releasing an unfinished product, I havent been able to play for weeks and support wont even respond.

[priming]

Some details about the sdk/map editor. (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=39882)

[Shen]

Thanks priming :P

[Namwen]

If we do get bots, I would love to see an optional feature where if someone disconnects, the AI takes over their character so their team isn't a hero short. On the one hand, that could imbalance competitive games if the AI is really good (or really bad), but will it be a worse imbalance that having a team missing a hero entirely? Depending on the subtlety of the AI, it could even adjust the AI skill level to match the player it's filling in for. Of course if the player returns within the reconnect limit they get their character back.

[priming]

If we do get bots, I would love to see an optional feature where if someone disconnects, the AI takes over their character so their team isn't a hero short. On the one hand, that could imbalance competitive games if the AI is really good (or really bad), but will it be a worse imbalance that having a team missing a hero entirely? Depending on the subtlety of the AI, it could even adjust the AI skill level to match the player it's filling in for. Of course if the player returns within the reconnect limit they get their character back.

Would be tricky to implement since it would kinda be like switch in dota (imbalances the game).

[BlayZin]

need bots :(

[sanityslayer]

Indeed, an AI feature (even if very basic) would be real neat. It's always useful for practicing, helping n00bs get better or filling slots when you're in an odd-number of friends. In fact, I think I used the DotA AI maps more than the normal maps when I first started.

However, bots should be able to understand basic team tactics such as "back", "push", "gank" and players should be able to give these commands to the bots. This is a important since having stupid useless feeder on the team can be really frustrating.

[BlayZin]

I hope retail will implement it

[HeavySoul]

Bump for Bots!

[Lobotomas]

It is multipalyer game, so you should be glad to play with people, not with bots. If you are beginer play with players with same stats as you do. I played agains bots in DotA when the host left game 5x in one raw. But here is not reason for it..

[SysAdmin]

Bots may be nice to add, but as stated, this is a PvPGN realm. The main game play in HoN is against other players. Having Bots to play with a few friends or by yourself is nice, but not even close to required. And yes, tweaking is a lot of work. I you got me a bot right now, I would have to go through the entire code, figure out the overall structure of the code, make sure it works, and basically rewrite it for efficiency. This may not be as hard as making the AI from scratch but it is work. And work is money. From a business perspective, the money put into making a bot is more than the amount of money earned from new members that joined because of added AI feature. (-$$$)

[Varpoxan]

Very nice idea, excellent for new players trying to learn the game aswell.
T-Up.

[Khser]

bots bots bots bots bots bots bots!!!!!!!!

[LORDofDOOM]

Bots FTW -> Need for learning/testing Heroes and Item Builds

[Shen]

What "lord of doom" said :P I'm gonna add more stuff once I can be bothered. I am very busy with this stuff atm:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=120540
http://dream.heroesofnewerth.com/hero/Shen/Shen

[Murlou]

As long as in the 5 stupidity level the BOT doesn't sell all his stuff and hides in the woods while calling his teammates noobs after 6min of the game!

[spleenball]

yes BOTS PLEASE!

[Gesus]

this would be awesome! i was actually thinking you could make a tutorial for all heroes vs bots so you learn to play them.

[Shen]

Eh, I think that would have to be playermade. A tutorial for every hero vs every hero is too much of a "Walkthrough"

[Rinsaku]

I'm sure this is something they will think about down the road at some point.

[spleenball]

how is hon different from dota and lol? you paid for hon and it doesnt have ai bots.

[Shen]

Dota is a map
LoL Is a terrible failure
HoN is a great successor to DotA and didnt get bots first (It does have bots, but only in the tutorial), because its a game for active human players.

[Renaissance]

Bump! I support this!

[Proteuz]

Bots would be great. The biggest problem with HoN (and DoTA) is it's learning curve. When you are brand new to the game and have no idea what heroes can do its really rough. I have friends that play HoN and they hate it because they do poorly and they get raged at. The tutorial is extremely limited and while it teaches you the very basics, it does not prepare you for online play. Bots can ease this transition as you aren't getting raged at by your team or getting trash talked by the enemy. Using bots as a learning tool is great for new players but it would be great to have difficult bots for experienced players as well.

in short: I'd love to see bots in HoN. Easier (not dumb) bots to help people learn the basics of the game beyond the tutorial. Harder bots for more experienced players to use. Bots should be available in no-stats games. You should be able to play a team of people against a team of bots or a mix of people and bots vs people and bots. Anything should go as long as its no-stats only.

[spleenball]

Dota is a map
LoL Is a terrible failure
HoN is a great successor to DotA and didnt get bots first (It does have bots, but only in the tutorial), because its a game for active human players.

right, but you still didnt have to pay for the map. wanna know how i learned to play dota well? bots. i just dont understand why a publisher would release a game you would have to pay for, that doesnt have some of the things that its competition is giving out for free.

[Shen]

Because DOTA is just a map.

LoL is "free"

HON isn'T free whereas 30 USD are a clever investment because you dont have to pay ingame for new heroes etc. Dota is just way too slow and waaaay too old if you think about the engine etc.

ERGO:

HON Is a good investment because the game is good and well made and has everything that DOTA lacks atm + is pretty cheap.

[nankura]

i agree with this. fully, this bot idea should be added but also with a low skill level option for new players ofc, dont make them to hard to start with

Its a great way for player's to learn the game without suffering kdr loss. or psr

[Asrial]

I'd pay 15 bucks extra for this feature to get released, and I'd bet many other like me would do.
Seriously. S2. Develop it. Now.

[nankura]

you shouldnt have to pay anything, it should be a completely free option allowing new players who just spent 30 bucks to get decent at the game. and learn the steep learning curve without loosing 2,000+ psr before they can actually learn the game

[Asrial]

Not exactly what i meant, but okay. I would gladly pay extra for bigger and harder-to-create content to get implemented.
I'd happily donate money for S2 to implement map editor, bots, battleground-dedicated servers for 20v20 maps and so on!

[TheMathKing]

Has there been an official comment from the S2 Games, concerning AI and bots? It would really help getting my noob wife up to speed, so we can enjoy the game.

[Shen]

Has there been an official comment from the S2 Games, concerning AI and bots? It would really help getting my noob wife up to speed, so we can enjoy the game.
Eh.. Let your wife be your wife <.< Show her how to play the game as long as there are no bots ._.

[eXa]

Good and to implement in the begginer guide so the new players can have advices, like "Try to kill creeps and denie yours so your opponent get less xp-money" and having a oppent will show him that he has to be carful because he can be killed. "Don't auto-attack" etc....

[Up]

The hard part of the programing is not the what to buy /counter pick and etc
its to prorgram to last hit and deny where to go and etc

[cainx10a]

I actually bought HoN thinking it had some sort of bots feature, dota had theirs for quite some time. Great game despite not having that feature, but that would help me a lot.

[Tenkin]

It's fine that people agrees with OP and all that ****..

But ffs, this won't help us get bots. We either need a skilled guy to make them or we need S2 to make them.

[LadyGaga]

Voted no. (Mostly for lols)

[Kartalov]

great idea, i suggested this too. Though i clearly doubt this will ever be implemented so .. gl

[Shen]

WOOHOO! :> 400+ votes. Nice!

[whistle]

:dark: in tutorial has an odd way of deciding on actions. It seems she just has a few auras which check how much hp certain things have. Scripted bots which get data from the game itself don't seem possible at this point to just mod in. It might be because of the client-server code preventing the user from getting unnecessary data. S2 would have to change some things before this happens.

[Shen]

Well, at least it's a beginning ^^

[Lonxo]

AGREE

[Peekay`]

As a new player and someone who barely played DOTA bots would be a huge help!
Hopefully there is some plans for this to be implemented behind the scenes.

[backwardsman]

So is there a chance of this happening? I used them alot in DOTA and its super helpfull.

[Shen]

There probably are plans. maybe they'll come together with the SDK




















2094

[pro_Noun]

IMO they could be used in matches with any number of players, but for obvious reason, it'd HAVE TO BE NO-STATS.

/support

But uhm... I don't really think it is the best priority for S2 staff to spend paid hours doing, isn't important enough. Just like in DotA, fans with programming skills were allowed to make the AI version of the map. I think S2 should organise a volunteer programming party to do it, then they would only have to hire staff to go over each suggested patch for the bots, each time one is submitted by the head of the volunteer group.

[TheMathKing]

Are there any official responses about bots\ai from S2? I have so many noob friends that won't even touch this game till they see bots. I actually have to play LOL if I want to play with them, because of this bizarre stubbornness from S2. All people want, is a place to practice without getting trolled by the *******s online (90% of HON players, lol). All they need is some stupid bot that can be hit, and have some way of killing them. You can practice last hit, abilities, item builds, animation cancel and all sorts of other things with this setup, without the fear of trolling.

[TheMathKing]

Yeah, the majority population is the fast track to money and power. If you appease them, you can make a better business, but if you anger them you'll lose to the one that they favor. HON is the best DOTA clone out there, but LOL is doing much better in popularity. You have all sorts of people playing it because it's accessible. It was rated the best multilayer game of 09, even though it's a shallow and simple game. Let the noob majority have their way, it won't interfere with the real deal "pro" players. Never anger the dumb and simple masses, they are the key to power.

[Blubal]

My friends/family and I want bots badly! We need to be able to try out new heroes against AI. We don't like to play online with real people and play heroes we've never tried before. We enjoyed teaming up on the bots on DOTA. I have a couple dota friends that won't buy/play HoN because no AI is available. I know the gameplay is very different against bots, but again, it would be a fun way to try new heroes and learn their abilities without wasting real people's time. And, many no-stat games, people leave and then you get stomped before you can even try out your hero's abilities... There are too many reasons to get into why we need bots... just belive us, WE DO!

[Shen]

Alright, let's wrap it up.

I see this as a very popular suggestion, however, I also see this suggestion as a "second hand" thing to do. It has way less priority than anything else because this game right now is based on players and I much rather see players vanishing fully after 5 minutes or a kick than a bot taking over and feeding because of a bugged version or whatever.

HOWEVER I also see bots as a great opportunity for the major population of casual players to practice, learn and probably as another great addition to the SDK, which will allow people who use the SDK and the Mapmaker to forge scenarios or whatever.

Another great option is that a bot could replace a player based on the PSR ingame or depending on the game mode (EM / PSR Filter etc).

There is still alot I would like to overhaul with this suggestion, but not too soon. I'm right now working on my DREAM suggestion, which has already recreived an S2 Response. S2 is probably aware of most Popular Misc. suggestions but does not answer just yet, because they are simply prioring other stuff
(SDK, New heroes, Maps, Team Matchmaking)

[priming]

I think S2 is already working on it, that is why they dont respond.

You make a good point shen, the forums are largely made of people in the choir. They should do in game surveys, and survey LoL players. Epic fail on S2's marketing department... do they even have one?

[Shen]

I dont think they have one. Though I believe Lulu is one of the marketing persons, but I can ever be sure. But I think HON Doesnt really need active advertisements. Mouth propaganda is the most powerful advertisement afterall instead of a fully misleading "Cinematic" like LoL uses.

[priming]

For some strange reason people tend to think a marketing = advertising.

Market research is often overlooked and even if a product is engineered well, misgauging the market can kill it.

I wouldnt be surprised if S2's on why people dont like the game comes from anecdotal evidence (ie forums, game reviews etc).

Note: The suggestion section has many flaws, some of which being under-read, same small percentage of hon players, yes or no (ie 30% really like it but 70% are indifferent). The players have no access to data, just their own anecdotal case.

[Balinor]

Agree. I have many friends who don't want to buy the game because they can't learn vs bots before playing online.

[you_suck]

just make **** ones people can complain about

[Shen]

Your name and vulgar language really makes me want to read more comments from you..

Wait wat?

As for Balinor.

If you want to have some kind of "advanced tutorial" then you'll have to teach your friends, that's what I did and they're feeder no--- Lol ;P

Nah really. The learning curve isn't that high, it's just difficult to climb over as it's spiked with alot of hate :/

I still see this suggestion as a second thing, because Dota was never player friendly. But I of course would be happy to see this game becoming player friendly without it mutating into LoL.

[Pocketmonstr]

Would love to see this happen. :)

[Lucretius]

Voted No:

Anything that takes the thinking out of strategy and tries to simplify it into a mechanically coded process is bad. We already have the most complex decision making engine between our ears so here is a suggestion... Use It?

[Shen]

Simply said, you just dont want bots to be possible.

kk

[phLOx]

Great idea, one that has already seen some action in the tutorial.

With HoN being a social and teamwork game, it would take countless hours to implement it really well. Interaction with bots would have to be implemented, ordering them to help you gank or come to your aid by teleporting to your location etc.

My suggestion. Make the bots personalized. Give them names, and each one has its own skill level. For instance, some bots would be bad at making decisions and be better at playing carry than support etc. They can have a % based random decision making table aka "Should I continue attacking this hero or should I retreat", etc. with "smarter" bots a better chance of making the right decision. They should be famous or infamous for acting on your cries for help or leaving you to die as they save themselves (We can call that one "The Scout Master"?). There must be some of them you just don't want in your team.

I like the idea of them being able to badmouth or praise you.

Also, like you said, last hitting shouldn't be so good as in the user-made ai of dota, as well as that they shouldn't ignore fog of war and have vision of invis and never target your illusions etc.


Lots of potential, but then again, LOTS of coding hours. Would be a great addition to the game.

[UnumSceleris]

I have seen, that, in the tutorial IS a botsystem. But I am not sure how intelligent it is.

They're horrendously stupid. I think they'd rate about a -15 on your 1-5 sliding scale. I remember at one point they had me as pyro fighting a succubus in the laning phase. The succubus didn't last hit all that well, didn't harass well (by well I mean when she tried the aggro'd all the creeps and was tanking them while attempting to chase me), and finally didn't have any concept of surviviability. Eventually I just got my ult and was able to 1 shot her over and over again. She'd keep running up to me and autoing me after she spawned and then CATCH THIS!!! insta kill. I agree on the bots idea though...

[Shen]

That's why I am saying that I am unsure how intelligent the current bot system is :) I only played once very briefly through the tutorial but I do think it needs advancing. Though, this would be very difficult to set up, as the first few rules already start at "Last hit priority" "Pulling creeps" "Pulling neutrals" and finally "Surviveability and hero surviveability priority" And that's just minor things.

[Bendur]

It may come, but S2 are busy people

[UnumSceleris]

Too true... I liked your algorithms by the way, very nice... though you may want to watch out for that one that makes them get the heartbeat if people are within a certain range... What if they're invisible or out of sight range? I know you probably don't mean for it to go off if they're not visible, but it would be a good idea to write that in stone.

[TheChosenOne]

Yes. Great for training or simply doing a game when you don't have a lot of time and can pauze the game easily. The last a.i. modified injection botsthingy with DotA were pretty good (for bots that is).

Lets keep the attention on this. :)

[Vahn]

Nice suggestion, though creating an effective AI is incredibly difficult.

If you've ever played a game such as Age of empires, even on the hardest difficulty setting they are still terrible.

I can't really imagine a bot being able to play a game such as HoN successfully, remember how complicated the human brain is when it comes to decision making.
Even if implemented it would never be a good representation of another player.

The bot in the tutorial right now is incredibly stupid.

[zhandarm]

Can we hope to see bots when there is a map editor?

[Shen]

I doubt it. But we can hope to see the bots when there is the SDK :)

[Varpoxan]

Nice idea, as other people stated it's very hard to make effective AI's, but it would be alot of fun if pulled off.

[Puchi]

I remembered playing dota against bots, they are to predictable for it to be fun in the long run and why play vs bots? no psr lololol

[Roaec]

a thousand times yes

[JimmehCake]

Really worked out this time, gj!
I approve.

[LordLynxx]

I show my support for this idea. It's easier for me to train newbies while not ruining other's games.

[`Barrage]

Agreed only to Private Games.

[Shen]

I show my support for this idea. It's easier for me to train newbies while not ruining other's games.

I think this would be a great idea.

[Pugyman]

well they already have a Basic AI down as showen in the Tutorial faze of the game :)

[w3etiki]

For starters I'll be happy to see some bots that just auto attacks into tower and levels up. Just so I know they are being worked on.

[redeye998]

Easy, normal and hard bots should be a great thing...
Especialy if would be a mod that allows you to play OFFLINE
just like the Quickstart Practice game, that allows you to play practice without login in!
Great, Great Idea!

[Shen]

Updated once again. Just a minor update but with major consequences ;)

[GODLY]

This would take so much work to implement I can't see it happening any time soon (if it all).

[Shen]

All that would require to be made would probably be the default-skeleton of the bots. And that's already there as far as I can see that.

Anything afterwards could, but musn't be made by players.

As I've said before, this is a secondary priority suggestion

[w3etiki]

Actually I think this is pretty important, at this moment it seems impossible for me to recommend this game to any of my friends, and all my friends that I did manage to bring into hon quit thanks to the hon community. I imagine hon relies heavily on user to user recommendation to sell itself, after all this isn't some big graphic thing that you can just show it off with some fancy CG video.

For a game that doesn't have monthly subscription fees or item malls, it's likely more important to try to bring in more players instead of pleasing its existing players.

[Corvias]

I have not played HoN in months because I couldn't get through the learning curve. It was too hard to get good practice in without having someone being a douche-nozzle. I know the basics, I really just needed practice working with a team, learning the roles. Reading all the guides in the world won't give you the experience you need to actually use them. Now I just don't care about the game (moved on to SC2).

I'd give it another go if there were bots in HoN, and I'm sure other newbs would too. Sure, its not the same as real people, but once you get to the point where the bots feel predictable, then you know you can start wading into real matches without being a complete muppet.

[AWOL`]

"in Sandbox / Practise mode."

No thanks, havent even used those

[Unohdusmile]

Good idea for newcomers

[TestieSlave]

i dont get it.. how LoL could add bots and HoN still couldnt.. (i know lol bots are stupids, but are really useful to practice some. items, skill combinations, etc) and for new players would be 1000x better that join in a no stat while all ur team start to rage on u.

[ilike2ks]

sigh i have no idea why S2 doesnt want to do this...

[TestieSlave]

no idea.. even bloodline champions in beta phase has bots (wich work really good imo).. idk what is worse not having bots or they just ignoring us

[Emin3m]

Plz make it O_O or tell us its under devlopement :)

[Anterior]

Takes me back to DOTA. I fully support this idea as I'm pretty sick of losing PSR because of newbies that need to learn how to play.

[GauntElakor]

If only for the option of having bots, and it would be a shame if all the work put down in this thread should go to waste :(

[LolYouReDead]

Beautiful.

[Shen]

With HoN 2.0 coming, i'm pretty sure this might be a project at some point

[Rofltrellen]

I definitely agree with this.
The AI DoTA map helped me learn the ropes. I agree with your idea that they should be disabled in public games, although maybe they could be allowed only on condition that "No Stats" is enabled. That way newbies can play with their newbie friends, learning together versus a team of bots....

This is something I support fully, and I quote what is one of my main reasons I want bots in this game, it was awsome and great for DotA, it should be here too =D
:bubb:

[pwn_U_fast]

+1, much needed for the rookies, as this was the only reason i ever got interested in dota. there was too much flame in real games when i was noob.

so i played ai map to get the feel of the game and then found some people to learn from.

[CaitSith]

Bump...

[WSLaFleur]

what harm could it possibly do? it would be a massive improvement in the stress of undertaking a game with such an enormous learning curve for new players and relieve some of the pub-players continually complaining, many newbies would prefer to play against bots.

[phlaem]

what harm could it possibly do?

Since S2's resources are limited and because the development of bots is time consuming it would obviously delay the development of core features. Therefore, NO.

[TestieSlave]

bump..

even downloaded dota again to play with bots

[Shen]

Since S2's resources are limited and because the development of bots is time consuming it would obviously delay the development of core features. Therefore, NO.

As a matter of fact:

S2 is wasting resources on graphical replacements for heroes ingame. Pretty sure they can waste a buck or two on something that might bring the newbies back and make HoN gamers out of them in addition to supporting the mapping community.

Btw. I am working on a triple lane 7vs7 map at the moment. Won't say much about it though.. Properly putting the trees for juking is a pain.

[colondee]

Hahaha OK, but YOU do the programming!

[b4uC]

May S2 could make a contest for Bot Designers, the winner wins an account, a high end graphic card and 1000$.

[TestieSlave]

*cough

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/news/league-legends-presents-co-op-vs-ai

[Iipz]

every kid below 1700 psr would be getting outpicked by bots, therefore bots no fun

[TestieSlave]

every kid below 1700 psr would be getting outpicked by bots, therefore bots no fun

?




The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 4 characters.

[CaitSith]

Bump.

[HoboJones]

I support this so long as they are only available in no-stats.

[pochvic]

Bump

Missing option to play with bots in practice mode/nostats is really big problem for new players imho. I invited few friends to play trials but its impossible for them to enjoy the game if they dont know the basics. And its really hard to learn something when you are dead most of the time.

[TestieSlave]

*cough

http://www.own3d.tv/video/68167/Riot_vs_Bots_

LoL (riot) developers > s2 in AI?

hard to believe it when LoL is "f2p", i know they have their store (skins, champions, etc) as we have it too..

[Shen]

In all honesty. I rather see bots late in this game than resources wasted on it =)

I know that it would help alot. But this is really an optional thing.

[CaitSith]

Bump. Bump.

[d3gain]

topic dead???
will we have ai map or not ???

[HugoChavez]

RIOT LoL > s2 @ IA aka bots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxs3VUtYyvU&feature=player_embedded

[Katboi]

DOTA 2 will fix it. No really. HoN's days are numbered.

[_RaZieL_]

DOTA 2 will fix it. No really. HoN's days are numbered.

I used to think "Dota fanboy just being fanboy" but then i read what dota 2 is going to bring to the table, i mean i love hon, but S2, ok, you know, just, ok.
functional AI brings a lot to learning the items and skill builds of a particular hero. unless the AI all buy 6 blademails to counter naix(lol, the good ol' days) so i like this guys idea and its definitely possible, although this does nothing for high-level competitive games. Good idea = Yes, probability of making its way into hon = 2% about the same chance of implementing a lan mode so we can play with our new items/heroes/game modes

[Ahimtar]

RIOT LoL > s2 @ IA aka bots
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxs3VUtYyvU&feature=player_embedded
OMFG :D
1. its called AI not IA
2. what are you doing at HoN forums then?
3. lol you think that LoL is better than hon just because of bots? ZOMFG :D:D

[HugoChavez]

OMFG :D
1. its called AI not IA
2. what are you doing at HoN forums then?
3. lol you think that LoL is better than hon just because of bots? ZOMFG :D:D

1.- My bad
2.- Now youll tell me wich forum visit? :/
3.- No, but i think LoL is winning the AI race, not talking in general

Regards

[Dimmortal]

S2 would need to do massive coding to get this to work, but it would be alright i guess.

[TTDhunter]

YES i might finally be able 2 see what a 1700+ game is like

And i want this to be a mode of No Stat- Idk call it bot challenge mode then difficulty next to it

btw i doubt HoN would add this because it would waste a **** load of their time and it will end up with a user making it

but fingers cross they do :P

[sorryDnoodle]

this must be included to the game, it is almost required!

i'm exited for this to happen!

[PowerkiiNG]

:elec::elec:

Suggestion: Bots
(Something every game needs sometimes)


Bot basics:
Lobby:
Much like in warcraft 3, you should be able to use these bots as you will. However, I'd not like to see them in public games. So the only way to use bots to "train" would be to have them be used in Sandbox / Practise mode.
Picking screen:
There should be a "Counterpick" and "Effective pick" table:
Counterpick:
IF player = Scout THEN Counterpick 1-5 OR Effectivepick
Counterpicks:
Accursed, Slither, pestilence, madman, Pyromancer
Effectivepick:
Any stunners, holders mostly IMO.

Ingame:
Now, we need to have the "Shopping phase", "Laning Phase" and the "Roaming phase"
Shopping Phase(SP):
SP1) The bot chooses which starting items it should get, so there should be a starting item table, which tells the bot the best choices.

SP2) The bot returns for the first time back to base, may it be due to low health or having enough gold to form an item it needs. Here we'd like to have it attempt to take together boots for example or if it thinks it won't need boots, that it starts on some item, which will make it possible for the bot to kill the enemy easier.

SP3) The bot returns now and then back to the well and begins to form "Highlevel" items such as savage mace, Sacrificial Stone or Behemoth's heart.
Laning Phase(LP):
LP1) The bot determines health of the enemy units around him (Non hero) and begins to last hit. Of course, it's a bot, so it shouldn't be a lasthit and deny wonder. 44% chance to lasthit on each creep should be enough chance. And 44% chance to deny on each creep too.

LP2) Now, we all know what happens while laning, mid is level 5, thinks it's good enough - GANK. Now we need to have the bot determine danger with zones. Let's say we're hellbourne and at the bottom lane, between the outpost and the wall of trees to the left of the lane. Now, we visibly see that an enemy hero is coming from the middle, through the Legion forest (not river) to us. The bot has got the "danger zones" there and will go back once the enemy hero has visibly entered that zone or if a player pings in ~800 range of that zone on the minimap.

LP3) Ganking, we want the bot to do that too. For that we need to know how it will determine on how to gank. There we have to invent the "Support me" function. This will tell the bot to follow and work down it's rountine combat skill-line against enemy heroes in sight, which are away from the tower, or if they are close to the tower and under 10% HP, will be chased for X seconds.
Roamingphase(RP):
The bot will, if no enemy heroes are in sight, go and begin to farm the forest, if it has got the right hero or the mana with the said hero to farm the forest for X seconds and then to return to the well or help where lanes need to be defended in case the tower might be destroyed or any building, determined by your usual "Tower under attack" ping.
Advanced Bots:

Summary:
Advanced Sequels: In addition to the BASICS, we want the bots to advance too. We do not want stupid bots, we want SMART ones. Bots, which TRULY ARE a challange!
So, I will be going through another 4 programs the bots will have to go through at the same time.

Watchtower-Sequel:
The Watchower-Sequel is what it sounds like, a watchtower is watching out and we'd like the bots to do that too. So we take this in like in the aura system. Let's say, the Aura has an effective sightrange of 1250 rangeradius around the bot. So, let's say said bot happens to somehow see an enemy player within this effective radius, it will ping the player 2 times where he had seen the player (on the minimap) to alert ally bots or ally players. The "Watchtower-Sequel" the bot used at that moment will have a cooldown of 3 seconds OR will refresh itself if a not same hero is seen. Meaning, that if the bot first sees Puppetmaster(enemy) and then sees Pestilence(Enemy) that he will ping both, but will have a cooldown for a specific enemy player.

Effective Teamplay-Sequel:
Every X seconds we would like the bots to scan enemy and ally player health and calculate the chances of death or a score(we will get to this sequel once I figure out how it could work). Now, if an ally hero is being persued by an enemy hero, which is in sight of the persued ally hero longer than 2 seconds (persued means either being followed by enemy or being actually attacked) the bot will attempt to be on it's way towards the enemy. IF however the ememy count exceeds the 1:1 count (aka, if the bot's ally was being persued by 5 heroes and he alone is in the effective range of, what, let's say 3000 range? Then he will however not help the ally and get into defensive stance at least).

Now, if we catch an ally player having a situation where he is allmost killing an enemy hero or is in a fight with an enemy hero for X seconds alone, then the bot will come to help and preferably NOT "steal" the kill.

Defensive-Sequel:
Every X seconds we want the towers to send the "heartbeat" to our bots. This heartbeat will indicate an enemy in 1500 range around the tower (counting creepwaves greater than 2 waves or/and enemy heroes) and the bot will notice this. Now, if the bot realizes danger to a tower that is not going to get him killed (we take in what the bot learned through the Effective Teamplay-Sequel) then he will go there to defend.

Traditional Sequel:
All bots are giving "Heartbeat"'s to the whole AI system every X second, alerting Death and Alive-Status.
Furthermore, we'd like all bots to have a "silly"-level :) You know what I mean. All Bots will have a Stupiditylevel of 1-5, while 1 will be the most stupid level, level 5 will be the most smart. Level 5 will cause bots to notice everything way faster, work together and survive more. Level 1 will be absurdly stupid, it will have a certain "cooldown" on how long it takes the bot to notice something, let's say 2 or 3 seconds. And then he will be slow in his actions.
Heavy Bots

Summary:
Heavy bots are supposed to use certain countermeasures in order to defeat the enemy bots and enemy players they are against. I would like to mention that I've taken this kind of "Behaviour" from the L4D2 Infected bots. I've been playing it recently and it kind of inspired me.
How?:
How did these L4D2 bots inspire me? I'll tell you! They've got certain lineups and tactics together in specific situations to defeat the survivors and to stress as hard as possible. I'd like to see this happen with these bots, too.
Short Example:
We've got this situation: heavy Bot 1 is a Scout, by Now overfarmed. Runed axe, Savage mace etcetera. We'd like to see the enemy bot "team" counter this by chosing pestilence against scout and going therefor for a tankbuilt which includes bound eye and another bot choosing Succubus in order to disable scout. Sounds simply? No. This requires the KI to understand what the enemy does and desperately assign it's bots to have 1-2 "carries" then a "tank" and some bots who support. Which isnt that easy to accomplish.

Training mode:

The training mode will be a No-stats Multiplayer mode, which can include bots. Now as to explain it further. The training mode also includes the practice mode's Panel in order to assign Gold and level. Once all this is set, the user can click ready and the gold will be reduced to 603 based on player/botcount.

Furthermore the Training mode will be able to decide between:
Starting phase, Early Game, Mid game, Late game. This will assign recommended items and levels to the bots and players in order to compete/train.

The Training mode should include several things such as sucessful juking, saving people and the "WHAT IF" Commandline where the player can set 1-5 bots of the enemy team to do X Y Z after another to create a simulated teamfight and let the "Squire" counter it.

I haven't thinked this all through. But that would be neat (The WHAT IF command would be just a simple command lineup, just for several units/heroes/bots)
Conditions to use bots:


Must be a practice Game
It's up to debate if they could be used in NOSTATS games. For example:

Botcount must be the same on both sides.
There must at least be 1 player on each team
The playercount on each team must be even
Games including bots MUST have an icon in the Games-List
Games Including bots can ONLY be enabled by the Host of the Server.


Should bots have specific grades? Easy mode, Easy, Light, Medium, Heavy, Hard, Expert, Suicidal?

More to be added when I can make up more, please share your feedback and IDEAS please.



Changelog:

[Ahimtar]

it probably was said before, but bots will definitely be at least a small solution for leavers :D

[inihility]

Would be interesting to have some sort of match making that would match 5 players (intended for new players or players who are still learning the basics) against 5 bots. Heck let's add in some incentive to play this mode (for all players) by handing out silver coin for this game mode: 1 for losing, 2 for winning.

[Kopuz]

Bump. Gief bots plx.

[XAM]

Why isnt this in the game yet?

EDIT: Kopuz, that account icon >_<

[UrienRakarth]

+1 but I don't like that both sides have to have the same amount of bots. I'd rather want to have the option to add a bot to a slot like you can swap the slots now. THe goal of this is, that you are able to practice a new strat or play inhouses without 10 players online.

[jehazy]

Overwhelmingly yes.

[VinePanther]

For online bots taking the place of leavers is a great idea. But, for offline it is even more pivotal imo.

It is discouraging to me that practice mode only has creeps, but no bots. This really keeps the new users away from playing online, or if they do they get ridiculed for sucking, blah, blah, blah.

Perhaps they are going to patch it in at some point, but at this stage of the game every MOBA game should have this feature. I'm sure that the frustration of higher level players would be lessened also, since more new users would know have a better idea of what they need to be doing.



Would be interesting to have some sort of match making that would match 5 players (intended for new players or players who are still learning the basics) against 5 bots. Heck let's add in some incentive to play this mode (for all players) by handing out silver coin for this game mode: 1 for losing, 2 for winning.

That makes perfect sense to me.

[Echorion]

Yes dear god, yes!
I just got an account with HoN and what has been keeping me from playing it is that fact that I need to really learn how to play, but I just get kicked from every game pretty much for being new, or people flame me constantly and I can't play more than one game every few days because the people are extremely non-newplayer friendly.
This would help me learn and play without being kicked or harrassed, I would be able to actually learn how to play properly before attempting those online matches again.

[spleenball]

This is one of the main reasons I went to LoL. Practice against bots. True the bots are simple, but it helps you learn laning. There is also a 5 v 5 imtermediate bots versus players. These bots will use jungle and gank. I always found it funny that while I payed for HoN, a free game called LoL had more to it with the practice ability.

[Boltzen]

Pwease pwease pwease S2 listen to the resounding cries of your customers.

[kurnis]

why is this not ALREADY in the game?????

this would be a great way for all the new people to learn the ropes.

[Fearzao]

90% yes, S2! 90%!!!!!!!!
Do something, please!

[Veto]

No. S2 can't even handle running the game properly at the moment. Their servers are unstable and heroes are unbalanced, and yet they still release un-needed content and keep releasing heroes every other week to compete with LoL.

Since the DDoS attack the game servers have been VERY unstable. People have been complaining for a long time and they don't fix it.
They also have made a lot of promises/contests and they forget all about them, S2 used to listen to the community back in closed beta but now they seem to not care.

For those interested to reading about the empty promises etc. here is the link: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=295651
(Very nice thread btw, I recommend any HoN player who has played for over a half year to read it).

Before they start wasting time on programming bots they should try to fix their game first. Their recent actions has started to look like they are very hungry for money, which is why people start calling it $2 instead of S2.

TL;DR - No, S2 needs to fix the game first and fulfill their old promises.



If you have read my post, you would know that even with the 90% or whatever the numbers are who voted 'Yes'. The chance of S2 making bots is below 0.01%


- :goldenshield:Veto

[Dorki]

looks good, right from the start I was thinking HoN was missing an option to play against bots in practice and then I mean good bots and not the bot in practice.

[Sphelix]

I believe this is much needed and would improve the newer players enough to not make terrible mistakes.

[Syth`]

********

[Autarkic]

We want those damn bots already! >:(

[Tommo]

I only have a basic understanding of game design but I do believe that implementing an effective bot system would require a lot of time and effort, I believe S2's resources could be utilized more effectively.

Of course, this is my opinion only.

[Erra93]

No. S2 can't even handle running the game properly at the moment. Their servers are unstable and heroes are unbalanced, and yet they still release un-needed content and keep releasing heroes every other week to compete with LoL.

Since the DDoS attack the game servers have been VERY unstable. People have been complaining for a long time and they don't fix it.
They also have made a lot of promises/contests and they forget all about them, S2 used to listen to the community back in closed beta but now they seem to not care.

For those interested to reading about the empty promises etc. here is the link: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=295651
(Very nice thread btw, I recommend any HoN player who has played for over a half year to read it).

Before they start wasting time on programming bots they should try to fix their game first. Their recent actions has started to look like they are very hungry for money, which is why people start calling it $2 instead of S2.

TL;DR - No, S2 needs to fix the game first and fulfill their old promises.



If you have read my post, you would know that even with the 90% or whatever the numbers are who voted 'Yes'. The chance of S2 making bots is below 0.01%


- :goldenshield:Veto

Not having an easy way to practise is what keeps a lot of people from playing HoN, having an easy way to practise would keep a lot more people playing the game, paying for the game. (You know, the more fun a game is, the more you want to play it, but if people constantly call you a noob/tell you how bad you are simply because you haven't played the game before, then it's hard to find the will to keep playing) o_o

I'm pretty sure it would help their cashflow.
+1k for bots