Different problems with Waypointing and Bots in WizardWars / HL Deathmatch

[MrsKatrina]

The problem with Wizard Wars (As you're probably aware), bots do spawn but does not join to any team.

With Half-Life, bots seem to be able to see each other behind walls, they're way too passive unlike JK_botti bots and even HPB bots sometimes.

They do use different weapons, but they do not value strong weapons (They ignore shotguns or crossbows when they have one and keep using pistols).

And their pathfinding is perfect, but the waypoints are too detailed and perhaps some of the waypoint tags needs improvement.

I inspect your waypoints, and you have made a mistake, which (making them too detailed). When I make waypoints for HPB bots, I often try to remove path waypoints a lot as they are confusing the bots and sometimes they stuck. Your waypoints are good but as the bots are not that advanced, yet they are failing to follow the required paths.

They also seem to be not able to climb up ladders for some reason even tho there is an obvious ladder waypoint placed.

[APGRoboCop]

They aren't ready yet!

[MrsKatrina]

1. Bots are struggling to use jumping and crouching waypoints, they are jumping late and after jumping they choose to go back to their old spot.
2. Bots are still VERY inactive and incapable of moving correct directions, bots are also unable to fix their movement if they forcefully changed location. (Ex: 2 bots fighting each other, one of them are pushed a bit to the right, which there is a wall. The bot still continues to shoot at the wall for a while before correcting their position. 3.We need some global commands which can change Bot's overall skill, yes, all of their skills can be tweaked individually but, perhaps a command like rcbot config bot_skill 1-5 would also be good. Like, changing their skill level dynamically. Instead of changing their skill individually every time you want to lower or set their skill level too high. I haven't seen such a command but If there is one please tell me.

And again, the bots are way too passive compare to other bots like HPB or JK_bots. Their aim is fine but, humans tend to go left and right, back and forward times to time. Bots are generally staring each other with Glock, which as a bot that aims to be replicate human behavior it's a little bit off.

But overall, their performance and aiming skills are very good, they're able to utilize weapons very well.

If we don't count their pathfinding (which is probably because of too detailed waypoints, breaking the pathfinding algorithm) and their passive play style, Bots are VERY good.

[APGRoboCop]

Well, RCBots still has a lot of work to do, and it's been a huge struggle doing the work alone. Also, I had to fix some rogue waypoints that our random waypointers had left behind and didn't quite follow our waypointing manual as well as optimising the waypoints by removing excessive pathways and relocating the Ladder waypoints that needed readjusting.

By the way, I'm trying to figure out why they crash on certain maps and waypoints like ts_bikini for TS 3.0 as I've been attempting to neaten up the waypoint structure. I did comment on the source of the crash in order to keep in mind of the Todos.

https://github.com/APGRoboCop/rcbotold/blob/master/dlls/waypoint.cpp#L1051

I'm not too focused on improving RCBot for HLDM, despite that I think I've fixed the TDM team shooting issue. For the weapon switching part, well it's just a case of adjusting the weapon priority in bot_weapons.ini and only using shotguns in close combat.

Also, I think when the bots are active in the server they use AutoWaypoint by default but I believe I've now disabled that to stop them from tempering with the waypoints we made.

I'm glad you find their aim fine, but I'm worried if I make them strafe too wide when in combat they will fall off the platforms, and catwalks and that, like in dmc_dm4 (which that map sucks) is so tiny and can easily fall into the lava pit.

And for adjusting the RCBot config in a live dedicated server, well I think you would need an AMXX plugin that allows the use of rcon like "amx_rcon rcbotd config max_bots 0".

To tell you the truth, AI coding isn't an easy task and Cheeseh didn't have time to neaten the src code from when he left the src code and the builds for Sven Coop 4.5 15 years ago and focused more on RCBot2 for Source servers.

That's why I had to rally up some waypointers, testers and bot coders in Bots-United Discord as our forums are inactive.