Wargaming to use NPC’s (bots) in Games

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Hello everyone,

I normally don’t post stuff about World of Warplanes, but this is quite interesting. In recent WoWp developer diaries video, WoWp developers mentioned a new mode, where the player will be competing against PVE element – NPC’s, also known as “bots”. What is even more interesting, Wargaming is even considering adding bots instead of regular players in random battles to even the teams (cca 1:20 of the game).

There have been talks about NPC elements in the game even before the World of Warplanes was released. Some of you might remember the time when the physics was introduced into the game – at that point (and also, later on), there were rumours about introducing some “NPC elements” into World of Tanks (in the form of some sort of obstacle courses or perhaps in historical battles – this was before the HB release).

This is a major change in Wargaming policy, because until now, bots could be encountered only in the form of illegal World of Tanks software. On the other hand, NPC’s would be very logical in certain existing/prepared game modes (historical battles for one, another obvious use are the Stronkhold turrets), but entirely new modes could be also implemented (coop – defense against waves of NPC’s). Furthermore, WoWp is not the only WG game considering bots by the way, remember how in the recent QA, a developer stated that there are two modes considered for World of Warships? Well, I have it from an inside source that one of these modes could be “convoy escort”, where, as the name suggests, players escort a bunch of NPC ships (with the other team trying to destroy them). Same escort mode was (very long time ago) considered for World of Tanks, it was dropped because “it would be too complicated for the players” – so apparently, the developers think future WoWs audience to be more skilled than random WoT pubbies :) But the real question is…

Is it a good idea?

As mentioned above, the developers are considering PvE modes for World of Warplanes as a “slower” version of regular random battles. On one hand, it sounds logical (players will get to try new things in battle without the murderous environment of the random battle), but it has two huge pitfalls:

- first and foremost, what works on bots will not work on players, there is a danger that players will get used to tactics that will make them completely trashed in PvP
- the tempo of the battle will be different (more relaxed), which means that players will also play more relaxed. If a player starts on this mode (why else would you want to fight bots than for training), if he switches to regular random battles, he’ll be in for a shock

There is one more thing. Making bots for World of Warplanes is a lot easier than making them for World of Tanks, since there are no obstacles in the air (apart from other planes). There are other issues (ramming), but I think that they can be overcome. Creating a bot for World of Tanks is much more difficult (there are maps, cover etc.), but completely possible (unfortunately for us). It’s also possible that in time, we will see a new NPC mode as well.

While this could be useful for the historical battles and such, I do not thing that “random with bots” is a good idea, for all the reasons posted above. Bots will never ever behave like true players and if I take the argument to the extreme, early NPC battles could be producing even more really bad players, who will scratch their heads, thinking “but this worked on bots”. But we’ll have to see.

43 thoughts on “Wargaming to use NPC’s (bots) in Games”

  1. Bots in a aerial game is what War Thunder has done, and some of them can actually outfly human players…. I think that it is possible to integrate it with proper coding, if they dont get lazy.

    • The tank bots in WT are very bugged but they finally made them scalable to the player Tiers which is nice.

    • They only outflew human players for two reasons:

      One: human players SOMETIMES get overconfident

      Two: bots can cheat. You can’t ambush a bot, because they always know where you are, and until recently, they used the arcade mode damage and flight model in realistic and simulator battles, which allowed them to outperform the same planes flown by human players (somewhat justified at one time because the bots were so stupid that if they didn’t get the flight and damage model advantage, they would have crashed within minutes of the game starting – in some cases, this STILL happens).

      • For Warthunder:
        Yes there are Bots, but not for a Gameplay-Mode but to fill up the Ranks when there are not much Players around. In arial combot, there would be no planes normally if there would be always a sufficient number of players.

        For Ground Forces:
        Yes there are Bots, so that the enviroment looks more lively. But most people hate them because they shoot somewhere and are now (that they are not Reserve tanks anymore) often mistaken for real players, what can be your very death when you focus the lesser threat.

        @ 23r0_NA:

        Bots could cheat and cant be ambushed. When you think of WOT Bots that is correct because they have to be programmed to max out their performance. Gameplay wise a Bot (like in singleplayer campains, think Ego-Shooter) does not have to have this ability. As it is easier to programm a Bot for a Plane, it is easier to programm life-like behavior to enhance the feeling of a dogfight.

  2. in pvp randoms would be really dumb idea, but if they want to, they can make old school campaigns, fighting AI enemies to complete a mission, like kill all enemies and capture the base! or destroy a building etc!
    make even alone campaigns or even team up to complete one! they were named co-operative

  3. HB battle could be more interesting when fighting against bots – bots could be tanks that are not present in WoT. (mission: kill all 3 Karl-Geräts)
    And when the “borrow tank” in HB is implemented (you dont need to have the tank in garage, only unlocked) players could use “non-WoT tanks” either. (for example an escorting mission where some players controlling unarmored trucks.)

    • I also support having bots to supplement players for HB, though my idea was to have full bot teams prepared and have their spots replaced by players as they entered the queue, after a short time period the battle is launched

      • I like this idea, but i doubt that this won’t stress the MM and the servers too much.

  4. btw you can play against bots in WOWp in training battle… so there isn’t that much trouble to do it in random style where you accumulate credits and xp for it.

    • Endeed there is.The amount of bots during weekend is such that they already did all the testing for WG to implement what is already happening anyway ” World of bots”.Even during week days you can find battles with at least 30% bots,espetially since they introduced new improved bot program.

  6. There is already an official bot in WOT!
    Remember that last tank in tutorial that you have to destroy?

    • Actually, it’s not a bot. It’s something they call ‘active map element’, like the turrets for the stronghold mode. It was just moving back and fort.

      For something to be called ‘bot’, it must imitate human players, which means it has to shoot and move dynamically, making real time decisions.

  8. I have no issues with bots in the game, as long as they’re well marked out and halfway intelligent (WG can learn a lot from Gaijin’s WT bots, some of those are REALLY hard to kill in realistic battle). Hell, I’d even love to see some single player stuff where you could earn XP for completing the mission, and have it be 1 (or maybe 3, if they allow platoons to play) vs. a ton of bots in a specific encounter. WarThunder does a really good job of that in scenarios, and some of those bots are a nightmare to fly against (try getting through some of the escort flight missions for Russia in that game, the German AI planes are absolutely BRUTALLY efficient, which makes the scenario tense yet fun).

  9. Having to survive to waves of bots with a friend or two might be fun.. especially if you have to protect/destroy something as an objective.. :D

  10. I play WoT because of the element of human competition. I don’t really want a dumbed down PVE version of WOT.

    WOTBOT? No thanks.

  11. PvE campaign = YES!
    Defense against bots = YES YES YES!

    Random battle bots = Nope :P. Unless they are on my team, I will be OP that way.

    - first and foremost, what works on bots will not work on players, there is a danger that players will get used to tactics that will make them completely trashed in PvP
    That is their own fault.

  12. I don’t know if I like the idea of fighting bots in WoWP in random battles. They were present anyway since beta, but only in training and that’s how they should remain. Unless they introduce a new game mode based on them, like bomber escort.

  13. Could end up like in WT’s brand new “dynamic objectives”…
    In the middle of a random battle, a message pops up on both teams’ screens : “Destroy enemy reinforcements !”
    Then 20 unidentified and agressive Karl-Gerats (from the special of course !) come rushing from a side of the map. :)

  14. “producing even more really bad players”

    This one really made me laugh after this weekend.
    The average tier 5-7 team consists of at least half a dozen players with less than 200 WN8 (while having played more than 1000 matches). Sad but true.
    Any tank driven by anthing else than those braindead CoD kids that invaded WoT would be a great improvmeent to the game…

    • What a logical assumption that the bad players are kids and CoD players. Luckily, I don’t believe that any FPS (or other non-MMO games) has a playerbase full of so many braindead people like WoT.

      • WoT is a very cooperative game.
        You can even see in Battlefield how many people have difficulties doing anything else than running forward and shooting all they see.

        Looking at the amount of killstealers in WoT that don’t even know that a kill is only worth the few points damage done you get an idea of what those people normally play.

        Or all those “I let others fight for me” AFK leechers that suddenly awake after 5-10 minutes.

  16. Counter-Strike can be played with bots. And although they are not very tactically smart, they are an excellent target and reaction time practice. This can easily be done in WoT (training rooms with bots, for example).

    If people expect that they can hone their tactical skills on computer opponents, then they are clueless about how video games work in general.

    +1 for PVE in WoT.

  17. bots as NPCs to protect in convoy mode?
    bots as endless waves to fight in coop?
    bots as a way to save historical battles?

    this last one is interesting, since HB suffers from “everyone wants to play a tiger” – so lets allow people to play tigers and IS and fill up the ranks with bots in t34 and PzIV

    or make historical battles with uneven strengths were biger side is played by bots and smaller side by players.

    Adding bots to normal randoms would be bad idea, yet sometimes when I wait 5 minutes just to be thrown to a battle 5vs5….

    It is more pressing in WoWp though, were tier 6 planes usually foght with tier 5 but tier 7 more often then not against tier 9.
    Bots would allow to ease matchamking a bit…..

    • “bots as NPCs to protect in convoy mode?”

      I always hated those “protect convoy” missions because the convoy just drives forward – into enemy fire.
      In WoT the convoy vehicles should be controlled by players too.

  18. Bots are the only hope for european WoWp server, there are not enough human players …. and if that saves the game from slow death, I can accept it …

  19. The issue is pressing in WoWp. Like WT, bots are needed in the lower tiers to fill out matches. Yes, they are not as good as regular pilots, but then noobs in tier 1′s aren’t as good as regular pilots either, and there is something to be said for being able to understand the dynamics of a 15 v 15 battle early on, instead of learning 4 v 4 and then having to adjust once you tier up.

    Outside of that, I’m not sure WoWp is going to use them for a whole lot.

    • People who stayed in wowp are full of ignorant dumbass. People who left, already knew the diffrence between a good game and a bad game.

  21. Bots won’t be such a bad idea it would make que time much shorter racially game modes that don’t get enough attention cough * Historical Battles cough

  22. I would play the living shit out of WoT if I could play against AI’s. I don’t like playing with people. I play games to get away from people.