Target Selection

[AF]

I rephrase that as a fact, I said a possible fact because I saw that certain arguements could eb amde to brign ti into direpute btu not into total direpute, enough to quash the arguement btu rather to simpyl make it controversial, which ahs happened. You are arguing a fact that you are worried about, that this creates unfairness and divide am I not correct in saying that?

I am not a mediator nor did I nominate myself, as I am in the middle almost, yes I am worried about unbalancing but I also have my own AI interests to look after. You ahve spent so much thought tryign to quash our arguements and proov your own you've forgotten the path to the solution as has everyone else. Even I am unsure of it. *school bell* I'll finish this later.

[SeanHeron]

Guys, calm down. Look: as it is now, everybody can make his own Group Ai´s and run them independently from anybody else. But! strangely enough I have´t heard one person saying: 'I was beaten by a worse player that had a good group AI'.
So I guess that means, athough its possible nobodys done it yet.

Of course that doesn´t mean it isn´t possible. But as quite a few people have said its no easy task. And can you tell me why you think people would make these and then not release them to the public ? Look the whole project is open source, there quite a few people investing quite a bit of time and they´re all just giving it away! So why the hell would someone who spent , say 60 hours on a really good AI want to keep it for himself?
And even if he does, who cares :D ? So he´ll beat all the pro´s with it, I don´t give a damn :) . He´s still only going to be one of a hundred players. Writing code is a skill, and needs time, just like "1337" gaming. So why should´t he beat me with his ´different´ skill :D .

The other point a lot of you made was that new ´helper´ group AI´s are bound to take away microing tasks, and all players will be ´forced´to use them, because they can´t compete otherwise. True.
The problem some of you see in this, is that you see some of the micro as gameplay relevant.
Well now, that is a matter of opinion. I for one want to enjoy playing computer games, and to tell you the truth, I´d rather be leaning back and drinking a cup of tea during my game, than having to be concentrated on giving orders all the time, to stay competitive. I guess that sounds strange to a lot of you guys. But I´d be happy just making the important choices now and then, and having my AI´s doing the microing bits.

But, the great thing about this whole project is of course that its open source, so if you want to limit the AI´s (to keep your gameplay micro), well than get out and do it (not that I could mind you...)!

And last but not least: if it ain´t broken don´t fix it.

[aGorm]

I can't realy belive that i'm saying this, but I can't be arsed with this discussion anymore. No one is listening to anybody, except when someones says somthing they wan't to hear.

Groupe AI will Stay, But it MUST BE FREEKING CONTROLLED, and no-one should be able to make one that can do things such as send a few planes to make a raid, and then do so with intelagence like... ohh i just saw a radar tower everyone shoot that. That is part of playing the game, taht is what a good player does, if anybody could do that just be selecting a few units and hitting the "hit and run AI" button (or similar name) then the good players would be no better than the poor players.
That then destroyes the point in playing because you haven't actully realy tested out whos the best, or realy even won or lost, you've just chuch a few units about and basicly who had waht AI at what time and in what place will Win, and it wont be because they planed it, but because the AI made a choice that won them the game.

aGorm

[munch]

That then destroyes the point in playing because you haven't actully realy tested out whos the best, or realy even won or lost, you've just chuch a few units about and basicly who had waht AI at what time and in what place will Win, and it wont be because they planed it, but because the AI made a choice that won them the game.
aGorm

Wow - is that really why you guys play this game? To find out who's best?! In that case I can understand why you are nervous about AIs! Personally I play for fun, and as with most any game I find that the most fun games are the ones where it's really close all the way through, but somebody wins through in the end (as opposed to the game just stagnating) - regardless of whether it's me who wins.

Believe it or not, it doesn't make you any less of a person if you lose a game of TA, or any more of a person if you win. Life is soooooooo much bigger than that!

Have fun =)

Munch

[aGorm]

I have yet to have fun by playing someone i consider to be using an unfair advantage to win...

aGorm

[HellToupee]

no issues with me then i dont consider it unfair

[Warlord Zsinj]

Originally posted by Alantai
I rephrase that as a fact, I said a possible fact because I saw that certain arguements could eb amde to brign ti into direpute btu not into total direpute, enough to quash the arguement btu rather to simpyl make it controversial, which ahs happened. You are arguing a fact that you are worried about, that this creates unfairness and divide am I not correct in saying that?

"Your argument is a possible fact, not an opinion. But that possible fact is contestible, not actual fact. So you've just expressed a controversial fact which might not be true, but it is not an opinion."

You ahve spent so much thought tryign to quash our arguements and proov your own you've forgotten the path to the solution as has everyone else. Even I am

No, I have proposed solutions. But as I am the one who thinks that the idea isn't a good one, and the SY's are the one's who think it is a good one, the onus is on me to prove them incorrect.

Originally posted by SeanHeron
Well now, that is a matter of opinion. I for one want to enjoy playing computer games, and to tell you the truth, I´d rather be leaning back and drinking a cup of tea during my game, than having to be concentrated on giving orders all the time, to stay competitive.

Perhaps you are playing the wrong game then? A turn based strategy might tend better to your gaming needs.
I for one love having my heart pounding, and sitting on the edge of my seet as the battle hangs in the balance.

-------------------

At munch:

Most people play the game to win. The fun is the process leading up to the win. I have no problem with losing. In OTA, it is probably what I am best at.
However, in OTA, when I lose I don't think "this game is stupid, it doesn't matter how much I try to improve, the game is in such a variable state that my level of improvement won't correlate to my level of winning", I think "I can see what I did wrong in that game. I lost because I made several mistakes, and my enemy made several clever moves."
I am happy to be defeated by a better player, and keep doing so - because I will improve, and perhaps one day be able to beat that player. Or even better, be on par with that player and have some edge-of-seat games.
Losing to someone because they had a better AI will only frustrate me, because I don't know whether I lost because I was a worse player, or whether I will become more competitive if I get better.

This will be alleviated if all AI's available to the player are inbuilt into Spring. This means that useful AI's will be included, and everyone will have them, so it will never be unfair. It means that AI's that potentially remove essential gameplay skills will be placed under scrutiny before they are included in Spring. 3rd party AI's should only be accepted into Spring through this path. This is my proposed solution, in case everyone missed it the first 10 times.

[aGorm]

And in case you still missed it...

This will be alleviated if all AI's available to the player are inbuilt into Spring. This means that useful AI's will be included, and everyone will have them, so it will never be unfair. It means that AI's that potentially remove essential gameplay skills will be placed under scrutiny before they are included in Spring. 3rd party AI's should only be accepted into Spring through this path. This is my proposed solution, in case everyone missed it the first 10 times.

What he said, I've already siad that would be a satisfactory solution...

aGorm

[Storm]

Having a good time, aGorm?

[aGorm]

Great time storm (thats a little off topic... and the above post was me being sarcastic, sorry i forgot the [sarcastic] [/sarcastic] tags....)

I belive in a colourfull argument...

aGorm

[[K.B.] Napalm Cobra]

At what point does the player stop playing and just be there watching? Will victories by ai's be credited to the coders names?

[zwzsg]

My proposed solution is to make everything toggleable. Do I have to recopy it in size 18 bold colored to get my point? Shall I go up and copy'n'paste my previous post?

Let people who want to sit down, sip a drink and enjoy the show of AI battling each other without any human intervention have fun their own way. Let people who wants all units to be be on hold fire and every simple order requires a myriad click play their own way. The host of game shall have complete control of what settings he want. Every player joining the battlerrom shall have his spring comply to the rule.

Apparently there's strong disagreement on these issues. Why can't you just add a tick box in the lobby to enable and disable them? Specifically:
- radar targetting: autotarget (like in spring now), only manual target (like in TA, save that dots are shown on the main screen), no targetting possible (if you try to target them, you fire at the ground instead)
- radar blips on main screen: on/off
- ghost building after being seen once: on/off
- group AI: allowed/disallowed
etc...

Yes, these are changes that can change the balance alot. But did you know that in Total Annihilation it was possible to play without permanent full LOS all over the map? It changes balances and gameplay a lot more, and yet the cavedoggies left the choice to the players. This mean that people like Storm can have games with old TA settings, why others can have games with all the new help features. All playing with the same Spring on the same lobby. No splitting of community, no people leaving spring angry, just lots of different gametype and people choosing whatever they want. After a few years of playing maybe some standard will appear, but it won't be something driven by theory and by the coders, but by popular consensus. For instance the people at Cavedog thought the more logical way to play was with map unexplored, but nowadays all TA games are played with map explored.

Make everything you can optional and easily selectable in the battleroom. I remember it was even written in the guideline of code editing: any change must be optional.

Yes I do want a battleroom filled with buttons and controls!!

[Min3mat]

having everything toggleable sounds fun! :) micro wars with everything on hold fire etc. or strategy coolness with the AI doing every thing but building structures so you can eat some popcorn whilst deciding your overall strategy... wow you could have some serious funerage with this!

[BeeDee]

having everything toggleable sounds fun! :) micro wars with everything on hold fire etc. or strategy coolness with the AI doing every thing but building structures so you can eat some popcorn whilst deciding your overall strategy... wow you could have some serious funerage with this!

Ditto. I'm rather turned off by people who insist that a game must be played their own particular favourite way, even if that way happens to be my own favorite way too.

Personally, I think helper AIs are just fine. They'd allow players to play the parts of the game they liked the most, and delegate the parts they found boring to something else. It's not likely that the AI helpers will be better at their tasks than a human would, so I don't expect it would be a major advantage (except perhaps in that it'd free up some of the player's time for use on other tasks, letting the human focus on his strengths. This could equally well be accomplished by having several humans working together, though).

[Min3mat]

lol try sharing a comm with 3-4 ppl...if u don't work it out completely its XD gg :) maybe its just me...i'm a bit of a control freak

[Warlord Zsinj]

Let people who want to sit down, sip a drink and enjoy the show of AI battling each other without any human intervention have fun their own way. Let people who wants all units to be be on hold fire and every simple order requires a myriad click play their own way. The host of game shall have complete control of what settings he want. Every player joining the battlerrom shall have his spring comply to the rule.

There are one or two people at either ends of the spectrum, who either want complete micro control, or complete AI control.
The majority of people lie in the middle, wanting the ease of having some of the AI helpers to remove mundane tasks, without the negative aspects of a too-powerful or gameplay-removing AI. It is not as simple as on/off.
I think my solution unifies the two, in a means which are acceptible to both sides.

[SeanHeron]

Zwzsg, I´m right behind you :) ! That´s the way everybody can be happy with. Good thinking .
Edit:
Warlord Zsinj: Well make it a bit more complex than on/off than:

custom AI´s allowed/ standard AI´s only/ AI´s forbidden

still see any problems ?

[aGorm]

I dont dissagree with zwzsg. All the AI's that are added i think should be optional pre game, thats gr8. Me and my friends loved playing with real line of sight, but the fact you could play without it or with permant, was great. But it does not change my belifes on people being able to add there own Super AI's. Sure you could tick the "no super AI's" box. But I get this feeling that even as i tick the box almost everyone would leave and it would end up being just me and few other that alway play each other and where is the fun in that? Plus any sort of ranking would be impossible, because people with AI's would be good at playing with AI's, and that doesn't relate to the skill of an "old fassioned" player. im trying to think of all eventuallities.

aGorm

[munch]

My proposed solution is to make everything toggleable. om. I remember it was even written in the guideline of code editing: any change must be optional.

I think this is a good idea, if only for the reason that if one of the toggleble options does turn out to suck then everybody will just stop using it in game. We don't need to argue about it now, cause people will just vote with their "feet".

I also think that allowing user defined group AIs is a great way of encouraging their development, for possible later inclusion in the "standard" set.

Cheers

Munch

PS on the losing to a player using an AI, you can still learn from it just the same as if you lost to a player - after all the AI can only do the same things a player can do... I'm all for playing to win -that's the fun, I agree, all I'm saying is, it's not about "who's best".

[AF]

This will be alleviated if all AI's available to the player are inbuilt into Spring. This means that useful AI's will be included, and everyone will have them, so it will never be unfair. It means that AI's that potentially remove essential gameplay skills will be placed under scrutiny before they are included in Spring. 3rd party AI's should only be accepted into Spring through this path. This is my proposed solution, in case everyone missed it the first 10 times.

This is a huge step back in development that rules out many features which havent been implemented but could be implemented using GroupAI, By putting them in the engien you make groupAI an obsolete interface forcing users to learn the whole way the engien works, and putting in sub-behaviours, and what if not everyone wants these sub-behaviours? Or if GroupAI is kept and people want it removed due to needless systemr esources when sub-AI dot he same much faster?

No, I have proposed solutions. But as I am the one who thinks that the idea isn't a good one, and the SY's are the one's who think it is a good one, the onus is on me to prove them incorrect.

Before I suggested solutions the only one floating around was "get rid of groupAI", which is out of the question, and most solutions where close to or the same as mine when suggested again at a later date. However any solution posted was ignored and the debate carried on with people trying to proove others as "incorrect"

Quote:
Originally posted by Alantai
I rephrase that as a fact, I said a possible fact because I saw that certain arguements could eb amde to brign ti into direpute btu not into total direpute, enough to quash the arguement btu rather to simpyl make it controversial, which ahs happened. You are arguing a fact that you are worried about, that this creates unfairness and divide am I not correct in saying that?


"Your argument is a possible fact, not an opinion. But that possible fact is contestible, not actual fact. So you've just expressed a controversial fact which might not be true, but it is not an opinion."

I dont know what you meant by posting that like that. The jist of ti is, you are arguing a valid point, and so are we, yet you presume us to be arguing an invalid point and a lot of others think the same of you. That is why there are 6 pages of arguement, that is why solutions where ignored.


zwzsg, you pointed it out plain as day and they still dont take heed. I propose groupAI be on/offable AND players can view other players groupAI and download them, possibly specify which groupAI are enabled/disabled in the battleroom so people can still use commonly known and commonly accepted groupAI such as metal maker AI.

Also, have you ever thought about using it as a way of making a game fair? Very skilled player with lots of experience versus moderatly skilled player and a truckload of helper AIs, afterrall the game isnt fun if the enemy is too hard to dent or too easy to put up a good fight against.