The BG Bot (What needs to be fixed)

[CptJesus]

Alright, the new BG bot touts smarter logic, and the ability to capture banners and stuff like that. But there is a huge number of things that need to be fixed before it can even be considered SLIGHTLY usable. This is all from extended testing in Arathi Basin.

CC - HB Interaction: This is by far the biggest problem I noticed. Honorbuddy just does not play well with Custom Classes when using the BG Bot. The biggest issue I saw was when the bot was busy healing people (like a boss), Honorbuddy would decide it was time to move onto a new node, DESPITE the bot being in a huge, epic battle. And unfortunately, the movement on HB will override any actions on your CC. This results in your bot walking away from a pitched battle right in the middle of it, which looks beyond silly.

Bad Node Selection: This ties into what we talked about earlier. Honorbuddy's system of picking the best node to move to is completely flawed. It will ignore a huge battle on a prime node such as farm, to head up to Lumber Mill and do pretty much nothing. Honorbuddy needs to take enemy targets into account when its picking a node, especially when playing a healer. The other issue is the bot simply suiciding onto a node that has a trillion horde on it. This is probably the most bottish behavior present by far, and is a sure sign that you are a bot. If people see you charging at a group of like...10 horde by yourself, it raises flags. The BG bot should only move WITH other players, or to a node with other friendly players on it.

Silly Capture Logic: I watched my HB walk past an undefended node. Literally just walk past it. This wasn't one of our nodes, it was an enemy node. My HB was moving from Farm to Stables, and ran past Gold Mine for whatever reason. There was no one there, and it just kept on moving. I guess this is one track mind syndrome

What it really boils down to in the end, is the fact that the logic that drives the new BG bot is intrinsically flawed. I cant comment as to how to make it better, since I have no idea what that logic is, and the debug text that is printed when its making decisions is both very lackluster, and uninformative.

I cant speak as to the other "fully supported" battlegrounds, because its AB CTA this weekend. But in all honesty, the new BG bot is pretty awful in its current state. I post this only as constructive feedback. With the old profile based PvP bot, you could walk out as top healing every single time. Now the "new and improved" bot is simply running around like a chicken with its head cut off, seemingly confused as to what its trying to do.

 

[Apoc]

Alright, the new BG bot touts smarter logic, and the ability to capture banners and stuff like that. But there is a huge number of things that need to be fixed before it can even be considered SLIGHTLY usable. This is all from extended testing in Arathi Basin.

CC - HB Interaction: This is by far the biggest problem I noticed. Honorbuddy just does not play well with Custom Classes when using the BG Bot. The biggest issue I saw was when the bot was busy healing people (like a boss), Honorbuddy would decide it was time to move onto a new node, DESPITE the bot being in a huge, epic battle. And unfortunately, the movement on HB will override any actions on your CC. This results in your bot walking away from a pitched battle right in the middle of it, which looks beyond silly.

Bad Node Selection: This ties into what we talked about earlier. Honorbuddy's system of picking the best node to move to is completely flawed. It will ignore a huge battle on a prime node such as farm, to head up to Lumber Mill and do pretty much nothing. Honorbuddy needs to take enemy targets into account when its picking a node, especially when playing a healer. The other issue is the bot simply suiciding onto a node that has a trillion horde on it. This is probably the most bottish behavior present by far, and is a sure sign that you are a bot. If people see you charging at a group of like...10 horde by yourself, it raises flags. The BG bot should only move WITH other players, or to a node with other friendly players on it.

Silly Capture Logic: I watched my HB walk past an undefended node. Literally just walk past it. This wasn't one of our nodes, it was an enemy node. My HB was moving from Farm to Stables, and ran past Gold Mine for whatever reason. There was no one there, and it just kept on moving. I guess this is one track mind syndrome

What it really boils down to in the end, is the fact that the logic that drives the new BG bot is intrinsically flawed. I cant comment as to how to make it better, since I have no idea what that logic is, and the debug text that is printed when its making decisions is both very lackluster, and uninformative.

I cant speak as to the other "fully supported" battlegrounds, because its AB CTA this weekend. But in all honesty, the new BG bot is pretty awful in its current state. I post this only as constructive feedback. With the old profile based PvP bot, you could walk out as top healing every single time. Now the "new and improved" bot is simply running around like a chicken with its head cut off, seemingly confused as to what its trying to do.

The first one, I will definitely fix. (It should never move to a new location if its in combat, period)

The "bad node selection", is as smart as it can be right now. WoW only receives information about enemy players up to a radius of 100yds. We can't know where they are outside of that. Can you give me a log for the one where it's running head-first into the entire opposing team? (It may be a bug in the party member counts)

Basically how the logic works; is as so.

On the map there are "boxes". Within that box is a corresponding hotspot.

BGBot takes a count of friendly players within each box, and whichever comes out to having the most players in it, the bot will then move to the hotspot for that 'box'.

The only exception to the above, are when certain landmarks are either completely un-captured, or in contest. (Eg; horde is assaulting an alli controlled flag) This also happens at the start of AB, just due to everything being in contest. (It will usually run right to the blacksmith though)

I'll double-check to make sure it's not running to contested flags with no friendly players inside the 'boxes', but it should already be doing that.


Edit: See http://www.thebuddyforum.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Honorbuddy_PvP_Tag:_Hotspot for an image depicting the above explanation.

 

[Mupp]

Sounds good Apoc

 

[CptJesus]

Heres one of the logs, be warned that is chock full of ShamWoW target/heal spam.

The suicide behavior was present in almost every BG I played at one point or another.

As to the bad node selection that you responded to:

If I am at a node, and theres several enemy targets there, as well as friendly targets, there is no reason to move to another node, ever. I understand that enemy information is only available within 100 yards, but we should take that into account. If we have a battle going on, even if we're not in combat, we should stay at the node we're currently at.

Example:

Sitting at Farm, theres 5+ horde, and 3 alliance. HB sees that there are 3 allied players, and they may or may not be in combat

HB looks at Stables, and sees 6 allied players (possibly just respawning). It decides that Stable is where we go. Now we've just walked away from the potentially gamechanging battle.

Enemy Players should be weighted more than allied players, but only on the condition that there are allied players present as well.

If you run away from a big group of enemies when you have a bunch of allies to help you fight? Bad

Run towards a bunch of enemies without any support? Bad

Back up your teammate as you try and hold a position? Pro.

Would you mind elaborating a bit more on what HB does as far as contested flags?

Edit: Once again, just to emphasize, this is just how I feel the bot could be improved. If what I'm saying is already the case, then just ignore what I'm saying. This is just based on observations, and its entirely possible that the bot IS taking this stuff into account, and just picking another node as a better alternative. I cant say for sure.

 

[Apoc]

Currently, it isn't looking at nearby players (or if they're in combat, when you're not.)

This was originally "by design" to avoid getting steamrolled if your group is being stupid. Obviously, it has its drawbacks.

I'll go over my notes about why I decided it, and see if its worth changing it.

As for contested flags, it makes the assumption that things "In Conflict" (as the map in-game says) are the most important places to be. Either for capturing it, defending it, or just plain farming some honor in a big battle.

I changed the logic (~20min ago) to ignore landmarks in conflict, if there's no friendly players near it. Yes, this may cause issues, or make it seem 'slow' to react to getting there, but it'll avoid having you run into the entire opposing team. I guess being slow, is better than being dead.

 

[CptJesus]

Currently, it isn't looking at nearby players (or if they're in combat, when you're not.)

This was originally "by design" to avoid getting steamrolled if your group is being stupid. Obviously, it has its drawbacks.

I'll go over my notes about why I decided it, and see if its worth changing it.

As for contested flags, it makes the assumption that things "In Conflict" (as the map in-game says) are the most important places to be. Either for capturing it, defending it, or just plain farming some honor in a big battle.

I changed the logic (~20min ago) to ignore landmarks in conflict, if there's no friendly players near it. Yes, this may cause issues, or make it seem 'slow' to react to getting there, but it'll avoid having you run into the entire opposing team. I guess being slow, is better than being dead.

Thank you Apoc <3. Now get back in IRC! All the devs have vanished!

 

[Anonuzer01]

I changed the logic (~20min ago) .

@Apoc: As you update the BGBot (or any of the bots for that matter), is it pushed to our client automatically or is this something that we won't see until a new HB is released?

 

[Nesox]

@Apoc: As you update the BGBot (or any of the bots for that matter), is it pushed to our client automatically or is this something that we won't see until a new HB is released?

You won't see it until the next release.