PC Bandits and PvP

meganoth said:
About performance of bandits:
A simple example: A new quest especially about bandits will not add any performance hit whatsoever. It still may be an important part of what they want to deliver.

Another example: The AI for finding cover certainly will produce a performance hit. But we don't know how much. It could be 0.1 FPS on the weakest console, it could be halfing FPS. Now guess what, if it were halfing FPS they surely wouldn't add that to the game and look for other ways or scrap it completely, if it were 0.1 FPS nobody would notice. In either case bandits would still appear in 3.0.

Even if we assume the worst case that **any** AI change to bandits would make FPS tank completely TFP could finally be forced to scrap all of those plans and only put the bandits we have already seen in A16 into the game, add some quests and bandit POIs into the game (which obviously is not influencing FPS) and call it the best they could do. We still would have functioning working bandits in the game.

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About the roadmap and its believability: When TFP showed that roadmap with specific dates and having put the 1.0 on that I was thinking, oh, thats new, maybe this time they actually are so far ahead in development and have added enough leeway that they are relatively sure to hit the dates. But this was only guessing because the modus operandi was changed. Obviously it wasn't the case. If someone calls me naive now he should be aware he is doing that from a position of hindsight, and I never watched the release videos, so I didn't see the telltale signs of someone being overly optimistic again.
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believe it or not, I hope they can make this work, it has been push back about console limitations that made me dig in and question deeper. and they did remove some zombies from POI's to improve console performance...no one ever acknowledges that. To me that ain't a great sign.

the roadmap: we can agree to disagree. I still don't feel too great about it even when a lot of effort has been put into fooling me.

Thank you for acknowledging you also were misled.

last, if the worst happened and they can't make bandits work over the next undetermined length of time...if they stood these up as good enough...they are not good enough. that's not me saying it. They'd have to redo at least some of the story...or is this all just a house of cards...slap together what ever works and say it was always the plan?
sorry, the longer I am here, the more I believe THAT to be true.
 
theFlu said:
Bandits, on the hand, quite literally were, no?

And there's a bit of a difference: No zombies => no enemies => is it really a game even? HAD to be done, no matter the AI. Zeds were an obvious necessity. Bandits on the other hand, they seem to want bandits to be Awesome on release. I don't blame them, that would be great. I just can't think of a game that does it well this far...
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Yes and no. The bandit code was commented out but left in which allowed modders to use them. The Behemoth is an example of what TFP does when they decide they really don't want something in the game. Their priorities changed to what they wanted to do for A17 and onward and they did start on bandits until the roadmap set the priorities of the order that they would get things done.

You're right that bandits aren't necessary for being able to play the game so maybe they will hold them back from the public until they are perfect. But even so, if they are added back into the internal testing builds within the next few months then that will still be proof that I wasn't contradicting myself that the game can run bandits but the public release of them could take up to a year.
 
Roland said:
You're right that bandits aren't necessary for being able to play the game so maybe they will hold them back from the public until they are perfect. But even so, if they are added back into the internal testing builds within the next few months then that will still be proof that I wasn't contradicting myself that the game can run bandits but the public release of them could take up to a year.
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sorry, but, this just confirms what I was saying...you have conjecture NOT fact. So cling to it. and if they did use the bandits they have been sitting on all of this time...would the public consider them to be good? adequate? if they worked they would be using them.
 
HammerDano said:
sorry, but, this just confirms what I was saying...you have conjecture NOT fact. So cling to it. and if they did use the bandits they have been sitting on all of this time...would the public consider them to be good? adequate? if they worked they would be using them.
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Well at least it's not conjecture I have to cling to for very long. If bandits are added back into the internal testing build within the next few months then I'll have the facts. I'll let you know the moment I know by my own experience that they are working.

It's a pipe dream to think that the public will be in agreement whether anything is good or adequate. There won't be a consensus on that score. Whatever TFP releases in the way of bandits will be good and adequate in the eyes of many and lazy, stupid, and way below expectations for others. Well, at least on the forums, anyway. Everyone who believes them good and adequate will be playing with them instead of posting about them...
 
Lax said:
While I do get the level of passion some have, it's really not worth drawing battle lines. After all we're all supposed to be gamers having fun with a video game right? Even though some aspects of the game infuriate me when playing, I'm still having fun as the kinks get worked out. Take a breath, relax and remember it's just a game.
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You obviously haven't seen very many Hammer posts. There is no relaxing. He's gonna come here and troll with every post, no matter how many times he gets corrected or told to stop antagonizing mods/devs. Once dedicated servers are out for consoles he'll moan about bandits. Once those come out he'll just move to something else. At this point I don't think he even plays the game or intends to, he just prefers to troll the forums.
 
theFlu said:
With all of the power of hindsight, you were naive :P That's not just a joke thou, about the AI, there's a good chance you still are:
- TFP wants the humans to be human-like. Thus far, that has meant blessing us with an invulnerable Rekt for the new players. But I don't expect that to be the standard they want.
- They want "cover abilities". This might not be a hard requirement, but ... name me a couple triple-A titles that have Good cover abilities for NPCs. There are some, like Borderlands, but even BLs are obviously using preset cover points; flank the enemies ever so slightly and they're "taking cover" in completely open spots. It's a hard problem. Even the "good" ones are just "relatively good", something like Doom doesn't even try. And these are pre-built maps.
- Now, will TFP tone down their reqs? They'll have to. How long will it take for them to do so? They're bloody stubborn.. which is a good thing, at least they'll try. But it might make this take a while. ;)
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Why would I be naive about the cover abilities? I never said what I expect from that feature.
But I can tell you: I don't expect the cover mechanic to be perfect, far from it. I expect that if we place blocks that you can shoot through then the bandits will happily take them as cover. Apart from that I haven't played shooters with cover at all, just seen a few pictures, so I hardly have specific knowledge what to expect.
Maybe cars and a few other specific structures will be the only cover they can use and those cars will be placed conveniently around bandit POIs. Finding cars around a bandit should be possible with not too much code. And if the bandit sometimes sits on the wrong side of the car, that's ok by me.
Or cover is implemented as them going behind a POI corner, then step out fully, shoot at you and step back, but this would already (positively) surprise me. I also expect co-op players to easily defeat bandits by using different angles to the bandit.

As you say shooters just use preset positions to tell the AI where to take cover. That is also what I have heard. What's to say that TFP doesn't use this as well and adds such markers to POIs?
 
meganoth said:
I never said what I expect from that feature.
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That's true; apologies. I was basing that on things talked about in the thread more generally.

meganoth said:
I expect that if we place blocks that you can shoot through then the bandits will happily take them as cover.
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Well, I _hope_ they get to that level. That implies they're dynamically able to recognize cover to some extent and use it. That would allow their use in "raids", which is something I'd love to see.

But I also _think_ that's not "good enough" for TFP's expectations. They'll have to lower their expectations - and yes, my understanding of their expectations is derived from OLD things said. By various people, over the years. They may already have defined perfectly reasonable expectations, but I have not heard of such.

At best what I expect them to reach is POI-bound NPCs. Not as silly as Rekt, but "somewhat able to utilize the meta-tagged POI" and basically complete zombies outside of the POI - if they're even allowed to leave it.

meganoth said:
Finding cars around a bandit should be possible with not too much code.
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"Finding cars" isn't an issue. You'll just look for <block-ID> blocks in the loaded area and there you go. Checking that the car is <providing cover> <towards a <direction>> and <not blocked by walls> and <not blocked by another bandit already in cover> and <not completely retarded in 15 other ways> .. is a different thing.
 
Assuming bandits are going to be anything like a real person is a pipe dream. The AI is never going to come close. Taking cover will be basic and probably limited to certain objects like meganoth suggested. The end result will be that they are better than zombies, but they'll still be easy to defeat and to control, just like zombies. I wouldn't expect anything more than that. If they happen to deliver more, that will be a pleasant surprise, but I certainly wouldn't expect it or even hope for it.

Also note that I'm not currently in favor of bandits in the game anyhow. I think they don't need to be in there. I play this game for the zombies. If I want to fight bandits, there are better shooter games that have bandits in them. I am hoping for an option to disable bandits in the game. Now, I'm willing to give them a try when they are added, and maybe I'll even decide I like them. We'll see. But I definitely don't care how long it takes to add them.
 
bdubyah said:
You obviously haven't seen very many Hammer posts. There is no relaxing. He's gonna come here and troll with every post, no matter how many times he gets corrected or told to stop antagonizing mods/devs. Once dedicated servers are out for consoles he'll moan about bandits. Once those come out he'll just move to something else. At this point I don't think he even plays the game or intends to, he just prefers to troll the forums.
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didn't read the thread did you? I can tell because you clearly are not reading the room. Be butthurt...I was not wrong.
 
bdubyah said:
You obviously haven't seen very many Hammer posts. There is no relaxing. He's gonna come here and troll with every post, no matter how many times he gets corrected or told to stop antagonizing mods/devs. Once dedicated servers are out for consoles he'll moan about bandits. Once those come out he'll just move to something else. At this point I don't think he even plays the game or intends to, he just prefers to troll the forums.
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I disagree. I've seen him make very helpful and constructive posts in the old console forums. Also I think it's a good thing to have different points of view that don't always agree. I just don't want to see some of the good points he has to make be clouded over or belittled because of "how" he makes them.

It is possible for us to have passionate, fiesty, even emotional debates about things we love and hate about the game. I just believe it can be done in a civil, peaceful way without resorting to name calling and vulgarities. As I said before, after all it's just a video game.
 
HammerDano said:
didn't read the thread did you? I can tell because you clearly are not reading the room. Be butthurt...I was not wrong.
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What does this even mean? I don't need to read an entire thread to know everything you post is ignorant dribble. You twist everything everyone ever says to you.

Reading what room? The other two people that kind of half agree with you? You are simply delusional. And what am I butthurt about? Again, just stating the fact that like 99% of your posts are garbage.
 
Lax said:
I disagree. I've seen him make very helpful and constructive posts in the old console forums. Also I think it's a good thing to have different points of view that don't always agree. I just don't want to see some of the good points he has to make be clouded over or belittled because of "how" he makes them.
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I'd have to see examples to believe that. Even when he actually makes a point he usually follows it up immediately with belligerent rambling about missing release dates or dedicated servers.

Different points of views are totally fine and welcome. But defending a toxic troll is just silly. If we wants to make points like an adult, then fine. So far though he has only proven he isn't capable of that.
 
bdubyah said:
What does this even mean? I don't need to read an entire thread to know everything you post is ignorant dribble. You twist everything everyone ever says to you.

Reading what room? The other two people that kind of half agree with you? You are simply delusional. And what am I butthurt about? Again, just stating the fact that like 99% of your posts are garbage.
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your hatred clouds your judgement. can happen to anyone. I'd be civil with you, but, over and over, our interactions have not been positive, like this one, you came in angry, didn't have any situational context, but, are acting like this. I am just going to put you on ignore...feel free to do the same.
 
bdubyah said:
I'd have to see examples to believe that. Even when he actually makes a point he usually follows it up immediately with belligerent rambling about missing release dates or dedicated servers.

Different points of views are totally fine and welcome. But defending a toxic troll is just silly. If we wants to make points like an adult, then fine. So far though he has only proven he isn't capable of that.
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Actually I'm not defending anyone. I simply believe in rising above the "toxic" tone a conversation can take.

I'm not sure why online forums seem to breed a hostile, point-counter point, got to "one up" your point type of climate. I've seen it before many times. Me, I just want to do my part to help preserve something I really enjoy. That would be 2 things: this amazing game the Pimps have created and this cool, convenient forum they've also created for us to discuss this wonderful, creative video game, with all its faults and praises.
 
Lax said:
That would be 2 things: this amazing game the Pimps have created and this cool, convenient forum they've also created for us to discuss this wonderful, creative video game, with all its faults and praises.
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I see you brought no examples. Point made there. Haha.

And I agree. I love this game and these forums. But I don't see the point in keeping people around that bring nothing positive to the forums. I would've thought antagonizing both a dev and a QA employee would result in a ban, but somehow he's still here rambling.
 
bdubyah said:
I see you brought no examples. Point made there. Haha.

And I agree. I love this game and these forums. But I don't see the point in keeping people around that bring nothing positive to the forums. I would've thought antagonizing both a dev and a QA employee would result in a ban, but somehow he's still here rambling.
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Lol...your points are valid and I understand. But I also have faith in the moderators of these forums. When things go too far, I'm confident they'll step in.

It takes quite a bit of dedication to perform a job you're not paid for. In the meantime I just try to have fun and do what little part I can to help pitch in. I personally think it's a great community which is why I always come back. Appreciate your thoughts.
 
Roland said:
Well at least it's not conjecture I have to cling to for very long. If bandits are added back into the internal testing build within the next few months then I'll have the facts. I'll let you know the moment I know by my own experience that they are working.

It's a pipe dream to think that the public will be in agreement whether anything is good or adequate. There won't be a consensus on that score. Whatever TFP releases in the way of bandits will be good and adequate in the eyes of many and lazy, stupid, and way below expectations for others. Well, at least on the forums, anyway. Everyone who believes them good and adequate will be playing with them instead of posting about them...
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make sure to note how much additional work on them that has been done (if any) since this conversation was required. please
 
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