Will there be AI survivors

[Skainer163rus 0]

 

Hello everyone, Are bots planned for the game? We play with a friend on a local server, so I would like to see AI in the form of survivors, even the simplest

[Homeschooliazon 87]

No. Mods might do this in the future.

[Girth Brooks 570]

If the devs give headless client support then modders will definitely do it.

[Homeschooliazon 87]

I just saw a mod like this on youtube today, check on Septic Falcons channel, newest video

[Derleth 1357]

On 8/10/2020 at 3:00 PM, Homeschooliazon said:

I just saw a mod like this on youtube today, check on Septic Falcons channel, newest video

This is the one: 

 

[drgullen 596]

Personally, I like the idea of AI bandits but I definitely do NOT like the idea of "missions".  To me, having missions takes away from the true nature of DayZ itself.  There's only one mission in a pure game of DayZ -- survive.

What I like about this is that if they can get the bugs ironed out of the AI and if they aren't derpy like the infected are, this could be a way to guarantee an "always full" server.  If there's only 10 real players on the server for example, you could have 50 AI bandits spread out across the map and then every time a new player joins, one of the AI perhaps vanishes, thus keeping the total number of "non-infected" on the server (i.e. real players + AI) to around 60 or whatever that server's max is.

In the video, they talk about mission zones and going to a specific AI to "pick up your mission" and "return the collected item to that first AI".  I don't like any of that -- to me, that's trying to turn DayZ back into Arma III.  Just add the AI and let them roam the map.

[Tonyeh 454]

I think AI will wreck the game.

The beauty of DayZ is NOT knowing if you'll run into actual people, or if they'll be dicks (of course 99% of the time they're dicks 😆 ) and just start firing at you for your beans.

Having AI survivors in certain places will just eliminate that feeling of always being unsure who you'll run into and kill that feeling of whether to hit that town, city or military base or not risk it. The player will eventually get the hang of the AI weak spots and exploit them just like human players exploit game AI all the time. The AI survivors will eventually just become something to farm loot off of for the human players.

It's a terrible idea.

[Parazight 1599]

I just want NPCs that can shoot guns. Not that they’d have to have great aim, but be able to make a human player wonder if another human is shooting or if it’s an AI.   right now, if you hear gunshots, you know it’s a human. 
 

Of course, more AI right now would just cause more server performance issues.  AI is a major culprit there. 

[Kathosky 119]

6 hours ago, Tonyeh said:

I think AI will wreck the game.

The beauty of DayZ is NOT knowing if you'll run into actual people, or if they'll be dicks (of course 99% of the time they're dicks 😆 ) and just start firing at you for your beans.

Having AI survivors in certain places will just eliminate that feeling of always being unsure who you'll run into and kill that feeling of whether to hit that town, city or military base or not risk it. The player will eventually get the hang of the AI weak spots and exploit them just like human players exploit game AI all the time. The AI survivors will eventually just become something to farm loot off of for the human players.

It's a terrible idea.

I could not agree more. In my opinion, for these reasons and many others, AI survivors will completely ruin the game.

[Derleth 1357]

No mod can ever "ruin" the game, since all you need to do is avoid servers running that particular mod. Devs have been pretty clear that no AI survivors are or have ever been planned for the game.

Personally I'd be very careful about using them, both for performance reasons and because I agree with drgullen that missions simply go against the non-scripted sandbox nature of DayZ. Any AI survivors should just be roaming at random to simply have a few AI enemies that shoot guns as Parazight says. This so you can't farm them by going certain places and so on. They should need to loot or have truly randomised inventories based on the loot economy on the server.

The mod will also be a godsend for players who, for whatever reason, prefer playing "single player" on a LAN server.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Derleth

[drgullen 596]

If done right, I really don't think it would ruin the game.  It would have to be a quality implementation though in that, as @Derleth has just said, they should do everything a real player would do -- loot, be stealthy sometimes, take damage, bleed, bandage, have to hydrate and energize themselves, etc.  If they were implemented in such a way that it was very difficult for you to tell from a distance whether they are AI or not, I think it could be good.

@Parazight I don't think it would affect performance if they were only used as a replacement for empty server slots.  As I said earlier, as real people join the server, the number of AI start to reduce.  If it's approaching full slots, then there'd be no AI at all.  But yeah, if they add hundreds of them in addition to infected spawning then performance would tank for sure.  It'll be interesting to see the reception that servers get with this in play.

[Kathosky 119]

Don't take me wrong, I am more than happy that these kind of mods are being made, and as you say, if you don't like it, all you need to do is avoid servers running it. What I mean by ruining the game, is if it was a vanilla thing, since you could not avoid it.

I know they will never act as a human player. They will never talk, pretend, team up, betray, hide as a human, scout, help, give food, trade, tell their stories, build and drive a car... They will never move as a real player would. Yes, they will loot, eat, drink, bandage... but never as a human would, not even close. And I think that this is most of the beauty of DayZ, the beauty that everyone you find gives many posibilities, not just shoot, kill n' loot.

If the first thing you have to think when finding someone is if he is AI or Human player, then part of the previous, if not all, is ruined. After you've found he is AI, the potential interaction would be gone at all, and you would have only one option: kill the AI survivor, if he goes unconscious, no point in interacting with him, just kill and take his loot. And then this leads to other problem, farming loot from AI survivors. Once people learn its behaviour, routes and spawn points this would be a real problem.

In the other side, it would be perfect for playing/training in offline mode or even online PVE servers or similar modes. I knew they said there is not going to be AI in game which I see as a good decision, I hope they never change this statement.

[Tonyeh 454]

10 hours ago, Parazight said:

I just want NPCs that can shoot guns. Not that they’d have to have great aim, but be able to make a human player wonder if another human is shooting or if it’s an AI.   right now, if you hear gunshots, you know it’s a human. 

Mmmmm...I just don't see the point in wondering whether the enemy firing a gun at you is another player or a bot. I don't know what that brings to table really.

Besides, in...erm...a "real life" DayZ...it could ONLY be a human as the infected don't use guns. So, when you do hear a gunshot, there shouldn't be any wondering going on. Besides, in my experience of playing computer games, which stems back to the 80's, AI shooting is either unbelievably accurate or exploitable to the point of uselessness once the human brain figures out their rhythms, which would make AI survivors a completely redundant element in a very short period of time.

TBH, I'd rather modders made more efforts to enhance the infected AI instead of just creating bots to shoot at players.

[Tonyeh 454]

7 hours ago, Derleth said:

No mod can ever "ruin" the game, since all you need to do is avoid servers running that particular mod.

 

6 hours ago, drgullen said:

If done right, I really don't think it would ruin the game.

I don't think either myself or Kathosky are saying that DayZ will be destroyed completely by AI survivors. But, I do think that the balance as it currently stands would be severely lessened due to bot presence.

Sure, if single players want a server full of bots to play with, then go ahead. But, to me, that misses the unique point of the game completely and there are numerous other single player zombie games out there that can cater for that kind of play and in the end I think it will only appeal to the run and gun crowd.

Hopping onto a server that's full (whether that's human players or bots) would kill the atmosphere for me. Knowing that I would have a very high chance of running into a non-infected character really wouldn't do much for my enjoyment of the game. The best moments of DayZ are the "all of a sudden" panic stations that happen when you do run into people.

For instance, a couple of nights ago I was running around the north at dusk on a server with about 4 other people on it. So, here's me letting my guard down and jogging around the place looking for that bloody AK silencer that I've been seeking for a couple of weeks now, and out of nowhere I hear talking and footsteps. I'm in a long barracks at a camping site, so I have nowhere to go if things get all bullety. So, I have to make a mad dash for the door and hope for the best. These guys are on open mics for some reason and I frighten the crap out them and can hear them startled. They, of course, start firing (what I presume to be SKS's because of the semi auto reports) and I'm running as fast as I can away from the area. I got winged, but managed to get down to some rocks on a small cliff face and bandage myself. I wait for a while and nobody comes so I try to leap back up the rocks, but can't so I have to carefully jump down the cliff face further, nearly killing myself in the process. I survived...barely.

No bot encounter could rival that.

[Parazight 1599]

2 hours ago, Tonyeh said:

Mmmmm...I just don't see the point in wondering whether the enemy firing a gun at you is another player or a bot. I don't know what that brings to table really.

Okay, I didn't say 'enemy' and I didn't say 'at you'.

2 hours ago, Tonyeh said:

a "real life" DayZ...it could ONLY be a human as the infected don't use guns. So, when you do hear a gunshot, there shouldn't be any wondering going on.

Right, which is why I made the suggestion.  

2 hours ago, Tonyeh said:

So, I have to make a mad dash for the door and hope for the best. These guys are on open mics for some reason and I frighten the crap out them and can hear them startled. They, of course, start firing

Did you consider talking to them?  If they were talking in-game then they probably weren't using Discord, or another voice app, and were more likely to not KOS you as what probably happened when these two strangers met up earlier.  I'm willing to guess they started shooting at you because you decided to not open a line of communication, and instead just made a mad dash.  Maybe this has something to do with why you think 99% of people KOS. :P

[Tonyeh 454]

3 hours ago, Parazight said:

Okay, I didn't say 'enemy' and I didn't say 'at you'.

Fine. But I think you missed my point. I just don't see the value in wondering if it's a human firing a gun or a bot.

[Tonyeh 454]

3 hours ago, Parazight said:

Did you consider talking to them?  If they were talking in-game then they probably weren't using Discord, or another voice app, and were more likely to not KOS you as what probably happened when these two strangers met up earlier.  I'm willing to guess they started shooting at you because you decided to not open a line of communication, and instead just made a mad dash.  Maybe this has something to do with why you think 99% of people KOS. 😛

I considered it very briefly. But having been caught in a room before with no way out and used as target practice by other players, I decided that getting out of there was the more prudent action. Considering that they just opened fire on me as I was running away, I would say that was the right call.

[SlickDicDaddy 9]

Have you ever heard of the tragedy of pubg it's not a story blue balls would tell you. 

I'm actually playing dayz because they implemented bots pubg a while ago

Edited September 10, 2020 by SlickDicDaddy