EQoffline, bots and more..

[Magoth78]

Important stuffs about EQoffline.

As I'm actually working on the next update wich will have 3 important changes, I would like to have your advise.

1/ The mana regen.
As you ve probably noticed, some fights are really easy in raid. That's because the bots do exactly what they have to do under certain situations. But that's because, also, of their mana regen. To give more fun, more challenge, I could drastically remove the mana regen of the bots. But that will mean that we will have a real downtime instead of the actual version wich is more arcade.

2/ The bot melee's damage.
Actually, if a bot uses a crappy weapon or a very good one, the damage output is the same. STR/AGI/DEX etc... are not criteria for the melee output in the actual version of EQoffline.
Looks like some peeps want to keep the melee damage like it is right now while others would like to make it so it will force the player to equip his bots with the right stuff.
I think it could be more fun to make the melee dps depending of the stuff, caracs and buffs...

3/ Bots managment
In the next update, you won't be able to spawn two times the same bot in a zone.
Also, someone asked me to make the command "#bot spawn" unavailable if we're engaged. What do you guys think about that ?

Mag

[Blakine]

Originally Posted by Magoth78

Important stuffs about EQoffline.

As I'm actually working on the next update wich will have 3 important changes, I would like to have your advise.

1/ The mana regen.
As you ve probably noticed, some fights are really easy in raid. That's because the bots do exactly what they have to do under certain situations. But that's because, also, of their mana regen. To give more fun, more challenge, I could drastically remove the mana regen of the bots. But that will mean that we will have a real downtime instead of the actual version wich is more arcade.

2/ The bot melee's damage.
Actually, if a bot uses a crappy weapon or a very good one, the damage output is the same. STR/AGI/DEX etc... are not criteria for the melee output in the actual version of EQoffline.
Looks like some peeps want to keep the melee damage like it is right now while others would like to make it so it will force the player to equip his bots with the right stuff.
I think it could be more fun to make the melee dps depending of the stuff, caracs and buffs...

3/ Bots managment
In the next update, you won't be able to spawn two times the same bot in a zone.
Also, someone asked me to make the command "#bot spawn" unavailable if we're engaged. What do you guys think about that ?

Mag

I would suggest a command that can turn these features on, or off. Maybe something like:

#bot regen low
#bot regen high

Or

#bot use item damage on
#bot use item damage off

I think this would work well, then if you did not want to use these options you wouldn't be forced to

[Bjerlk]

Well I for one would love to see the management/itemizing of the bots to be a part of the offlne experiment.

What else would I do with all the stuff I find
As for the manaregen rate. Sure its a bit too easy now. But then again it shouldnt be boring either. Need to tune it. Lets try low for a patch and see...

Spawning as in combat is too a bit easy. Sounds fair to have it removed/unavailable as you are engaged (witha DE female at least )

Spawning same bot isnt realy a problem if you choose not to have them gear dependant. But IF you do. Then suddenly they can become too powerful in masses if you get your hands on some uber gear for a specific type of character...

I vote for not being able to spawn same bot over and over again. ut in the same time. Needing 40 or so bots equipped for a major raid just seems stupid... Maybe raids could limit it to 3 or so per botnpc?

[cavedude]

I think you should make them all rules and let the server op decide. Botregen and a value, botstrictcombat true or false, spawnlimit and a value, and canspawnincombat true or false. Something along those lines.

[John Adams]

Originally Posted by Magoth78

1/ The mana regen.
As you ve probably noticed, some fights are really easy in raid. That's because the bots do exactly what they have to do under certain situations. But that's because, also, of their mana regen. To give more fun, more challenge, I could drastically remove the mana regen of the bots. But that will mean that we will have a real downtime instead of the actual version wich is more arcade.

2/ The bot melee's damage.
Actually, if a bot uses a crappy weapon or a very good one, the damage output is the same. STR/AGI/DEX etc... are not criteria for the melee output in the actual version of EQoffline.
Looks like some peeps want to keep the melee damage like it is right now while others would like to make it so it will force the player to equip his bots with the right stuff.
I think it could be more fun to make the melee dps depending of the stuff, caracs and buffs...

I would definitely like to see a bot benefit from enhancing it's gear. If it's using a rusty dagger, or an Ifir, the Bot should be far more effective with the latter. Loading your bots up with stats gear makes them more effective fighters, or should right? This would inspire the player/bot owner to continually upgrade their bots with new stuff.

As for regen and strict vs lazy bot melee rules, I agree with cavedude - if they were rules, the server admin could decide globally.

[Magoth78]

Updates:
--------

For a best challenge, I've done some changes.

1/ Items, stats and buffs became very important criterias for the melee damage output. Better will be the stuff of your bots, better will be the dps. The buffs will seriously augment the DPS of your bots, also.
2/ Spawning bots while engaged (you or your group) isn't allowed anymore.
3/ Spawning the same bot in a zone isn't allowed anymore.
4/ The bot's mana regen has been reworked. Engaged, their mana regen will be slow. Not engaged, it will be very fast.
5/ As asked, the way the bots are following their leader has been reworked. No more bots in front of the leader wich caused targetting issues.

Window's Binaries: http://eqoffline.free.fr/Build.rar
Source's package: http://eqoffline.free.fr/EQEmu-EQOffline.rar

G'day,
Mag

[Damilis]

/grovel

I bow before thee.

[Zengez]

Any news on someone making this work into a diff file, or the latest updates to the emu source into a diff file for Magoth.... would be nice to run an updated server with the eqoffline bots, instead of the, now quickly becoming antiqueted, server....

[John Adams]

Zengez, can't you diff the version Magoth is using against it's original source, and merge the changes into a current version? I don't think Magoth should bump all his changes from version to version just so we stay on the latest... and, I am not sure this will become "core" because it is so very custom (though it could be a nice addition). The problem for over a year has been no one has labeled anything a "stable" version. I personally use the 931 build as an anchor point because it matches the Luclin PEQ database... but even that is not tagged as "stable". No one has gone through and tested every feature to give it that tag in some time.

Maybe when we go Anniversary, we'll branch to 0.8.0 and start all over.

[Magoth78]

Little but important update:

1) Each bot has now a real leader who is an unique character. Other characters won't be able to deal with the bots they don't own. Only the bot owner will be able to spawn/group/degroup/equip/unequip his bots.
2) #bot list, will show all the bots. You will can see the tag "(YOUR BOT)" if you own a bot in the list.
3) #bot listmine, will only show your bot.
4) To own a bot, that's simple. Create it, then spawn it. It becomes your bot, definitly. For the bots that you have already created, just spawn them one time, they will become your bot.
5) As asked, DPS casters have been upped a bit (they cast a bit more in fight).

Window's binaries: http://eqoffline.free.fr/Build.rar
Sources: http://eqoffline.free.fr/EQEmu-EQOffline.rar

Database update:
-- Table "botsowners" DDL

CREATE TABLE `botsowners` (
`botnpctypeid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`botleadercharacterid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`botnpctypeid`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

(http://eqoffline.free.fr/README.txt upgraded)

All thoses things need to be tested but they seem to be working well.

Later and good week-end,
Mag

[Zengez]

Originally Posted by John Adams

Zengez, can't you diff the version Magoth is using against it's original source, and merge the changes into a current version? I don't think Magoth should bump all his changes from version to version just so we stay on the latest... and, I am not sure this will become "core" because it is so very custom (though it could be a nice addition). The problem for over a year has been no one has labeled anything a "stable" version. I personally use the 931 build as an anchor point because it matches the Luclin PEQ database... but even that is not tagged as "stable". No one has gone through and tested every feature to give it that tag in some time.

Maybe when we go Anniversary, we'll branch to 0.8.0 and start all over.

Well I for one don't know how to diff, although I think there's a wikki part somewhere that can tell me, but that's not really my point...

Haven't heard anyone say they wouldn't want to use this on their server, and if they didn't it seems to me to be fairly straight foward to just make a rule for bots on and bots off to enable/disable the entire bot structure, then fold it into mainstream... don't even need bot update work done every time magoth does something, just diff it once a week or two weeks of work or whatnot at his discreation (or someone else if they feel like doing it themselves) and that way you can fold in the newest diffed version into the newest server version and life is peachy, best of both worlds... Seems to me that any version released as pre-constructed binaries is 'stable' by any test definition, so I don't see the need to have to wait for someone to lable it stable before doing the above... and I'm not suggesting we update the binaries under download every time anyone makes a change to anything... it's merely been a while, something like 3 months or so between magoth's version with his bot's folded in, and the latest compiled version availible to download under the download section, so I was suggesting an update... wouldn't even have to be a continued update, a one time update would help... Although it seems silly to go that route when building into the mainstream fold seems to be just as easy....

/shrug it's somewhere on the order of a billion degrees in my house right now, so perhaps i'm not thinking straight, but makes sense to me is all.

[GeorgeS]

Originally Posted by John Adams

...

Originally Posted by John Adams

Maybe when we go Anniversary, we'll branch to 0.8.0 and start all over.

Now that sounds good - we've been on 0.7 for ages..

Thanks for the continuing work on the offline bots

GeorgeS

[Magoth78]

Originally Posted by John Adams

...
Maybe when we go Anniversary, we'll branch to 0.8.0 and start all over.

If EQEmu ever decides to go on Anniversary, that could be a cool thing because I would rewrite the entire EQoffline code base. This way it would be easier for me to create a separate project that people could add easily to the EQEMu code if they want to play at EQoffline.