31–40 of 47 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One fun thing would be to raise the abstraction level of the game. How would it feel to only interact with your base/economy/army via prompting and face someone doing the same. Would words per minute replace APM, what would the meta look like etc. Would you be able to adjust the system prompt for your "army" to suit your play style?
I’m sure it would be fun at first, but it would quickly become frustrating and repetitive.
Man, I could see the next Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander-like game where rough orders/instructions are given to commanders and they carry out those commands. The scale of those games was already nuts, but that would 10x things.
Payday 2 is my favourite example since they've had a bug since Day 1 that lobotomizes the AI subsystem.
Specifically, there's a global cap of 1 action for all enemies per game tick, so when there's too many enemies the reaction time is 5 seconds.
The mod Full Speed Swarm fixes this bug and the game is unplayable without collaboration and a lot of skill.
It's also unnoticeable until you die or if you do a ton of research on the AI. I used to host pubs with the mod to troll other players who suddenly found the game impossible to play at lower difficulties.
I think it's possible we get an AI driven RTS but the demand is too small right now unless its a recruitment vehicle for the military.
I wish there's a RuneScape server for bots. A game where it is both fun to play manually, and automated. Quests, for example, is a one-off thing where it could be fun for the player and not really useful to automate since it is a one-off task (unless you're running bot farm). I don't think the main game would encourage that - the more obscure the protocol, the less bot in the actual game (even though I don't think it…
Genuine question to you as someone who's been building in this space, what would you want / need to play a game as a programmer? An API? An SDK? An in-game editor? Tutorials? Or is this more a "I want a factorio-like"? I've been building economic engines and simulations for the last few years now and over the last 3 months in my off time I've been getting increasingly in the weeds about how to design a game that fits…
The problem with these kinds of game is at some point you'll run into tech debts - your factory layout is not optimal, and the game optimize your starting zone so migrating out means you may lose simple access to starting resources. I tried optimizing for large factory up front, but it's like a startup with a monolith running on a Kubernetes.
Satisfactory solved this by having a fixed map and 3D, but it comes with its own challenges. Good Company partially solved this by replacing belts with humans who can walk anywhere you want, and introduce belt at a late game stage (which I quit around that stage - the game already gets repetitive by that point).
Anyway, what I was describing was not those kind of automation games. RuneScape is an RPG game with over 20+ skills. What make it interesting is that RuneScape bot engines (which exists, but is illegal) do provide all the high level primitives for you in Java. You could provide a world coordinate and a walking script will do all the walk for you even if it is the other side of the world map. It should felt like making games in Scratch instead of reinventing serialization in Screeps.
Other games with scripting also often don't allow human-in-the-loop. If a bot in an automation game get stuck because you forgot to program how to restock teleports, you have to stop it and reprogram. RuneScape bots don't block inputs - if you forgot to make the bot handle stamina exhaustion just click the run button yourself without stopping the script.
RuneScape also comes with strategizing for the human, while the solution space is quite fixed and well discussed by the community if you don't want to find out yourselves. If your Slayer task is green dragons, do you go to a spot that is far from a bank and lose efficiency or give up the loot, or do you go to PvP zone and use cannon (multi target auto turret)? If I write a bot, I probably will write a Wildy Green Dragon script instead of a generic fight-anything script so that it will know to bring cannon and place it at the optimal spot to target all spawns at once. Same goes for many other skills - if I train crafting or construction do I sink millions and go for the highest XP rate or do I go very slowly and get a slight profit out of it.
I'd also add that having a community marketplace would also helps. RuneScape have underground marketplace for bots, with free scripts that probably get you banned, and paid "private" scripts that supposedly undetected. I also have played Mars First Logistics where you build a vehicle Lego-style, then deliver weird cargo like a block of ice or a crate of oranges without a lid. The game have Steam Workshop support where you can just skip building your own vehicle and try to drive someone else's vehicle to destination. I got an ice block pusher, which I need to figure out how to put the ice in (just surround the block, close gate so the block cannot escape), then the map has hills that make your ice fall over the bottom anyway.
I wish there's a RuneScape server for bots. A game where it is both fun to play manually, and automated. Quests, for example, is a one-off thing where it could be fun for the player and not really useful to automate since it is a one-off task (unless you're running bot farm). I don't think the main game would encourage that - the more obscure the protocol, the less bot in the actual game (even though I don't think it…
Genuine question to you as someone who's been building in this space, what would you want / need to play a game as a programmer? An API? An SDK? An in-game editor? Tutorials? Or is this more a "I want a factorio-like"? I've been building economic engines and simulations for the last few years now and over the last 3 months in my off time I've been getting increasingly in the weeds about how to design a game that fits…
But this would probably never fly because it would become a training ground for people who make malicious bots.
I imagine this also works in multiplayer
Man, I could see the next Total Annihilation / Supreme Commander-like game where rough orders/instructions are given to commanders and they carry out those commands. The scale of those games was already nuts, but that would 10x things.
The revealed preference of players is for terrible AI so games are easier. That's why AI has been going downhill. Payday 2 is my favourite example since they've had a bug since Day 1 that lobotomizes the AI subsystem. Specifically, there's a global cap of 1 action for all enemies per game tick, so when there's too many enemies the reaction time is 5 seconds. The mod Full Speed Swarm fixes this bug and the game is unp…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The revealed preference of players is for terrible AI so games are easier. That's why AI has been going downhill. Payday 2 is my favourite example since they've had a bug since Day 1 that lobotomizes the AI subsystem. Specifically, there's a global cap of 1 action for all enemies per game tick, so when there's too many enemies the reaction time is 5 seconds. The mod Full Speed Swarm fixes this bug and the game is unp…
I don't know about this... I think that the "expert" AIs on RTS games just get more resources (not compute resources, but in-game resources) so they can create more units. I'd love to play against an AI component that has the same resource collection speed as the human player.
I wish there's a RuneScape server for bots. A game where it is both fun to play manually, and automated. Quests, for example, is a one-off thing where it could be fun for the player and not really useful to automate since it is a one-off task (unless you're running bot farm). I don't think the main game would encourage that - the more obscure the protocol, the less bot in the actual game (even though I don't think it…
Genuine question to you as someone who's been building in this space, what would you want / need to play a game as a programmer? An API? An SDK? An in-game editor? Tutorials? Or is this more a "I want a factorio-like"? I've been building economic engines and simulations for the last few years now and over the last 3 months in my off time I've been getting increasingly in the weeds about how to design a game that fits…
This, however, would be a significant obstacle to non-programmers. You might consider offering an in-game editor similar to Scratch or BYOB for people who want to dip into programming. It'd be a fun way for them to learn