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Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

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Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like "Deadly Boss Mods for games other than WoW" which probably is just cheating. I'd be really interested in a product that does more of what a human coach would do.

I was thinking the same thing. Blizzard explicitly allows this kind of thing but most games do not. Even with DBM - there used to be an addon that told you exactly where to stand to avoid different bosses attacks. That got banned pretty quickly because it over trivialized the mechanics.

I'd say DBM being PvE is a big difference. But WoW generally is a whole other beast just because of how addons are ingrained in it.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#92
The big question on my mind when reading and considering this is, who is this aimed at? Is it aimed at casual players? Is this aimed at those who want to improve or that play competitively? If it's the latter I can't imagine it being of much help in the long term. It's better to understand why things are a certain way than to have an AI tell you to just do a thing. And unless you're playing at a high enough level already, things such as synergy or composition don't matter nearly as much as comfort with a character and their abilities. And as someone who has played games competitively in the past, I never wanted something to help me with things like awareness, along the lines of what the Valorant functionality displays. Keeping one's eyes on what's generally going on in the game has become much easier over the years anyway, to be completely honest.

I think for general strategy or builds in games like League of Legends or Dota 2, written guides and/or thinking for yourself will still easily trump an AI and will further one's actual understanding of the game and it's balance a lot as well. At the last Dota 2 International tournament a team won by their player picking up a rather unusual item that surprised even the fairly knowledgeable commentators. I think these sorts of AI or data based things just end up being a crutch for the players in the middle of the skill bracket but will fall off in effectiveness once they reach the higher levels where enemies will actually think for themselves and come up with counter strategies along the way.

Also has support for CS:GO actually been approved by Valve yet? I know they did some AI showcases at their events in the past but I feel like this sort of thing, unless very limited in functionality, will go against their stance on cheating.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#93
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing situational feedback during gameplay by way of an overlay or audio queues is clearly cheating. If I were an investor in this company, I'd be asking the founders what their plan is when they get banned by the major anti-cheat engines.

Thanks for sharing your feedback. We understand your concern but we are very careful to not develop any feature that would be considered as cheating for the majority of the gaming and game developer.

In my experience, may of these companies (Riot, et. al) are not particularly consistent over time or in the application of even current rules. And it's also hard to divine what "would be considered cheating" by these companies as one support person may say something is cheating, and another might consider it cheating and ban your account.

It seems very fraught and risky to use for gamers who desire that their accounts don't get banned.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In-game coaching _is_ considered cheating in FGC tournaments

Yep, for any sort of eSport you can’t have outside help/information outside of designated times if the format allows it, but also this isn’t targeted at eSports.

But cheating can happen (and be prosecuted) outside of eSports. The founders should be careful.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#96
post #49

When a good significant portion of your website is dedicated to “will I get banned?” .. I don’t know, man, it’s probably not going to go over well with these game companies. Also, is AWS, NVIDIA, etc really a “partner?” Just because I use their products, or get credits, that doesn’t mean they endorse or have partnered with me? This just feels like cheating to me in Valorant: https://vimeo.com/534438994

This is 100% cheating based on Riot's rules, only because of the Spike Timer. The rest is mostly ok. The reason for that is that there is no visual indicator in-game for the spike timer, it has to be memorized. I'm not a LoL player but to my knowledge Riot just doesn't really enforce their own rules outside of tournaments where tools like this are not allowed. For Valorant, I have played in many tournaments, and ever…

Thanks for sharing your feedback. There is an audio guide that helps you to understand how much time left, similar to what we do.

We closely follow the guideline of the game publisher. SenpAI doesn't aim the tournament's, we would like to make coaching accessable and affordable for the all gamers who would like to improve. Similar to getting a coaching session from a good player.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#97

I’m in forties and haven’t gamed since about 2000. Except I once played 2 early assassin’s creed about 8 years ago. Just got an Xbox series X. It’s weird playing all the multiplayer online games. Rocket League is fun but, wow it’s difficult to master. It seems to take a lifetime of hours invested to play at highest levels. All that to say, I actually see the value of coaching in the video game realm now where I compl…

Thanks for your feedback. We would love to get your feedback when we integrate to Rocket League. Hope you will master the game with the help of SenpAI.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#98
Hey—congrats on the launch! I'm a big Valorant player (peaked Immortal 3 a few seasons back) and I've also used/talked to the people at visor.gg and pursuit.gg when they were around.

Totally understand the concerns here around being at the whim of the publisher, and previous companies have been blindsided by changes in how companies like Blizzard decide what is and isn't allowed on their platforms. Interestingly, YC has had a few of these companies go through similar experiences but I think they still think there's something to be built in this space.

For what it's worth, I think this is a good idea that's going to run into similar issues, regardless of what safeguards are put in place to avoid stepping on the publishers' toes. I'm sure there are some learnings from talking to Ivan or James from the last two YC companies that tried to do this. Also happy to share some more of my thoughts :)

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a League of Legends player, it's very common. Virtually everyone that I know that plays this game has some sort of overlay(LolWiz, Porofessor, Blitz.gg, etc.) that provides unimaginable level of detail about the enemy team and my team before the game even begins. I can find out what the enemy players like to do("invade", or initiate cheese fights early), roam to other lanes in the map, and more. I know what their…

Huh, well this supports my decision to not get into MOBAs.

In Dota at least you can make your data private and your picks/habits cannot be tracked by third party websites or applications.

I feel like gaming stats should have way better privacy options in general.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#100
post #87

Oh man.. good luck. I don't think AI can ever replace human gaming coaches. Maybe for things like chess which have very strict rule-set. Thing is, competitive games are so dynamic that there are countless options every single moment, and getting better is knowing how to choose the right option to minimize errors. Improving only comes from 3 things: Practice, watching your own games, and then practicing more. Human co…

Thanks for sharing comments. We don't have a plan to replace human gaming coaches. We rather consider ourselves as complementary service to human coaches. We provide some tactics and suggestions based on data whereas human coaches are capable of making complex recommendations.

Providing "Early game gold loss" tag for a single match is not a huge win, as you described. However, if the gamer has the same tag for the majority the games, it shows an indication for weakness. That's our fundamental idea behind how it helps.

We believe we don't create unfair advantage because we provide suggestions based on the already information on the screen.

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