CQC CQC: How would you feel about bots?

[Van R Flyheight]

Okay firstly this a discussion not a suggestion before a moderator moves this to the graveyard. Bots have been suggested time and time again but with no love. Why is this?

Is it that the Developers have bigger fish to fry or is this an unwanted feature from us, the players?

CQC is part of the game that we paid for and whether it's a feature you like or not, you paid money for it. Just like mining or exploring, if it were suddenly disabled then someone will feel ripped off (skimmer missions, awkward) even if you personally have never tried it. You can enter the game 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (minus server downtime) and mine, explore, trade, bounty hunt, smuggle etc etc but not CQC. CQC requires you find 3 other players at that exact same time in order to even get past the loading screen which even then might glitch out and boot you. Third party tools and arranged nights help with this somewhat but even then on the Xbox CQC night (Tuesdays) I only got into two matches before getting booted. You also have CQC rank stamped in red on your right hand panel so FDev clearly expect you to play it and third party sites like INARA use it as part of the leaderboards so like it or not, there is only one way to progress through that for me.

The thing is that I actually like CQC and actually want to play it. It's not some completionist obsession but an actual want for this feature to work. So the question is, why no bots?

You might say that CQC is purely about PvP but this is only half the truth. It's also about balanced ships in tight maps with power ups and all sorts of non-main game activity. This feature should be accessible to players 24/7 like every other aspect of the game.

The next argument will likely be "but people will farm NPC's and get all the modules and loadouts". Well isn't balanced PvP sort of the idea and if that really matters then there is no reason not to have a "offline" and "online" level like a lot of other deathmatch style games already do. Reaching Prestige also has minimal effect in game by only rewarding the player with a single permit and the money earned in CQC is way below cr/hr ratio. As for that CQC rank in your right hand panel, this also has no in game rewards and so presents no drama if people simply farm for it. I'd also have no drama if bots only counted for half the points of a player kill or even a quarter wouldn't feel unreasonable. You could expand on this by making a bot difficulty choice from helpless to elite with more points gained from higher difficulty bots. Again something that many deathmatch style games already do.

Obviously goes without saying that you should be able to toggle bots on or off to preserve the normal PvP style play and honestly if more people were drawn to CQC because of actual gameplay possibilities then the PvP lobbies might actually fill up.

Thanks for reading if you got this far and hopefully you agree but let me know if you don't in the least trolliest manner.

 

[Globusdiablo]

Okay firstly this a discussion not a suggestion before a moderator moves this to the graveyard. Bots have been suggested time and time again but with no love. Why is this?

Is it that the Developers have bigger fish to fry or is this an unwanted feature from us, the players?

CQC is part of the game that we paid for and whether it's a feature you like or not, you paid money for it. Just like mining or exploring, if it were suddenly disabled then someone will feel ripped off (skimmer missions, awkward) even if you personally have never tried it. You can enter the game 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (minus server downtime) and mine, explore, trade, bounty hunt, smuggle etc etc but not CQC. CQC requires you find 3 other players at that exact same time in order to even get past the loading screen which even then might glitch out and boot you. Third party tools and arranged nights help with this somewhat but even then on the Xbox CQC night (Tuesdays) I only got into two matches before getting booted. You also have CQC rank stamped in red on your right hand panel so FDev clearly expect you to play it and third party sites like INARA use it as part of the leaderboards so like it or not, there is only one way to progress through that for me.

The thing is that I actually like CQC and actually want to play it. It's not some completionist obsession but an actual want for this feature to work. So the question is, why no bots?

You might say that CQC is purely about PvP but this is only half the truth. It's also about balanced ships in tight maps with power ups and all sorts of non-main game activity. This feature should be accessible to players 24/7 like every other aspect of the game.

The next argument will likely be "but people will farm NPC's and get all the modules and loadouts". Well isn't balanced PvP sort of the idea and if that really matters then there is no reason not to have a "offline" and "online" level like a lot of other deathmatch style games already do. Reaching Prestige also has minimal effect in game by only rewarding the player with a single permit and the money earned in CQC is way below cr/hr ratio. As for that CQC rank in your right hand panel, this also has no in game rewards and so presents no drama if people simply farm for it. I'd also have no drama if bots only counted for half the points of a player kill or even a quarter wouldn't feel unreasonable. You could expand on this by making a bot difficulty choice from helpless to elite with more points gained from higher difficulty bots. Again something that many deathmatch style games already do.

Obviously goes without saying that you should be able to toggle bots on or off to preserve the normal PvP style play and honestly if more people were drawn to CQC because of actual gameplay possibilities then the PvP lobbies might actually fill up.

Thanks for reading if you got this far and hopefully you agree but let me know if you don't in the least trolliest manner.

Beating a dead horse old bean. The problems with CQC have been explained to FD since release to no avail. Consider CQC .

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Beating a dead horse old bean. The problems with CQC have been explained to FD since release to no avail. Consider CQC .

That's the spirit everyone. C'mon have you played CQC? It's actually good fun but I can see how sitting in a lobby and then getting whacked by some lv50 isn't any fun. The concept of the maps, fighters and power ups is all there. Just needs a little bump start.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Moved already. That took less than ten minutes. Classic FDev tactic, fingers in ears "lalalalalalala can't hear you, already got ya money". Thanks, really feel like a rewarded customer.

 

[insanephoton]

I have heard it suggested that the A.I. isn't up to it

 

[Mxpower76]

I'd play it if there were bots. Back in the day playing Unreal tournament if nobody in my group was on I'd load up the bots and "practice" You could specify how many you wanted to fight against and the skill level of each one. It was good fun. Unfortunately CQC won't ever have that and seems to be a forgotten/ignored feature.

 

[Rob At Work]

Seems like a reasonable solution to me, it can't be that difficult, I'm sure SJA and her Minions would relish the challenge.
The Q. is, would it stimulate demand ?

 

[Stealthie]

Okay firstly this a discussion not a suggestion before a moderator moves this to the graveyard.

That went well.

But, yeah, I'd love to see NPC ships in CQC.

I don't have many games on my PC but I always leave L4D2 on it and a C&C game, just so I can have a quick blast of either an FPS or an RTS.
Having 'bots in CQC would provide a similar experience in ED.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Just like mining or exploring, if it were suddenly disabled then someone will feel ripped off (skimmer missions, awkward)

And now mining missions are disabled. I didn't even realise there was a new exploit/emergent gameplay event happening. That's one way to populate CQC, remove every other game mode

 

[Steph]

I would be quite happy with AI ships - if there is the option in CQC to "include/exclude AI". I'm quite happy with a wholly NPC environment but there will be some here who prefer to take on real people.

The question of attaining rank etc would need to be considered. Perhaps NPC kills could be set to not contribute to the Elite ranking?

 

[Van R Flyheight]

I would be quite happy with AI ships - if there is the option in CQC to "include/exclude AI". I'm quite happy with a wholly NPC environment but there will be some here who prefer to take on real people.

The question of attaining rank etc would need to be considered. Perhaps NPC kills could be set to not contribute to the Elite ranking?

In my own opinion, I'd like NPCs to count towards the ranking but I'm not fussed about it counting towards levels. This means it's possible for anyone to build the arbitrary title on their right hand panel but not necessarily get rich or overpowering in any way. I also mentioned an "offline" and "online" level similar to CoD already does. You can farm all day but it won't mean a thing against a human player.

 

[Andovar]

That's the spirit everyone. C'mon have you played CQC? It's actually good fun but I can see how sitting in a lobby and then getting whacked by some lv50 isn't any fun. The concept of the maps, fighters and power ups is all there. Just needs a little bump start.

I understand your frustration, i share it. Been wanting bots for a while now, as has a good portion of the community.
It's been asked for time and time again.
I don't expect we'll see it any time soon. If it was on FD's radar, I imagine they would have mentioned something by now. It's likely way down at the bottom of their very long to-do list. ...if it's there at all.

 

[Frank]

Bots.. hell yeah!

But if we are given bots I'd want all the knobs and levers that come with them. I'd like to be able to set up private matches with bots set to the skill setting I want.

And of course this would be under the firm understanding that setting dumb NPCs would be a bit of an exploit and so I don't expect any custom matches to contribute to rankings or cash pay outs.

It'd be useful for practising for the proper CQCC. Not that it matters much. If we can't get our HUD colours then the amount of work involved in this would be a big ask <sigh>

 

[SushiCW]

I don't know that I've seen anyone strongly opposed to bots. It's a popular idea.

I think the real issue is the very first one you mentioned: "bigger fish to fry." It's that simple. Frontier isn't prioritizing CQC because their efforts are focused elsewhere. It is, for all practical purposes, an entirely separate game, so that's an understandable position to take especially when there is so much highly-demanded work to be done on Elite proper.

The things that CQC needs (starting with bots) are not trivial to implement, and require serious development investment.

 

[andrego]

Bring on the bots! I haven't been able to play CQC much because there is never enough players CQC when I try and play. But, when I did get to play, I had a blast. They should let bots in to fill in the gaps for required number of players. It could be set up where there is so much time for players to join a match. And when the time is up, bots fill in the holes.

 

[Leo Sagan]

I would welcome bots : anything rather than waiting endlessly for a game. I'd limit the XP gain from them though.

 

[MUSKETEER]

You played like 8 hours of CQC yesterday, Leo. People sleep too. No reason to ruin CQC into NPC joke.
Bots are just too stupid to handle CQC or be a challenge.

It would also completely devalue CQC Elite rank achieved by quite a few people now.

 

[SushiCW]

You played like 8 hours of CQC yesterday, Leo. People sleep too. No reason to ruin CQC into NPC joke.
Bots are just too stupid to handle CQC or be a challenge.

It would also completely devalue CQC Elite rank achieved by quite a few people now.

Allow me to politely disagree.

You're right that current NPCs would not be ideal for CQC. Players could easily abuse the gaps in their ability to pathfind through obstacles, and of course they wouldn't be bothering with powerups. Even so: they would be better than nothing. Elite-ranked NPCs would be plenty deadly in open space, so even though they could be cheesed it would take at least some effort and not be automatic. And if you want a challenge... don't cheese them.

The current NPCs, even with their limitations, would be a tougher challenge than your average CQC noob.


As for devaluing rank, you're assuming that bots could be farmed for PF rank. That doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Personally I'd say it would make sense to allow you to gain CQC rank against them (and unlock modules) but not progress towards "Elite" rank. Even if you didn't restrict it: as already mentioned, farming noobs isn't hard either. Why would farming bots be different?

More importantly, it's a silly thing to worry about anyway. Maintaining the "value" of the rank doesn't matter nearly as much as making the game mode actually playable. The most important thing is to be able to play & have fun, and we shouldn't let extra unimportant stuff like ranks get in the way of that.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Elite rank? Things might be different for the PC crew but on console we don't have enough players to get past the loading screen. 0.04% have achieved triple elite compared to only 0.02% that have reached professional on Xbox. Its not due to lack of interest either, I've spoken to lots of people that want to play CQC but it's tricky getting us all in the same queue, people have lives and need sleep.

I think NPCs could be made challenging enough but also said in the OP that they should be worth less XP than a human player. Without bots CQC is unplayable at present on Xbox which is bad show for something we paid for.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It would also be self-limiting ... you could only farm bots for rank if there weren't any actual players about, but if "everyone" tried that there'd be actual players about.

This is to an extent an argument against putting too much work into the bot quality - if they're actually successful at getting players to the game, they won't see much action themselves. Ones which bounce off the scenery, ignore the powerups, and otherwise do a good impression of a beginner ... are probably sufficient.