#Bots in Gauntlet Ranked

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

sharp marten
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Hey everyone, there has been some discussion inside the Council recently and I wanted to start a discussion here regarding the idea of adding limited bots for a limited time inside the Ranked Arena.

The primary goal of this would be to improve player acquisition and retention.

It should be noted that thresholds are necessary. For example Bots don't get added until X Minutes and a maximum of 2 bots can be in any given lobby.

Note: This does not need to be a proposal since its under the purview of labs. I just want to see if others have any good ideas regarding the topic, and have an honest discussion about everything.

Pros

  • Newcomers will have lower overall queue times
  • Newcomers won't come 8th every match as they are learning, and will become less disheartened
  • It'll improve queue times in weaker timezones
  • Lower queue times will improve retention of the entire playerbase

Cons

  • Easier for top players to maintain higher ranks with limited competition
  • Harder to practice for tournament formats in weaker timezones
  • Less overall competitive integrity

I lastly want to mention that bots would obviously be a temporary measure if we agree its the right path forward. Personally I see it as a way to get newcomers to not leave immediately when they have trouble finding opponents. Then as more of them stay, bots will become unnecessary and be removed.

zinc basin
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Thank you for posting and gauging community sentiment IMC/Scoriox

I personally dont think adding bots in ranked would be good for the game

To me it just diminish and break the 8 player experience. The economy, elo and whole game design is made for 8 player lobby

The bots would cap at 2 (25% of the lobby) this does reduce the queue time but it wouldnt make us pass from too long queue (new people quit) to fast queues (people dont quit) imo. If the average is currently 8 minutes, adding bots would approximatively bring it down to 6 mins and i dont think that really makes a difference for onboarding and retention so all thats left to me is a reduced in game experience

Another con is the unfairness factor. 2 bots really slows down a game and is a huge advantage for anyone compared to 8 real players lobby. People that play in less busy time zones would get a substantial advantage over others

Queues will get fast as soon as the game is done in the coming month(s) and we at the same time market the game and put big rewards

sharp marten
grizzled cape
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Lets call the bots, AI

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often we see queue stuck at 6/8
hopefully this can help until we have more players which also can be helped if queue is shorter

sharp bramble
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@sharp marten Hey, is your idea only related to the Ranked mode? What do you think about Leviathan?

sleek junco
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at start of 1st season we have 2 bots. Coolguy, and 1 more, don't remember.
they eliminated ussualy 1st and 2nd in every game, then que again>again etc.
even at night EU time> lowest active time zone que was fast, and this 2 bots help fill grp much faster.

when they got baned, or owner stop send them> que time up by 30-40%.
sometimes people see it's 5/8 and 300-500sec, they click cancel, sometimes it's drop to 3/8, and then whait and whait.
or you click find game and it's 2/8 - you know, it's take other 10 min find game. so - yes, prob some AI not bad for faster timer
if we don't have new players around. But i hope promo company start soon, and we will see at lest 200-300 new players?

grizzled cape
sleek junco
# grizzled cape curious, how do u know they were bots

they put units on tabel (like every at same spot every game, don't play synergy etc), not like players. they not replace them, not buy something during fight.
as well they play in every game any time of day. they have x2 of my games, and i play 14-16 hours at start of season.
every legendary augment was picked 1st in list of choice every time

grizzled cape
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thats pretty telling

sharp marten
sharp marten
sharp marten
grizzled cape
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lol i havent, but im pretty sure they will beat me

stable kelp
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If we are doing ADRs because people don't have time to grind OW then we should be doing bots in Arena.

One of the best things about Arena is that it is a relatively short game I mentioned to Paz months ago that it also looks bad to a new person trying the game if they need to queue for long periods.

urban nova
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Adding bots would reduce the overall competitive feeling of the game. It would feel a bit lackluster knowing you're playing against bots. It’s important not to overlook the psychological effect this has on players in the lobby. Just imagine reducing the lobby size to six players, would it feel as fun as playing against eight real people? No. It’s the same as in games like LoL, where five players per team feels right. If you reduced that to three, the game would probably be a lot less popular.

On top of that, it creates unfairness. Some players will end up facing bots more often than others. That makes the ranking system abusable, if you queue at the right time, you could gain a huge advantage. That would make other players feel it’s unfair and could push them away from the game.

Addressing some of the pros of adding bots:

Newcomers would have lower overall queue times.
They also wouldn't come 8th every match while they’re learning, which would make them less likely to feel disheartened. That said, they’d most likely still place bot 6, and if they want to practice, we already have casual mode, which fills with bots and actually gives them a chance to win if that's what they actually wants.

This is, once again, a problem rooted in matchmaking and the lack of players. From my perspective, applying a band-aid rarely leads to a positive outcome.

Overall, I think adding bots would actually make the game less appealing and could lead to even fewer players. Adding bots is also a sign that the game is struggling, and it makes that even more obvious to players worsening the overall sentiment toward Illuvium. We need to be very careful with decisions like this and consider how they affect the current player base.

What needs to be done instead is making the game more fun, well balanced and giving players more incentive to play. Since it’s a Web3 game, a lot of players don’t feel like the rewards are worth the time investment. Even some of the top players are spending more time on other games than on Illuvium, which shows that the incentive to play Illuvium is too low right now.

sharp marten
# urban nova Adding bots would reduce the overall competitive feeling of the game. It would f...

Some fair points. I'd say that if we can use bots to increase the player numbers a bit by having less bad queue times. Then we can quickly remove them too.

Unfortunately we cant just throw money at it, not until the game is ready. Even if we did throw money at it, with only a top 100 leaderboard, it doesn't exactly encourage new entrants much anyways.

Don't forget that the bots would only be if queues have trouble filling, so altho it could feel less competitive, for the most part it'll be unchanged. But yeah players in weaker timezones would have a leaderboard edge which feels bad.

stable kelp
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I thought about the unfairness but that is, at least to an extent, often there anyway. Some matches are filled with players from the top 20. Some are far easier when average or less than average players are in. Until we get more players where similar elo can play against each other we will have this issue of fairness.

subtle lagoon
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I like to think of it from a visibility standpoint. Right now in 90% of crypto games including big ones like, off the grid often can't fill a lobby and that is the first thing web2 influencers tear apart. "waited 10 mins and couldn't find a game. Illuvium is Wrecked..."

They may realize there were a couple bots, but doubtful since they are just started playing. If they enjoy the game, they will stay and probably not mention the bots otherwise they will bring that up also but there is a cap so its not like the whole lobby was bots.

And as soon as a stable player base comes in the bots are no longer needed and you do a season reset.

This is just to jump start the activity and player count. Until we have more players and can actually have a strong MMR system its RNG who you get put up against as @stable kelp mentioned.

And if a big marketing push comes shortly after it may only be in for a short while anyways.

analog flax
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I agree with bots 👍

grizzled cape
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*AI agents

stable kelp
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That does sound better. Illuvium is using AI to enhance player experiences.

analog flax
grizzled cape
wheat tundra
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I think it is not debatable that this would decrease the competitive side, and is not something established player like myself would want.

However, for newcomers queue time is one of the most important thing, so it would 100% help onboarding new players. This is a chicken an egg problem, we want more players to fill the queue, but it is hard to get new players because the queue is empty.

This is not a good long term solution, but it is definitely a good QOL improvement for onboarding new players in the short term, which should be the goal of everyone in the community.

Like scoriox said, if we put the bots only after 1 minute (or x minute), the bots would be there only with a low player base. As soon as we have more players the bots would not be in any games.

heavy magnet
sleek junco
heavy magnet
sleek junco
heavy magnet
grave ferry
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If labs is able to make bots that play roughly on the skill level of the lobby, this would mean that bots at that point would give the top players a harder time than the average low elo player they face usually, right?
Issue then you have people loosing to bots and lobbies become even harder for the lower elo ones.

Unless you introduce matchmaking and have higher elo compete with each other and strong bots instead of vs low elo players all the time.

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Whole 8 player thing is certainly a big issue for ever having reasonable matchmaking, as the amount of players needed is more than web3 games currently pull off, even the ones doing well.

clear mural
# grave ferry Whole 8 player thing is certainly a big issue for ever having reasonable matchma...

Would it be difficult to add a 6 player gauntlet mode? Or temporarily replace the 8 player mode with a 6 player mode for testing purposes? I feel it might be a good idea to test it out before marketing starts. After getting some data there could be a decision made if 6 or 8 player gauntlet would be the main gauntlet mode (while the other one gets permanently removed).
I have only played a handful of gauntlet games at all. So the experts here could give feedback if it would work.

This might also help catching more casual players especially on mobile were it is easier to play a quick gauntlet game in between if the playtime is shorter.

I know this idea is not new but I am not up to date right now why a 6 player mode wouldn't be possible. Maybe that discussion already took place in the past.

grave ferry
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I think 8-player lobbies are a burden and with the current matchmaking, could be 4 or so for sure, idk anything on the technical side re trying that

zinc basin
clear mural
# zinc basin Team is and has to stay all in on finishing gauntlet I think the ideal end prod...

I just feel it is a missed opportunity to not test it right now. And the bot solution is just a workaround for (maybe) the real problem.

I don't think the dev workload would be massive trying a lower player lobby. From a technical standpoint every mechanic build for 8 players should also works for 6 or 4 players. Because the lobby gets smaller after some games anyway.

"I think the ideal end product is 8 player as its what our audience is used to"
And that is a big risk. If it does not work then players will say Illuvium just copied other games and failed. Why not try something different? The solution should be to provide the best gaming exerience possible. And not just copy things and hope it works out because it feels familiar. And high queue times are a very bad experience. Playing ranked against bots is a bad experience. And after the release it would be a desaster for Illuvium to say we have to reduce lobby size because of the low player numbers. But increasing the lobby size from 4/6 back to 8 would be no problem at all.

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If it is easily possible to test smaller lobbies then I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be done. This is way easier than coming back in a year and admit that 8 player lobbies have been a mistake

zinc basin
# clear mural I just feel it is a missed opportunity to not test it right now. And the bot sol...

Honestly i think copying TFT but having some different feature like bonding, hyper and all traits/illuvials/augments different is a good approach

If our game resemble enough theirs its easier to make the jump and come try it out

TFT is a top tier, maybe the best strategy game there is out there. Im certain they have considered lower player count either as the main or side mode and they havent do it

You are right that the economy and other stuff should still work. The game would also be the same ish with the only difference that you face more the same people over and over again (reduced strategic depth)

Maybe its not that hard on the dev side but with the reduced workforce and urgency to finish gauntlet the team is extremely careful to not deviate any efforts away from the #1 goal of finishing gauntlet so we have our first product to market and finally get players/revenue

I think the queue time problem is only temporary and that it will definitely fix itself once marketing and bigger rewards starts