Valve testing bots in TF2

By Oli Welsh Published 22 December, 2009

Do they know it's Christmas?

Valve's been quietly building AI bots for its multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 on PC, and it's now ready to let players test them out in beta.

The bots are available on three King of the Hill maps, and there's no interface to access them yet - but they're available to everybody by typing in a console command. Details at the Team Fortress 2 blog.

"With the success of the AI systems of Left 4 Dead, we've been continuing to develop these technologies to create new kinds of game experiences," said Valve's Mike Booth. "Team Fortress 2 is an excellent 'sandbox' for explorations of this sort, and we've been quietly doing so for much of this last year.

"Some of the results of these explorations are TF 'bots' - AI-driven player proxies with simulated humanlike senses, reaction times, and tactics. Although the TFBots are not yet complete, they play a pretty decent game of King of the Hill. We thought you might enjoy testing your skill against these work-in-progress digital killing machines."

Booth added, "The bots have simulated humanlike senses, and only know what they see, hear, and touch. They also have realistic reaction times and aiming limitations. They don't 'cheat' or use omniscient knowledge of the server state to make their decisions."

It's as good a reason to fire up Team Fortress 2 as any. Go to it.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (27) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • justsomeone #1 2 years ago

    does this mean i can play this game now, despite having no friends and hating playing games with other humans?

    sorted.

  • djed #2 2 years ago

    How can a bot ever cheat? Cheating is breaking the rules... They used to make bots that were sentient?!

  • L0cky #3 2 years ago

    'Cheat' in the sense of if they were human.

    I hope they've paid attention to the fact that closer proximity does not always mean something is an easier target. Bots with flak cannons in Unreal 'cheat' at close range because of that approach.

  • jonfon #4 2 years ago

    @djed

    Doing things like being ridiculously accurate, quick to react or being able to see through walls or disguises. I love fiddling about with bots (no, not in the biblical sense you pervs). Reminds me of playing things like 2 person LAN Half-life or Opposing Force 10 years ago, before we had proper Internet connections. Great being able to bulk out the numbers with a few different bots.

    So will these bots count as humans in terms of you being able to earn achievements & unlocks off them?

  • L0cky #5 2 years ago

    Another example of bots 'cheating' is when your shots actually do less damage to them; or there's do more damage to you based on the difficulty setting. It's not very smart really, and I'm glad they're not doing those kind of things.

    Valve spend a ridiculous amount of time watching people play, hopefully that's helping them develop more realistic bots that simulate good and bad players alike.

  • bodypopper #6 2 years ago

    Continued support for the 360 version would have been nice for those of us who can't be bothered with PC gaming these days.

  • TOOTR #7 2 years ago

    bodypopper speaks truthhood - Valve - where is the promised support for TF2 for xbox360?

    I think a lot of the new Valve console fans from L4D would love to get involved if they had more reason to.

    Has there been any news regarding this? Or just a desolate radio silence?

  • General_Zod #8 2 years ago

    TF2 on the 360!!!!!! How delightfully preposterous.

  • FogHeart #9 2 years ago

    We've had bots playing games like domination and CTF in games like Q3A and the UT series for so long now, so the statement "AI-driven player proxies with simulated humanlike senses, reaction times, and tactics" isn't something to new to celebrate. But I'll guess that Valve bots will be better than the competition's.

    Bots that attack as a team, bots that choose a chokepoint and defend it (not by standing in it!), now that's gonna open my eyes. If I see an engineer bot work with his sentry like a human player does, I'll be very impressed indeed.

    EDIT: As for the whole cheating thing, I think they mean that the bots will not perform feats beyond what a normal player can do. So a bot will not have eyes in the back of his head, he won't be aware of the location of the flag and magically anticipate where to be to stop a cap, and so on.
    Edited by 1 at 22/12/09 @ 11:15

  • speedjack #10 2 years ago

    I do not for the life of me understand why more games do not ship with bots as standard.

    Yes I know they are difficult and expensive to implement - but you've already spent a fortune on implementing multpilayer in the first place, why then risk it being unplayable for those who are not online or crap in 6 months down the line when all your players have deserted for the next COD or Halo ?

    I still play GOW2 happily with bots only, safe in the knowledge that I'm not going to have to put up with some racist, homophobic 13 year old - and they're a great way to learn to play the game too.

  • djed #11 2 years ago

    Bots do not have heads and necks out of which to grow eyes. Human players occasionally do quite amazing feats; as if they have eyes in the back of their heads. But since they have the same basic brain as you to work with, it's ok (unless you have a grudge against genetics). Bots are programs driven by a set of rules. If one of the bots ever shoot a rocket up in the sky because his friend told him a funny joke that made cola squirt out his nose, then fair enough.

    I prefer my bots in single-player.

  • jonfon #12 2 years ago

    @speedjack "I still play GOW2 happily with bots only, safe in the knowledge that I'm not going to have to put up with some racist, homophobic 13 year old - and they're a great way to learn to play the game too."

    That said it'd be cool for Valve to release a SpewBot who kept saying "lol ur gay, lrn 2 paly n00bs" who then RageQuits every time you frag them. A sort of stress release.

  • Remy #13 2 years ago

    Wow.. might this introduce a possible learning curve to TF2 rather than the brick wall it is now? That could be interesting. I've completely given up on the 360 version though.

  • Jibraeel #14 2 years ago

    Has anyone tried the bots?

    More importantly: do they spy check >:)

  • Ced_Flanders #15 2 years ago

    @speedjack: I agree, but it doesn't really apply to TF2. To be fair, the TF2 community has not abandoned the game after 6 month to play the next COD. It is still an active community, I never have trouble finding people to play against.

  • TitusCrow #16 2 years ago

    I wonder if the soldiers can do crazy pro rocket jumps and take you out from 100 feet up - like some can THAT would be a moment of silence right enough. *goes to play*

  • Zaiz #17 2 years ago

    The reason Valve doesn't offer continuing 360 support is because Microsoft isn't letting them release their constant stream of updates for free. Something about it being "unfair" to other companies selling DLC. I mean, I suppose it isn't fair that Valve released a game worth 40 dollars easy in a pack including the amazing Portal, and a pile of Half-Life episodes, for 50 dollars, made a killing, and then gave -free support- after release. Yup. Not fair at all.

    Oh, and @Speedjack, Valve didn't spend any humongous amount of money on multiplayer. The only servers they host are Steamworks servers, which simply tell you which community servers are active. They of course spent money developing the game, but the game launched with a small amount of content in comparison to what there is now.

  • Caimbeul #18 2 years ago

    Thank god! I hate playing on-line unless its with friends but only 2 have gaming PC's (Hardly the ingredients for a frantic game) Bots are long overdue in Soooooo Many games. I have always liked the look of TF2 and actually own it but have played it only once. I got hammered in seconds and never went back.

    A combination of Bots and human players is always good i think.

  • Salaminizer #19 2 years ago

    So will the engineer get some sort of droid?

  • X3Entente #20 2 years ago

    Listen, and understand. These bots are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

  • hahayou #21 2 years ago

    Jibraeel:

    They don't fire immediately at a disguised spy, but they will usually realise and kill you before you get close enough to stab. They never spy check by shooting each other. It's how I imagine playing against a clan that constantly communicate their position to each other would be. They never play as spy themselves.

    So far I'm less impressed than I was with the bots in Quake Wars (which also had spies), but they are still more than good enough to try out the weapons on, practice sniping at, etc. I've seen pretty advanced behaviour - capping a point by standing just on the edge so as to be outside the view of a sentry stood out as smart.

    Remy:
    There aren't any difficulty levels and they're decent shots so they aren't an easy introduction to the game, but having a bot you haven't even seen headshot you is at least less embarassing than getting owned online. You can run a bot server and turn some cheats on I guess.

  • Ryze #22 2 years ago

    Excellent stuff.

    @X3Entente:

    That's right!

    They need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.

    :D
    Edited by 1 at 23/12/09 @ 08:53

  • Shinetop #23 2 years ago

    Stop messing about and make Episode 3 dammit.

  • Remy #24 2 years ago

    hahayou - thanks for the info. :) Looks like I'll be getting TF2 in a Steam pack sooner rather than later, so this is about the only thing that would give me a chance to learn it really. Getting 'owned' online isn't really embarrassing, I can virtually guarantee I would own any of these TF2ers were they to play me at Street Fighter... the thing is, they don't have to jump right in and play someone like me at SF - what's really embarrassing IMO is Valve's total lack of even attempting matchmaking for games like this, or L4D Vs mode etc. I've started to really like L4D (first FPS I could ever say that for) but it's so far behind the competition by not even =trying= to give you a 'fair fight' it can really spoil it. :(

  • Baldanders #25 2 years ago

    I dont think you can get a match making system working good for TF2. The classes would make it way too difficult. I play alot of TF2 and im good and bad on different maps with different classes. Valve will never know what class a person is going to be in order for a match to be matched with same level skill people. Plus even on maps im good on say, as a spy there are times I change my class to a class that benefits the team rather than be the class that gets me the most kills. Id say its virtually impossible to do match making for tf2 well atleast a good one.

  • Remy #26 2 years ago

    Baldanders, so you have a skill rating per class, per map then.

    Or just something as simple as an experience count played (per class/map).

    I'd be a negative on whatever team I was on!

    The point is for games devs to try, or they'll never have =any= chance to get a decent match, it's just totally random.

    Although I've played very little TF2, mainly for this reason, I'm more bothered about the lack of it in L4D.

  • General_Zod #27 2 years ago

    When I started playing TF2 I did not have a clue what was going on so I picked one of the simplest classes (pyro), I watched how everyone interacted and started to learn the maps offline. This is all you have to do really, when you play on a large player count server it does not really matter if you are a bad player as you can still make a difference but not have your flaws magnified. As you grow in confidence start messing with other classes. This is the key to starting TF2, dont join a server and go spy and wonder why you are getting hammered when your starting off.