Yeh, fair enough. I certainly wasn't expecting any other kind of general reply to thisTopsy wrote:Bots... Even as a player i always wanted a second or third bot. We had the ability for about a week to have more than 1 bot and they are worthless. If you think one cleric bot crapping out on ya is bad, imagine 3. This doesn't even go into the constant bug issues bot have. For a while they were the soul reason zones were crashing.
At the risk of flaming i'll say, that in my perfect world bots don't exist. (no flames, its just my opinion) I honestly think the admins are more than generous even allowing the use of a bot. As it stands, 1 bot per group is the rule and it isn't going to change any time soon.
I'd have to say that the cleric bot, except for its lacking timing and ability to simply conserve mana a little better, has become more stable and efficient the higher level we have got (I mean, it actually kept my mate's SK alive when it was just us two (me monk) with the cleric, versus a very red level 61 mob in solb; although it then failed miserably against the very red Noxious Spider right after... but that's just us overreaching
). I've found the paladin bot to be an excellent companion for two of my characters, where it lacks in common sense and target switching it certainly makes up for it by being a rock that holds agro like a charm and can tank very well indeed. And the ranger bot is simply fantastic, dealing tons of DPS and rarely bugging out at all.So far, we've managed to work around most of the bugs and issues using a little extra pre-planning ahead of the pull/camp; I've even managed to knock together a tank re-targetting macro (which requires a little manual work as well), as well as a very efficient system for pulling with a bot tank. It doesn't really always work but then again nor does grouping with other people (particularly public groups on live).
The bugs are annoying but they wouldn't, in my opinion, be amplified by having one extra bot in the group - not when we'd only really want the bots to be a tank and additional healer, both of which we're quite accustomed to using already.
The bots could use a lot of work, yes, but so far (from a player point of view) I can't say I see them in such a heated light as you
If I could have had a bot in lieu of the two years I played on live as a warrior, often sat on zone lines spamming '55 War LFG' in /ooc, then I would have accepted the bugs gratefully.In short, THF offers a much more perfect world, including the bots (and in some cases because of their inclusion) than I ever experienced on Live. I'd never play Live again, not unless paid to do so (and a handsome fee I'd charge at that!), not for an extended time. I never intended to play EQ for a long time at all, when I came across EQEmu, but when I came across this server it has basically gotten me addicted again.
And the bots are a huge factor of that draw. I'm afraid to say that I simply do not wish to partake in lengthy waits desperately trying to get a group to take me on; I didn't have such a bad time of it on Live, mainly as I played an essential class (and I made lots of friends), but that was 8 years ago when EQ was probably in its prime, with the server full of almost 2k people at a time.
I'm sure the technical side of bots (in particular adding more bots per group) would be something that you and any developer would have a hatred for and I, of course, respect your opinion on this
