Let's Talk About Bots

blahwizard · 2024-08-25 21:05:15

I've noticed bots suddenly show up in the game a few weeks ago. I wouldn't have known but I was streaming and people in my chat let me know the person that a certain person was a bot.

I don't frequent the discord too often. I think there's a good chunk of players that aren't discord regulars either, so they wouldn't know. Apparently there's a list of "bot commands" somewhere but it's not actually part of the game so how would someone without yumlife mod or discord know about this? And it's not easy to find - I've heard of a google doc somewhere but haven't seen the link anywhere easy to find.

Bots zooming around the farm at super human speed (faster than Yikes!) doing tasks is just odd and so out of place in the game if you ask me.

I understand that it's a cool project for the person that is working on them, but I feel that it's affecting the core game experience on the big server. When we have high population on weekends, it's disappointing to be playing with bots. I get it if it's low population late at night and especially when bots could still be female, that made sense to me like okay sure it's a bit of a perk to not have your family die out. But even then, families dying out is part of the game. It gives other players the chance to play as Eve and to make new towns. The biggest appeal of the game for me is that it's a multiplayer game, not a game with NPC's. And the interactions I've had with real people have been interesting and fun, and have kept me coming back to the game.

Today in game here's a few experiences I had with bots --

Due to bots only being male now, I now avoid picking up male babies. I gave one a chance today because we were low on players and I thought a boy would be nice to have because we needed sulfur, clay, etc. materials from out of town. I asked if it was a bot it, it didn't respond the first couple of times, then said something like "me" which I thought wasn't a bot response, but then turns out it was a freaking bot. Why should it have to take me 3-4 times of asking if it was a bot to only get the clear response when it was too old and too close to home to kill or abandon? Why did I have to waste time trying to interact with a bot?

I have one of the bots cursed so far because I decided that I personally do not want to play with them. But I had to hold off cursing the one I encountered my last life because there were actual racist trolls we had to use curse tokens on.

Anyway, after coming to terms with the bot living, I quickly tried to give it just rag clothes before it got too old so I wouldn't waste good clothes on it. Someone ran by and gave it better clothes without knowing. Also no way to take off its backpack that I had already given it. A few things it did this life were - holding our only empty bucket, running around from the farm to the nursery with it in hand. Running at super human speeds to put down soil and quickly till the soil and water in a blink of an eye. Next thing, I wanted to replace the tile underneath the fire with wooden boards, but I gave up on that because the bot immediately throws firewood on the fire, never letting it die out. The final thing that made me annoyed enough to post on the discord and here is that I spent time making a bowl of cooked beans, one of the most annoying foods to make. It was our craving. I wanted to give it to one of our fertile females so we could get rid of the craving. We only had one. I set it down for a second to ask her if she could come back and eat it. A few moments later the bot runs up and quickly eats it. I lost my temper at that point and started cursing at the bot but there's nothing that can be done at that point.

Maybe I'm in the minority and everyone loves bots. Anyway what is everyone's thoughts?

Jason, if you read this what are your official thoughts at this point? I saw a bit of the discord conversation someone linked me to but I'm wondering if you have any new thoughts on it?

Sharpie · 2024-08-25 22:02:44

how would someone without yumlife mod or discord know about this?

...

I wouldn't have known but I was streaming and people in my chat let me know.

As per your own post, they wouldn't. Just like you didn't until someone told you in chat.

Bots zooming around the farm at super human speed

I personally haven't noticed this. To me the bots are like some loveable dumb asshat. They haven't been crazy fast as I regularly beat them to the fire and/or farming. I've only seen players zoom around the screen due to lag catching up. Not to do with bots. Any fast players tend to be min/maxing pros using WASD I think.

I feel that it's affecting the core game experience on the big server

I am sorry this is bothering your game experience. Would you feel like it was different if the bot ignored you all together or said 'No English' instead of confirming it's a bot?

Now as for my stance on bot;
I don't mind the bots as they have been a net plus positive to me. Obviously I prefer to play with a real player, but to me the preferred hierarchy is something like this:

-Active player who wants to roleplay
-Active player who wants to learn
-Active player who wants to do it's own thing
-Bot
-Non-active player/someone who ignores you
-Kinda active, then afk for life
-Griefer assholes
-Racist doxxing POS

I rather Jason spend more time locking out alt accounts and known hurtful people than bots. In my opinion you can treat a bot like an English Second Language player and still get better results than with AFKs or asshole players. I've been having fun roleplaying with the bots and am very excited to see how their personalities can be extended.

All the annoying things you mentioned are minor inconveniences to me as I see players do stuff like that all the time. It truly doesn't bother me as I believe there are bigger fish to fry

I would prefer if bots would be allowed to be female too. I loved my robot mom as she actually fed me when asked which can't be said for the crappy players mentioned earlier.

I haven't seen a clear majority for or against bots. It truly depends on the time of day the conversation is taking place and who is online atm. Especially on the Discord the topic is beat to death over and over again.

IF this is an ongoing discussion about the validity of bots, I think Jason (maybe together with Oliver) should set parameters on what we want to discuss specifically. AND set a clear time span for collecting the opinions instead of going with who is online on Discord at that specific moment.

antinoid · 2024-08-25 23:20:25

Hi Blahwizard,

Thanks for sharing your opinion on the bots

As for what Jason's opinion on the bots are, he made some comments in the discord, I don't want to paraphrase what he said, but it was on 08/09/2024

As for the commands document, I got that pinned in ask-for-help on the discord server, here is the link in case you wanna look through it:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ … sp=sharing

If you have any questions, you can ask them here, or message me on discord

pein · 2024-08-27 10:44:36

if you are so invested, you should check the discord.
the bot commands are public and not too extensive. but also answers your problems. for example you set a new fire and say bot fire, so he swaps on it. I don't really want to control each and everyone, I expect that some players will be useless toward the main tasks, and others do tasks that aren't really important for the current stage of the game. so the bot doing the tasks no one does is fine. feeding one person is not that big of a deal. that also answers your other concern. a player would also eat a food that's there if he is starving. bot actually eats whatever near fire, so you should drop a few carrot pies. his speed isnt extreme, I work at same speed if I try to do stuff and I'm on my main pc. he can also fetch berries in bowls if you set up a box with bowls in it. generally I would have popcorn and garlic in bowls near the babies. a few carrot or mutton pies. dump some soil near compost and have water in buckets, more than one if the farm is larger.
one fertile female and beans it's really an edge case. I blame the game for a feature that goes against it's initial goal. especially that I suggested it and was pretty obvious it has to have some sort of limitation. personal yum is more important than city wide variety, technically you should do one for each person in the city so like 12-20 per hour of each food like carnitas, eggs or beans. and your skilled players who cut trees or mine iron benefit more from yum than your female who didn't even reach 20 yum.

families die, but that also shoudnt be taken as granted. ever since I started playing, I enjoy paving roads but can't keep up with the distance that families are placed. the biome rings were great but the bands are horrible. 400-600 minimum each family but often 1200 away and dies out too early, yesterday was 2000-0-2000 for 3 fams, even when we ran the paver ahead it didn't reach. if the gingers survve, others could just as well with pip bonus and free stuff taken to them. distance makes no sense. trading makes no sense. 804 tiles of playable area on an unlimited map makes no sense. it's like you using a big monitor with 10 pixels of a strip on it actually showing things. tldr I don't hate the bot tending fire and picking berries, tending bushes, aka the boring stuff. fembot was actually better than 80% of the playerbase for staying put and surviving. people cherry picking towns kills towns. jason fails to understand to reward things or give options to people who want options.

bots identify themselves from age 0 just say 'bot', it's not an ai language model, it's a simple command. also just follows and as for feeding when needed, too good of a baby? so he is net positive, and if you want just block him with a few branches or say 'bot stop' and he starves .

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2024-08-25 21:05:15

Let's Talk About Bots

#2 2024-08-25 22:02:44

Re: Let's Talk About Bots

#3 2024-08-25 23:20:25

Re: Let's Talk About Bots

#4 2024-08-27 10:44:36

Re: Let's Talk About Bots

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