Can you use "bots" in the Ladle as apart of your team?

[Cody]

hypothetically Bots in quotation: a USER logged onto multiple clients + having control over every single one.

Is it illegal?

[wap]

1. To be considered valid, a team must have a minimum of 4 players including at least one but not more than two Team Leaders.

how about you read the rules

[Cody]

1. To be considered valid, a team must have a minimum of 4 players including at least one but not more than two Team Leaders.

how about you read the rules

PFF i would but i wanted you to do the hard work for me <3

[sinewav]

It's actually a very interesting question Cody. I guess we could spend some time defining what a "player" is and also what a "bot" is. A bot can usually means AI, not chatbot. We could say the following:

• A player is one human being, driving one or more cycles.
  
  A player is one instance of a cycle on the grid and can be human or bot.
  
  A player is one human and one cycle instance.

You might remember the Illegal Exit competitions where I allowed bots on teams since AI's play incam nearly as good as humans and it's a hard competition to fill up. But Ladle is a different story; there are plenty of players and the competition is fierce. It's also (currently) impossible for a bot to perform as well as a human in a serious Fortress tournament. Equally unlikely is one person being able to control 2 or more bots effectively in such a hard competition.

From one perspective, having multiple instances of a cycle is like giving a player "lives." This certainly creates an unfair advantage to players who don't use multiple instances. However, the likelihood of these extra lives translating into some sort of winning situation is so seriously small that it's hardly worth it. Bot drivers would be crushed immediately.

Ladle rules state that a viable team is one with a valid Team Leader and 3 teammates. That's just to get on the brackets. Who actually shows up on Sunday is a whole different question. I'm inclined to say, if you think you can play an effective game using bots or multiple clients, then go for it. I'd like to see how it turns out before we go amending the rules to prevent it.

On a side note, if by some slim chance this practice escalates to people entering hacked clients with superbots that can actually win matches, then damn, I'm all for it -- as long as they share the code with the devs, haha.

[Zimblunk]

I wouldn't know where to start with the code, but it would be awesome to have a bots-only fortress competition where people submit teams controlled completely by self-written AI. (Sort of like in this thread.)

[ppotter]

I don't think it's a problem in terms of gaining an advantage, but I'd prefer people not fill up the challenge board with make believe teams, particularly if it's going to cause an earlier start (which it didn't in this case).

I wouldn't know where to start with the code, but it would be awesome to have a bots-only fortress competition where people submit teams controlled completely by self-written AI. (Sort of like in this thread.)

Like being the coach of a football team.

[owned]

It's actually a very interesting question Cody. I guess we could spend some time defining what a "player" is and also what a "bot" is. A bot can usually means AI, not chatbot. We could say the following:

• A player is one human being, driving one or more cycles.
  
  A player is one instance of a cycle on the grid and can be human or bot.
  
  A player is one human and one cycle instance.

Does it really matter what the exact definition of the word "player" is? I think it's rather obvious that when these rules were made, we didn't mean to imply that bots could play as well. We used the word "player" to refer to a person.

This reminds me of the movie Airbud, where the dog Airbud was a dog who was allowed to play in a basketball league because it wasn't technically against the rules. Except the difference is that that was a movie, and here, if we allow bots, we're just wasting people's time. People take time out of their days to play the ladle because they want to have fun and play against a team that's trying to win. Allowing a team to have bots just reduces that fun a little bit for that team.

I also see a potential for abuse here. If we allow bots, then who's to say we can't have people who have players like magglass who use a hack to make their computer help them out in-game? And magglass isn't very skilled. What happens if we get a player like him who is also really good? I think we need to make it clear that the only people who are allowed to play are people.

I don't think it's a problem in terms of gaining an advantage, but I'd prefer people not fill up the challenge board with make believe teams, particularly if it's going to cause an earlier start (which it didn't in this case).

The thing is, it does. It causes a 45-minute early start for any team with bad enough luck to face off against it.

[sinewav]

Here's why I don't think we need to take any action at this time.

First, let's recognize that Cody is planning to control all the cycle instances himself (quite a feat!) and we are not dealing with modified AI. It's just chatbots. The easiest solution is to modify the chatbot settings in the Ladle.cfg so that going AFK for any amount of time is pure suicide.

Second, there doesn't seem to be any advantage whatsoever to playing multiple instances in a tournament like this. People can barely win with full concentration on one cycle.

Third, not immediately disqualifying Cody is not the same as endorsing this practice. I think this is an isolated incident and if it turns into a "problem" then yeah, we need to do something about it.

Speaking of the problem, we have plenty of time to discuss what to do. We can imagine a future and predict a Ladle where hackers are playing with bot armies. So let's simply discuss the difficulties associated with preventing such a thing. How do we ensure there is a person behind the wheel? How do we ensure the person isn't using a hacked client? We already have no way to ensure that a Team Leader is signing up real players, so this will be very tough to overcome.

And as far as the "wasted time" argument goes, I'm not sure I agree. To me it's no different than if Cody honestly signed up a full team of players and none of them showed. Besides, some teams don't mind a little warm up against a pushover team.

Keep this in mind: My own personal opinion is to define a player as one human, one cycle instance. The problem with making a rule like this is how to actually verify persons and enforce it.

[Pr3]

I think the obvious answer is no. It would be a mockery of the Ladle if we let such actions occur. Change the rules to remove any doubt and lets move on...

[sufy]

This could get philosophical. What is a "human"? What defines a "person"?


But, in all seriousness, I have to agree with sine. Not only is this not much of a problem (as his team will suck), even if it was, there's no way to enforce a rule to prevent botting. How do you make sure everyone on a team is human?

[Pr3]

I'd rather clearly define now that we discourage the use of bots. Because even if it is hard to prove, simply stating that the action isn't allowed would deter most from the activity. That is a better solution than knowing someone plans to play with bots and having nothing in the rules to deny that action.

[Titanoboa]

The easiest solution is to modify the chatbot settings in the Ladle.cfg so that going AFK for any amount of time is pure suicide.

Just throwing this in here before it becomes a real suggestion: please don't. The chatbot can really help out when you have to type out strategies/tactics mid-round (for the times you're not on voice chat), or when something unexpected happens. I remember once in a ladle when I saw my cat run by with a little plastic bag over his head (poor thing could've died) and I obviously ran there to take it off, and I remember that the chatbot had kept me alive 'til I came back. Doesn't make sense to make the chatbot settings differ from normal fortress imo.

[Concord]

chatbot kept the cat alive too

[Hoax]

This shouldn't be interesting
No you cannot

[Kijutsu]

Technically, it's allowed seeing as there aren't any specific rules for it. If anyone has major issues with it, they'd have to vote it away after this ladle.