The APM of each bot during the match is shown in the chart above. EISBot was able to win with an average APM of 207 against a bot with 3397. While demonstrating high APM in StarCraft is impressive, it seems that a larger APM does not always equate to better performance for bots. At what point does increasing APM no longer improve performance? And is there a significant difference between effective APM and actual APM?
APM isn't everything for Bots
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djsherman
United States140 Posts
The APM of each bot during the match is shown in the chart above. EISBot was able to win with an average APM of 207 against a bot with 3397. While demonstrating high APM in StarCraft is impressive, it seems that a larger APM does not always equate to better performance for bots. At what point does increasing APM no longer improve performance? And is there a significant difference between effective APM and actual APM? | ||
bITt.mAN
Switzerland3687 Posts
Well I don't think a game of mass goon versus 2-hatch mutas is super indicative, it's still nice to see the Overmind dine some time (it was against a Toss no wonder ). Simple questions: Are you able to simply tweak the normal AI (nothing too intrusive) to only fix major issues, such as staying on 3-base max, mineral-blocked islands and mineral/neutral walls, because with those gone I wouldn't feel so bad playing against the computer to kill time (and can't reach iCCup)? Also, why hasn't anyone made some insane AI's to pull off the most orgasmic, trans-Boxer MnM micro yet seen by man? Imagine, 1 marine > 5 lurkers (is there even a Marine v Lurker AI?). Or am I missing something? In any case, just because your APM isint | ||
Deleted User 101379
4849 Posts
Just kidding A lot actually comes down to decision making and how the APM are used. For example in the first minute or so i see the overlord changing direction 10 times in 2 seconds, which is clearly useless. It seems that the Overmind Bot just has horrible decision making and strategy, while EISBot is quite good. No amount of micro can let you win with bad decision making. | ||
foxmeep
Australia2315 Posts
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djsherman
United States140 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:03 bITt.mAN wrote: Simple questions: Are you able to simply tweak the normal AI (nothing too intrusive) to only fix major issues, such as staying on 3-base max, mineral-blocked islands and mineral/neutral walls, because with those gone I wouldn't feel so bad playing against the computer to kill time (and can't reach iCCup)? To write bots that can perform actions at the unit level, it is necessary to use BWAPI. Given this configuration it is not possible to just modify the existing AI, it would be necessary to first reimplement the AI with BWAPI and then add micro capabilities. On a different note, limiting APM may cause bots to act more like humans, but this may or may not be a desirable quality. | ||
MangoTango
United States3670 Posts
Cool video, it was fun watching computers play each other. I used to watch AIs fight each other in BW, back with their original AIs. Fun stuff. | ||
Endymion
United States3701 Posts
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djsherman
United States140 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:06 Morfildur wrote: No amount of micro can let you win with bad decision making. Is this generally agreed upon? What if you have godly zergling micro, such that your opponents can never react in time? Perhaps a 4-pooling bot can eliminate the need for strategic decision making. | ||
G_Wen
Canada525 Posts
The point where increasing apm no longer benefits depends on a how fast units take to respond. For example if you attack with a mutalisk are no matter what you input in the next 10 frames will not matter. If it takes 5 frames to change direction but 3 frames to cancel the change in direction and replace that command with another one the maximum apm achievable for a mutalisk would be 1200 apm (assuming 60 fps). The best unit to demonstrate this would be the siege tank. Do this for each unit you currently have and you have the maximum efficient apm. (This is to say if your apm was distributed as efficiently as possible). You gain nothing from additional apm you lose the option of perfect micro of all your units if you go below this point. Wasted apm (such as telling a character to move to the same location over and over again) will increase your APM but not your EAPM. | ||
djsherman
United States140 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:08 Endymion wrote: That muta control... So scary, I remember seeing a video with wraiths vs hydralisks with similar AI.. | ||
djsherman
United States140 Posts
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djsherman
United States140 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:08 MangoTango wrote: PvZ imba discussion inc A good ling surround will easily kill EISBot. So PvZ is not completely imba, at least for EISBot | ||
FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
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Endymion
United States3701 Posts
thank you ^^ | ||
HaFnium
United Kingdom1068 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:11 djsherman wrote: Is this generally agreed upon? What if you have godly zergling micro, such that your opponents can never react in time? Perhaps a 4-pooling bot can eliminate the need for strategic decision making. Depends on how bad your decision making is I think. And as people has mentioned before, it depends really on how is the APM used, lings are harder to micro in this case because they are melee. In this video we can see the lings sometimes kept running forwards and backwards wasting APM. A 4 pool bot can be good but probes/drones have moving shot/stacking can counter 4 pool with perfect micro IMO, scvs also have 60 hp. | ||
Deleted User 101379
4849 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:11 djsherman wrote: Is this generally agreed upon? What if you have godly zergling micro, such that your opponents can never react in time? Perhaps a 4-pooling bot can eliminate the need for strategic decision making. Well, if you only build Zerglings, the opponent can win the game with a single scout. You need at least adequate decision making to win a game, and that decision making is the thing that humans can do very easily but bots will always struggle with it. | ||
bITt.mAN
Switzerland3687 Posts
I heard someone say that in SC2 (ah yes it was the "tricks with pathing" video) if you click more times your unit won't move as quickly to it's destination. My heart, died. I had always felt so pro spam-clicking on the same spot, and it was painful to hear that wasn't only useless, it was actually detrimental. Is this true with SC:BW unit AI? And another thing, heyoo Mr. djsherman OP, you sound capable, could you please make an AI that teaches marines to micro versus lurkers (that plus microing the heals of medics to get their health up JUST to the right level to no die in one hit). I'd really love to see a perfect, and I mean perfect marine split versus like 5 lurkers. My life would be complete | ||
DorF
Sweden961 Posts
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Bwenjarin Raffrack
United States322 Posts
Of course, something like that would be inordinately harder to program, but simultaneously much more realistic. It would also cleanly allow the use of "proper" mutalisk micro by using control groups. A similar project was started in SC2 using ScreenAPI to manipulate the game interface rather than through something like Galaxy Editor scripting. | ||
Bajadulce
United States322 Posts
Looking forward to seeing the project move forward with spell usage now. The micro management of units is godly and has been exciting to watch be fine tuned. Really want to see the bots start using those epic Starcraft spells now. Lockdown, darkswarm, emp, stasis, recall, consume, disruptions web, hallucination, perfect storms, blah, blah, blah. | ||
Chimpalimp
United States1135 Posts
It would be nice if the bots were built for decision making and not for how much you can micro. I admit that the mutalisk micro is good, but he got beat by a pure dragoon timing push. It would be nice if the bots had more than 1 strategy that they used against EVERYTHING (i.e. overmind bot). Once the overmind bot gets into muta mode, it no longer builds anything but mutalisk, which I think defeats the point of the bot. It should be able to make decisions, such as go pure hydra if the opponent is going mass dragoon with no storm/reaver. Thus, the real problem isn't how much APM an AI has, but whats its doing with its apm. | ||
hacklebeast
United States5090 Posts
Thanks for keeping info about the bots coming. I think that this is the first time ive seen the overmind lose to another bot. | ||
xxpack09
United States2160 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:38 bITt.mAN wrote: Ah yes another thing I thought about: I heard someone say that in SC2 (ah yes it was the "tricks with pathing" video) if you click more times your unit won't move as quickly to it's destination. My heart, died. I had always felt so pro spam-clicking on the same spot, and it was painful to hear that wasn't only useless, it was actually detrimental. Is this true with SC:BW unit AI? And another thing, heyoo Mr. djsherman OP, you sound capable, could you please make an AI that teaches marines to micro versus lurkers (that plus microing the heals of medics to get their health up JUST to the right level to no die in one hit). I'd really love to see a perfect, and I mean perfect marine split versus like 5 lurkers. My life would be complete Yes, but the effect depends on the exact unit. Most units though will take inefficient paths unless you spam click them along the way (I think this is only true for ground units though, not sure) | ||
Mortality
United States4790 Posts
I must say that APM over 9000 is ridiculous... | ||
wei2coolman
United States60033 Posts
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Simplistik
1588 Posts
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Ideas
United States7957 Posts
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BenWeber/20110505/7565/APM_is_not_everything_in_StarCraft.php | ||
xarthaz
1704 Posts
On May 10 2011 03:06 Morfildur wrote: Nah, it just shows that with perfect play Protoss are OP in BW :p Just kidding A lot actually comes down to decision making and how the APM are used. For example in the first minute or so i see the overlord changing direction 10 times in 2 seconds, which is clearly useless. It seems that the Overmind Bot just has horrible decision making and strategy, while EISBot is quite good. No amount of micro can let you win with bad decision making. Zerg has the highest theoretical skill cap though, dont they. Because of the fast and high numbers of units, there is so much potential to gain from micro if it is done perfectly. July also has said this. | ||
djsherman
United States140 Posts
On May 10 2011 05:49 Ideas wrote: OP, were you the guy that wrote this gamasutra article the other day? http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BenWeber/20110505/7565/APM_is_not_everything_in_StarCraft.php Yes, but I didn't get much of a response and figured TL would be a better forum. | ||
Release
United States4397 Posts
yet a few spores could probably have dealth with dealt same with turret | ||
foxmeep
Australia2315 Posts
On May 10 2011 09:17 Release wrote: The APM is OVER 35000!!! yet a few spores could probably have dealth with dealt same with turret It's OVER NINE THOUSAND!! (peak APM) + Show Spoiler + | ||
Eywa-
Canada4876 Posts
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d_so
Korea (South)3262 Posts
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OSM.OneManArmy
United States509 Posts
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garlicface
Canada4196 Posts
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Hidden_MotiveS
Canada2562 Posts
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stOrpse
United States175 Posts
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aimaimaim
Philippines2167 Posts
withour zergling support .. bad decision making. | ||
Coraz
United States252 Posts
Cheers! | ||
Soulish
Canada1403 Posts
On May 10 2011 10:57 aimaimaim wrote: Muta sucks vs Goons + Show Spoiler + withour zergling support .. bad decision making. overmind only makes mutas so its not really bad decision making. | ||
JohannesH
Finland1364 Posts
And can you even make the bot give orders to groups, or just to single units at a time? | ||
Spazer
Canada8025 Posts
On May 10 2011 09:30 Eywa- wrote: Doesn't prove anything about apm, you can make two bots, one with 100 and the other 200000000 apm. If the lower apm bot is made to hard counter the 200000000 apm bot, it really doesn't matter since bots can't think. But if you could get a bot to legitematly think/react perfectly with unlimited apm, it would be impossible to beat. If someone could control each unit individually all at the same time, not sure how you could beat them. Of course a bot with great decision making and infinite apm would be impossible to beat. Nobody's debating that. The hard part is designing this hypothetical bot to be smart enough to make good decisions. The entire point of this thread is that past a certain point, good decision making trumps apm. Overmind failed to adapt to mass goons, so it lost. This thread proves its point just fine. | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
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garbanzo
United States4046 Posts
On May 11 2011 12:51 heyoka wrote: I love these videos, its so cool to see the projects get better. I'm with you. I love hearing updates about these AI projects. Is there going to be another competition at some point? | ||
Murderotica
Vatican City State2594 Posts
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