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This is indescribably exciting. Can't wait to see OpenAI Five tear through the human players just like what the single bot did to 'Dendi' -- a professional game

This is indescribably exciting. Can't wait to see OpenAI Five tear through the human players just like what the single bot did to 'Dendi' -- a professional gamer -- during the International 7 tournament in August last year. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiOopO9jTZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiOopO9jTZw

TaupeRanger 8y ago
It's not that exciting and it's very easy to beat humans at games when your reaction times are far faster and you have access to more information at a single moment in time. It's like being impressed by a calculator.
- eerikkivistik 8y ago
  Well yes and no. Sure, micro is a large part of Dota, but planning and coordination is worth as much. So reaction time gives you an advantage in one spectrum, but I think the real benchmark will be macro scale planning and coordination. Same applies to the Starcraft AI competition, where the bots still lose due to macro planning.
- kenning 8y ago
  dota 2 is not as extreme about this as, say, starcraft. in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give orders to your troops ("micro"). This is an example of a strategy that is not viable without superhuman reactions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs if you directly attack 20 siege tanks with 100 zerglings you will only kill about two siege tanks, but an AI can kill all the siege tanks with some zerglings left over. There's some of this in dota, but there's a cap on the skill level for most playable characters that pros generally get "close enough" to, and beyond that the strategic depth comes from area control decisionmaking. Theres over 100 heroes and many of them have really weird abilities, like the possibility of creating a temporary wall (earthshaker) or the ability to teleport anywhere on the map every 20 seconds (furion). I could be wrong though, maybe the AI is winning games by playing heroes with long range and perfectly microing them to harass and prevent the other team from ever getting gold/xp.
  - eerikkivistik 8y ago
    I think we made the same point at the same time :D
  - halflings 8y ago
    > in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give orders to your troops ("micro") As somebody who plays StarCraft casually (gold/low plat in ladder), this is not true. It's even less true for pro players. The level of strategy in StarCraft is impressive, it's really hard to guess in which direction games will go when two very good players are playing against each other. Sure, perfect execution when it comes to one strategy (say, mech-heavy Terran) will give you the largest advantage against your opponent, but failing to scout appropriately and guess what your opponent is up to means your strategy is dead. You also have to decide when to attack, how much you're willing to sacrifice to damage somebody's economy, when you want to focus one economy vs building units, ... The video you sent with zerglings is a gimmick made for fun (it's a hard-coded AI using the siege tank's aim logic to divert zerglings from that). That would not win you a game. (because most likely a pro Terran would have destroyed your base before that)
    - fizx 8y ago
      I wonder how far you'd get with a bot that macros perfectly but also A-moves 2-3 groups.
      - halflings 8y ago
        What does "macro perfectly" mean? If it does the same strategy over and over, you just scout, find its strategy, and go for the counter. Its macro will be useless if it has the wrong type of unit. In a way, the built-in AIs "macro perfectly", but they are terrible at strategy and fighting (because even fights are not just a matter of gimmicks, you need to split units in a special way, send diversions, attack at the same time from multiple fronts, etc.)
- pixelbash 8y ago
  What information do they have access to? I do think a simulated reaction time or limited actions per second might be more fair, if they don’t have that already..
  - dx87 8y ago
    They have an artificial restriction of 200ms for their reaction time, and their actions per second is similar to human players. The main information the bots have that players don't is exact coordinates of everything they can see, and the amount of damage attacks and spells do. The bots know with 100 percent certainty that a spell or attack is in range before they use it, whereas the human players would have to base it off visuals, or press another button to bring up their spell's range indicators. Having the damage of attacks memorized allows the bots to know if an incoming projectile will kill them, that allows them to not waste healing resources if they know they'll survive. The bots also move based on coordinates, so misclicking and mouse travel time aren't an issue for them.
- pedrosorio 8y ago
  "We’ve increased the reaction time of OpenAI Five from 80ms to 200ms. This reaction time is much closer to human level, though we haven’t seen evidence of changes in gameplay as OpenAI Five’s strength comes more from teamwork and coordination than reflexes."
  - minimaxir 8y ago
    Notably a lot of the clutch plays in Game #1 by OpenAI were due to very well timed skills.
    - Arxiss 8y ago
      Dota 2 player here, they "timed" it well because human players were in the vision. Humans can also do that by precasting a spell.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hackandtrip 8y ago
  Reaction times are limited to 200ms; it's all about the meta and the group tactics, and bot are apparently really good at it.
  - skgoa 8y ago
    The bots have perfect information (when the enemy is in vision) and perfect micromanagement through the API. A huge part of the challenge in dota is processing the viuals and audio cues from the game quickly and acting the limited information you have precisely. The bots get to take a shortcut around all of that.
erk__ 8y ago
When you post that you should also add how fast players were able to find a strategy that the bot could not understand and make it lose the game.

TaupeRanger 8y ago

It's not that exciting and it's very easy to beat humans at games when your reaction times are far faster and you have access to more information at a single moment in time. It's like being impressed by a calculator.

eerikkivistik 8y ago
Well yes and no. Sure, micro is a large part of Dota, but planning and coordination is worth as much. So reaction time gives you an advantage in one spectrum, but I think the real benchmark will be macro scale planning and coordination. Same applies to the Starcraft AI competition, where the bots still lose due to macro planning.
kenning 8y ago
dota 2 is not as extreme about this as, say, starcraft. in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give orders to your troops ("micro"). This is an example of a strategy that is not viable without superhuman reactions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs if you directly attack 20 siege tanks with 100 zerglings you will only kill about two siege tanks, but an AI can kill all the siege tanks with some zerglings left over. There's some of this in dota, but there's a cap on the skill level for most playable characters that pros generally get "close enough" to, and beyond that the strategic depth comes from area control decisionmaking. Theres over 100 heroes and many of them have really weird abilities, like the possibility of creating a temporary wall (earthshaker) or the ability to teleport anywhere on the map every 20 seconds (furion). I could be wrong though, maybe the AI is winning games by playing heroes with long range and perfectly microing them to harass and prevent the other team from ever getting gold/xp.
- eerikkivistik 8y ago
  I think we made the same point at the same time :D
- halflings 8y ago
  > in starcraft, most "strategies" are heavily scripted build orders that almost never deviate from a handful of openings (similar to opening moves in chess) and a large amount of winning comes from the ability to quickly give orders to your troops ("micro") As somebody who plays StarCraft casually (gold/low plat in ladder), this is not true. It's even less true for pro players. The level of strategy in StarCraft is impressive, it's really hard to guess in which direction games will go when two very good players are playing against each other. Sure, perfect execution when it comes to one strategy (say, mech-heavy Terran) will give you the largest advantage against your opponent, but failing to scout appropriately and guess what your opponent is up to means your strategy is dead. You also have to decide when to attack, how much you're willing to sacrifice to damage somebody's economy, when you want to focus one economy vs building units, ... The video you sent with zerglings is a gimmick made for fun (it's a hard-coded AI using the siege tank's aim logic to divert zerglings from that). That would not win you a game. (because most likely a pro Terran would have destroyed your base before that)
  - fizx 8y ago
    I wonder how far you'd get with a bot that macros perfectly but also A-moves 2-3 groups.
    - halflings 8y ago
      What does "macro perfectly" mean? If it does the same strategy over and over, you just scout, find its strategy, and go for the counter. Its macro will be useless if it has the wrong type of unit. In a way, the built-in AIs "macro perfectly", but they are terrible at strategy and fighting (because even fights are not just a matter of gimmicks, you need to split units in a special way, send diversions, attack at the same time from multiple fronts, etc.)
pixelbash 8y ago
What information do they have access to? I do think a simulated reaction time or limited actions per second might be more fair, if they don’t have that already..
- dx87 8y ago
  They have an artificial restriction of 200ms for their reaction time, and their actions per second is similar to human players. The main information the bots have that players don't is exact coordinates of everything they can see, and the amount of damage attacks and spells do. The bots know with 100 percent certainty that a spell or attack is in range before they use it, whereas the human players would have to base it off visuals, or press another button to bring up their spell's range indicators. Having the damage of attacks memorized allows the bots to know if an incoming projectile will kill them, that allows them to not waste healing resources if they know they'll survive. The bots also move based on coordinates, so misclicking and mouse travel time aren't an issue for them.
pedrosorio 8y ago
"We’ve increased the reaction time of OpenAI Five from 80ms to 200ms. This reaction time is much closer to human level, though we haven’t seen evidence of changes in gameplay as OpenAI Five’s strength comes more from teamwork and coordination than reflexes."
- minimaxir 8y ago
  Notably a lot of the clutch plays in Game #1 by OpenAI were due to very well timed skills.
  - Arxiss 8y ago
    Dota 2 player here, they "timed" it well because human players were in the vision. Humans can also do that by precasting a spell.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hackandtrip 8y ago
Reaction times are limited to 200ms; it's all about the meta and the group tactics, and bot are apparently really good at it.
- skgoa 8y ago
  The bots have perfect information (when the enemy is in vision) and perfect micromanagement through the API. A huge part of the challenge in dota is processing the viuals and audio cues from the game quickly and acting the limited information you have precisely. The bots get to take a shortcut around all of that.

erk__ 8y ago

When you post that you should also add how fast players were able to find a strategy that the bot could not understand and make it lose the game.