About bots again

[hollerbach]

@alsozara

Has anybody actually noticed much difference playing with bots after the bot improvement patches a bit before Chaos Wastes? Can’t say I noticed much to any difference myself, but I haven’t had much time to play so would be curious how impactful people think the last lot of bot improvements were.

I’m assuming you mean Patch 4.2 and Patch 4.2.2. Yes, the changes by those patches are significant and noticeable.

Patch 4.2

@Fatshark_Hedge

• Bots are now more willing to give their healing items to players.
• Bots now use healing potion if they are at 40% health rather than 50%.
• Bots are now more accurate with Drakefire Pistols.
• Bots now have sturdier legs if they decide to take fast way down the ladder (they no longer take fall damage).
  …
• Bots now stick closer when under high threat (many aggroed enemies).
• Bots no longer take ammo pouches if any player is missing any ammo.
• Bots no longer heal if they have natural bonds unless they have been already been downed once and are about to die again.
• Fixed Sienna bot not using heavy attacks on armored units while wielding a dagger.
• Reduced damage importance for infantry class enemies, causing bots to prefer faster wide sweep attacks on them.
• Added ranged weapon type classification, so bots should only use ranged weapon against targets that match weapon type eg. they won’t fire handguns at infantry.
• Bots now fire faster with rapid fire weapons like Bolt Staff.
• Bots now try a bit harder to leave poison clouds if they land on them.
• Bots should no longer run off cliffs if they are in ratling gunners fire cone or other long sticky AOE threat.
• Bots should now be more aware of pinged targets.
• Bots should now consider shooting at specials from a bit further away.
• Fixed bots getting stuck in Hagbane charge attack.
• Ratling Gunners now update bot threat box when they switch direction of fire, so bots have better chance of escaping direct fire.
• Made bots stay away from Ratling Gunners and Warpfire Throwers if they engage in ranged combat with them.
• Bot Engineers should be less inclined to use his activated ability against every stray rat.

I find that these either all work as described or if not, at least work better than pre-patch. They still occasionally facetank warpfire throwers and ratling gunners, but at a lesser rate than pre-patch. Still needs further tweaking.

“Stick closer when under high threat” works better than pre-patch. Although this behavior can be overridden by the “chase after specials with melee weapons” bug already described above. “Being more aware of pinged targets” seems to work better than pre-patch. “Bots should only use ranged weapon against targets that match weapon type eg. they won’t fire handguns at infantry” definitely works. Previously, they would shoot at Skavenslaves with ranged weapons such as handguns, wasting ammo. “Bots should no longer run off cliffs if they are in ratling gunners fire cone or other long sticky AOE threat” seems to mostly work (in regular mode). Chaos Wastes pathing seems wonky, they could still trip over ledges even if there is no enemy attacking.

Patch 4.2.2

@Fatshark_Hedge

• Added more conditions to bot healing now. They heal when they are have less than 40% current HP (including Temp HP) or they are on last life and have less than 40% permanent HP - unless they are under heavy curse (usually 2 grims with no resistance) resulting in having less than 50 max hp, then they also heal if they are on last life regardless of their current HP.
• Bots now try to revive players around bosses.
• Made bots attempt to revive player around ratling gunners if they have not been hit for 1 second.
• Improved bot target obstruction behind static objects logic, made it so they would no longer try to disengage into ranged combat if they don’t have line of sight to the special they are trying to escape from.
• Fixed bots getting stuck in place refusing to move if they lose sight of priority target that is marked to keep distance from (such as Warpfire Throwers).

Bot healing works better than pre-patch. Most of the changes here are the same as the ones in Patch 4.2 - they work better than pre-patch but could occasionally not work too well. For example, even if reviving behavior is better than pre-patch, there are still times where they will ignore revives. Needs further tweaking.

A core bot bug that is left unfixed is the behavior where bots have a suicidal drive to chase after specials with melee weapons, which still overrides many other bot behavior.

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@Adelion

You have to note that the Bot Improvement mod (even before it didn’t get updated anymore) for Vermintide 2 never came close to the level of the Vermintide 1 Bot mod. Why do you think this is?
…

• Some “Improvements” the bot contained where actually cheats (as written by Robin) and had to be removed for being sanctioned in Vermintide 2 hence resulting in a less effective Bot Improvement mod.

I’ve already replied to this above. That post by Robin was from 2017 (before Vermintide 2 was even announced) and is specifically about Vermintide 1. It is hardly relevant to V2.

There isn’t much modding activity on bot mods by V2 modders even on unsanctioned (and potentially “cheaty”) mods. There are only 2 bot improvement mods that are a continuation of the V1 bot improvement mod’s features: Bot Improvements - Combat and Bot Improvements - Impulse Control. The latter has been “Sanctioned Status: [applied]” since 2018.

I think the actual reason for V2 bot improvements mods having less functionality than their V1 counterparts is lack of modder interest. The modder of Bot Improvements - Impulse Control pretty much sums it up in their comment made back in 2019 (emphasis mine):

I haven’t tested this with recent versions of the game, so the chances are it got broken at some point by an update to the game. In particular, if you’re on the beta branch I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t work.

I probably won’t try to fix it unless there’s a reasonable chance it will get sanctioned, and I don’t [think] that’s likely for the foreseeable future.

They are correct. Fatshark has not reviewed new mods for sanctioning in a long time. Modders lost interest as a result.

@Adelion

• The modder was not able to create a meaningful Bot Improvement Mod due to Vermintide 2 being a more complex or at least more cluttered game.

[Citation Needed] Complete speculation. We don’t know that. I’ve seen no comment like that at all from a bot mod author.