So, I’ve been trying to play through the game both solo and with one or two other people, and no matter what, the bot AI leaves so much to be desired.
•When a Special pops up, the bot will RUN TOWARDS THEM instead of utilizing their ranged weaponry (and yes, they have ammo).
•During horde fights, they take large amounts of damage, or worse, do basically nothing at all.
•When bots are trying to pick a player up, they’ll prioritize BLOCKING over reviving, even though you already block while picking someone up.
•They’re at their most useful during a Monster fight, and even then, they only seem to focus on the chaff first before even thinking about attacking the monster, leaving me to be the only one taking any sorts of damage from the monster.
•Their damage output is appalling. Like, abysmally low for what I have them equipped with. It’s almost obvious that they’re doing next to nothing.
•They seem to have extremely poor interactions with Beastmen. I’ve watched them, on multiple occasions, approach a basic Beastman fodder enemy, swing ONCE, and then get completely demolished because their block timing seems to be completely broken.
EDIT: •Bots will stand inside of gas clouds when trying to revive someone who died to the gas cloud, causing them to die as well.
All of this combined makes for a terrible bot experience. I’m having to play around THEM instead of them playing around me, and I don’t like babysitting AI when they can barely even keep themselves up.
PLEASE take another look at the AI. I’m begging you, they need to be far better than this.
Since I can play solo with my bots only, all these bugs and problems affect me in the most painful way. On Legend, a couple of seconds are enough to lose. Every defeat for me is a misfortune and a tragedy. For 30-40 minutes of hard work dies very often without any reward.
Also, please draw attention to the terrible problem of interaction between bots and ammo boxes. Many of my games were ruined when bots ran maniacally to the ammo box after each shot, or worse - they were paralyzed trying to take ammo from a close but inaccessible box.
And the worst of all is the Chaos Wastes.
It was just monstrous to deprive bots of all equipment, with such a bad AI.
Do not forget that KS a special when the bot "Waystalker, Bounty Hunter, Pyromancer or Graal Knight is about to ulti, gets stuck on their Ulti until they die !! It’s horrible and frustrating to see them gogolate.
Salzpyrе bot (WHC or Zealot) often runs with crossbow in ‘aiming mode’. Perhaps this is just animation bug, or perhaps because of this he misses many hits.
Or worse, will stand on top of the downed player, make no attempt to revive. Bait and overhead slam onto the player, then dodge out of the way, ensuring the downed player dies as fast as possible while making no attempt to revive.
Bardin Ironbreaker is the worst offender for this.
This goes for every area ground effect in chaos wastes, they often make no attempt to avoid the damage or worse in the case of blood tornados, will actively stand inside them and refuse to leave, no matter how far away the player tries to run during the time they are active, even when there are no enemies around at all.
Similar to the previous point, coupled with this.
they will run at gunners and flamers and try to melee them while getting pushed back constantly and will often repeat this until every single bot is dead.
I’m less bothered about this I guess, I’m fine with bots as basically tanks/support, but they’re still often really bad at those jobs as mentioned. But, if you do accidentally (as no one would do so intentionally more than one) take say a Huntsman bot… yeah, he’ll just waste his ult. “NO ONE CAN SEE ME NOW!” then stands idle next to the player and does literally nothing. consistently worse damage than hammer and shield ironbreaker. I ended up completing 3 legendary maps with huntsman bot because I kept forgetting to change him out after disabling mods while also being too stubborn to quit and restart. One of them was Skittergate, he was literally dead or worthless for the whole boss fight.
All this said, they are still a better experience than a lot of my quick play games recently. At least the bots don’t run off and get killed chasing green circles, or close the game the second they die when they are host because they hate seeing people succeed without them… It’s so sad how much damage a small fraction of the playerbase can do with toxic behaviour to the enjoyment of the game.
Another rather annoying one is if I get hit by a disabler in the hoard, the party will try to clear the hoard or retreat block, or melee the special (especially annoying with hookrats) to no avail.
They don’t appreciate that my death means the run is over. Even a little Friendly fire is ok if it means keeping me up.
Part of the problem might also be if they aren’t doing damage output they’re going to be constantly facing hoarde pressure.
Please do not remind me of this. Its painfull memories.
I have tried so many times to comlete FoW solo with bots on Legend. It is absolutely impossible if play fair. The number of specials is simply devastating.
You will of course say it’s ‘co-op’, ‘multiplayer’ and other words. OK. I asked for help in Steam - and I was only insulted because of my number of hours in the game. The only person whom I persuaded for three weeks to help me with FoW - first ruined my game, then left me altogether just say “not fun”.
I’m just tired of this shift.
So, as I said, playing solo is the only way for me. Therefore, fixing and improving bots is vitally important to me.
Bots really needs a decent rework, i started to just laugh at their stupidity instead of being mad or else i would freak out.
Bardin and Kruber can kill specials from afar with no problem using the handgun, sometimes they even kill ones i dont see, but if a disabler grabs me… boy, they instantly become retar***, instead of just shooting the disabler from where they at, they decide to walk in melee range before shooting.
And the worse is when you end up dying in the middle of a horde, my ironbreaker with a shield just refuses to revive me and instead he keeps hiting the enemies around me, and if a disabler gets close when im down, bots won’t even recognize it and end up getting caught.
Bots are adequate for legend and below, if you pick the right bots and equip them properly. But bots aren’t players so you have to adapt to their quirks to play with them successfully.
I think the biggest problem with them is the way they behave with specials. It’s so unpredictable and, sometimes they shoot and other times they charge headlong into a torrent of green flame from a gas rat or chase a distant globadier half way to the horizon. I think they need to shoot more often but they should be given imperfect aim or the game will be come too easy. I’ve been playing alot of vermintide 1 recently with a bot mod and they are way too good. As soon as you ping a special they shoot it faster than you can draw a weapon. It kinda removes any challenge that specials pose. The best way to play with bots is for the player to prioritise killing specials, fast. It just gets a bit hectic on cata when the specials spawn so quickly.
The other thing that needs to be changed is how bots prioritise monsters in hordes. In contrast to the OP, I find that bots always focus on the boss and don’t defend themselves from the mob. They get downed easily by even a few clan rats. The best way for a player to cope with this is for the player to leave the monster and focus on the horde, using a choke point to prevent them getting to the bots. Or just carry an incendiary bomb. Or play shade/BH/GK and obliterate the boss quickly. The bots would be better if only the bot that had drawn aggro from the boss focused on the boss, the others focus on the horde. This would leave the player to decide whether the horde or boss are the bigger threat and where to focus their attacks.
The only other thing I’d like to see is to have bots ping elites (not specials). The improved bot mod used to do this, and it really lets you get the most of a WHC bot or player.
There are few FoW Cata runs with bots now, don’t see how Legend is impossible.
Bots need polish, just don’t continue to make it look like they’re not great on Legend, because they are and it’s possible to have 15-20 minute easy runs with them.
I confirm that Barin Ironbreaker with the Shield often betrays, and does not even try to revive either me or other bots.
This bug recently led me to defeat at the Citadel of Eternity and lose 2 hours of hard work.
The only other thing I’d like to see is to have bots ping elites (not specials).
My suggestion: bots should tag elite enemies, as it was thanks to the “Bot Improvement - Combat” mod, as before this previously extremely useful mod was completely broken.
And bots should tag those specials that they are madly pursuing. This will be a half-measure if it is impossible to turn off this terrible pursuit script at all.
I agree with a lot of the assessments that people are bringing up, such as pinging elites and whatnot. It certainly feels that I’m more-so playing AROUND my bots than with them whenever I have them around.
More than a year later and this is still an issue. Even with the mod that improve the bots, they are still very bad and need a lot of babysitting.
Any chance we still see any kind of improvement in this, or this game is going to get abandoned after they launch the last overpriced career pack for Sienna?
