Bots issues

[hollerbach]

@azaroth75

• they tend to go straight for the special instead of trying to snipe it (without the mod it’s much less often)
• some other times they stay in front of a wave in parry stance without doing anything
• it’s acceptable for them to miss the special, it’s kind of wrong to wait the very last moment for sniping an incoming special (when they don’t just go and get grabbed/stabbed/gassed/stunned/flamed/ratlled(?))
• would be nice have a target command on tag, just to give them a priority (at least a couple of priority would be good)
• they like too much to hang around, cliffs mostly

Going straight to specials and attempting to melee them, and not shooting with ranged weapons have long been an issue before the GK update and is not related to the Bot Improvements - Combat mod. It has been an issue since Vermintide 1. The mod doesn’t touch decision making on when to use ranged weapons on long-ranged specials. See feedback post: Allow bots to kill specials with ranged weapons

All those other issues are vanilla game bot issues. Bots don’t tend to be proactive in shooting specials with ranged weapons. Bots like blocking. Hanging around cliffs and getting stuck are due to poor pathing.

@azaroth75

@hollerbach @GoliathGalbar
at this point, I wonder if fatshark devs have in queue something about bots or if the formal answer is “they are good as they are”.

Bots haven’t been improved much over the game’s lifetime. They’ve been pretty much the same in terms of pathing (getting stuck on cliffs and ledges and various objects) and decision making on fighting specials (attempting to melee long-ranged specials and facetanking warpfire throwers and ratling gunners).

@GoliathGalbar

Since the GK update some players have the problem that they stopped working for improved melee choices and the stay closer one.

Bots go down in small skaven hordes that were no problem before the update, the wander off even without a flamerat or a gasrat as a target. Pings even not working when they got downed by berserk, monks or others.

Before the GK update it were no problem to stay at a distance to flamerats, ping them and the bots will switch to range weapons because of the distance. After the GK update they make the dicision to try to melee them.

As per above, wandering off to melee long-ranged specials has been an issue long before the GK update and is not mod-related. It has been in the game since Vermintide 1.

With the mod, the bots still ping enemies in my game. I don’t think they can ping enemies while downed (like human players). They can only ping at the same rate as humans can and can not go over that rate.

I tried turning off the mod’s ‘better melee choices’ setting but found out that they have poor decision making on which melee attacks to use, like using their heavy attacks on horde units when their light attacks are much better suited. (Just like before the GK update.)

Each setting can be turned off, so try turning off the ‘stay close to player’ setting if you feel that it doesn’t work or makes the bots behave worse (it works fine in my case).

Note that the ‘stay close to player’ setting does just that: it ‘encourages’ bots to stay closer - it doesn’t fix decision making on fighting hordes (like when to block, attack, dodge, etc.) and pathing issues (if they’re gonna get stuck). If the bots still “die to small hordes”, then that is a vanilla game bot issue or possibly a bot loadout issue not because of the mod. Note that bots will get stuck in place while a human player is about to replace them. Pathing issues can also cause bots to get stuck in many places, and the mod does not fix pathing issues.

I’ve tried playing multiple Legend deeds with Bots Improvement - Combat mod bots even deeds like Vanguard (all roamers are elites), HBFS (2x elites HP and damage), ‘more specials’ deeds, and ‘more frequent hordes’ deeds - they are the same as they were before.

Check out: the How to optimize your gameplay with Bots guide, which curiously, recommends the Bot Improvements - Combat mod.

Note that some careers should not be bots at all, and some loadouts are just not for bots. Also, bots will follow you - do not lead them to known spots where they will get stuck.