Bots vs Monsters After Patch 4.2

Hi!
It seems that bots got a little worse at dealing with monsters after patch 4.2. I’ve witnessed it in actual game, then made tests in modded realm and spotted some differences in pre and post 4.2 patch version of the game.
FIrst, here are the videos of bots fighting various monsters.
Disclaimer: tests were done in modded realm with use of mods: “Item Spawner”, “Creature Spawner”, “Spawn Tweaks”, “Flight”, difficulty is Legend. There will be footage of 4.2 bots in a sterile modded environment and pre 4.2 action for some cases after it.

  1. Stormfiend
    Seems like bots are beneficial in this case. After the update they managed to avoid all the fire and effectively force stormfiend to do melee attacks only. Notice that Bardin and Kruber use heavy attacks only, Sienna uses light ones, it becomes important later.

Their efforts were a lot less impressive pre 4.2.
Though this video is not the best example due to the amount of svale rats messing around, bots tended to get stuck in flames on the ground and take damage from it.

  1. Rat ogre
    Rat ogre used to be the monster that bots could deal consistently with and avoid damage from it. After patch 4.2 bots often miss their opportunity to dodge a slap. Again, as we can see in the video, Badrin and Kruber use only heavy attacks and get hit. Sienna uses light attacks, but get slapped several times as well. This can and will lead to their demise at higher difficulties and/or in actual game where ogre isn’t the only enemy on battlefield.

Sadly, no pre 4.2 footage here.

  1. Chaos troll
    It’s a bit controversial here. On one hand, bots are generally better at avoiding puke that troll spits on the ground. On the other hand, they get hit more, because Kruber and Bardin use heavy attacks only. But why does Sienna fail to dodge in time as well?

Pre 4.2 troll fights were not that smooth. All bots used light attack on a troll, but got stuck in acidic puke a lot.

  1. Chaos spawn
    Aggressive spawn has always been a problem for bots. And now they get grabbed and slammed by it even more often than before. Again, Kruber and Bardin use heavy attacks only and suffer from it, Sienna just suffers.
    Also, Kruber used enormous amount of healing being relatively fine, but refused to drink it after getting downed.

htAtps://youtu.be/nPKwmJw0riE
If I recall correctly, this behaviour was fixed long ago, and at some point bots became okayish against spawn. In the video Sienna get grabbed only after backing into a wall, but overall bots are fine with dodging and hitting a monster even though there are enemies around.

Actually, I did some extra tests and it turned out that heavy attack only bug applied to shield weapons. Kruber with excutioner sword and Saltzpyre with axe and falchion used light attacks. Or it looked like that.

Here’s some extra footage of the official realm. Kruber died really fast and there’s not much I could do about it.

  1. Minotaur
    Boy, oh, boy, things are bad. Bots can’t handle minotaurs at all. Not only Kruber and Bardin use heavy attacks only again, but even Sienna’s timing of light attacks doesn’t suit minotaur. Bots get hit, rammed and slapped all over the place. And it has always been like that.

And if it’s not enough, here’s some actual action at Dark Omens. Bots dropped like flies, I did too. Also, it’s 4.2.1 version of the game in this video:

I’m not entirely sure, but it seems that Saltzpyre uses heavy attacks only as well.
No pre 4.2 footage here, sadly, but it’s basically the same as right now.

So, what is going on and where are the bugs? I have several suggestions.

  1. Bots with shield weapons use only heavy attacks on monsters.
  2. Bots’ block and dodges are messed up because of patch 4.2 or initially, I don’t know.
  3. I might be wrong about that one, but bots seem to come too close to the monsters now.
  4. Minotaurs were designed without bots in mind.
  5. I’m just seeing things.

That’s about it, thank you.
UPD: Done some more tests and got new results.

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(small typo :blush:)

All in all bots perform quite well against monsters, except minotaur and spawn, so exactly like players xD
I’m actually impressed by their Stormfiend and Troll fights, both being almost flawless (until the end of the troll fight where for some reason Kruber takes the yeet train)

I’ve been having the same problem- but I need to expand it. Bot’s aren’t just failing to dodge or appropriately respond to attacks from monsters, this is happening for all enemies. Going through a normal playthrough (champion) I’ve had bots die with stupid amounts of ease to normal hordes before specials even spawn (there were always a few elites, granted) and I’ve even watched them get hit by single enemies you’d normally have no problems with. (I’m talking about the enemies you find simply loitering about when entering an area). Like, the bots will simply walk up to the enemy and let themselves get hit before retaliating, which is obviously really, really dumb behavior.

Don’t know quite what happened, but their danger avoidance and ability to take attacks has tanked. Frankly I’m somewhat sad as I was really looking forward to this patch, and what does it matter if the bots don’t chase specials from a distance if they simply die where they’re standing?

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