Please Fix Bots' Most Illogical Behavior

[hollerbach]

@sebelas

Stop making the bots run all the way to a distant special in order to kill it using melee. Either have the bots shoot it if possible if it is far away, or melee it only if it is very close by, like in the same room for example. As it is right now, the bots will run off in the middle of a horde attack, probably getting themselves killed in the process, and leaving the human player alone to face the horde. Ridiculous!

This is an ancient bug at this point, having existed since the game was released and has been reported multiple times in the forums and at the subreddit. To be fair to Fatshark, they’ve attempted to fix this bot behavior in Patch 4.2.1 - Bot Improvements & General Fixes (Feb. 2021):

@Fatshark_Hedge

• Bots should now be more aware of pinged targets.
• Bots should now consider shooting at specials from a bit further away.
  […]
• 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.

The patch helped in lessening the instances of that bot behavior from happening, but the issue still occurs.

@sebelas

Stop making the bots automatically grab tomes because they will only discard them in exchange for healing items. The bots will also grab healing items which I sometimes desperately need when I am almost out of health, but so far this has not been a serious problem for me, so I am merely mildly annoyed. In fact, I feel that not making the bots grab anything at all will give the human player better control over the gameplay.

In Vermintide 1, there is a bot mod, Different Bots, that will allow the host to control whether or not bots take books and allow manual control of bot healing item use (and on which player/bot). It’s weird that the sequel has no counterpart feature or mod. It also has better item handling logic.

The default bots pick up items automatically, as long as no human player has an empty slot for that item, and the bots don’t care if the item is pinged or not. But, by default bots also prioritize fighting over picking up stuff so they may sometimes be reluctant to pick up stuff if they have detected enemies nearby.

• The QoL bots already pick up pinged items but that functionality has been extended in this mod by allowing the bots to swap their potions, bombs, and heals to the pinged one if they can pick it up. For example, say two of the bots are carrying speed potions and one is carrying a strength potion. If you ping a strength potion that is on the ground then one of the bots carrying speed potions will swap their potion to the strength potion you just pinged. The same logic applies to frag / fire bombs. In short, as long as all humans have an item in the appropriate slot already and there is a bot that is close enough and can pick up the pinged item, then the pinged item will be picked up.
• Healing items follow a more complex logic regarding which bot gets to pick them. Generally, bots with healshare trinket try to carry draughts, bots with dove of Shallya trinklet get priority on picking up medkits. Grim carriers also get higher priority over non grim carriers and hurt bots over less hurt bots (with specific thresholds). Also, if the setting to keep tomes is on, a bot carrying a tome won’t pick up pinged heal unless its sufficiently damaged. Some event areas have exceptions to this though, in which swapping tome for pinged heal is allowed even with full health. Generally, the logic tries to ensure that the bots who need it most or can use the heal best, get the pinged heal.
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