Improved AI mods

[Gorwe]

What AI / Bot mods are available? The AI / Bots are abysmally epic fail lol.

[Maximum997]

I think none of them

[Gorwe]

I mean, playing with randoms is even worse haha.

[Kubers]

I don't understand how can people complain about bots, they are amazing. You can easily run Cata games with them and Legend runs are physically impossible to lose. They can dodge dance monsters, which is beyond 90% of Legend players. Can snipe specials reliably even and handle Elites in melee. They only fold to massive hordes with Patrols mixed in, Chaos Spawn and Ratlings and Warpfire throwers if those two are near them, because then bots either hide endlessly or try to melee them and get pushed away. And that's only a problem if you already f*cked up and Bots have to clutch and carry you. If they could do objectives, I'm sure they could beat Legend maps reliably on their own. You make them any better and they will play the game for you. Ironbreaker Bot must be firmly in top 10% of players at least.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by Kubers:

I don't understand how can people complain about bots, they are amazing. You can easily run Cata games with them and Legend runs are physically impossible to lose. They can dodge dance monsters, which is beyond 90% of Legend players. Can snipe specials reliably even and handle Elites in melee. They only fold to massive hordes with Patrols mixed in, Chaos Spawn and Ratlings and Warpfire throwers if those two are near them, because then bots either hide endlessly or try to melee them and get pushed away. And that's only a problem if you already f*cked up and Bots have to clutch and carry you. If they could do objectives, I'm sure they could beat Legend maps reliably on their own. You make them any better and they will play the game for you. Ironbreaker Bot must be firmly in top 10% of players at least.

They also try to melee Packmasters, act very inadequate against most Monsters(inc Spawn if it decides to grab them) and are overall very meh vs most things that count. They should really use Ranged better.

Are they better than randoms? Yes and no. Skittergate is a nightmare with them if you are not a heavy on boss damage, for example. They are very consistent(inc in their shortcomings and stupidity haha) and immune to some mech(like Sofia beam f.e.), but they are real logheads lol.

And I can say this with certainty because I saw how good they can be in VT1 with mods. They were most likely great when this Better AI - Combat mod worked or when stuff like Replicant Bots was available.

Besides, just forcing people to socialize / play with randoms is counterproductive. Especially in the long run.

And how would this hurt anyone if it was contained only to the modded realm?

[Unknown Traveller]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

And how would this hurt anyone if it was contained only to the modded realm?

We are NOT talking about Modded Realm!
Bots should be fixed and improved in Official Realm only and forever, because the separation of "Realms" itself is a totally bad idea.
The point of Vermintide is grinding, leveling and looting, without that it is just a waste of time.

Furthermore, playing solo with bots cannot and will not harm anyone.
The argument that "fine bots will divide the playerbase and everyone will play with bots only and not with each other" has always been pathetic and insignificant.
But now it is completely discredited by “Vs Mode”, which — precisely — will divide the community.

At the same time, VT1 with bots is an almost acceptable single-player game precisely because Fatshark does not control what mods can be used. You can use non-cheat mods (Quality of Life mod pack) and earn decent rewards with honest work.

In Vermintide 2, everything is much worse. In fact, in VT2 the same bots were in VT1 in 2015 with a few positive changes, while there were much more negative ones. For example "Patch 3.3 Catastrophe".

At the same time, Fatshark itself does not fix the bot, but does not allow modmakers to do this — despite the promise to sanction mods, and to use the ideas from there for the main game.

In the entire history of Vermintide 2, only one mod for bots was sanctioned:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1395655171

But after the Necromancer Update (1 year ago!) this mod is still officially desanctioned. At the same time, even in the best years, the functions of this mod did not work with full efficiency. For example, despite the settings, bots still continue to run away, waste healing potions, and so on.

At the same time, we all know how REALLY good bots can be. I had the pleasure of playing with this mod a long time ago:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2636604911

After that, playing with vanilla bots is like eating paper instead of tasty food!

In general, if Fatshark made a «Solo Mode DLC» for Vermintide 2 with the level of fixes and improvements like this mod, I would buy this DLC immediately (whereas "VS Mode" is not needed even for free).

[Rookie]

Originally posted by Unknown Traveller:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

And how would this hurt anyone if it was contained only to the modded realm?

We are NOT talking about Modded Realm!
Bots should be fixed and improved in Official Realm only and forever, because the separation of "Realms" itself is a totally bad idea.
The point of Vermintide is grinding, leveling and looting, without that it is just a waste of time.

Furthermore, playing solo with bots cannot and will not harm anyone.
The argument that "fine bots will divide the playerbase and everyone will play with bots only and not with each other" has always been pathetic and insignificant.
But now it is completely discredited by “Vs Mode”, which — precisely — will divide the community..[/i]

As I see it, I don't think that it will ever happen, especially after latest loot nerf.

The reason why Fatshark won't improve bots and will try to keep them bad is to force solo players to play online.

Same was the reason to cap loot on veteran from 300 to 200, making loot power to be difficulty and chest quality dependent - force players who can't reliably play lower difficulties to play online in a hope of someone carrying them. And the longer grind times, of course, to make them play more.

Why?

Based on current discount price Fatshark is making most money from selling cosmetics, and my guess is that online players are more prone to buying it, so they are pushing solo playerbase into online play by nerfing loot and keeping bots bad and introducing new game modes with exclusive rewards.

So, tldr - online players generate more revenue, so fatshark won't try to improve experience for the solo players, and in fact will try to make it worse

[hangfire]

That all makes sense, push the game to be "live service" fueled by microtransactions. People who only play solo or occasionally with one or two other friends aren't so likely to spend money on microtransactions to make themselves look different. I'm a solo or co-op with friends player, and I've never spent a penny on a cosmetic microtransaction in any game before.

If I tried to steel man it however, AI programming is difficult and Fatshark is already stretched thin supporting two active titles, updates to Darktide come at a drip feed. Any new feature floated around on at their office I am sure has to go through a meeting where the question "how does this give a return" comes up, and happier solo players doesn't translate into as much cash as other features. I'd also gladly buy a DLC that significantly improved bots, but how many people would buy that and not also leave a negative review saying the features should have been in the base game for free?

[cape]

Originally posted by Unknown Traveller:

The point of Vermintide is grinding, leveling and looting, without that it is just a waste of time.

What?!? Why didn't someone tell me sooner?! Just found out I've wasted 5k+ hours on just having... FUN?!

Originally posted by Kubers:

I don't understand how can people complain about bots, they are amazing. You can easily run Cata games with them and Legend runs are physically impossible to lose. They can dodge dance monsters, which is beyond 90% of Legend players. Can snipe specials reliably even and handle Elites in melee. They only fold to massive hordes with Patrols mixed in, Chaos Spawn and Ratlings and Warpfire throwers if those two are near them, because then bots either hide endlessly or try to melee them and get pushed away. And that's only a problem if you already f*cked up and Bots have to clutch and carry you. If they could do objectives, I'm sure they could beat Legend maps reliably on their own. You make them any better and they will play the game for you. Ironbreaker Bot must be firmly in top 10% of players at least.

Once you know and are able to counter their limits bots are great. But before you get to that point their limited logic often trap them in such moronic and useless choices it's instant game over. Or not quite instant, you have to sit there watching them trying to melee a warpfire thrower while you're downed and slowly being poked to death by the luckiest slaverat ever. Would be nice with a fix for some of those situations.

[Lu2]

yeah bot improvment mod was good . like you can set force zealot not use heal . they are better at solving gatling run situations and and shot generaly faster if you tag special . they still dumb in specials, monster , patrol situations . default bots are generaly worse but still usable with some carrers

[Lu2]

main advanatge of mod was you can foce them teleport to you on much shorter distances . which prevented hookrat chasing and stuff

[Lu2]

ironbreaker with shield and mace , handgun .
mercenary with shield and spear and handgun .
sister with stagger thorns .
works well

[Big Dick]

Originally posted by Kubers:

I don't understand how can people complain about bots, they are amazing. You can easily run Cata games with them and Legend runs are physically impossible to lose. They can dodge dance monsters, which is beyond 90% of Legend players. Can snipe specials reliably even and handle Elites in melee. They only fold to massive hordes with Patrols mixed in, Chaos Spawn and Ratlings and Warpfire throwers if those two are near them, because then bots either hide endlessly or try to melee them and get pushed away. And that's only a problem if you already f*cked up and Bots have to clutch and carry you. If they could do objectives, I'm sure they could beat Legend maps reliably on their own. You make them any better and they will play the game for you. Ironbreaker Bot must be firmly in top 10% of players at least.

The only things that bots good at is tanking, sniping specials, and carrying stuff for you. Also constantly getting under your sight and complaining about friendly fire. AI-wise, Vermintide 2 bots lose even to Left 4 Dead bots, as the latter at least did not obstruct your shooting. They eat elite overheads like fat kid eats hamburgers. they try to melee warpfire throwers, they ingore healing you when you're downed, and single boss can knock all the bots off the ledge with one attack and potentionally ruin your run because bots are too stupid to split.

[Rookie]

Originally posted by hangfire:

Any new feature floated around on at their office I am sure has to go through a meeting where the question "how does this give a return" comes up, and happier solo players doesn't translate into as much cash as other features. I'd also gladly buy a DLC that significantly improved bots, but how many people would buy that and not also leave a negative review saying the features should have been in the base game for free?

Sadly, exactly this

Though, if they really wanted, they could just claim the the mod, since their license grants them right to do so

You hereby grant Fatshark and its affiliates and licensors a worldwide, nonexclusive, unconditional, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual license and right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, publicly display and publicly perform your UGC, and derivative works of your UGC. Fatshark is under no obligation to use, distribute or continue to distribute UGC, and you understand that Fatshark may restrict, or remove, your UGC for any reason.

[Maximum997]

Originally posted by Kubers:

I don't understand how can people complain about bots, they are amazing. You can easily run Cata games with them and Legend runs are physically impossible to lose.

I can do cata run solo, and so what? Lets delete bots from the gamе?
Bots are garbage.
1) most classes are useless. Any ranged or melee glass canons bots will just die without doing anything.
2) they are horrible at ult usage.
3) their priority is awful. They will do anything else exept reviving downed player or killing disabler.
4) they are horrible against specials. They will try to melee every single special, they cant dodge disablers, they cant avoid aoe.
They can do something with specials only with oneshot bodyshot guns. And it is stupidly random.

5) they are horrible against hordes, just dont do any damage or generate any thp. Even against trash hordes with best antihorde weapons.

6) they are horrible against bosses. They cant avoid Spawn grabs. They cant avoid Stromfiend fire, they cant avoid or block shockwave atacks, they cant avoid troll bile. They dont do any damage.
They can dodge stagger rat ogre and thats it.
7) they are horrible at healing priority. They will heal you when you have 100% white HP and no wound.
8) they are horrible against elites, they eat overheads all the times.
9) they are horrible at positioning, blocking your LOS all the time.
Playing BH with bots feels awful.

They can exist without dying on tanky classes. This is only thing you can expect from them.

They are very predictable with their stupidity. That is the only their advantage over players.

And you can boost your ego by saying that *you are bad if you dont have 100% winrate on cata with bots*

[Gorwe]

Any further advice concerning bots?