How to make Bots Fun Imo

[DeMasked]

Seems like a larger percentage of players will stick with fighting the bugs and won't help out with bots. I believe the reason for this is due to Bots having way too many ranged attacks and knockdown effects.

To alleviate this issue I would suggest two things:

1: Add more Natural / Man Made (ruined or not) Cover. Super Earth learns that building on planets under threat from Bugs or Bots should result in different building codes.

2: Add more melee bots. Infantry Worker Bots that would sprint up to you and punch you to death, no ability to call in reinforcements, more prolific near bases. Add the possibility of having unfinished or damaged bots like a Berzerker with only 1 chain saw and thus having less health. This way you can tweak the ranged / knockdown enemies down just a notch (while having rng spawns to allow for more aka the elusive Bilespewers).

This would drastically change the Bots and perhaps make them more manageable and enjoyable for the Bug Stomping Enthusiasts BUT WAIT! For those who yearn for challenge against bots or bugs I suggest this:

Have 1 Planet for Bots and Bugs (or just 1 of either two to be alternated) be Infested or under heavy Invasion. Make it like Liberation Campaign, perhaps add a unique mission type or two - make the select Difficulty get bumped up by 1. So 9 Helldive Difficulty would actually be 10.

[Kev]

The single biggest turn-off against bots, in my opinion, is visibility issues. They can snipe you through fog and trees just fine as if it were broad daylight with nothing blocking their sight. Maybe if the scout armor had the "radar marking" ability replaced with an ability to see easier through fog and trees and such, preferably by having all enemies have red outlines. That stupid radar marking is useless when patrols spawn out of thin air anyway.

[Gabriel]

Bugs = swarm shooting in a swarm game
Bots = cover shooting in a swarm game

Bots are annoying to fight against because Arrowhead in their supreme wisdom didn't adapt swarm mechanics for bots, which require constant cover, but also will swarm you from all sides because of patrols. Simple as

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Kev:

The single biggest turn-off against bots, in my opinion, is visibility issues. They can snipe you through fog and trees just fine as if it were broad daylight with nothing blocking their sight. Maybe if the scout armor had the "radar marking" ability replaced with an ability to see easier through fog and trees and such, preferably by having all enemies have red outlines. That stupid radar marking is useless when patrols spawn out of thin air anyway.

This is also true. Fog and Visibility should have a repeated "ping" that checks to see if the bot can actually see you or not.

We do have Smoke Orbital / Eagle but I do not know if they are that effective and if people are interested in wasting a slot to use them.

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Gabriel:

Bugs = swarm shooting in a swarm game
Bots = cover shooting in a swarm game

Bots are annoying to fight against because Arrowhead in their supreme wisdom didn't adapt swarm mechanics for bots, which require constant cover, but also will swarm you from all sides because of patrols. Simple as

Arrowhead didn't design the game pertaining to the Factions first followed by Map Design Second. The Scientist Defence Mission shows this which is why it was pulled.

Bot Planets should have more natural + man made cover and generators you can find to activate to provide more cover.

Bug Planets should have terrain that would allow the player to more easily create distance from the on coming swarm of closing enemies. This can already be found (ledges, drop offs, etc...) - but again I'm just emphasising that bot planets and bug planets NEED to be designed differently if you are going to cater to a Swarm Closing Melee Faction and a Distanced Slowly Closing Mostly Ranged Faction.

When the Illuminate enemy is added again... tweak the maps to reflect them. Super Earth needs better building codes to deal with possible bot, bug, alien invasions.

[dab88]

Does preferring to fight bots rather than bugs make me the minority? I find bugs hard on anything above difficulty 5/6 but for bots I usually play 7 and complete the majority of missions.

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by dab88:

Does preferring to fight bots rather than bugs make me the minority? I find bugs hard on anything above difficulty 5/6 but for bots I usually play 7 and complete the majority of missions.

Probably yes. Most players are fine switching between bots and bugs, after that are the bug players and then the bot players are the last. I'm just guessing based on noticing certain patterns regarding bot and bug major orders. Arrowhead would know the actual numbers.

I play on 9 for either bots or bugs. Most of my "unfun" moments usually involve bots with being sprayed with lasers and being treated as a human pinball.

[Vamandrac]

Originally posted by Kev:

The single biggest turn-off against bots, in my opinion, is visibility issues. They can snipe you through fog and trees just fine as if it were broad daylight with nothing blocking their sight. Maybe if the scout armor had the "radar marking" ability replaced with an ability to see easier through fog and trees and such, preferably by having all enemies have red outlines. That stupid radar marking is useless when patrols spawn out of thin air anyway.

You are going to just LOVE the Illuminate then.

[Jiffypop]

They need to be reworked IMO. I don't care that they have heat vision or whatever. It's so annoying that they see and fire upon you in unison with absolute accuracy from 200 meters away. Fix the barrel fire angle, fix suppression, nerf their range, nerf ragdolling from devvies, and lower ROF for all dudes and they'd be fun.

[Battle Brotier]

Originally posted by dab88:

Does preferring to fight bots rather than bugs make me the minority? I find bugs hard on anything above difficulty 5/6 but for bots I usually play 7 and complete the majority of missions.

It's just really a matter of which flavor of adversity do folks wanna deal with. Bots shoot back and ragdoll us to hell and back while being capable of regularly landing hits in conditions where we can't really even see the bots let alone the abundance of armor that can make some guns basically nonpicks, while bugs will swarm you and force you to kite if you don't wanna get surrounded and minced. Have to fight both differently.

I like the idea of getting actual hard cover becoming more prominent for bot worlds because it is simply far too easy to get whacked with the abundance of conveniently overlapping spawning-out-of-thin-air patrols catching people in a crossfire that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

When I die to bugs, it's mostly because I screwed up or something wacky happened. With Bots, unless the battle space is being controlled, it can get out of hand very quickly with oppressive heavy devastator spam and their aimbot machine guns and rocket devastators with their infinite rocket barrages,let alone the BS that is stratagem blockers on the map and the AA modifier that used to be a thing that is now thankfully gone. Winning is absolutely doable of course, but there's reasons why body counts are considerably higher on the Bot front versus the Bugs.

[Zerx44]

Originally posted by Kev:

The single biggest turn-off against bots, in my opinion, is visibility issues. They can snipe you through fog and trees just fine as if it were broad daylight with nothing blocking their sight. Maybe if the scout armor had the "radar marking" ability replaced with an ability to see easier through fog and trees and such, preferably by having all enemies have red outlines. That stupid radar marking is useless when patrols spawn out of thin air anyway.

TBH they kinda shoot where they think you are not where you are, bushes actually provide a visibly buff when inside them and not in combat, if you are getting hit through the fog its cause your not moving enough think of it like this, Im fighting a guy in fog with a big bright muzzle flashes and i can see the laser fire of my fellow bots....let me just pop a rocket in there where i last saw the muzzle flashes.

The bots LOVE blind firing in this game just cause they are shooting does not mean they can see you.

[GMYI]

Learn the game

[LoveTruffle]

Bots need to feel different than bugs, they do. They also lose accuracy in low visibility conditions, but for some reason people don't notice. Or don't want to notice.

We don't need bots to be a bugs lite faction.

[LuckyDude]

Originally posted by Jiffypop:

absolute accuracy from 200 meters away.

Going prone fixes that problem. If you under attack the first thing that you should do is going prone. In stand position automaton will hit you with easy, so think twice if you really need to do panic run or it’s better to going prone. You should run when under attack only if you can take cover quickly. If you can’t take cover, it’s better to going prone and fight back.

[BigBallinChester]

the worst thing is the ragdoll spam. really there is nothing in this game more annoying than getting ragdolled. If you catch on fire and get ragdolled it's an automatic death sentence. Also gunship factories,signal jammers, anti-air sties, detector towers can all spawn right next to each other make areas that would cost half the reinforcement budget to destroy.

Bots aren't fun, I say this as a bot main

[Mecha Musume]

Originally posted by dab88:

Does preferring to fight bots rather than bugs make me the minority? I find bugs hard on anything above difficulty 5/6 but for bots I usually play 7 and complete the majority of missions.

Bots tend to be more fun to fight because they have ranged and melee troops. It doesn't hurt that the bots reinforcement mechanics are something you can see and interact with, unlike with bugs, because the flare has a distinct animation and you can shoot down the dropships, while bugs can do a single frame of a wiggle that looks like their normal walk and then a horde spawns out of the ground.