Discouraged. Is it possible to play against bots only?

[Renshaw]

Hello there,

Super Animal Royale is a very fun and charming game and I've enjoyed everything it has to offer except for my PVP experience.

I've played 2 hours now and I've played 37 matches. I haven't won a single game and it's incredibly demoralizing. So much so that I don't wish to continue this way anymore even though I recognize how fun the game could be.

Even the bots are a challenge for me, but I would be quite happy if I could just fill an entire lobby with bots and play with them instead. Is that possible? I'm not sure I understand how the private matches work or if they even support such an option.

And no, I don't want to "git gud" or whatever nonsense some elitist players think "advice" is. I just want to have fun and not have to worry about studying the game inside out to get an advantage.

Any information about a single player or at least solo server experience would be appreciated, thanks.

[Captain Lyze]

Hey!

Private matches are currently in private beta, which means that only a handful of people got access to create them (for tournaments for example).

And yes, you can play against bots only in private matches.

[Renshaw]

Originally posted by owl* Lyze:

Hey!

Private matches are currently in private beta, which means that only a handful of people got access to create them (for tournaments for example).

And yes, you can play against bots only in private matches.

Does that mean that everyone will eventually be able to make their own server? Hopefully not too complicated? If so, that would be great news because I do enjoy the game.

[hairy peak]

Originally posted by Renshaw:

I've played 2 hours now

how would the players with hundreds or thousands of hours of practice feel if a 2 hours player wins by pure natural innate skills?

you may need to change that mindset to play online games. learning how to play a game (or git gud, how you call it) is actually a very cool experience once you get over the fact that you are new and everyone has been in your situation

[Renshaw]

Well then, that's a problem right there. If there is no matchmaking or chance for new players to ever win. 37 games is not a small number. I even came close a handful of times which makes it even more frustrating.

But I'm not here to argue my mindset with you or listen to "git gud". All I wanted to know is if I can play against bots. Now leave me be.

[Acty!]

Alright, no advice on how to make a SOLO match, but you might make use of some thoughts here if you take the time to read. Also playing against bots won't really make you better at playing against humans since they are initially challenging for different reasons. Here's my two cents.

Well, it's a battle royale. It takes a long time to reach the skill level required to win, and even longer for the random conditions of the battle to put victory in your reach. Part of the psychology of BR games is that you tend to improve and have a better time overall if you focus on winning engagements rather than hoping to win a match. It took me ages to start winning matches regularly, and even now it's highly dependent on who is on (there are some players who are obscenely good that I probably could never hope to beat, and I'll admit to a certain degree of frustration when I see the same name pop up on the death screen more than once in a row).

I have three pieces of advice, one of which may seem a little condescending, but which I'll try to explain.

1) Be patient (yes this is the condescending one). There is no battle royale you should be able to reliably win right off the bat. Getting better will take time. If you're interested in shortening that time, try to...

2) Focus on winning fights, not on winning matches. SAR may be heavily gear-dependent, but there is not substitute for marksmanship, which, even in a top-down BR, takes a while to develop. Practice with different weapons, fiddle with your sensitivity, see what weapons you like (AK should be your stand-by while you're a newer player, but shotgun can be The Great Equalizer if you can land your hits point blank. Quick recommendation: get a shotgun and hop in a hamster ball, roll up to another player and the moment they destroy your ball, blast 'em! Good chance of victory in that 1 on 1). Hell, make it a goal to get to the top 10 if you want to focus on survival. It's rewarding! However, if you want to find a way to make individual matches less frustrating, you can always...

3) Find the right times to play. Time of day is a huge factor in SAR because of the relatively small player base (tragically small IMO). Earlier in the day, you'll have better luck getting into matches with more bots because fewer players are on. Around evening, the servers become stacked with very good players sometimes and, while you'll eventually want to get around to testing your skills against them, you might (as I have on occasion) grow pretty tired of getting killed by the same guy over and over again (for added insult to injury, they might have .ttv in their name. Jk twitch streamers usually aren't good).

I usually don't take time to respond in discussions, but I really do like this game and I don't want people to get scared off by how frustrating it might be. There is no SOLO game, really, although playing in the early morning is pretty close to that.

[Acty!]

I will add that this is a very rewarding game to play. Not only is loot pretty generous (the cosmetics are adorable and, although the item trade-up system could use some tweaking MUSTACHES *cough cough*, decent items are handed out pretty regularly), but it is pretty rare to feel "cheated" when you die. You can be outgeared, sure, but usually you understand why you died.

People love this game. I for one am always eager to preach the good word and try to help people become part of the family. Have you tried playing some Duos at all? Might be helpful to have a teammate. Hell, if you need a partner, I'm sure you could ask here and plenty of folks would offer to take you under their wing.

I've always characterized SAR as "accessible", so it's disconcerting to see someone struggling to enjoy it early on. We'd like to help if we can.

[Renshaw]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a well thought out reply.

Honestly, I didn't really explain or express myself correctly, perhaps out of frustration.

It's not that I am totally done with the PVP aspect of the game. I think what I need is just to have something like bot matches so I can vent a little. At least have a chance between matches to have fun when I'm having a bad run.

I mean it's been an epic bad run so far, so I need it even more!

It's somewhat sad that the cosmetics will be exclusive to the PVP aspect of the game. I would have enjoyed them being separate as in you could still achieve them in either mode, but not bring them over to the other. (If that makes any sense...)

I'm not very into extremely competitive games, so after I found there were bots in Super Animal Royale I was quite eager to try it. I really like this style of gameplay, but I'm mostly a casual gamer. I'll never have the time to sit and study other people's success in the game so I can improve significantly.

I'm not complaining about that either. All I want is the option to play with bots when I'm fed up at being a punching bag.

As for playing duos, It's difficult for me since I don't use voice chat and I know that makes co-operation much more difficult. I might try it, but I'm much more comfortable on my own. Thank you for the suggestions none the less.

[Acty!]

Refreshingly polite response! Not used to that in steam discussions ^v^

Good luck, man. As far as PVP goes, this is a "comparatively" chill experience, but it is still a competitive game (although far less irritating than PUBG or APEX or whatever the hell else is floating out there these days). Winning a battle royale match is a big deal regardless! Try putting the goal in its proper perspective: something to be striven for, but never EVER expected.

You're not the first person to suggest bot-centric matches though. I remember last year there were a number of us asking for a horde-mode (wave defense), but I think they don't want to split their already modest player base between multiple modes beyond what they absolutely have to. Which makes sense.

One issue is that the majority of the players have been playing it for a long time it seems. The average skill-level is pretty high, which can end up making a game completely inaccessible (the reason I never substantially got into R6:S or CS:GO). I know the game is on sale now, but it seems like it's really tough to convince people to try this game for some reason, so new players trickle in pretty slowly.

Also if you wanna do duos sometime, hmu.

[Renshaw]

Ah, It's true what you say about the long time players of the game. I experienced something similar to this in another game, Pandemic Express. But in that situation I have mastered the game and watched new players struggle.

This puts things in perspective for me. Unfortunately, that game has suffered a much greater decline in players.

I suppose in the end, it's really up to the devs to decide how to make it more friendly to new players. I hope they have some good ideas for SAR :D

Perhaps I'll see you around! Though that depends on my ping in different regions. Currently playing from Asia, but I'm a native English speaker, so long story short, I'll test the pings out when I can

[Acty!]

I did a tour in Korea so I know the Asian ping game ha ha. Just look for the dart-gun wielding roadrunner/osprey (depends on my mood)

[TheTitaniumDragon]

If this is the first game you've played like this, it will probably take you a while to get used to how it works. Learning how to play 2D top-down shooters like this is a challenge unto itself, and if you're playing solo, you're up against dozens of other players. There's also some strategic aspects to it, such as trying to maneuver yourself so that you don't end up in the middle of firefights too often - one of the biggest causes of death is to end up getting flanked by multiple people at once.

One thing you can do is maybe try and find a partner for duos via the discord, or even join a four person squad. In duos, there's only half as many teams (so twice the odds of winning, in effect), and in squads, there's only a quarter as many teams, so you're four times as likely to be on the winning side.

It can also help you to learn how others play the game; learning what other people do, how they move, how they deploy, ect. can help you get better at the game.

[Phoenix]

I feel like you should define win differently. Winning is beating half the humans in the lobby, so if there are 20 humans placing top 10 or higher is definitely a win in that game. 1st place is only a win in two player games, if you beat more than half the humans you did above average in your game. You can see how many players there are when the timer hits 15 seconds and the lobby fills with bots. (This is how I've always viewed wins vs losses in BRs.)

[Fruchtgummi]

Originally posted by owl* Lyze:

Hey!

Private matches are currently in private beta, which means that only a handful of people got access to create them (for tournaments for example).

And yes, you can play against bots only in private matches.

Any ETA on when private matches will be released to the public? I like this game but I don't want to play against actual players. Way too competitive. I just want to have fun and mess around. Can't do that with random people.

Oh, and I guess you can't progress and unlock stuff in private matches, right? Because people would abuse that to gather exp and cosmetics?

[lammaer]

Just a kind necro - as a newcomer I1m also interested in offline play against bots or to play with my colleagues only as a "team building".

So any ETA on private matches for everyone or the possibility to setup our own server?

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

Originally posted by lammaer:

Just a kind necro - as a newcomer I1m also interested in offline play against bots or to play with my colleagues only as a "team building".

So any ETA on private matches for everyone or the possibility to setup our own server?

My advice is to play on Europe, its a very low playerbase so games are mostly bots with a few players, thats as close as you can get to playing with bots only right now.

As for private matches leaving beta I assume after the system has been tested enough through events and the game is out of EA (sometime in May) we will see private matches being made readily available for more people to use.

I think the main issue would be server numbers if everyone has private matchmaking there may not be enough servers to accommodate everyone just wanting to play by themselves or friends vs bots and the other issue would be the already low player count on regular modes would be even lower if everyone could just play private games.