PVE: Bot Behavior

[SunkCostFallacy]

I'm specifying PVE, as I'm interested in what people might be seeing in all the PVE modes, not just COOP. But I can only refer to COOP as my 'source' so it's quite possible that what I'm seeing isn't really applicable in the other modes.

During this most recent patch I've seen more bots in reverse than in the 2 years prior. This makes sense because the devs have been claiming to address things like the bots getting stuck on islands for quite a while now:

(Devblog for patch 0.11.6 09.06.2022)
 

Quote

Bots will now be less likely to ram each other and hit islands in cooperative battles.  

(Devblog for Closed Test 12.5 15.05.2023)
 

Quote

Bot improvements

In addition to the above changes [discussion of the improved AI in Asymmetrical Battle], additional improvements will be made to the AI bots in Co-op and Training Room:

    Improved collision avoidance system against both islands and other bots. Similar to the Training Room bots, those in Co-op battles will reverse if they collide with an island
    Bots will try to ram enemy ships less often

I'll be honest and I have to admit that I've been rammed less frequently in the last couple of patches, which is a welcome relief because one of my favorite tactics has been to pass close enough by ships with torps so that even if they DO fire the torps at me, they don't have time to arm.

But what about bots hitting islands? It seems to me that I'm actually seeing MORE of that these days ... it's almost as if, having taught the bots how to get unstuck, the devs have let the bots run into islands more often. Anyone else noticing that?

Edited September 2, 2023 by SunkCostFallacy

[Kynami]

Not particularly? Its still usually things with very high speeds or very poor turning circles that often end up truly beached. Though spots that have a habit of velcro grabbing me tend to be much worse for the bots. If it looks like you have a good 100ft of clearance between the island and your ship and you're still getting grabbed odds are the bots are just as likely to get screwed up near that spot.

[Wolfswetpaws]

I've seen 'Bots sail in reverse, during games played in recent weeks.

Either because they collided with an island and are trying to get their hull off of the beach,
or
I've seen Battleships which haven't sailed far from their spawn points come under fire, and they begin reversing and bow-tanking as though they were a "random main" in a random battle.

Both situations are "Unbecoming-of-a-Bot" behavior, but for different reasons.
Reason 1, they shouldn't have collided with an island except as an emergency effort to dodge torpedoes (which I grant is a possibility and a valid 'exception').
Reason 2, they should be attempting to sail forward and sink their opponents in a blaze of gunfire and skillful maneuver, with ramming as an "option".

[SunkCostFallacy]

1 minute ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

I've seen Battleships which haven't sailed far from their spawn points come under fire, and they begin reversing and bow-tanking as though they were a "random main" in a random battle.
 

AH! Confirmation.

I thought I'd seen such behavior, but wasn't 100% sure because it just seemed so unlikely ... I thought perhaps that there had been something that had happened prior that I'd missed.

I wonder what the devs who programmed that were thinking

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 minute ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

AH! Confirmation.

I thought I'd seen such behavior, but wasn't 100% sure because it just seemed so unlikely ... I thought perhaps that there had been something that had happened prior that I'd missed.

I wonder what the devs who programmed that were thinking

To be fair, they (the "Devs") did announce that they were making changes intended to make the game more interesting and add to the repertoire of the 'Bot's behavior.

The most recent Asymmetric Battles mode (temporary event) demonstrated some "clever girl" behaviors that 'Bots could be capable of.

Whether or not people feel the changes are worthwhile is a matter of opinion, of course.

I like that the 'Bots are improved in some subtle ways. 
But, I also feel they could be more aggressvie and use evasive maneuvers (without retreating) in order to level-up their performance.

[SunkCostFallacy]

1 minute ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

To be fair, they (the "Devs") did announce that they were making changes intended to make the game more interesting and add to the repertoire of the 'Bot's behavior.

The most recent Asymmetric Battles mode (temporary event) demonstrated some "clever girl" behaviors that 'Bots could be capable of.

Whether or not people feel the changes are worthwhile is a matter of opinion, of course.

I like that the 'Bots are improved in some subtle ways. 
But, I also feel they could be more aggressvie and use evasive maneuvers (without retreating) in order to level-up their performance.

Granted, they may well be trying to make the bots less one dimensional, and that's a good thing I think ... but I'm not sure to what extent they are willing to improve the bots in COOP because we've seen how they can make the bots behave much more 'intelligently' in Asymmetric as you noted.

The other thing that comes to mind is the fact that it's been a couple of years at least since the bots got, shall we say, less challenging. There are people who now class as veterans of the game who haven't faced a COOP bot that can shoot accurately. I wonder how they'll react if the bots get more effective.

[Kynami]

13 minutes ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

The other thing that comes to mind is the fact that it's been a couple of years at least since the bots got, shall we say, less challenging. There are people who now class as veterans of the game who haven't faced a COOP bot that can shoot accurately. I wonder how they'll react if the bots get more effective.

I had quite enough of playing cruisers in asymmetric and getting cross mapped by no less than three battleships at once thank you. Though far more terrifying was the odd matches of concealed maneuvers that handed the opposition a bot team and those Amagi and friends were obnoxiously accurate shooting over mountains.

[Wolfswetpaws]

16 minutes ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

I wonder how they'll react if the bots get more effective.

Speaking for myself ....

 

[SunkCostFallacy]

1 minute ago, Kynami said:

I had quite enough of playing cruisers in asymmetric and getting cross mapped by no less than three battleships at once thank you. Though far more terrifying was the odd matches of concealed maneuvers that handed the opposition a bot team and those Amagi and friends were obnoxiously accurate shooting over mountains.

Yes ... I admit that my reaction to that same thing in Asymmetric was ... let's say acerbic :D

But I can't see them ever making COOP bots that good ... if they did the random players wouldn't be able to grind event missions quickly enough.

[MidnightPhoenix07]

27 minutes ago, Kynami said:

getting cross mapped by no less than three battleships at once thank you.

How did you manage to get a game with so few bot BBs? 

[Kynami]

3 minutes ago, MidnightPhoenix07 said:

How did you manage to get a game with so few bot BBs? 

What makes you think there were small numbers of bot BBs? If I'm playing a cruiser I'm absolutely paying attention to just how exposed I am. Also the key words "no less than" meaning at least three at once at any point aiming at me.

[MidnightPhoenix07]

25 minutes ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

But I can't see them ever making COOP bots that good ... if they did the random players wouldn't be able to grind event missions quickly enough.

Unfortunately, I agree. I’d love the bots to get better. At the very least, back to where they were before getting neutered when subs were added. Hopefully even pulling some of the actually liked improvements from the chicken bot era, but I know that’s just wishful thinking.

Having spent asymmetric battles playing mostly cruisers, I wouldn’t want them to just take that AI and copy it over without any changes, since they were excessively overly potent and fixated on the cross map cruiser.

But some AI improvements, like actually reacting to the spotted DD running in a straight line toward them would be nice (as both a DD and non-DD player in co-op). Even semi intelligent consumable use (like not popping smoke and continuing at full speed) and doing something besides straight lining at full speed. Keep the fast pace and brawling nature that a lot of the co-op mains like about the mode. But they need something. 

[SunkCostFallacy]

2 hours ago, MidnightPhoenix07 said:

Unfortunately, I agree. I’d love the bots to get better. At the very least, back to where they were before getting neutered when subs were added. Hopefully even pulling some of the actually liked improvements from the chicken bot era, but I know that’s just wishful thinking.

Having spent asymmetric battles playing mostly cruisers, I wouldn’t want them to just take that AI and copy it over without any changes, since they were excessively overly potent and fixated on the cross map cruiser.

But some AI improvements, like actually reacting to the spotted DD running in a straight line toward them would be nice (as both a DD and non-DD player in co-op). Even semi intelligent consumable use (like not popping smoke and continuing at full speed) and doing something besides straight lining at full speed. Keep the fast pace and brawling nature that a lot of the co-op mains like about the mode. But they need something. 

Which raises the question as to what improvements could be reasonably expected for the bots in COOP without going too far from WG and the Randoms point of view. It's such a big question that I'm tempted to fork the thread, but we're already on it so let's not confuse the issue.

It may be hypocritical, but one of the changes to bot behavior that I've approved of most in the recent past has been the nerfing of the aim of the Dutch Cruisers with their airstrike. No matter how much I watched for that attack, it was almost impossible to avoid being hit by it ... so I think that making it a little less accurate was a good thing. Of course they went too far and now you almost have to screw up to be hit by it . Some fine tuning there would be in order.

And that leads to the accuracy of the bots shooting. I'd happily see the bots get a bit more accurate, but that would be a big problem if they kept up this focus fire mechanism that the devs seem so keen on. There are times when I've found myself on the receiving end of as many as six red bots fire ... and as you noted, they KEEP firing at you even if that means ignoring the DDs that are steaming in to unload a full rack of torps into their (the bot ships) broadside. I would really like to see the bots programmed to change their priorities a bit more reactively to the ships around them.

As someone who spends a lot of time in his Salem, I'm often opposed by a Venezia and I know that as soon as it gets spotted it fires off it's smoke. Granted it's special smoke so that the ship is in cover even at full speed ... but it's a waste because knowing that it's going to happen so as soon as you spot the Venezia you're looking for something else to shoot at until the smoke is over. If there's no such target, I generally reduce speed to ensure that I've got plenty of time to fire up the bot before it gets close enough to use it's torps. The bot behavior should be variable enough so that I don't have a 'standard response algorithm' that is that simple.

One other change to bot behavior that I'd really like to see is them trying to dodge homing torps from bot submarines. I found it incredibly ironic that the CMs were making videos teaching us how to avoid homing torps ... but the bots don't even TRY. I've seen countless red bots just take a full rack of homing torps on the bow from green bot subs ... yet we, as players, are supposed to be working hard to avoid the things. If WG insist on inserting subs into COOP, then make the bots react to their torps ... instead of just wasting their hit points which the players could be farming!

Hmmm ... that was quite the rant, and that was just off the top of my head.

Anyone else got other changes they'd like to see?

 

 

[Kynami]

Don't have bot CV hyper-focus on one ship unless its fairly close to the bot carrier and actually threatening it. If the bots are using the improved AI and thus are being super accurate with their attacks being permanently on the CV's hit list is beyond annoying.

[Efros]

The bots don't seem to be getting stuck behind the islands at the top and bottom edges of the map right from spawn as they were before. They still run into islands, although it could be argued that it's tactical, they do reverse to get out of it too. I've seen less traffic jams than before, used to get three reds rammed together with none of them doing anything to untangle the ram. The one thing they are still doing, and it's a direct consequence of the sub friendly far spawns, is all of the ships abandoning a spawn leaving you with either none or an extremely limited number of targets. I am really beginning to think that WG should give up on separate spawns and just spawn everyone in a circle, either that or return the spawns to their original distances.

[Wolfswetpaws]

2 hours ago, Efros said:

The bots don't seem to be getting stuck behind the islands at the top and bottom edges of the map right from spawn as they were before. They still run into islands, although it could be argued that it's tactical, they do reverse to get out of it too. I've seen less traffic jams than before, used to get three reds rammed together with none of them doing anything to untangle the ram. The one thing they are still doing, and it's a direct consequence of the sub friendly far spawns, is all of the ships abandoning a spawn leaving you with either none or an extremely limited number of targets. I am really beginning to think that WG should give up on separate spawns and just spawn everyone in a circle, either that or return the spawns to their original distances.

Player Submarines are like "catnip" for 'Bots.  They tend to sail towards player's submarines in Co-op battles, in my experience.
But, if one knows this phenomena, then one can use it to their advantage.

[Efros]

Yet another situation where the most ill fitting class overly influences the game to the detriment of everyone else's enjoyment.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

14 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Speaking for myself ....

Considering how the bots openly cheated in Asymmetric...'challenge' is definitely the operative word.

[Wolfswetpaws]

27 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Considering how the bots openly cheated in Asymmetric...'challenge' is definitely the operative word.

"cheated"?
I think it only seems that way for people not familiar with bot behaviors. 
They may do some things differently than expected, but humans can accomplish the same results (or better).

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

36 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

"cheated"?
I think it only seems that way for people not familiar with bot behaviors. 
They may do some things differently than expected, but humans can accomplish the same results (or better).

Nope.

Human players don't know where undetected ships are at all times like the bot planes.

Human players don't know exactly where shells will land the moment they are fired so they can be perfectly dodged (was only noted in Asymmetric).

Human players don't know the moment torpedoes are launched from unspotted ships.

Human players don't get the fire RNG that bots do.

Bots do all of these things.

Now, bots cant position worth anything...so it evens out to a challenge.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Daniel_Allan_Clark

[Wolfswetpaws]

24 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Nope.

Human players don't know where undetected ships are at all times like the bot planes.

Human players don't know exactly where shells will land the moment they are fired so they can be perfectly dodged (was only noted in Asymmetric).

Human players don't know the moment torpedoes are launched from unspotted ships.

Human players don't get the fire RNG that bots do.

Bots do all of these things.

Now, bots cant position worth anything...so it evens out to a challenge.

Human players normally don't aim to a spot next to a target.  Bots are forced to do so, by programming.
Humans can dodge long-range gunfire by paying attention and maneuvering.
Human players can use intuition and the practices of zig-zagging or other maneuvers to evade torpedoes.
Humans can "guess" and "fire blind" into smokescreens or aim with the mini-map.  Bots generally don't do that.

Yes, 'Bots do know the locations of ships and can sail towards them or fly planes towards targets.
As you  mentioned, there area some things which "even out" when compared.  
The 'Bots are doing their best and I'm glad that they're good sports about it all.  I like that they don't quit.  🙂 

[meatgrindr]

7 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Player Submarines are like "catnip" for 'Bots.  They tend to sail towards player's submarines in Co-op battles, in my experience.
But, if one knows this phenomena, then one can use it to their advantage.

  Agree, use this to advantage.  My problem is the bot planes that beeline right to your sub, and then loiter over you.  This mechanic is bunk.

[Roughrdr]

Only odd behavior I've been seeing lately is bots bumping into each other and apparently getting stuck together. Earlier this evening I had a match where a BB and a DD were glued together from one side of the map to abut half way were one got sunk.

[Kynami]

Well, it is true bots just do not seem to recognize a just sunk ship as an obstruction they can get caught on. Which sometimes lets you get in some hilarious broadsides or full torp spreads that would be otherwise impossible. Having bots actually try pathing around sunk ships or using them as a very temporary torpedo screen would make more sense than ramming full speed into a sunk ship and staying there for the 15+ seconds it takes to finish sinking.