Returning player here that has random urges to play the game during holiday. Since no matter the game mode, matchmaking seems dead already, I can only play vs bots now. Even then it is much worse than I remember. I remember that the bots is much more active in 2016-2018 where every match starts with 5v5 in mid lanes. Current bots always split up whenever a human player go near them, even when they are taking merc camp. Only Elite AI that is less frustrating to play with simply because it is less stupid.
So I want to list the issues with the current AI team mates
- AI will not attack boss and will patrol within the boss attack range on Veteran and below. On Elite they will attack occasionally.
- AI will not evade/split boss aoe damage. On Elite they did disperse as expected.
- AI will split if 4 of them in a group but suddenly a human player join the lanes (all difficulties)
- If AI is fighting orher AI and gain the upper hand, they will stop the attack if the target has 10-15% life remaining, even more frequent if there is human player nearby.
- On Hanamura temple, the first spawn big merc sweep attack will not be dodged by AI, making both side AI dies stupidly.
- If an enemy boss is destroying 1 lanes, the AI regardless of team will only try to body block the boss without hitting them. They will start attacking the boss if there is minion wave.
So it seems those issues can be avoided a bit by making the AI follows the player, but no. More issue that I found when tasking bots at all difficulties is as follow
- Allies will no longer split or evade area/ground damage except those coming from boss. This means Medivh polymorph can be permanently active unless player make the AI unfollow 1 by 1 which is harder when there is teamfight. Same with Kael Living Bomb.
- Most if not all healer heroes will stop healing unless the low hit hero is getting hit by enemies. That means if you somehow got poisoned by Lunara and she ran away, and you got Uther, Rehgar, Auriel, and Lucio following you, none will heal you since they detect no enemy is currently attacking you, and you died to the poison dot without them use the healing skill. Even setting Lucio to follow will only make him use speed aura even when standing still, he only use heal aura if there is a fight.
- If low on health they will refuse to retreat even if being set to follow the player which is already retreating behind the wall.
- When out leveled by at least 1 level and all AI following you, they rarely will use skill to attack enemy. Nothing is more frustating when you and 4 allies including Diablo and Butcher chasing low HP Cain by simply walking to him with full mana pool. Even worse in team fight where no skill will be cast at all. If you at least 1 level above the enemy, the allies will be much more active.
Now here is the issue I face in specific maps on Elite difficulties specifically
- On collect and deposit objective (spider gem, coin, etc.) They will not deposit the objective unless being set to follow, or if they already collect absurd number of things.
- Hanamura. First big sword merc spawn sweep attack will be randomly dodged by AI, AI will not push thr objective if human player is pushing the objective so they must always be set to follow.
- Blackheart bay. Bots that is being set to follow will not attack treasure chests.
- Cursed Hollow. If under leveled, bots will not capture the objective and instead hiding in the bush even if 5 enemies is pushing single lane.
- Dragon Shrine. If under leveled, bots will hide on the bush near the objective instead of capturing the shrine, bots will only take the Dragon Knight if player is not in middle lane, or near any shrine, so if you want the bots to take the dragon knight, you must retreat to town or stay far away from the dragon statue or both shrine.
- Volksaya Foundry. Bots will only guard the objective if being set to follow, but by setting them to follow will not allow them to enter the mech, making most of the time the mech will not have gunner. Same issue with Dragon Knight if you want the bots to be the pilot and gunner. The only workaround is after the mech spawned, make all bots to unfollow you, enter the mech, and ping the mech to require assistance, but it will still take 30s before one of the bots decides to enter the mech.
- Warhead Junction. Bots set to follow will not collect nukes.
- Braxis Holdout. Bots of both sides will ignore enemy zerg spawn even letting them push the cores unopossed.
- Alterac Pass, Sky Temple, Towe of Doom. Bots only capture and guard objective if being set to follow.
Hero specific issues
- Many single target or low heal hero is no different than a near dead bruiser merc. Having Kharazim, or Brightwing as allies will be a guarantee losing conditions, the other is not as extreme as them.
- Only hero like Alex, Whitemane, Stukov, Uther, Tyrande, Cain, and Anduin can you expect a decent healing bots.
- Many tank hero will simply tank and not attacking. Most famous is Chen where he simply get drunk from full health until being killed by piling enemy minion and merc or boss in that lanes. Johanna and ETC also does this, but their ability got aoe damage.
- Kharazim prefers to suicide to towet than heal other
- Brightwing only teleport to other injured AI
- Morales can’t return the coin or gem she collected as she keeps turning on/off her heal beam, she also only use heal beam during the fight if being set to follow
- Chen will stuck drinking before engaging enemy minion if he is changing lane, will also not attack if being set to follow
- Lucio only use speed aura when being set to follow
- Butcher will stop charging if the target is alone and not near any base
- Stukov when defending against boss will stuck using the aoe silence skill
- Lost Viking and Murky need to be less feeding the enemy
- Johanna use the jump ultimate to escape fight
- Imperius use the jump and kidnap ultimate to near exploding D.Va mech and land in the middle of his team mates (yes this happen even when D.Va already escape)
- D.Va will only reuse the Mech if she is near death, if she is never low on health, she will not use it.
I believe there is much more shenanigans to the current AI bots. Please make the bots use the older AI