I really like brawl, and generally messing about- i’d play single lane random (ARAM) all day, but there’s a problem.
The queue decides for me that bots are acceptable teammates, and with the lowered pop in AUS/NZ, that’s VERY often. I want to wait longer for a real game without worrying about toggling the button in time to try to avoid the bots.
It REFUSES to let me consistently play on NA either, so I cannot reliably play with a friend without punishing them with terrible, awful, bot games.
5v5 with 8 bots is the worst, most unpleasant surprise, and I do not want to queue with the bots- the brawl bots do not meet the bare minimum of fun.
To make matters worse, once you have the bots, you’re stuck with them. Don’t want leavers queue and to be punished for queue dodging on your 4 bot teammates? Well, enjoy your surprise bot match.
There’s no option to refuse to queue with them. At best, they dodge phenomenally poorly, don’t “poke” properly, have very predictable movement behaviour, don’t pursue easy targets/abandon fights that they are winning because the last minion died, and are generally projectile bait. At worst, you can’t select roles FOR them, so they stack 3 tanks with no sustain and a melee specialist and want YOU to be the heals to make an even somewhat viable comp (fat chance, bots) and lose before you even leave team select.
This is exacerbated by the current map… with the rotating treads on either side (some bots just love them and get stuck on them for 5 minutes at a time), and certain hero bots are just not functioning well… Malganis will run straight in, and suicide on respawn, and does not pull back even 5v1, healer or no healer. We’re talking 15 deaths+ in an ~8 minute game. D.V.A.? Same game, not once did she explode her mech, even with full charge, and just killed it repeatedly. That doesn’t meet the bare minimum of fun to play with, in my opinion.
Please, let us force region to NA to not punish our friends with the dead queue, give us the option to select the minimum number of real players we’ll play with, or if we’ll accept bots at all.
