Hi, sorry I’m not really playing competitive or something like that, but I noticed a few things and I was wondering about it. Is it intended for players that left the game’ heroes to hearth and sit in the hall of the storm all match? Also, AIs on pretty much every difficulty levels, in my experience, doesn’t seem to respond to pings to finish off core or attack objectives or, well, other types of pings. On top of that, AIs that are set to follow don’t attack what I’m attacking unless I’m really close to the target (I assume). Are these also intended?
I’m glad I’m not the one experiencing this, I thought I was going crazy or my version of JotS forgot to update or something. Is this intended design of the AI? Playing vs AI as support or healer is the worst since you’re dependent on your teammates but your AI teammates won’t engage or contest objectives so yeah. So far the only healer or supports I can have success with vs AI is Lucio, Tyrande, Abathur, and Medivh and that’s when I have ranged assassins on my team which i can ping to follow and actually do something. Your explanation has been very insightful.
Also, if it’s not too much of a bother, which patch notes was it? I’m really hoping to find out.
Dont worry, its not normal but its normal.
I mean its what blizzard wants, they never cared enough to fix this.
It’s not that hard.
It’s been 5 years they claimed bot answer to ping, they don’t.
Now it just stay nexus but again, blizzard doesn’t care. It’s been 1 month like this, they don’t do a thing.
1 Like
This is the patch that heavily compromised the bots’ behaviours; following that patch, AI has been constantly worsening, sometimes with really big problems (the latest were Deathwing never landing and Zagara never leaving the Nydus).
If you play “solo vs AI” as a healer or support, i can only suggest two things: play only on beginner or recruit levels (even adept if you want, but be prepared to swear a lot 
), and ping the ranged AI to follow you, especially if you’re playing some less-offensive-heroes like Morales or Whitemane. If you need to take a merc camp ping also one of the melee bots, but remember that you have to put yourself in a way that the melee bot is also threatened by the mercs so it can react, otherwise it will simply stare at you doing nothing. If you need to take a boss ping all the bots to follow you; i noticed that if you simply ping the bots to take the boss they will rarely evade the boss’ stuns or slashes, while if they’re pinged to follow they will move away from the boss’ attacks as soon as you move away.
Moreover, the follow ping/node seems to supersede the AI retreat node, so the bots following you won’t retreat even if they’re on the verge of death (don’t ask me why, i’ve only recently started to take a look at the .aitree files to learn something more 
).
3 Likes
It’s almost like the game is dead, dev wise…
What’s next? No new hero for half a year? The one remaining dev using the game to learn programming by adding random crap that nobody asked for?
Oh wait… that already happened!
1 Like
Hello SigylVanz, thanks for the questions.
Yes, it is intended they remain in the Hall of Storms until a player pings them to follow. They will attempt to return to the Hall of Storms if they are no longer following a player.
Yes, this is intended. I will explain. During testing there was feedback that AI agents who are following humans were too difficult to pull back for retreat because their leash ranges was too large. You had to run really far away in order for AI to begin leashing back to the player. We dialed the leash range down pretty significantly so that the AI will follow their player much more closely. Consequently, this means that having a melee AI follow a melee player hero makes them perform better than mismatching a melee AI with a ranged player hero. I’ve seen feedback similar to yours which leads me to believe that we may have reduced the leash range too much. I am aware of this and will be testing some adjustments. Cheers!
8 Likes
Greetings. As Nova player I want to ask - when will you fix Decoy’s AI? It sucks.
1 Like
Do you guys NOT have test realms???
HAH! Got em!
1 Like
Could it be possible to change the behaviour of the AI that she attacks the same target of the player, who she is following?
Let’s say I play Valla (Attack Range 5.5) and an AI Raynor (Attack Range 6.5) is following me. I would right click a target which would lead to, that I walk up to it until getting in range while Raynor starts attacking it from farther away. When I disengage Raynor will stop shooting because I right click empty space.
Other way around would be that I attack from farther away and AI Valla walks up until getting herself in range, but would retreat immediately when I retreat.
I still think that one of the major problems with the AI is seen in the difference of how it behaves when working with humans compared to how it works for the enemy team in a solo vs AI game.
Ally AI will defeat camps and then not actually capture it or collect the drop so then the enemy AI will walk on it and take a free turret or they will half kill the mobs on the camp then leave so they can regen back to full making the time they spent there entirely wasted when they could have been pushing lanes/getting XP.
Ally AI will get 3x as many coins as needed to fire cannons on Blackheart but won’t try to turn them in or will go to turn them in, get 75% through and then leave and completely ignore any pings to turn in coins or gems.
Ally AI will be off poorly trying to capture camps or will chose to go in one at a time when the entire enemy team is pushing in Hanamura and get murdered or drop to 20% health and hearth.
Something else I’ve noticed a lot more lately is that the enemy team is fine with becoming a deathball with all 5 in mid lane but ally AI will be running back and forth between lanes or immediately abandon the lane when you show up to “balance” the spread of the team.
I think one of the other major problems with the current AI is that it doesn’t seem to understand that the targeting system towers and keeps use has changed. They will gladly run into range, prioritize heroes, take massive damage, and then have to flee or give the enemy team a free kill.
The big problem with a lot of these issues is that some maps are just not playable with AI.
Also, for anyone complaining about the number of people with low posts in threads like this, I guarantee it is because before they had a problem there wasn’t a need to go to the forum, surprisingly enough people often go to forums when there is a problem they want assistance with.
Also while I understand that telling AI to ping things could be annoying it would be really nice if there was some better method of notification for when the AI decides to try and take a boss camp.
“Is it possible?” Yes, very much. Just look at the vikings, that’s basically exactly what they do!
“Can Blizzard be asked to fix this?” HAH! Funny joke!
I love playing against AI. And better AI would be better practice. So I am very grateful.
1 Like
LOOOOOOOOOOOL !!!
Please fix this!! Worst dev things you can do.
Let the AI hero be an Elite AI and play like in AI games mode. Please.
Even when you ping the hero he doesnt do a thing.
I have 10000 replays.
Playing with an AI player is like playing 4v5 the whole game.
At least give the team that have the dc player a little chance by adding a CORRECT AI that can do a bit of things, like AA , skills, back and not follow a hero without doing anything.
Don’t please. It’s horrible design.
I don’t understand what you developper don’t understand in 
Just put ELITE AI that can follow ping but that is not necessary.
And if they follow ping, please when i ping BACK then he must also BACK but he don’t.
The only ping he follow is… follow me… this is garbage design !!
2 Likes
No, it’s good. AI heroes have a tendency to lane by themselves, so this prevents them to get farmed.
It also helps those that just disconnect just a short time, because the hero will not stand around or take a suboptimal route. Better walk from spawn to the fight than staring at a grey screen (when you come back from a disconnect).
1 Like
I played yesterday on the PTR Blackhearts bay against AI.
Rehgar was on my team and is still unable to deliver coins. He will change to spirit wolf form just before the delivery is finished, trying again and again. Even binding him via ping doesn’t clear the problem.
1 Like
While I understand where you are coming from I don’t understand why disconnects are considered reasonable by so many people.
I don’t know if this is just a difference in where I live but if someones internet can’t handle a match of HotS without disconnecting 3 times something is wrong and maybe they should fix that before playing a cooperative game.
It was the best when he was at least going farming by himself. He was doing something.
When you see him overextending (you know by watching mini map) you could at least ping him and he was leaving the lane.
Now he just follow you everywere and do NOTHING.
Stricly speaking, nothing.
I mean 1 aa or 1 skill every minute isn’t considered doing something for me.
Also if ennemies come, he still die, as he doesnt have any concept of back or defending or positionning.
If you ping a malfurion AI for example, and you are a muradin, he will be near you all the time, watching you. When you see an ennemy or need to back, you back 10 times faster than him, because if you ping “back” he doesnt listen, and when you back he is like a toddler “what should i do” for 1 min… he already dead sadly.
By putting an ELITE AI you remove the over-laning thing of the AI and you still keep a chance for the team playing 4v5 to do something in the game.
Also i gorgot to mention but 99% of the people dont ping the AI player, even if you tell them.
So if you are playing murky, zeratul or a solo laner and you are the only one that ping her… its a problem also.
Make it like if he dc for more than 15 or 30 sec then he start being an ELITE AI… its not that complicated to implement in the game seriously.
hots is badly optimised, its not only the internet of the people.
I dont really have problems but i know some that have, and i see many DC in games from players playing in countries with a nice internet.
Almost every game i played i get one player that DC. It could be for less than 1 min or for the whole game. It could be unintentionnal or intentional. It depends. But i get almost one every 5 games that leave for more than 5 min.
And 1 each 10 games that doesnt bother showing up anymore.
And what i get in compensation? An useless AI.
1 Like
Even to this day, people seem to don’t know/care about the need of AI pinging, as I was the only one doing it in the last match. But also, once I died, the AI simply went back to hearth instead of finishing the almost dead rival. Marking enemies or structures for the AI is useless now, as they’ll simply ignore those.
1 Like
Even with HotS being badly optimized it plays just fine on 6 year old computers. The fact that you have to run into disconnects so often just shouldn’t be something that is considered okay but then again I’ve also had games where people just run back and forth in spawn so to avoid being automatically marked as AFK and just let our team lose so it is more of a problem with the community.
That being said I hate the current state of the AI. It is utter trash, recent changes have made it worse rather than better.