On your list of things to fix please include ping responsiveness, objective turn ins, and fight/flight dynamics. Since the patch that was released in the fall of 2019 the ping responsive has been non-existent, and objective turn ins (coins on blackheart bay, gems on webweavers, etc) get effectively ignored once the widget is collected.
The fight or flight dynamic is a personal pet peeve, not necessarily a problem with the heroes themselves. They are over cautious to the point that they will run away from any form of engagement, and have an aggravating habit of abandoning the core to hide in the hearth/fountain barrier if all three keeps are down. They will abandon a fight even when they deathball an objective should they take any form of damage, and AoE damage (blizzard, molten breath, flamestrike, etc) is particularly bad about triggering a flee priority.
A.I also tend to move forth and back if D.Va’s mech is exploding, doing nothing. We literally got free hits and kills whenever they “wait” until the mech is exploded
He mentioned that in the OP. It’s a conflict between their “Goal” and “Tactical” programming that causes them to become confused about which way they should run. It’s the same thing that causes them to “dance” around just inside Fort range.
Yay! I like you
I have a question. Do you think the countdown before someone gets removed for inactivity is the right amound of time. Because in my oppinion it can be 30s shorter.
Usually when someone is afk from the start it gives a big disadvantage because he is missing multiple waves of xp
I agree with the frustration of watching disconnect replacement A.I. try to help, but often end up becoming a liability to your team. I want to share with you more details of additional changes related to your feedback that we are hoping to ship in the next release, details that we did not have time to include in my original post or the blog.
When your ally disconnects from the game, their replacement A.I. is put into a precarious position. It’s like suddenly dropping a Silver player into a match with 9 Master players. It’s very difficult for the AI to keep up with humans. In the past we have tried to make A.I. more sophisticated by attempting to capture more and more game context into their decision making, hoping that it would make them react more intelligently. Our collective observations have lead us to accept that disconnect replacement A.I. will never be strong enough in its decision making to play well with human players on their own. Instead, we want to focus on addressing the frustrating aspects of disconnect replacement A.I.
Our plan moving forward is that we will be simplifying disconnected A.I. behavior by decreasing their metagame decision making. We will be paring down disconnect replacement A.I. behavior to two choices: follow the human who pinged you, or return to base if no human has pinged you. This will prevent moments where the lone disconnected AI trying his hardest to win the game by soaking top lane and getting picked off while the rest of your team is fighting at an objective. More importantly, this change will make replacement A.I. much less unpredictable. We feel like this is the best starting point in addressing a lot of the A.I. community feedback on disconnect replacement A.I.
If nobody pings the bot and it returns to the base, will game determine the bot is AFKing and kick him with a replacement bot, and will kicked bot have to win a leaver game to be added back? Some real questions here.
This isn’t directly related to the AI system, and moreso relating to the AFK player drop system.
I think something that would help ease the blow on the disconnecting player if they were genuinely AFK, and then return to the game is that rather than completely disconnecting the player, they instead have their hero deselected, UI removed, and camera locked to their hero, and then given a button they can click somewhere on the UI to “reconnect”
The primary goal for this would be that this would remove the reconnect time, which depending on the users machine or other potential factors can be longer or shorter. The most similar system I can think of that I’ve seen in another game like this is in Left 4 Dead, where you have the option to “take a break” while playing PvE. This could potentially even be added as an option the player could select in the escape menu when the player knows they have to go AFK for a brief moment.
If such a system were incorporated, the AFK kick timer could also end up being reduced, which I’d think would only be seen as an improvement, but the issue there could end up with an improved number of false positives.
Good news here, best of luck with your efforts. It explains why when you have an AI replacement they will idle, move slightly and simply just watch when you’re trying to capture a camp, or repeatedly try to turn in on BHB and TOTSQ and then stop and start again.
Like you I’d love fixes for Nova’s Decoy AI, but I’m not sure if it’s tied to the AI system in general.
Someone finally listened the the most reasonable solution. Looking forward to this adjustment. You just addressed the biggest PVP mode concern - bots replacing disconnected players becoming an even greater burden to the team. Best of luck with creating Skynet and getting us all killed, I’m out!
Good evening! I’m happy to hear that the AI system is getting more attention. It has certainly had its ups and downs. I’m also happy to hear that you are looking into AI wandering back and forth with no real reason. Seeing that behavior in the middle of play is really frustrating, so I wish you all the best for resolving it. I also wonder, however, if two other things can be looked into? AI has a tendency to drop out of team fights very early to tap the fountain, which usually results in the fight turning against the team. At this point they run if they hit about 70% or less health. The other issue: is there a way to make AI recognize that the enemy team is missing so they don’t get ganked? AI tend to push out lanes with zero concern for their own safety until they’re being blown up in a 1v5 situation that’s honestly just a massacre. Usually they only way to get them to move is by pinging them to follow you, but 90% of the time it’s too late. Those are my main concerns right now. Thanks for all your work!
I’m so happy to see this! Thank you so much for the AI progress. I’ve been an avid VS AI player since it gives me the ability to play the game without feeling any serious pressure.
The improvements have come a really long way as I remember steamrolling AI in the blink of an eye. Now, there’s been a few tight spots based on team composition that make it really interesting at the Elite level.
That said, I would like to see the AI push a little more outside of Objectives. It’s very obvious that they wait for minions when in their lanes otherwise they remain at the gates. It’s essentially how we find out who’s in our lane is just getting right at the point of tower targeting and see what AI is sitting there.
They also have predictable pathing towards Objectives and rarely, if ever, engage a human player when they’re on the way to one. If you cross paths with AI towards a focal point, they just keep moving for their goal instead of trying to gank the human player.
No Sir.
Not a single game would ever be completed and i would never have any of the amazing comebacks that I have been part of in this game (they are the best part)