Co-op vs AI

I agree with that, come on Riot! :D

I have been playing for about a month now and I would prefer a "Harder" Bot setting. There are things that happen in PVP that intermediate Bots won't prepare you for. Seriously, you can be in a game that is 9 - 40 and still win against intermediate Bots because they never push an advantage. I can tower hug with almost any champion and 4 Bots will dance around like fools while I pick off the minions that come in tower range. It's outright ridiculous. Meanwhile the other 4 players will devastate their top and bottom lanes before the Bots realize they need to protect base.

I have only 9 normal games under my belt (4 wins/5 losses). I can honestly say PVP is not enjoyable in the slightest. Too much drama over unranked games. I don't mind losing. Hearing my teammates whine about everything simply annoys me. It makes me wonder if the average age of a LoL player is under 16, since the trash talking is remarkably immature.

But I do like the challenge, and Intermediate Bots are not doing that. The whole "go back to Bots" insult holds almost no weight when there is no challenge at this level of AI.

First thing about my idea of a Hard Bot setting would be to add Assassins. You almost never see an Assassin in a Bot game. Occasionally you'll see Nidalee, but in 200+ games I have never seen Talon/Zed/Shaco/Katarina. I can't even recall seeing a Master Yi. How can anyone step into the ring of PVP without some idea on how an Assassin operates? I remember one of my losses I was pretty much learning how Talon worked (aka dying/feeding).

Now I realize this addition messes with the system of Tank/Fighter/Mage/Support/Marksmen that the AI picks from. It complicates things. But I'm sure a little program tweaking could fix that by prioritizing picks. AI first randoms the Marksmen and then Support. If the Support is also a Tank or Mage, this would impact whether or not a Tank or Mage gets picked for top or mid.

Second thing a Hard Bot setting would require is a tweak in the self preservation. 4 Bots should not be afraid to 1 v 4 someone under a tower with minions. They can take a little damage if they can secure a kill.

Third thing would be utilizing bushes and ganks. Some Intermediate bots do this (though it seems more accidental). Warding is essentially useless in Intermediate games, as the Bots don't really pose any "surprise" threats. I am not entirely sure how to program an AI to do this effectively without it becoming an easily exploited pattern. I think the best way would be to link the AI's decision to gank based on the health of the target and the units between them.

Perhaps tying in with the ganking would be some sort of early roam for at least one of the top lane bots. I can't begin to express how frustrating top lane is when we have a jungler. The bots harass you mercilessly for a needlessly long period of time (like 10 minutes). It's not hard because they won't tower dive so you get your cs by tower hugging, and you basically keep up cs/exp wise with two bots. This can make the game quickly unbalanced in your favor if your jungler is decent and can out-level your top lane.

So in my idea of Hard Bots, one of the top would eventually abandon the lane to "jungle". Presently I suspect the reason they don't is due to the self preservation mechanics (fighting jungle early level is risky from my experience). Perhaps once they hit level three...?

I have noticed that the AI for the bots seems fairly locked in. Certain champions will always be in certain lanes and will behave in certain roles. For some reason Nidalee seems tagged as a Marksmen. Kayle is tagged as Support. My ideas for Hard Bots would probably never utilize the current AI, so either different champions would be used or a different AI for the same character would be required. Thankfully there are dozens of champions that lack an AI that it is very easy to come up with a Hard Bot scenario that would introduce PVE players to new skill sets to counter.

Example would be AI randomizer picks Vayne for Marksmen. It follows with Thresh as Support. This drops Twisted Fate as the Mage in mid. Follow this with Singed as the top and Shaco as their top/jungle.

A second example picks Lucien for Marksmen. It follows with Sona as Support. Places Akali in mid. Follow with Riven top and Rengar top/jungle.

I could go on, but there are so many champions that are never seen.

So bring on a Harder setting, please. I don't mind losing a few games to a superior AI.