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New Bot's AI is Lacking...

the Anarchit3cht·4/19/2014, 7:35:24 PM·3 votes·520 views

There are a few problems I have noticed with the Bot's new AI. While it is more human like in some regards, it is lost in other regards. Namely, they seem to have a few quirks that make them pathetically weak.

  • The bots now go into lane BEFORE the minions. While this is something that I like, it is easy to abuse. Now every single game of bots that I play winds up in someone getting First Blood by drawing the bots out from the safety of their turret before the minions even spawn. They still can't reasonably detect the level of threat when they have no minions around to support them. As such, they will go to chase someone to their untimely death. Usually I notice it occurs in either top or bot lane, where there are two players. Only one of the two enemy bots will put themselves in a bad position, bum rushing the two players with no support from their teammate who is either still hiding under their tower, or for whatever reason detected a greater level of threat and did not venture out as far as their ally did.

Like I said, this behavior is more human like, but at the same time... what kind of player is going to dive head first into two enemies without support of any kind? I know bots are a more relaxed game setting, but it takes away a bit of the fun in actually having to work to get first blood--which while it is not wholly important in bots, the extra money could help you roll out that new build you are trying out. It wouldn't be such a big deal for someone else to get first blood, if they actually legitimately earned it as opposed to abusing an obvious flaw in their AI.

  • The bots just stick around and die now. I understand now that they are trying to actually fight back, but given the fact that players will have a definitive power advantage over the bots, it only makes them easier to kill. They see you low on health and they come in to punish you. It's not hard to play a game of Ring-Around-The-Minions while waiting for your skills to come of CD. This could possibly be due to the fact that they had their reactions time slowed(which is good, because before every time you could get hit by a skill shot you basically would) but I think they were slowed a little too much. In this same vein, I noticed occasionally that the bots seem to get a little confused sometimes and literally just stand there doing nothing. They won't attack. They wont use skills. They won't run. It only lasts for a few seconds, but in a game like League of Legends where you can pump out more damage than they have health in just a few seconds, it really does make all the difference.

    That being said, they are extremely unforgiving now when it comes to fighting on low health, or multiple enemies at a time by yourself. Whereas before I could jump into their whole team with half health and get out with 2-3 kills, I'm lucky to get one and come out alive--so it's not all bad. But maybe the bots could have their escape mechanism improved? They don't use summoner skills, which I can understand why that would be a little complicated, but their use of them doesn't have to be too complex. It could be something simple like when they are getting dealt a lot of damage and start to run away, they drop an exhaust on you to increase their odds of survival. Or when they are running away and you're hot on their tail, maybe they can flash ahead and get some distance between you. It doesn't have to be over a wall or anything fancy like that, it could literally be a flash on the same straight path that they are walking, it would still increase their odds of escaping.

  • There are a few other quirks I've noticed as well, but I can't say I know them in depth enough(or that they aren't strange outliers to my knowledge) to really explain them and their effects as they pertain to AI games. As my understanding of them improves(or the aforementioned issues) I will be sure to keep this post updated.

Be aware, that this is speaking only of Beginner Bots, which I know are supposed to be easy anyway--but easy does not equate to handing you free kills.

13 Comments

the Anarchit3cht4/19/2014, 7:57:23 PM1 votes

This seems to have completely disappeared from the public view. I'm wondering if this will help.

HexSeal4/20/2014, 4:34:01 AM1 votes

I play bot games primarily if I feel I will be bad with a certain champ but want to play them while they are free. I think that to really try a champ there has to be some resistance. Take a champ like Ezreal. You can't expect to get an bad outcome from these new bots when they barely move, or their movements are predicable. I think that the bots should present some challenge in the aspect of they can dodge skill shots and not get lured out as easily.

Angry Monster4/21/2014, 11:05:55 AM1 votes

they made improvements and stated that this wasnt the end game of bot ai. Give them time, AI does not just happen. Each bot has to have independent programming understand its own skills.

There are alot of things that would be nice to add in. There is a reason why there is no real AI in the real world. A computer by nature does not understand action and reaction. It only understanding on off states.