What the hell happened to Versus AI?!

(Super-Pangolin) #1

Playing Versus used to be the only way to escape completely brain-dead friendly bots and Carb-9 sniping enemies… or at least until today? :confused:

Has some crazy Necvar adjusting been going on? Because playing Versus by myself for hours today has been INSANE. Levelling up my Medium Medic character, if I’m not spawning to see seven yellow circles dotting the battlefield, then I’m jumping out of the spawn with the entire team ambling behind me. For every 1 enemy a friendly kills, the enemy kills 4 friendlies… which I’m not even kidding about, that seemed to be the average. Playing with ONE human, the enemy AI is now as difficult as it used to be playing with a WHOLE TEAM of humans.

Today I’ve just been getting slaughtered on objectives I would usually attack/defend with a lot less hassle. I don’t play the game to have a singleplayer experience, the bots are supposed to replicate a MP experience… and having to carry the team by myself and ending on double the XP of the next bot is what I expect from Solo or Co-Op play, not Versus.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s experiencing a sudden retardation of friendly AI? People complained about the stupidity of friendly AI and aimbotting enemy AI, and I used to be able to tell them “just play Versus, it balances AI out”, but if today is a sign of things to come I don’t think I’ll be able to say that anymore. :frowning:

(TwwIX) #2

Yep. The latest patch made the friendly AI even more useless while the enemy AI has become even more difficult to play with it. I am getting one shotted with SMG’s from across the map. It’s not enjoyable at all even if there are actual people on your team.

(kiunk) #3

I havent noticed a major change in the AI in ‘versus’ as opposed to regular ‘freeplay’.
BUT, the AI on versus always presented a tougher challenge imo, particularly attacking.
Not because of the opposition strengths(likelyhood of headshots), more the ineptitude of your teams bots.

As a challenge alone, the only method i’ve found to completing objectives every game without fail is : MEDIC… keep your whole team alive at the objective, single handedly killing every wave of incoming enemy. They will complete the primary objective when the coast is clear.

I learned real quick that choosing primary objective class is far riskier, due to your bots offering little help on long final objectives. ie shipyard/resort hacks

(Exedore) #4

Any more info you can provide is appreciated; this shouldn’t have changed.

(Super-Pangolin) #5

[QUOTE=kiunk;346423]BUT, the AI on versus always presented a tougher challenge imo, particularly attacking.
Not because of the opposition strengths(likelyhood of headshots), more the ineptitude of your teams bots.[/QUOTE]
Oh hey, seen you around in-game a lot. :smiley: The AI is supposed to be more balanced in Versus, because of the fact that humans can play on EITHER side. If one side has better AI that’s not exactly fair. It usually does make AI better for one side if the other has more humans though, and the AI today felt as difficult with just me as it usually does when you play with a full team of humans.

Well it just seems that playing Versus is insanely harder than it used to be. The enemy bots aren’t necessarily better, the friendly bots just seem to be more incompetent.

For example, I cannot for the life of me defend the first objective of Resort playing Versus. I usually have a hard time, but often manage to successfully defend the pillar from Resistance. I’ve played it several times today, but each time around 2:00-4:00 on the countdown timer it winds up being me vs. 8 enemy bots trying to defuse the HE charge myself with 7 friendly bots lying around incapacitated. And it’s like this every match, I just see endless “red killed white” obituaries.

(McAfee) #6

Too much automatic stuff is bad, m’kay?

Did people ever complain so much about the ETQW bots? You could set their tactical skill and aim skill independently. Don’t like how it feels then you know what to change.

All this automatic bot skill levels, just makes the experience feel all random. So before you decide to play brink with bots, don’t bother with skill or trying to get better. Grab a dice, and if you roll a 6 you might get a good round, if you roll 1-5 you will probably get dumb bots.

This is even worse for the “single player” campaign. What’s the point of having 3 difficulty levels if the bot system is going to override it anyways. It overrides it before the match starts, and also during the match MANY times. As it stands a new character on Hard, is actually easier than a level 20 character on Easy.

If you are going to gives us skill levels then let them be static! Easy is always supposed to be “EASY”

(BiigDaddyDellta) #7

Only thing I have noticed lately is that all the bots have the same character model (no matter what body type they actually are) and it’s usually just like me or the other characters of mine even if I’m not using that one. I think it’s a local problem and I only know about this issue on xbox.

(I made a thread about this but it died, lol.)

(Exedore) #8

This is true, but I’d be even more worried if it was easier on Level 20 Hard than Level 20 Easy. But yes, this is a case where we would’ve done things quite differently with the benefit of hindsight.

(Exedore) #9

Are you skipping cutscenes a lot? Nothing should’ve changed in this regard, especially on consoless… but the customizations are streaming in during the intro cinematics, so if you skip it you tend to see them start swapping in just after the start of the match.

(Exedore) #10

Thanks for this example, nothing has changed with that particular objective.

What platform are you playing on? My initial thought is that the weapon tweaks are perhaps making the bot scaling even more extreme… :eek:
I should say though, successfully defending a first objective is supposed to really hard!

(Mustang) #11

Has anyone completed Shipyard on a Hard Solo Security Campaign yet?
I tried it 5 times at the weekend and with the 1vs8 it plays as it’s near as damn it impossible

(its al bout security) #12

[QUOTE=Exedore;346553]Thanks for this example, nothing has changed with that particular objective.

What platform are you playing on? My initial thought is that the weapon tweaks are perhaps making the bot scaling even more extreme… :eek:
I should say though, successfully defending a first objective is supposed to really hard![/QUOTE]

he is on ps3.

(wolfnemesis75) #13

[QUOTE=Mustang;346579]Has anyone completed Shipyard on a Hard Solo Security Campaign yet?
I tried it 5 times at the weekend and with the 1vs8 it plays as it’s near as damn it impossible[/QUOTE]

Shipyard is the hardest lvl to complete. I tried it 1vs 8. It is possible, just very difficult. Grab the command posts and try making progress a bit at a time on the crane controls. The hack, you can hide in the doorway opposite the hack. not easy.

(Mustang) #14

It’s supposed to be 8vs8, but when your whole team dies before firing a single shot it plays like 1vs8
Along with that they don’t buff you, so as an unbuffed Operative vs 8 fully buffed boom headshot aimbots it’s freaking ridiculous

(BiigDaddyDellta) #15

Oh yeah there is def cutscene skipping.

(wolfnemesis75) #16

[QUOTE=Mustang;346585]It’s supposed to be 8vs8, but when your whole team dies before firing a single shot it plays like 1vs8
Along with that they don’t buff you, so as an unbuffed Operative vs 8 fully buffed boom headshot aimbots it’s freaking ridiculous[/QUOTE]

leave enemy down when you attack the hack part. don’t finish them off, that way you reduce the number attacking. throw caltrops and sticky. lvl 20 is a must for this mission. I’d not advise doing it with a lower character.

(McAfee) #17

Actually, it’s a lot easier with a brand new character :-/

The difficulty of the game is subjective, as it depends on too many variables. So it’s going to boil down to your personal situation on the game.

(JFarrell) #18

Shipyard solo on Hard is not about taking it easy. It’s about the first push when you begin the map. If you tactically eliminate their team, your team will assemble around the objective. Crouch behind the crane and fix it. Throw a grenade as soon as you can to their spawn.

(Jess Alon) #19

Actually gibbing them is better and adds time to their respawn. I’ve gotten gibbed while laying down with 2 seconds til spawn and it changes the timer to 12 seconds.