I played some BR2 matches yesterday and here are some of my observations:
general shooting abilities - both my and enemy AIs were quite capable and I like it.
I actually felt a need to hide from enemy bots similarly to how I hide from players. And my bots were capable too, some soldiers scoring 3 kills on multiple occassions (even ones equipped with BA rifles).
shooting through bushes - I’d say it’s a minor issue but still occures from time to time
melee - similarly, imo it’s quite ok as melee fights are meant to be fast and brutal, though I guess it could be a tiny bit nerfed
pathfinding - still needs some work, I saw on multiple occassions that AI went running around a building just to get shot etc. Sometimes they have problems navigating the rubble.
taking cover - feels very random, generally they stand in the open or use cover so badly it’s the same as standing in the open, they often run a lot but I guess it’s due to players not commanding them.
Imo taking cover should be the main focus of the AI development.
utility - I like that AI will be able to use AT launchers. We need more utility options like that.
Adding an order for my engineer to build would be a nice addition. (I know that I can order my AI to help me build but I also need to be an engineer to use this.)
Overall good changes
Though take note I played BR2 so things may differ in higher tiers.
From what I’ve experienced, this got incredibly worse with the last update.
For example, on the map Ver S… something (conquest mode) the AI literally couldn’t leave the spawn located in the bunker. And I had to manually bring each of them out of that spawn.
Always on Ver as a defender in the last point when you order to your squad to go to the point, instead of making the stairs on go inside the house 1 floor where the point is they go under it in the wine departement much or less
For me, the most important problem is their movement, which few people talk about, bots very often run then stand for a moment, shoot one bullet (or not), and run again several times again and again, then turn strangely, jump backwards etc. avoiding my shots in the process.
imo bots should be cover magnets, don’t return fire unless hidden behind something. They could play some animation of sprinting towards cover, grabbing their helmets or something, it would be very immersive. It’s obvious that bots can’t hide well behind cover most of the time, but at least it would give some degree of predictability to their behavior, which would definitely help the overall experience.
I once had such a situation in Moscow that I fired shots and several soldiers fell to the ground and the rest ran to the sides, it looked very authentic as if they were really reacting to my fire and not just standing there waiting to be shot.
the second problem is their clumsy behavior in close combat, most often they look at you or at the wall and do nothing, only to fire one fatal shot after a while. It looks very strange and awkward.
One thing i can’t stand of the bot is their ability to automatically throwing the grenade back at you that doesn’t even have time to touch the ground before it teleports into their hand and they throw it with 100% precision in 0.1 sec, spraining their wrist.
It’s caused by the 50m leash. If I could order my squad to sit in cover and then keep playing one soldier outside of their 50m radius, I think I’d use my soldiers much more defensively.
But as it stands, being able to move freely around the map is often more efficient than being stuck within 50m of the furthest soldier from you so you HAVE to drag them along.
I’m again completelly removing the leash as many players will simply hide their bots in the deep dark hole. At this point it would be better to play lone fighters.
I don’t know about you. But if I die with the first soldier, in the vast majority of cases the rest of my squad doesn’t get wiped and I don’t have to spawn at the rally point.
Not to mention that you currently need actual bodies to cap objectives. Leaving them stuck x meters away in some hole would literally be the worst thing you could do.
I havent done much pure infantry, but the little i have done, i found the enemy AI to still be fairly oblivious…(but by habbit i hard cover dance alot so…throws AI off)
My squad however is preforming really well and i like it. Mainly because im mostly using APCs at the moment, and AI were always better in the battlebus anyway. Now they are great.
