Is it just me or did the bot AI take a jump in the last couple of weeks??

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

More dodgey, more vicious, even better at torpedo-beats, and now starting to be capable of blind-firing into smoke. 

Anyone else noticed this, especially the latter?

[HazeGrayUnderway]

They still suck *** as usual

 

Edit:  Blind Fire into smoke?  No, not really.  Maybe if they got off a salvo before your smoke concealed you, yeah, but camping in smoke for a while and getting regularly hit?  No.  Also consider that if you are getting shot at in smoke, that's because some enemy ship is close enough to spot you, i.e. your smoke gun detection range, which varies with the gun size.

[HayabusaZ]

45 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

More dodgey, more vicious, even better at torpedo-beats, and now starting to be capable of blind-firing into smoke. 

Anyone else noticed this, especially the latter?

My brother has been complaining about the blind fire into smoke, more focused bots, and bot torpedo beats for about that same time period.  I thought it was just him, but apparently not. 

[Efros]

I observed a bot reversing into smoke yesterday, BBs seem to be running Steering Gears Mod #15 as they appear to be handling like a rally car in the hands of Colin McRae.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

14 minutes ago, HayabusaZ said:

and bot torpedo beats

This has always been a thing, but they seem to be even better at it now. Deselecting before firing no longer seems to work as well; if anything, it might even be warning them now.

[AVR_Project]

56 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

More dodgey, more vicious, even better at torpedo-beats, and now starting to be capable of blind-firing into smoke. 

Anyone else noticed this, especially the latter?

I also caught a few 'riding the edge' in various battles to throw off our lead times.
Tier 6 and above -- sometimes one or two ships hang back and farm from the rear.

And not just open water torpedo beats..  They are turning around islands now to deny me a torp solution.

And in difficult battles, they are using their 'damage saturation' mechanic and absorbing all the torpedo hits on the nose.

CV operators in co-op know the bots all steer towards torpedo planes, and broadside to bombers.... even before planes are spotted.

But it-s co-op...  Do your best.

[DrHolmes52]

1 hour ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

They still suck *** as usual

 

Edit:  Blind Fire into smoke?  No, not really.  Maybe if they got off a salvo before your smoke concealed you, yeah, but camping in smoke for a while and getting regularly hit?  No.  Also consider that if you are getting shot at in smoke, that's because some enemy ship is close enough to spot you, i.e. your smoke gun detection range, which varies with the gun size.

They might be throwing a shot at your last known position before moving on to something else, but that would be the most.

Otherwise, I haven't seen any real changes in bot behavior.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

I noted tier 8 bots no longer just charge ahead...they moved as a fleet.

Still died to us...

[iRA6E]

Wonder if addition of bots to low tier randoms has made them rethink bot challenge?    One could hope.   

[sdj_2016]

Torpedo beats are about the same - oddly very competent. Firing into smoke - they are getting better - better than most humans. Lord help you, if a Toaster gets within gunfire smoke detection range and you are sitting still in the smoke. Toasters seem to prioritize fire on a stationary ship. 

[Asym_KS]

5 hours ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

More dodgey, more vicious, even better at torpedo-beats, and now starting to be capable of blind-firing into smoke. 

Anyone else noticed this, especially the latter?

YES !   A Kremlin that actually dodged a Zao double set of torps at three KM after he just completed a 90 degree turn to dodge someone else's torps???  It doesn't work that way.....he couldn't have had the inertia or speed to do what he actually did.  Everyone was commenting in chat: wth was that !  A Bot BB actually coming from behind to push me out of the way in my Yammy....  Blue-on-blue torps everywhere.  ODD bot DD behaviors like, turning around in smoke at a cap and running away or intentionally ramming.....  And, an awful lot of Players whom names I have never seen before during off hours where a week earlier, there were only one or two players with the rest bots....   Now, almost all 100% players and no bots in hours where there'd be three or four of us PVE players....    Random tactics all over the place:  "wait till you have support" from behind Islands.  "COOP is so unfair........I never got a shot.........20K away hiding behind an Island with only his A & B turrets expose...."

YES:  "There's something happening here".........great song.....

OH, forgot:  the instant my reticle touches an enemy ship at long range, that ships starts to turn IF YOUR GUNS ARE LAODED.  The AI is sensing our reticles and that target immediately starts to turn if you have a hot gun.

[KilljoyCutter]

5 hours ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

They still suck *** as usual

 

Edit:  Blind Fire into smoke?  No, not really.  Maybe if they got off a salvo before your smoke concealed you, yeah, but camping in smoke for a while and getting regularly hit?  No.  Also consider that if you are getting shot at in smoke, that's because some enemy ship is close enough to spot you, i.e. your smoke gun detection range, which varies with the gun size.

There's an actual thing happening where shots just come screaming in flat at about mach 5, long after you're concealed in the smoke. 

 

[Vader_Sama]

30 minutes ago, KilljoyCutter said:

There's an actual thing happening where shots just come screaming in flat at about mach 5, long after you're concealed in the smoke. 

 

For example

 

Even had a moment where a BB hit me with that, but it bounced.

Imagine if it didn't

[monpetitloup]

Theyve been ising radar and hydro again

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

Just now, monpetitloup said:

Theyve been ising radar and hydro again

I've personally never once seen a bot use radar, but they definitely use hydro.

[monpetitloup]

Just now, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

I've personally never once seen a bot use radar, but they definitely use hydro.

Get in a dd and play tier 8-10, you’ll see it, happened multiple times to me in the last coupke weeks.

[AdmiralThunder]

5 hours ago, AVR_Project said:

I also caught a few 'riding the edge' in various battles to throw off our lead times.
Tier 6 and above -- sometimes one or two ships hang back and farm from the rear.

And not just open water torpedo beats..  They are turning around islands now to deny me a torp solution.

And in difficult battles, they are using their 'damage saturation' mechanic and absorbing all the torpedo hits on the nose.

CV operators in co-op know the bots all steer towards torpedo planes, and broadside to bombers.... even before planes are spotted.

But it-s co-op...  Do your best.

Yes the cousins of the old chicken bots are now in game. They hang back and never push, sort of going back and forth in the background and late game they run off to a cap where no greens are.

They aren't as bad as the chicken bots but it is almost as annoying. I started seeing this not long after WG bumped starting points by 100 to counter the mercy rule. I wonder if having 1 or 2 hang back was added to help with it too?

[AdmiralThunder]

5 minutes ago, monpetitloup said:

Get in a dd and play tier 8-10, you’ll see it, happened multiple times to me in the last coupke weeks.

I have seen it occasionally too for a long time not just recent. It's rare but happens.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

@AdmiralThunder I had a Kurfurst and something else large and unpleasant persistently chasing my Hayate last night. They don't always hang back! 

8 minutes ago, monpetitloup said:

Get in a dd and play tier 8-10, you’ll see it, happened multiple times to me in the last coupke weeks.

 

2 minutes ago, AdmiralThunder said:

I have seen it occasionally too for a long time not just recent. It's rare but happens.

I've been watching and waiting and looking out for it ever since they got prolific with hydro. So far, nothing - at least in my experience. I will be watching more closely now. 

[Efros]

I got focused to crap in my Richelieu today. Minding my own business, got spotted. I wasn't the lead ship, cruiser and DD in front of me both of whom were firing. I applied speed boost and started returning fire. In the next minute or so I was reduced to about 1000 XP having been targeted and hit by every sodding red bot, repaired a double fire and within 20 seconds had a triple one going. Managed to take out a single cruiser before the red Musashi wiped me out. Looking around I was only one of two ships that had been engaged, the other one was a 1/3 rd health Brindisi who was dead very shortly afterwards. The rest of the team had been pummeling the red bots but they ignored them and went for me and the Brindisi almost exclusively.

[AVR_Project]

2 minutes ago, Efros said:

I got focused to crap in my Richelieu today. Minding my own business, got spotted. I wasn't the lead ship, cruiser and DD in front of me both of whom were firing. I applied speed boost and started returning fire. In the next minute or so I was reduced to about 1000 XP having been targeted and hit by every sodding red bot, repaired a double fire and within 20 seconds had a triple one going. Managed to take out a single cruiser before the red Musashi wiped me out. Looking around I was only one of two ships that had been engaged, the other one was a 1/3 rd health Brindisi who was dead very shortly afterwards. The rest of the team had been pummeling the red bots but they ignored them and went for me and the Brindisi almost exclusively.

It depends what missions you are running.  All those other ships probably need 'Potential Damage' but you and the Brindisi  didn't.

The game is funny that way.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

6 hours ago, KilljoyCutter said:

There's an actual thing happening where shots just come screaming in flat at about mach 5, long after you're concealed in the smoke. 

 

Seen that happen a lot, often times it's when the bot ship first gets spotted or gets LOS at someone.  It's one gun that does it then nothing else.  I've called it in the past where it's the bot sh*tting itself.

A similar thing happens sometimes where a bot is unspotted and when suddenly found, they sh*t themselves and drop torps into weird a**, non-sensical directions.  I've seen a bot a few days ago do that and fire torps to the middle of nowhere, even accounting for any friendly / enemy ship that could be sailing towards the launch arcs off into the distance.

 

It's the stupid AI is all, as long as they're not streaming continuous gunfire into you.

[Captain_Slattery]

On 7/9/2020 at 7:14 AM, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

More dodgey, more vicious, even better at torpedo-beats, and now starting to be capable of blind-firing into smoke. 

Anyone else noticed this, especially the latter?

Both of these.  Not sustained blind fire, but for several seconds longer than before.  It's like a deliberate blind fire, not just shells already in flight.

[GrayPanther2018]

I have seem bots blind firing into smoke this week didn't notice if they were hitting. 

Also seen a bot use radar.

Seems I read in the patch notes that WG was going to step up the bot AI as you go up tiers. 

[Sabot_100]

On 7/9/2020 at 10:17 AM, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

I've personally never once seen a bot use radar, but they definitely use hydro.

Could be because they pop it too early. Like when they are first spotted. By the time they get into useful range, its on cooldown.