Approved Turn down AFK bot sensitivy against spies

[SkepticalBear]

I've noticed that the AFK bots are super sensitive when it comes to spotting spies. There have been about 4 or 5 instances when I've been disguised as an enemy team player and from no-where a bot has taken me out with a pipe bomb or lit me up as a pyro. I've seen a number of others also complain about it on the server too.

It's beginning to ruin my ability to play spy when a bot can sense you, even though the other 15 players on a team are unaware.

 

[Roboute Guilliman]

I think the AFK Bots are fine for the most part. They're more apt to detecting when friendlies have been backstabbed though they don't seem to react as much when they're being touched.

My only gripe is that the bots will "hear" you decloak in instances where no other player normally would. I.e over the sound of minigun or sentry fire.

 

[Maddo]

I don't play spy as main, but can say that bots have always been keen on spotting spies, what I mean is it's nothing different regarding the AFK bots, or at least to my knowledge. I think it seems worse because you are seeing more bots on full servers, whereas before they were limited to servers with minimum players.

The 1 main problem I have with the bots is they are so fucking hard to beat in a melee battle.

 

[SkepticalBear]

I would agree that they are no different to regular bots, but regular bots are also pretty good at spotting spies.

The decloak thing is super frustrating because I always time it to ensure no-one would hear, or run to a spot further away from the action.

 

[Meowcenary]

I don't play spy as main, but can say that bots have always been keen on spotting spies, what I mean is it's nothing different regarding the AFK bots, or at least to my knowledge. I think it seems worse because you are seeing more bots on full servers, whereas before they were limited to servers with minimum players.

The 1 main problem I have with the bots is they are so fucking hard to beat in a melee battle.

Valve bots are designed to work off of what they "see" and "hear", while the AFK bots seem to know exactly where spies are at all times. That wouldn't be a problem considering they don't directly engage them unless the spy somehow blows their cover, but the bot will stare at the spy and track them through walls as it moves around the map. I could track spies just by watching the direction a bot is staring at sometimes. And they have a really quick reaction time to spies blowing their cover. For example, I've seen a bot gun down a spy for bumping into a player (the player didn't notice, and the bot didn't 'see' the spy) but it turned around to shoot him very quickly.

The bots seem to react to spies quicker than most of the players do, sometimes in situations where the spy isn't in the bot's field of view. And the whole staring at spies through walls thing like I talked about earlier.

If their reactions to spies was tweaked a little and they didn't track spies through walls I think it would help

 

[Maddo]

So you're saying it's only spies they track, no other class?

 

[Meowcenary]

So you're saying it's only spies they track, no other class?

By tracking them through walls I mean the bot stares directly at enemies through walls as it travels to its destination (towards objectives for example)

This can be used to the advantages of other players by checking out the area the bot is staring at. This is especially a problem for spies who have to get behind enemy lines. It's a dead give away where a spy is hiding at when you're traveling out of spawn with a bot staring at a spy through a wall as it travels to the objective.

Edit - they track all classes through walls from what I've last seen.

 

[SkepticalBear]

By tracking them through walls I mean the bot stares directly at enemies through walls as it travels to its destination (towards objectives for example)

This can be used to the advantages of other players by checking out the area the bot is staring at. This is especially a problem for spies who have to get behind enemy lines. It's a dead give away where a spy is hiding at when you're traveling out of spawn with a bot staring at a spy through a wall as it travels to the objective.

Edit - they track all classes through walls from what I've last seen.

Yes this is the problem.

The bot logic seems to be pretty basic. For example earlier I was round a corner on Dustbowl where I decloaked. The bot "saw" me decloak, because by the bots logic I was in his line of "sight" because I'm guessing the logic says to go for players within a radius rather than telling the bot it can't see round corners. So when I came round the corner it went for me.

 

[Bottiger]

The bots calculate if a wall blocks visibility every 2 seconds (might be a little more) because it is a very expensive calculation. If you hide behind the wall for a second then go back out, I would say it would make sense for them to keep tracking you.

They have coding to handle spies, they don't ignore disguises. Here is how they decide to spy-check.

• If someone calls out spy.
• If the spy is disguised as the bot.
• The bot can see the person the spy is disguised as.
• If they get blocked for no reason, therefore they bumped into an invisible spy.
• Spy is visible because they are on fire/soaked.
• The disguised class doesn't exist on the bot's team.
• They saw a team mates shoot the spy at least 5 seconds ago.

I think these are quite reasonable and I don't know if it would be a good idea to remove them to make it easier for people to play as spies.

They seem too easy to beat already.

 

[Bottiger]

Well I tried something, not sure if it'll work. The bot will now need to detect suspicious activity 3 seconds after the first time before it will act on it. This will only take effect after the server reboots.

 

[SkepticalBear]

Well I tried something, not sure if it'll work. The bot will now need to detect suspicious activity 3 seconds after the first time before it will act on it. This will only take effect after the server reboots.

The server hasn't had any AFK bots today so can't tell you if it makes a difference yet but I suspect it will. Thanks for taking the time to look into it!