Bot Royale Evolved

Let me first say to Respawn: props for making your bot royale people feel heard and seen. The full squad count, full map, full timer match is exactly what the doctor ordered. Well done.

Second, Wolferato​, I'm pretty much on the same page as you regarding the introduction of other live players. Sometimes they take out the trash and there's nothing left for me to do. Sometimes they get wiped, just like my old bot teammates. The difference is that now I feel bad for them when I never had to before. Live players just mess up the one-man-show vibe. I would have preferred a check-box menu at the beginning of the match:

1. no fill
2. bot teammates
3. live teammates

And I'm even more uncomfortable with the idea that there might be enemy squads of live players. Or did I read that wrong in the patch notes? If I read it right then I'll say out of the gate, without even having experienced it yet, it's a bad idea. It's the opposite of what bot royale is supposed to be. If I wanted live enemies then I'd queue up in trios. No?

Also not sure what happened to selectable difficulty. Was there something about it in the notes that I missed? Anyway, can't find the option anymore. And I noticed that while a few bots had what amounted to an aimbot, most were the horrific "easy mode" opponents we've always had. If they shoot at all they probably won't hit you. If you get on top of something tall they'll just stop moving, and are incredibly easy to kill whether they keep shooting or not. And again, often they don't.

Also, there's still a lot of work to do on the bot behavior side. It's an improvement to have them magnetize to the ring instead of to the nearest possible fight, but there's still an alarming number of bots who don't make it to the ring. And we still have that very common scenario where there are two squads left, you claim your good position, and you wait for the other team to make their appearance... and you just win, unchallenged, because they don't make it.

All in all, I call it a big step in the right direction. But there is still some work to do. I don't know how difficult it would be to make the AI more complex and more varied, but I'd call that the next step.

Oh I hope they don't do all of this.  Bot Royale was the one training mode other than the firing range where we could have a safe space to practice and warm up.  Plus, bot royale, despite the problems with the bots like you mentioned, allowed us to practice on the br maps themselves and not just a generic place like the firing range.  If they add live teammates and enemies it will defeat the purpose.  If this is being considered please reconsider it if any devs are reading this forum, thanks.  

We had asked for a PvE map for years and I hope they don't mess with it now that we got it.

I can't even get INTO the new bot royale mode. Previously, straight in with no issues. Now, I am currently typing this as I am waiting to enter it and it's been 8 minutes. Obviously, nobody is playing this mode where I am, so I am virtually locked out of playing this mode ever again. 

It served as a great little mode to just fool around in and play the game stress free. There goes that I guess!

I think you should first "hope" that the respawn will differentiate the match records in "BOT ROYALE" mode from those in regular PvP mode. If you check your EA DATA after playing "BOT ROYALE," you'll find that in the background system, the "BOT ROYALE" match records are identical to those in regular PvP. You might think this isn't strange, but with EA's recent announcement of a change in the EAC detection model, you need to be careful.

If you've recently received any reports, whether genuine, intentional, or malicious, you may be under close scrutiny by the EAC, which doesn't differentiate between the game modes you play. This means you might encounter situations in "BOT ROYALE" mode where abnormal gameplay data leads the EAC to flag you as cheating (even in the shooting range), resulting in a permanent ban.

This might sound ridiculous, but believe me, there are victims in this situation.

beauj16​  Try a different server.

Rhodes_RedTone​  This is nothing new. There are reports of people getting banned for foul language in the Firing Range. Imagine someone cursing a bot in the chat for being downed by one.

Maybe, the reason is, that too much people play Bot Royale due to the MM and toxicity and are trying to push them more towards player interaction.

As a resolution, I decided to wait it out, rather than give in, and watch the news feed on Steam, in case something changes.

Yeah, I just now went back to re-read the notes, and there it is: Up to five squads of live players. I haven't seen one yet and I've been in the lobby quite a bit, but when I finally do see one it will not be a happy experience.

Let me say it again, Respawn: Bot enemies only, please. If I wanted live enemies then I'd queue into trios.

And yes, beauj16​

I too have spent an absurdly long amount of time in the queue. I'd rather queue in alone than wait that long for players I won't even interact with unless it's to craft their banners and spawn them back into the match. Something I wouldn't even have to bother doing if they were bots.

I've tried every server possible that doesn't have me shooting shadows on high ping. No luck. I've managed to play it 3 times since and just gave up waiting.

Let me add a few more thoughts after a few more days of play.

Queue times seem to be improving. beauj16​ - keep trying.

I'm not going to count the next observation as a good or bad thing - I'm only going to put it out there for anyone to make of it what they will: Having live players as squadmates is most typically leading to situations where the dominant or most aggressive teammate is racking up all the kills while the rest of the squad struggles for assists. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, but I'm getting the impression that other people do.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of people get downed, and they wait for a res, and if they don't get it then they quit. And it doesn't matter how often I ping the replicator that I'm standing directly in front of. Maybe they don't know what a replicator is. Maybe they mistakenly believe it will be faster for them to re-queue than re-spawn. I don't know. It doesn't matter to me - I'll play it out with or without them - but it seems strange.

Lastly - and this again isn't something I'm calling good or bad, I'm just observing that it's so - in the lobby it's becoming almost common for the first player at legend selection to choose a legend which is already showing as desired by player no. 2 or player no. 3. I think players are beginning to do this aggressively as a way of trying to get rid of at least one squadmate. That's what it looks like to me. And I can say that many times I've seen it work exactly as intended. I guess player no. 1 thinks that this gets them closer to a 20 bomb. Can you even get a 20 bomb in bot royale? At any rate, IF this is happening a lot, and IF it's happening for the reasons I think it is, then an obvious fix would be to allow squadmates to play the same legends just as they can in Wildcard. Why not?

Definitely not improving on my end, regardless of the server I am on. Tried to get into a game last night and more recently, about half an hour ago, and waited for 30 mins before giving up yet again.

I agree its a step in the right direction... just once again, executed with laziness. 

Simply add a no fill option and/or the option to have only bots or both. To me, this is pretty simple, yet lost with this Dev team. 

You guys created this exactly for players to practice and get away from the toxicity of Apex Legends (MM, Cheaters, et cetera) - yet pretty much abolished it with this change. 

Come on guys, (rEAspawn) you need to think things a little more. Maybe try making changes players asked for, need or would want instead of what you guys think we need, or want. Clearly that hasn't been working out for you... or rather, for us.