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:
- no fill
- bot teammates
- 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.
