Boy oh boy, this post is only slightly late to the party, lol. The ability to play bot matches solo and coop WAS in the game, and heavily advertised to boost initial sales numbers as well. But they removed it about 2 weeks after launch, just in time for the Steam refund policy to expire for those who were early buyers.
Apparently, you missed the memo because it's been discussed to death here already. I won't go into it. Needless to say millions have stopped playing the game due to the bait & switch.
These people who run this franchise took in maybe 100 million or so PvE player dollars... yet still to this day have not even so much apologized to the PvE community from whom they've literally stolen from, since bot matches were the only reason for many buying the game to begin with.
It's still in the game. Not simply "was" in the game. I provided a link to a dozen experiences that are still in the game with invitation to propose more that should be added.
Unique Maps and Portal Love | EA Forums - 12909480
Im sorry...I know you want everyone to think it's still in the game since you've coded you're own modified version, but playing a modded version of what the default and official out of the box experience was when the game first released are 2 very different things.
I won't go into all the differences between what the official experience was like as compared to playing what is now a "custom" match, except to say that beyond it just not playing as well as the official matches previously provided, it also doesnt allow you unlock any of the weapons and other content that make up a huge part of the overall experience in playing, and quite honestly what we were promised and what was delivered to us BEFORE they removed it.
Now when you play with bots on a custom match, it just doesnt play as well as the official stuff did and you can't unlock any of the content you've paid for, and it takes away all that fun. You also don't have access to just play it on any map you choose or in all the official modes for that matter. So there are many differences, BIG differences that take away not only the quality of the gameplay, but also the freedom to choose how and where you want to play, and your ability to get to play with all released content, be it weapons or other items...both for now and all the future content released which we had already paid for at launch.
Modified XP and lack of unlocks/challenge reward is something none of us have control over and probably won't return given that it is in direct conflict with the pay-to-win and battlepass progression and grind mechanics in the game (which are definitely not going away).
I never said that would return.
If you read the OP, they said they are fine with that being gone. All they want is a PVE experience that they say is now gone.
I am telling you, per the OP's definition, it is not gone. PVE still exists. The only thing gone is xp and unlock changes and the ease of implementation.
PVE in custom is no different than PVE was in verified-mode. It plays the same. It's the same AI. It plays as well. Try it. The only difference is how you spawn them in and, in some cases, what you need to do to trick them into heading toward an objective or region. How they actually behave, when you don't purposely change their behavior, is the same and is out of anyone's control. If I wanted to make them not shoot you or walk in circles or stand in a corner, I could. But I don't. Instead, I let the AI behave the way the game designed them to behave.
I did try it, several times, before uninstalling the game.
I speak from my own personal experience with it. it is my own opinion that it does not play nearly as well as the official modes did before being removed from the game. I know there are others who share in my opinion, and I'm sure some who may not.
But what is NOT opinion, is that the 2 ways of playing ARE very different because they each offer different ways of playing, as mentioned for all the reasons I pointed out earlier. Even you, can't argue that point. Which one is better is strictly opinion.
Which one is more popular, you could likely see in the numbers playing.
Your mod is better than nothing at all, and I've previously thanked you for all your work on it...but it is simply NOT the same thing we were playing when the game released, nor what we signed up for when handing over our money.
