General TFBot Bugs/Problems/Suggestions.

Updated for 2024, thank you, Trotim.

"+" Means it is related to a previous statement.

DEMOMAN BOTS:

-Demoman Bots will set Stickytraps inside their spawns if their spawnrooms are too close to their intel in ctf_ maps. +Related to this behavior, Demoman Bots outright can't leave spawn in ctf_landfall.

-Demoman Bots are not as good in their Sentry-Destroying behavior as Live TF2's Demoman Bots. Please reevaluate as they do not calculate the amount of charging of the Stickybomb launcher (always max charge, overshots the SG), and do not detonate Stickies manually when doing this.

-SUGGESTION: Blacklist the Gunboats for Demoman Bots as it they behave poorly if they only have the Stickybomb launcher/Minelayer and even worse with the dynamite. +Demoman Bots on Easy difficulty refuse to fire StickyBombs against enemies, unless the enemy is far away.

HEAVY BOTS:

-SUGGESTION: Heavy Bots should be able to throw their sandvich at low health teammates that are close-by.

ENGINEER BOTS:

-URGENT: -Engineer don't leave spawn in ctf_ maps with a few obscure exceptions. +Their behavior when stuck is "build teleporter", ask a dev if nextbots have an exception to not build teleporters in ctf, probably this causes problems with leaving spawns. +Forcing them to start moving by either removing the navigations on the floor they spawn in or marking them as BLOCKED forces them to move and work properly, use this as temporal fix.

-URGENT: -Due to how Engineer Bots are related to the position of the Control Points instead of customizable areas, they tend to construct their buildings in very inefficient spots. +A noticeable case is pl_hoodoo RED Engineers bots on phase 1 where they build right outside their spawn, this particular case can get fixed by using "tf_mark BLU_SETUP_GATE" on the navs below the doors.

-On rare ocassions: Engineer bots will accidentaly pick up a building when attempting to use the charged fire of the Railgun.

-Engineer Bots are reluctant to fall off cliffs when navigating the map.

-Please remove the Engineer Bot's collition with their own buildings (except Teleporters) because this causes problems (like standing over Dispencers and not receiving ammo from it, weird but it happens.)

-Engineer Bots do not update the Teleporter entrance location after their team owns a new spawnroom often enough.

-Engineer Bots do not upgrade/repair Teleporters.

-Engineer Bots dont work in Gamemode-less maps.

-Engineer Bots can rarely stand still in one place and wait there for very long times/until they get killed. +This tends to happen once a Capture Point changes owner (is captured.)

-Engineer Bots often have trouble building their Dispensers due either to slopes of the map geometry, or because they are aimging at their sentrygun at the moment of trying to build the Dispencer.

-Engineer Bots wont relocate their Dispencer after their Sentrygun is destroyed, causing them to build their next Sentrygun some distance away from the not-destroyed Dispencer. This causes problems.

SUGGESTION: -Make Engineer Bots hold on a little while longer before destroying their buildings after a Control Point changes owner.

-SUGGESTION: -Enable Engineer Bots to haul buildings. +Mainly do this for Sentries so they can hold off an area. Dispensers and Teleporters are cheap enough to re-build. +Panic deploy building if they feel threatened (gets damaged to/while low health, or enemy gets too close).

-SUGGESTION: -Engineers should repair damaged buildings (and restore sentrygun ammo if very low) from other friendly Engineers if they so happen to have spare metal, and run into one. +Raise this priority if the friendly building in question is getting sapped. +If Engineer Bots have their own buildings at max level and not under attack, they should scan for other friendly buildings to upgrade/repair/restock Sentry ammo.

MEDIC BOTS:

-As talked with Trotim, the intended behavior is to Bots to preffer to play 1 Medic per team on easy/normal and 2 on hard/expert. There is an error causing Bots to only always pick 1 Medic per team on any difficulty.

-Medics often lose interest in healing teammates after some time in ctf_ gamemode, instead they try to engage enemies with their syringes like a regular offense Bot (Scout, Soldier, Demo...)

-Maps with changing spawnrooms (5CP for example) can get Medic Bots to respawn alone, this causes them to wait in spawn until someone respawns there or backtracks into that spawn. +As a solution, make them freeroam if they don't spot any teammate in a certain time, then return to following teammates when spotting one.

-Medic Bots completely disreguard their own health state when pocketing and ignore close-by health kits, Sandviches, Dispencers and Resupply Gabinets.

-Medic Bots ignore "Medic!" calls from Bots/Players other than their current pocket.

-Medic Bots have trouble using their Shock Terapy: +Medics dont get close to whoever they want to use the Shock Terapy on. +If their heal target is outside their melee range, they keep switching between their Medigun and Shock Terapy. +Medic Bots might try to use the Shock Terapy while their uber-charge is active.

-Medic Bots have trouble healing multiple teammates when other Players/Bots get in the way of the Medic's beam and its target.

-SUGGESTION: Medic Bots should follow Demomen more often.

-SUGGESTION: Find a way to make Medic Bots more accurate while on Easy Difficulty, to make their healing duty more efficient.

-SUGGESTION: Lower Medic Bot's priority to pocket Civilians. +This is highly innefficient as they tend to uber the Civilian.

SNIPER BOTS:

-Sniper Bots often get stuck in the Aiming behavior while trying to travel somewhere else.

-Sniper Bots are way too offensive in ctf_ gamemode.

-Sniper bots camp right outside the enemy spawns in Gamemode-less maps.

SUGGESTION: -Stop Sniper Bots from jumping while engaging enemies on Normal+ difficulties.

SPY BOTS:

-Spy Bots have a chance to stop and stare at Buildings/Engineer nests. +Also to get stuck switching between Sapper and Knife, while looking at Dispencers/teleporters.

-Spy Bots turn arround very slowly when attempting to sap buildings on Easy difficulty.

-Spy Bots will wait in the middle of doorways for enemies (which causes enemies to collide with the Spy Bots, and ruins their disguises) instead of corners or away from the main path.

-Spy Bots will attempt to enter innacesible areas or go through walls when on their "Waiting for enemies outside enemy spawn" behavior on some maps. This happens if the enemy spawnroom decorations didn't fill all the necessary spots.

-RED Spy Bots don't move during setup time.

-On rare ocassions Spies will attempt to push their own team's cart (probably to get health/ammo from it, but wont get any as they are disguised as the enemy).

CIVILIAN BOTS:

-Civilian Bots tend to screw up the objective if they feel to cowardish to complete it.

-SUGGESTION: Maybe Civilian Bots should be able to pick someone to follow like Medic Bots do.

-IMPLEMENTED IN 2.1.3: Allow Bots to play Civilian if tf2c_allow_special_classes is enabled.

MAP SPECIFIC OR HAMMER MAPPING:

URGENT: -arena_ gamemode breaks Bots special behaviors (Engineers building stuff, Medics healing...) once the Control Point becomes available for capture.

URGENT: -Bots do not deliver the Australium in sd_doomsday as they dont move at all while on top of the lift. +My guess is this has something to do with "Bots now stand still on moving platforms instead of trying to repath" added back in the Fight or Flight update. (See 2.1.0 > Day 3 > General Changes).

-No Bots except Engineer, Sniper and Medics will leave spawn in the last stage of plr_nightfall as they seem to be waiting for a setup time to end.

-Very often, BLU Bots will try to backtrack to stage 1 while playing stage 2 on pl_goldrush by trying to go through the fences.

-I have experienced extreme FPS drops on certain maps when playing with Bots: +cp_coldfront +cp_foundry +koth_king +Most 4team maps seem particularly FPS expensive with bots.

-Bots dont know how to defend objectives that are over them if the objective is on a lift. +Notably this happens on plr_hightower and sd_doomsday

-Using tf_mark blocked_until_point_captured doesn't work if its on a single control point that controls doors from both teams. +If a single CP switches to be owned by RED, unlocks RED doors and blocks BLU doors, tf_mark blocked_until_point_captured will unblock both team's doors, causing Bots to get stuck on doors that are still blocked.

-Placing more than one func_respawnroom Brushes causes the nav generation to not mark all navigations inside a spawnroom to be... part of the spawnroom. +This causes positioning issues for Spy bots and or bots trying to get in enemy spawnrooms.

-bot_hint_sentrygun Hammer Entity: +Engineer Bots who build in it will get stuck in their SentryGuns, because the function was made with Engineer Bots NOT having collition with their own Buildings in mind. +Engineer Bots will use bot_hint_sentrygun owned from enemy teams (RED engies building on BLU sentry spots)

-Hammer entity "bot_hint_sniper_spot" creates "Attempted to create unknown entity type bot_hint_sniper_spot" in developer console.

-SUGGESTION: Implement my Navigation Mesh fixes mod, it really fixes lots of bugs within the Nav Mesh! https://gamebanana.com/mods/452384 +I am very sorry if you hate me for self-promoting like this, i will remove if asked.

-SUGGESTION: Enable Bots to use Ranged weapons in medieval (Namely, Huntsman, Brick and Flaregun.)

-FIXED: In multi-stage Payload maps, there aren't any navigations nodes in the second/third stages.

OTHER OR MULTI-CLASS:

NAV RELATED: -You can manipulate Bots by using multiple 1x1 (snapped to grid) squares placed togheter. Some special interactions are:

Bots will use these as hiding spots, particularly Civilian and Spy bots.
Spy bots will use these as "waiting outside enemy spawn" spots.
Sniper bots will use these as camping spots.
Further testing implies that these are just "Suggestions" and the Bots will not always take these.

-Very rarely, Bots will attempt to go through areas marked as blocked (such as doors that open later in game).

-On rare ocassions, Bots tend to move faster than what their current class should allow. +This is guaranteed to happen on Bots carrying the intel.

-Bots dont navigate good on deep water pools.

-Bots don't reload secondary weapons often in favor of having their primary weapons selected most of the time.

-Two-way nav connections on one-way doors can cause Bots to get stuck on the door from the non-opening side.

-Ubered Bots will try to capture control points, without effect...

-Bots never intentionally defend control points in 5CP maps.

-Due to how NextBots are coded, they will ignore nav properites like JUMP or CROUCH +By extention, also ignore special tf marks like SENTRY_SPOT and SNIPER_SPOT.

-SUGGESTION: Allow Bots to play Sniper and Spy on Easy difficulty.

-SUGGESTION: Add console variables that allow/disallow Bots from playing certain classes. +tfbotclass_enabled 0/1

-SUGGESTION: Make Bots recognize Medics as healing sources if they are close to them (or get close to them when they need).

-SUGGESTION: Make Bots wait for others and form squads when they need to make a stronger push.

-SUGGESTION: Enable Bots to use Secondary weapons on Easy difficulty.

-SUGGESTION: Increase Bot's priority to pick up ammo. +Make Engineer Bots pick up multiple ammo packs if they are close to each other, specially dropped from dead players/buildings.

-SUGGESTION: Implement special nav_marks to tell bots to make special actions like hiding while playing as Spy, and make editable to tell which team should use them or locked after or until a CP has been captured.

-SUGGESTION: Find a way to make Bots use Jump-Pads, even if just to extinguish themselves from fires.

-SUGGESTION: Allow Easy difficulty bots to defend capture points. +25% or 50% chance to defend, compared to Normal's 50% chance to defend and Hard/Expert 100% defend chance.

FIXED: -Bots often try to enter inaccessible spawns to use their resupply locker or to kill enemies hiding in them (Maybe this still happens, but on very specific, rare ocassions.)

This is it for now. ----------------MM/DD/YYYY Last updated = 08/28/2024

This seems to be the central TFBot weirdness post, so I'll chip in a few observations from my time with the bots...

General:

For most classes with multiple guns, TFBots seem very averse to reloading their Primaries in battle. This can best be seen on Scout and Soldier bots - they tend to fire their respective Primary weapons until they've fired their entire clip, and then essentially just switch to their Secondaries and hold down the fire button the entire time until the enemy is dead, breaks line of sight, or their Secondary entirely runs out of ammo.
While TFBots switch to their Secondary weapons semi-often, they rarely "use" it to attack actively. As mentioned above, they only switch to Secondary when either out of ammo or range for their Primary, almost never really using the Secondary to intentionally attack enemies as-is.
Most TFBots (excluding Demoman, Sniper, and Spy bots) tend to never switch to Melee to attack, even when currently in a very bad situation like needing to reload all active guns, and will only really be forced to Melee if they live long enough to use up all their ammo. //--
This is an old issue, but TFBots jump FAR TOO MUCH when in any combat encounter, practically holding down their jump key the moment they spot an enemy. Jumping so frequently makes them, ironically, fairly easy to attack if against an enemy.
TFBots in Medieval Mode won't ever use any Primary or Secondary weapons, even if some of those weapons are allowed or passive in nature. Additionally, bot AI seems to not really account for Medieval being active, and support classes still try act like they do in regular games - Medics try and usually fail to heal teammates, Snipers stand far from the battle, and Engineers just stand at building spots, unable to build.
TFBots don't taunt other TFBots. Gamebreaking bug, 0/10.

Pyro:

Pyro TFBots (and all bots in general, really) don't make any attempt to Spycheck / randomly attack teammates for a second or two. It's most notably on Pyro, since it costs essentially nothing to do so while running by, but having other TFBots occasionally shoot their guns or swing their melees at others even if they know they're friendly might help!
A bit nitpicky, but Pyro TFBots don't really take advantage of the Flare Gun or Harvester if fighting against ignited enemies - at least, not any more than any other weapon(s) the Pyro has access to.

Heavy:

Heavy TFBots don't seem to stay spun-up with their Minigun(s) for very long after killing an enemy - sometimes immediately unrevving maybe a second they kill someone. This is even more noticeable for Miniguns with a long spin-up time, they seem too eager to immediately unrev the microsecond they kill an enemy.
Heavies TFBots that equip the Sandvich (or any other Lunchbox item) get visibly confused if they're unable to use their primary at all for any reason - such as running out of ammo or having it disabled. They sometimes get stuck spamming the item in place, rather than finding more ammo (if applic) or switching to Melee.

Civilian:

Civilian TFBots that have an Umbrella that applies an boost effect on enemies (typically a debuff) won't intentionally target enemies to afflict. They'll continue to try "boosting" teammates, but are unable to, so they get stuck holding the weapon out staring at a teammate until an enemy accidentally stumbles onto their crosshair.

Spy:

TFBots seem VERY quick to notice a Spy - TFBot or Player alike - having done anything at all. TFBot Spies aren't very stealthy, granted, but almost without fail, if a Spy player does anything, the entire enemy team's TFBots instantly turns around and shoots them within a second's notice. They shouldn't be oblivious to Spies, but right now they have near-omniscience.
In general, TFBots don't seem to be even a little fooled by disguises, and Medic + Civilian TFBots almost never accidentially heal or buff an enemy Spy even if disguised.

Map Miscellanea:

On 5CP and PL maps, Engineer bots do a VERY bad job at moving up or staying in place - instead, they usually destroy their entire nest the instant either team captures a forward point, instead of staying back temporarily to make sure the team keeps the point for longer than some amount of time.
On CTF maps, TFBots (beside Engineer... sometimes) make almost no attempt at defending the Intel itself, such as occasionally pathing to the friendly Intel's current location or defending a dropped Intel from enemies.
On VIP maps, the attacking team tends to only defend the VIP and not help with the objective, while the defending team tends to only defend the objective and never go hunting for the VIP. While functional for gameplay, neither team really makes big pushes in either direction and capture / defense feels incidental more than anything.

tf2classic / tf2classic-issue-tracker