Spawn-camping bots, bots spawning in irrational places

[Edited to embed YouTube video and to clarify that this post is made after the most recent patch as AMURKA posted below.]

Two very frustrating things are 1) spawning into a game only to find that you've spawned right into the center a bot's sight picture or, 2) having bots spawn in territory you cleared seconds ago and have not yet left.

An example of #1 is from a match I played today on Farmhouse as Insurgents (Coop/Checkpoint of course). There always seems to be an enemy bot down the road in front of your team's transport vehicles when you get off the truck and start playing. In one particularly frustrating round this morning, he had a rocket. Of course, he fired right into us as our feet hit the ground to start play, ending the round before it ever started for some of us. That should not happen--the point of a spawn is entering a game safely.

An example of #2 also happened today. After clearing an objective, bots often spawn right on top of the objective. I've linked a video capture of exactly what I'm talking about. We've secured the objective and I'm watching the top of a staircase. As soon as the game tells us the objective is secured, four bots spawn at the bottom of the staircase and toss a frag onto the objective. Here's the video:

Youtube Video

It just isn't rational that enemy soldiers materialize on top of one's position--they have to come from somewhere. Spawn them into structures or cover across the street or in the next building over, but having them spawn into the building that you cleared just a few seconds ago defies reason and erodes the immersiveness of the game and just seems like a cheap way to make the game harder.

Anyone who loves Insurgency (probably) craves the challenge of fighting a difficult enemy. Aggressive bots who use good tactics are therefore highly desirable. However, spawning players on top of bots and bots on top of players is the way to make the game not more challenging, but more frustrating.

last edited by skillet

Can confirm. Even though the patch notes said "Bots should now ignore players with spawn protection" my team spawned in a place with 2 or 3 bots, I killed one (losing my spawn protection) and got blasted by the other. Like 5 people died right after spawning.

Yeah this crap happened to me as well several times today even, so it was with the latest patched version of the game. Objective Secured my ass!

last edited by Valerian

Neither have happened to us yet over dozens of games. It used to be a nearly by-game issue (spawn killing).

Has happened to me. After wiping resistance, we waited quietly until objective was secured. At that point I immediately reloaded only to be greeted by 4 bots walking through the door with my pants down.

I'd suggest the devs consider using an "inverse fog of war system". By this I mean the mechanic in many strategy games where as you explore, you unveil the map below. However, in this case, do the opposite. As players move through the map, have "a hidden layer that tracks a circle around all player positions for the last X seconds". A bit like tail on a Tron-bike but with a wider radius of course. When spawning bots, just use it as a mask and avoid that area.

That way, you don't run into the issue of using a predetermined spawn area unbelievably close to a player or in an area he has recently cleared.

Just a thought...

@pakislav said in Spawn-camping bots, bots spawning in irrational places:

Neither have happened to us yet over dozens of games. It used to be a nearly by-game issue (spawn killing).

You are fortunate indeed. Here's another one from the other day. This one is on the Farmhouse map as Insurgents just after D is destroyed:

[Edit: Math fail at end of video--I subtracted the wrong value. I actually lasted 6.95 seconds before being shot from spawn.]

Youtube Video

last edited by skillet