Riot Games has just announced that they have just updated League of Legends to make the bots more human-like and the matches more fun. It seems like a big undertaking for something that wasn't a huge issue, so why did they put so much emphasis on this change? They took to their blog to explain their decision.
The main reason they decided to make this a priority because even though League of Legends is meant to be played online against other players, even level 30 players end up playing tons of bot matches. They want to make those matches more engaging, and so they surveyed both Coop-vs.-AI and PvP players for their thoughts. The biggest was a desire for more realistic bots, ones that are "less predictable and focus on the same game elements that players do, such as last hitting and nailing their combos." They didn't want tougher bots, they wanted ones that would have the same goals (and make the same mistakes) as human players. So Riot decided to do just that.
The biggest way they went about that is through "Threat Evaluation". That's their name for the systems bots now use to gauge how strong both they and their enemies are, and thus can determine what actions to take.
"Our previous systems used a method that is very common in games, especially first-person shooters. The bot looks at how much damage has recently been received and uses that to determine future threat. In an FPS, this makes a lot of sense. If a bot walks around a corner and takes a bunch of damage, it'll probably keep taking that damage if it hangs around, so it's best to back off."
Now, League of Legends will change things up. "If Veigar unloads all of his spells on a bot, and the bot survives, that isn't the time for the bot to run. That's the time for the bot to destroy that evil little @$!#!. Veigar has almost no damage potential while all his skills are on cooldown, so why not get a few shots, or maybe a lot of shots, in while he's vulnerable? Our new systems try to deal with these scenarios by looking not only at health but also how many spells the bot and any nearby enemies have available. Overall, we've seen some clear improvements in bot threat evaluation (much to Veigar's sadness)."
You can read the massive blog post to find out how they optimized the code for this new system, and other tricks they used in order to change how the bots react to things like, say, incoming skill shots. One things's for sure- the new system is in place and people seem to really enjoy how it works. If you haven't played League of Legends- why is that? It's free and you're missing out on one of the most engaging MOBAs in existence.
