Dumb bots as motivational aids in shooters – That’s why I love and hate it

Many shooters rely on dumb bot teammates at the beginning of the game to boost the motivation of newcomers. While it can be fun, our author Jürgen Horn finds it quite the opposite. You can find out why here.

What’s the deal with bots? Some competitive shooters often bring in more bots as teammates and opponents during the first rounds for new players. These AI comrades and foes play exceptionally poorly and are only a real danger to a human player with a lot of bad luck. Even the clumsiest noob usually wins against such AI losers. I experienced this in various games as well.

Me and the bots – My love-hate relationship with AI opponents in shooters

That was my first bot fight: My first fight against bots was in the game Paladins. The colorful hero shooter with fantasy flair promises fun shooting, and when I played it for the first time on the recommendation of my colleague Leya Jankowski, I was thrilled. I enjoyed the gameplay, and I seemed to be quite a natural talent.

Because the opponents were falling like flies, and I shot everything and everyone down. At the end of each round, I was regularly the MVP, and my kill numbers were phenomenal. I was incredibly pleased because even though I love shooters, I’m more of an average player. But in Paladins, that didn’t seem to be the case, and I was extremely happy.

But then I suddenly got worse, and the kills and victories stopped coming. I lamented my fate, and Leya told me back then something like, “You know, I think at the beginning you mostly play against bots and only later against real people.” I found that kind of annoying, and my interest in Paladins eventually waned, and I preferred to play the newly popular battle royale games.

There were no bots, and I was mostly unsuccessful from the start. That wasn’t great either, but at least it was honest. When I got a kill in PUBG, it was a highlight!

And so the bot saga continued: But PUBG eventually got bots too, and in one of my worst gaming sessions, I tested the game a few months ago for Stadia. My goodness, it was terrible. Not only did about 90 percent of the lobby consist of bots, but the stupid AI idiots also seemed to spawn as needed.

Then they ran around brainlessly, sprinted into walls, and gave up the chase after just a few shots, choosing instead to run around the house like digital idiots. It was no fun whatsoever to take down such goons, and I was really glad when the round finally ended. That’s not how I like my chicken dinner!

Fortnite comeback with bots is also annoying: Similarly, I later experienced my comeback to Fortnite, where I was also bitterly disappointed after a really great kill orgy with the new Marvel heroes, thanks to my colleague Eilyn Rapp. My victims – apart from the Deadpool guy at the end – were all bots. So it was no wonder that I took them down one after the other, even though I still refuse to build in Fortnite.

CoD Mobile brings the bot overdose: My final bot clash then took place in CoD Mobile. This CoD for smartphones is actually the first game of its kind that I enjoy. This was also because I dominated the game in large numbers. Proudly, I told my dear MeinMMO colleagues. But they were skeptical and immediately asked, “They were probably bots again, don’t celebrate too early.”

But this time I was sure: Players with names like “Kiwi_Ameise” can’t be bots. No AI would name itself like that; it must have been a player! Or those guys with Cyrillic letters in their names that I took down. Surely they are not Russian bots! Or?

Well, in the end, it turned out they were bots. Thanks, Benedikt!

What’s up with these bots? It seems that many games nowadays rely on bots to give players a sense of achievement at the start of the game. This also makes sense from a marketing perspective. If a player is often a victim repeatedly from the start and never gets anywhere, they may soon lose interest in continuing to play the game. One less customer.

But exactly from my complaints about the topic of bots. What do you think of this trend? Does the bot slaughter motivate you, or does it bore you?