heroes Heroes of the Storm AI Issues: February 24th

[Stan 5,240]

Something appears to be wrong with the game's AI since the latest content patch, Blizzard is aware of it and they're working on a fix.

Strangely enough, the issue hasn't been hotfixed yet, so we'll need to wait for the next patch to go live.

Blizzard (Source)

I saw the updated the AI and while it has never been good, it seems to me like they made it worse?

I just had a game with an ETC that disconnected, the bot just spent the rest of the game running around, not even attacking things. When we pinged, it barely followed and when it did it still didn’t participate in things. Most of the time it went in and just suicided for no reason or was literally on the other side of the map doing nothing useful.

It ended the game with less than 10k siege and 10k hero damage in 16 minutes?

Anyone else seen anything similar?

If Blizzard would like to review it I saved the replay because the AI behavior was just ridiculous.

Edit: Ok the same thing happened again literally the next game… ETC disconnected and the bot just ran around being utterly useless.

Thanks for the report, guys. It seems there’s indeed a hiccup in the A.I. routines; our dev team is aware and working for a fix that will be deployed soon. This issue is being tracked down. Thanks for your patience!

Here's a known issues list that has been last updated on February 13th. We highlighted the AI issues below. Are you currently experiencing any problems in AI games? Let us know in the comments!

Blizzard (Source)

UI and Online

• Players decaying from GRANDMASTER to MASTER are not ending up in a decay state
• [Target Info Panel] The TIP becomes faded once moved.
• Blackheart’s Revenge progress is not displayed on the end of game screen if both teams end in a Tie/Victory.
• Some players are experiencing limited map pools for VS A.I. game modes.
• After setting a loadout with a skin that uses altered or replaced VO, selecting another skin will cause the previous loadout to reset voice line to default.
• Boost icons are not aligned at the draft screen in certain resolutions
• Some player accounts do not have proper Call of the Nexus availability.

Game Content

• New – [Ana] Contact Healing’s search effect size does not increase with Anti-Healer.
• New – [Ana] Eye of Horus can hit and heal allied vehicles.
• New – [Ana] Anti-Healer increases the duration of Biotic Grenade’s healing reduction by the wrong amount.
• New – [Ana][Rework] Deadeye displays Crit Kickers when no bonus damage is given.
• AOE seeking projectile abilities are disjointed when Imperius’ Celestial Charge channel ends
• [Orphea] Allegrissimo does not grant cooldown reduction when Shadow Waltz kills the Hero.
• [Imperius] Celestial Charge’s targeting indicator moves in two independent sections.
• Holding Right-Click to move and issuing Attack Move commands can cause the animation to play but deal no damage.
• Cleansing Flame can get stuck and desync from the mouse position.
• [Dead Man’s Stand] Camera Lock takes focus on Misha instead of Rexxar after using the Medivac from a boss completion.
• [Blaze] It is possible for Bunker ability cooldowns to get stuck in certain situations.
• Invisibility outlines are not always visible over Ragnaros’ lava trail.
• [Volskaya Foundry] Heroes can become stuck or unresponsive between conveyors and nearby terrain islands.
• [Alterac Pass] [Sylvanas] Possession causes lane units to display the wrong death model.
• The Raven Army Warcrest and Warden’s Warcrest stop animating when viewed in the shop.
• At match end, the Queen Nightshade plays default Announcer audio.
• At match end, the Lady of Thorns plays default Announcer audio.
• Players can change Event Quest while in draft/during countdown, but will earn progress on the previous quest for that game.
• [Ana] There are two listings for Healing Dart in the Quick Cast Settings.

Localization

• [CN][Li-Ming] Templar Li-Ming’s Voice Lines are missing in game and Loadout.

Mac

• New – [Mac] Some players are experiencing issues launching Heroes.
• New – [Mac] Some players are experiencing crashes mid-game.
• [Mac][macOS 10.14] Mouse cursor becomes unresponsive in Fullscreen mode.
• [H.38] [Mac] Old replays cannot be loaded.

Engine and Game Systems

• New – AI will not prioritize or properly interact with certain map objectives.
• New – Pinged AI will stand ground or continuously hearth to altar.
• New – Pinged AI heroes will continue to chase down a target into dangerous areas.
• New – Enemy AI becomes hyper focused on attacking the healing dummy.
• Some players are experiencing performance degradation during Brawl Hero Selection screen.

[SleepySheepy 41]

There is also weird UI in QM screen, one that states you are getting bonus XP for that class, once you press ready it gets half stuck on the bottom of the screen.

[Warper 12]

I had a glitch in a draft where it looked like it kicked me and sent me to the quick match screen. I had already highlighted a character and it had me hovering over him but I couldn’t ready up. As people on my team selected it filled in the slots with their readied up characters. Luckily once we were in game nothing was wrong, but it was weird and if I’d had to switch it would have kicked me.

[Kuarinofu 78]

2 hours ago, SleepySheepy said:

There is also weird UI in QM screen, one that states you are getting bonus XP for that class, once you press ready it gets half stuck on the bottom of the screen.

Yep, had those green hud pieces stuck under the Ready button.

[Timotheaus 5]

I have had a few quirks in AI games recenty. 

First, The AI have not been running out and dying at the beginning of the games. They have been waiting at the gate until the minion wave crosses the gate. Which sounds great but they are literally in the gate and you can poke them down and kill them and they will not move.

I had a really funny interaction as Tassadar against an AI Chen. At the start of the game he came out with the minion wave and i had the auto attack quest for Tass. He literally just stood there drinking the whole time and allowed me to auto attack him for 40 seconds worth of quest until he died. He never moved just kept drinking until i whittled him down and died. Right after i killed him he ran back out, and i did it again.

Also another interaction i have had is when you get an AI target low (around 25% or so) and you start chasing them they will run back to there base. Which is what should be happening, but if you stop chasing ad slightly run the other direction they will stop running to the base and chase you. So you can kind of stutter step them and they will just run at you and you can kill them.

[Morcalivan 86]

The AI went to it seems Beginner mode after the patch compared to what it was before.

[Anastriana 9]

8 hours ago, Timotheaus said:

I have had a few quirks in AI games recenty. 

First, The AI have not been running out and dying at the beginning of the games. They have been waiting at the gate until the minion wave crosses the gate. Which sounds great but they are literally in the gate and you can poke them down and kill them and they will not move.

I had a really funny interaction as Tassadar against an AI Chen. At the start of the game he came out with the minion wave and i had the auto attack quest for Tass. He literally just stood there drinking the whole time and allowed me to auto attack him for 40 seconds worth of quest until he died. He never moved just kept drinking until i whittled him down and died. Right after i killed him he ran back out, and i did it again.

Also another interaction i have had is when you get an AI target low (around 25% or so) and you start chasing them they will run back to there base. Which is what should be happening, but if you stop chasing ad slightly run the other direction they will stop running to the base and chase you. So you can kind of stutter step them and they will just run at you and you can kill them.

I play almost exclusively versus AI elite (shameful, I know), and I notice all these goofy quirks as they come and go.

That first change they did for AI is probably the only "good" thing that came from this AI patch. Except of course, as you pointed out, they don't wait safely behind their gate and instead do their patented "AI dance" in and out of it, which allows them to be poked a lot, if not outright killed. But at least the seeds of better planning are there, instead of them running out sans minions.

AI Chen has been like that for as far back as I remember. That is definitely not something that came with this patch. He has waaay too much priority on his "I can drink through this!" flag. The only times I've seen him not do this, is if he thinks he can kill you (if you're low on health or squishy), or if he's in a big teamfight, generally. But he's usually the last to die, and even more so when he sits and drinks like he's drinking away the pain of seeing his friends all die.

That last one has been sort of around for a while, but I think them doing it while almost dead is much more pronounced in this latest patch.

Another quirk that's even more exaggerated this patch is their "avoid bad things" AI. They're usually pretty good at staying away from things like Malfurion's roots, Kael's flamestrike, and other telegraphed areas of damage/crowd control - mainly only hampered by their constant dancing along the edges of longer abilities, which can make them actually get hit about half the time, depending on what it is. This unfortunately makes it hard to hit them with telegraphed abilities though, kinda making builds focused around those less fun.

But their main downfall is that they place so much priority on avoiding those telegraphed zones, that they will avoid them even if going through them would save their life, instead of getting killed staying out. Many abilities are basically "fear" spells to AI. Placing things such as Malf's roots or Stukov's lurking arm on their gate will make them dance out of the edge of it, taking all of your pot shots instead of just walking through to safety. Even Probius' warp rifts can be used to almost perfectly herd AI like sheep. One of the best ones, due to infinite duration, is Junkrat's mine. Just plop one down on an objective, and the AI will dance around it like it was a nuclear bomb.

Tossing Kael'thas' living bomb on an AI makes them instantly run off in a different direction, which is good for them not spreading it to allies, but it often makes them put themselves in much greater danger to your other abilities and team because they basically just run away as if hit by Gul'dan's horror. Speaking of Kael's living bomb, AI Kael will make very noticeable beelines to enemy heroes just to throw one, often ending in him massively overextending to do it. It's been somewhat lessened in this patch, but he'll still generally put his life at great risk just to use it.

There's other AI things I've noticed as well (not necessarily bad quirks or patch-related), and I figure I might as well list them while I'm talking a lot about them.

- They instantly see the moment when you stop chasing them and turn around to do more fighting, poking, or whatever.

- They also know when they're just out of vision range to start hearthing or mounting up, which can make chasing them a pain.

- They love to interrupt your abilities. Hammer, Raynor, Brightwing, Morales, Tychus, ETC, etc. will perfectly ruin your abilities to the point where it basically becomes "press R to be interrupted" (it doesn't have to be your ult though). Good luck casting much of anything when up against multiple of those heroes. Makes me really wish there was a "abilities interrupted" area on the scoreboard.

Edited February 26, 2019 by Anastriana

[ArtVandelay 24]

I have seen a bunch of times where the AI just moves back and forward in a very small area and never does anything at all.  And yes, pinging and they still don't follow.

I wish the AI wouldn't automatically run into camps and stop soaking a lane when you start a camp.  I will ping if I need help.

[Pandabuffel 184]

I already thought something was off with the AI lately. We just had a couple of matches where 3-4 enemy bots just went back and forth, hugging a fort, not attacking while being attacked and not running away when being killed. A few days ago we even had 4 enemy bots just running around one of our forts and walked into them from behind committing suicide without attacking the fort. And those are just a few highlights, a lot of these kind of quirks are happening. Really hope the fix is coming soon, even elite feels like fighting beginner AI.

[benOwar 20]

On 2/25/2019 at 9:16 PM, Morcalivan said:

The AI went to it seems Beginner mode after the patch compared to what it was before.

true that. As a filthy casual who mostly plays against AI for fun (cause I don't feel to grind and all. Don't judge me) the decline of the games has become visible for quite some time now. Most of the time the games are too easy even tho there is a huge difference in the AI per team. While the enemy team AI teams up in capturing/ defending objectives and mostly groups up for team fights, your AI seems to wander around aimless the whole time, making you almost lose every map objective since your mostly fight 2v5 or 3v5 which is really annoying.

Furthermore camps seem to be irrelevant. While the enemy AI used to have some nice camp timings (e.g. capturing a hard or even boss camp shortly before the objective spawns) or even pressuring the map by running from camp to another (esppecially on Blackhearts Bay) - which kinda seemed like a weird bug itself - camps nowadays aren't even bothered (or clearly less) touching.

Another fact is that you can run past an enemy hero while crossing the map without getting attacked, which is very unlikely to happen. Some actions are just not reasonable and I hope they'll fix it in the near future.

 

of course you can say that's the problem of playing against AI instead of QM/TL or HL, but as I mentioned I play the game mostly in my free time after work with friends and use it more to chat and have a good time instead of grinding and tryharding and it really bothers me not being challenged at an entertaining  and challenging lvl.