Improved Bots

Bots are great for practicing in Dota2. When I started playing dota (about a year ago) I played alot of bots (and I still do). But in my opinion they should be improved.



1. Add some kind of captains mode to bots.

Sometimes when I play bots I pick Nature's Prophet for example, and then the bots pick turtly lategame heroes like PA.
I really want a way to choose all heroes you're playing with.

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2. More heroes that bots can play

You would be learning how to counter or play with some heroes alot easier if the bots could play heroes like Morphling, Disruptor, Mirana or Queen of Pain. Why can't they play these heroes?
I know that they can't play most heroes because they got spells like Relocate, Rearm, Invoke and Teleportation, but there's tons of heroes without that kind of spells that I think that bots should be able to play. Mirana got her Sacred Arrow, but it should be used like Meat Hook, so whats the problem? I understand that Moonlight Shadow is hard to make so that she uses it when she's supposed to, but they can make so she uses it to escape or before teamfights or ganks. Leap should be used just like Force Staff and her AoE (forgot the name) should be used as a teamfight spell.

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3. More difficulties.

Playing on hard is the most realistic mode, because the other team can harrass and gank, but it's still to easy!

I think that you should be able to select what the bots in each team can do and how good their reaction time is etc. When playing in hard it is almost impossible to play carry because the other team is full of denying pros with a 0ms reaction time.

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What do you think? Comment below!

Hi.

It's possible to get every cs with an even matchup against ranged Unfair bots. Melee is difficult.
It's possible to get every cs against Hard Bots.

I solely play Unfair bots, and it's safe to say that although the laning stage will be hard, your decision making in the mid-game will make up for it.

for 2), they can't play those heroes because nobody has programmed a script for them.

1), you can't pick who you play with in pubs, so why should you in bots?

Cheers,
Sofa

True but it's still extremely hard to play #1 carries. That's why I only play junglers, offlaners or supports in bots. (But everytime I play a jungler like Nature's Prophet I outfarm the enemy team so hard that I win 9 out of 10 times.)

2) Can't someone make a script then? Is it possible to make your own scripts?

1) Because.... Because.
In bots you can play trilanes (When the game starts go to then offlane, then take the runes, wait for the creeps to start fightning in the midlane, go through there, maybe try to get first blood, go take the other rune, then go to the safelane) but you can't play trilanes with a hard carry. Why? Because the game automatically chooses a "Farmer" and "Support" for every lane.The "Farmer" bot in your lane thinks he's #1 and takes all farm. Then the "Support Bot" thinks he's #2 until the laning stage ends.

And you can't play solo offlane. The game automatically tries to make sure there's always at least 1 bot in each lane during the laning stage. This means that there's always another bot in the offlane.

And you should be able to choose the heroes in bot mode if you want to. It's extremely annoying when there's 4 hard carries in your team and you play a pusher. (Because you choosed early). And the other team is FULL of early-midgame heroes and pushers. It doesn't matter how good you are, the game is lost already. (In hard or unfair of course. Medium is soooo easy. You can't lose in medium. In hard it's a 40/60% chance, it depends on your play.)

I'm making a guide about customizing bots, will take a while to come out though. However, about choosing heroes for bots...

In the console, you can use the command dota_bot_force_pick, then enter the internal name of a hero. Internal names are all npc_dota_hero_X. For example, if you want Lina, you type dota_bot_force_pick npc_dota_hero_lina. Forced bots fill the Radiant team first.

The following heroes available for bots have internal names that differ from their official names:

Necrophos = npc_dota_hero_necrolyte
Shadow Fiend = npc_dota_hero_nevermore
Vengeful Spirit = npc_dota_hero_vengefulspirit
Windranger = npc_dota_hero_windrunner
Wraith King = npc_dota_hero_skeleton_king
Zeus = npc_dota_hero_zuus

Technically, you can force bots to pick any hero, and they'll move around the map, attack, retreat, etc. and use items, but those without bot files don't use any active abilities, so they're basically big creeps.

Making your own scripts is possible, but very, very complicated. Valve's bot code is compressed deep into the game's files and can't even be located. They also have no reason to release it or make it accessible. The only way would be to start your own code from scratch.

Thanks. I was just looking around in the game files (trying to find the scripts). The bot code is probably written in C++ anyway. I can't code C++ so...

But can "non-botfile" heroes level their passives at least? And do they skip actives and get stats? Can they even last hit?

Bots can be ordered to level their skills in whatever order you choose. They aren't even restricted like we do, e.g you could make Lion skill Finger of Death at levels 1, 2 and 3 if you wanted.

Heroes without specific bot files can do everything other bots do, except use active abilities. Some people at the dev forums have tried enabling Abaddon and Spectre on the basis that even if they're crippled, their passives can let them manage just fine.

Most of this game is written in C++, according to Valve.

The game is written in C++ and LUA. I can program a little LUA (Very little). It would be easier to mod stuff if the botfiles were coded in Python.

When my Dota starts working again I will try with Abaddon/Spectre. Any other heroes with passives that work good? Phantom Lancer? And can you have multiple of the same hero? And how do you enable them? You showed how to forcepick them earlier but how do you enable them?

I hear Invoker still works really well with only his passives.

But doesn't he have to activate them first?

LOL

+rep