World War Z: Afthermath - Better solo play (AI and other stuff)

[malamitsos]

There has been quite a bit of noise regarding the nasty AI in this game.
Weirdly there are no mods regarding the gameplay, merely a few skins.
You basically have to carry the bots so even a single advantage towards the player would make a difference.

You can take the idea abstract and do your thing or I can elaborate regarding the way this could be done.
I guess it all comes down to if anyone cares enough and if it is not extremely hard to mess around with the code.

First way that comes in mind is the bots level up with you.
So the team benefits from more passives and (provided it is doable) the bots get upgraded guns and perks.
Bonus points if we had the ability to chose their perks and weapons.
Maybe even upgrade them ourselves so we are kind of leveling up 4 players, that could give the solo gamer a wider RPG element of gameplay.

Another idea is you plain give them stats like life, damage, make it harder for them to fall down, maybe some life regen as they will never heal themselves unless you tell them to.
Something like 1,25x for easy, 1,5x for normal, 2,0x for hard etc.
I guess that would be the easy way to go, simply finding values and giving them a multiplier factor.
Allow player to weild multiple items. (bandages, virus samples, heavy guns, grenades even maybe)
If it is easy it can serve its purpose until something more complex comes along.
((Adding to the idea that they use heavy guns they could have a faster weapon switch rate multiplier. I don't think they do atm as they don't seem to run out of bullets so they always use primary gun.))
The multipliers could end up being overkill. But at a low rate they could prove helpful for the highest difficulty.

Thirdly giving AI the ability to use equipment on command(like drop bullets), [use heavy weapons*], breaching charges, bandages, quest items like explosive charges [pick them and other stuff up(virus samples) easier without the fuss**],
and a command perhaps to heal themselves when a bandage pack is on the ground which they seem to ignore. Dying and reviving after a timer seems to bug them out at times.
I am no developer but I think these would be harder to do.
[*Eg when is the right time to use that big boom blaster without wasting it and then dying to a horde of zombies later. Potentially some command that prevents them from using it before the final stage and only when targeting a whole bunch of zombies]
[**They only seem to pick heavy weapons and medkits up and only when off combat and it takes them a while]
Or spreading when a charger runs towards them.

I've seen "more competent AI" mods on payday2, and this game seems quite similar.
I don't know if that could help, perhaps if the structure of the games is similar someone could make something similar.

Thank you.

Edited March 11 by malamitsos