LoL Co-Op: It's Here!

League of Legends players have been eagerly awaiting for the Co-Op versus A.I. feature to be released for the game ever since Riot Games showcased that one epic match last month. Well, it's finally here today and if you have never played this totally free to play game, it's the best time to click here and open up your new summoner account! Though it may seem like it's a time for celebration, this mode is unfortunately not all that it was cracked up to be.

So glad to see this today because I was beginning to think it was all a hoax.

It all has to do with the performance of the bots. They seemed more impressive - though obviously flawed - during the "Rioterz vs. Bots" match-up than they actually are. They still did the same good and bad things they did to the Rioters as I have listed here but they are really easy to fight against. They are not "aware" enough about their opponents' abilities - like Nidalee's deadly Javelin that I was able to line up nicely very often, even when they could see me aiming it at them from a mile away. They do get tricky at late game when they are well farmed  and they are deadly when they group up but other than those things, you can pretty much assure yourself a victory over these bots.

The bots are pretty good at zoning you away from scoring creep kills with their aggression.

Though much improved over the old bots, the fact that this mode is a bit too easy, especially with a team of good players, makes it less fun that I thought it would be. When winning is too easy to achieve, the game does become a bit boring. The new bots were supposed to challenge the players but they don't. Since you lose 25% of the accumulated Influence Points from playing this mode, it's probably best to play it when testing out new champions or when you have a nasty streak of bad luck fighting against real players and you want to feel overpowered for a little bit. New players would certainly benefit from it and it fosters better camaraderie: there's something about fighting against cold-hearted machines that makes your team members a lot more pleasant. Still, it is a nice addition to the game and it is something that I would love to see implemented in Heroes of Newerth. It is of course also very convenient to be placed in a queue to be teamed up with other players to fight against these new bots instead of having to open up a room manually. I sure hope that Riot Games will keep improving upon the A.I. to make them harder to deal with.

The scoreboard from my first co-op play against the bots.
As you can see, the bots got completely owned, scratched, and spit out.