Better Better Bots

Hello! Better Bots did historically include features like damage multipliers.
This mod is a continuation of that project, but the version posted here has those restricted features disabled to comply with MWS rules. So while I understand the association, this upload itself is not meant to be a cheat release.
If you think otherwise, could you point out which part of this upload you consider cheating?

@neptuneisthebest Hello, there will always be dissatisfied players. I think it's best to check with the site administration to see what they consider cheating in your mod to avoid bans and what can be disabled to avoid being a cheat. Although, I don't understand: if features are disableable and players choose to use these benefits, then how is that cheating? If you consider it cheating, then disabling everything is at the player's discretion.

@ghost_ure Hello! From my perspective, in a PvE game the line between “cheating” and “customization” is not always completely clear, especially when the goal is simply to make bots more functional rather than to trivialize the game.

My original intention was to address what I see as weak bot design in the base game. In many situations, bots are not very effective: their survivability is limited, they have no armor, their health recovery in combat is poor, and there are no meaningful stat upgrades for them on DSOD. Compared with human players, their combat performance is also much weaker.

Because of that, I do not believe that improving certain bot attributes automatically gives players a major unfair advantage. Players still need to complete objectives themselves, and bots are still counted as regular players for enemy scaling, which can increase difficulty in some situations.

That said, I understand why some players or moderators may view certain features differently. If someone dislikes specific options, they can disable them, while still keeping the other QoL and AI-related improvements provided by Better Better Bots.

At this point, it has been confirmed that the MWS moderators do not allow global modifications to bot weapon damage, which is why my suspension has lasted this long. To avoid further controversy, I am also planning to remove other multiplier-related features from the MWS version.

I understand the moderators’ position and I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. Please check the GitHub Release page for more details.

@neptuneisthebest

I don't understand the moderators' position. Literally who cares if people cheat, people should be allowed to enjoy their game however they see fit (if you don't want to be affected by 'cheaters', hosting your own lobby or only playing with friends is what you do). Precisely why I always upload all of my mods to Nexusmods because they're so much more chill with what you can upload

Maybe you can consider uploading the original version to Nexus too?

@willcario Hello! Thank you for your support. I do agree with your point to a large extent. Since this is a PvE game, I also think players should have a fair amount of freedom in how they choose to enjoy it.

That said, I still need to take the site’s moderation rules into account for this upload. I've already appealed to the moderator, but there's nothing I can do.

The project is currently hosted on GitHub, and I’ll look into your suggestion.

Thank you again for your reply and support.

@neptuneisthebest first things first,the rules are the rules,no blatant cheats allowed.if you think giving bot blatant stats boost is a 'better way to fix it',i can write a mod give player and jokers 3x health and 5x damage and call it 'better player and joker',people think it's a cheat for a good reason.
if you only do those bot logic fix?i think most people are fine with that.if you gain something extra,you need to pay for that.also wdym bots are not effective?they are op as f**k,bots can fully restore their health, similar to how players restore armor,i just dont think bots are 'weak',they are just stupid and broken,give theim DB shotgun and with quick,i cant see any reason that player failed any map any heist unless they really tried.
nice work try to fix a cheat btw lol

@act2498 Hello! Thanks for the feedback. I think your comparison here mixes up two very different things.

Giving players direct stat boosts is not equivalent to giving bots limited compensation. Players already have access to skill trees, Perk Decks, weapon mods, armor gating, and a wide range of build choices. Bots have none of that. They do not scale like real players, and on DSOD they are nowhere near as effective as one.

As for “bots can fully restore their health,” that is technically true on paper, but highly misleading in practice. Bot regeneration is not gradual; it is an all-or-nothing delayed trigger. Every time a bot takes damage, the regen timer resets. Under constant DSOD fire, that often means they never get to heal at all. So yes, the mechanic says they can return to full health—but in real combat, they are frequently locked out of regeneration entirely.

There is also still a major gap between fixing bot logic and making bots comparable to actual human players. Better AI does not give them human decision-making, positioning, build synergy, or adaptability. They remain bots.

And regarding “if you gain something extra, you need to pay for that” — I agree. That is exactly why Better Better Bots changes spawn scaling so the game treats bots as real players for enemy caps and assault intensity. In other words, the player does pay for stronger bots by facing a heavier 4-player-style assault.

So no, I do not consider this equivalent to simply giving the player free cheats. I consider it compensation for a system that was never designed to let bots scale the way real players do.

As I mentioned before, I already adjusted the MWS version to comply with the moderators’ rules on stat multipliers. The full version hosted elsewhere reflects my own balancing philosophy.

In any case, thanks again for the recognition of the effort put into the mod.

@neptuneisthebest
First of all, I came here isnt without my testing.

you thing your mod isnt a “cheat”,the default bots using their default weapons were able to achieve around 46 KPM on DSOD in a controlled test where enemies did not target the player. They never went down once and were constantly throwing flashbangs. That result alone already says quite a lot about the scale of the buffs.

I agree with your point that bots do not have the same progression systems as players (skills, perk decks, weapon builds, etc.). However, OVK’s typical way of scaling difficulty has always been simply increasing numbers. That is exactly why enemies can deal around 225 damage per shot while bots have 8000 HP. Those raw numbers already give bots extremely high survivability.

In practice, as long as the player is actively playing the game and killing enemies, bots almost never go down. Whether you give them AP skill or use DB shotguns to exploit the game’s mechanics, three bots can already handle nearly every enemy type except Dozers and turrets. Because of that, I do not really understand the claim that bots have “poor survivability.”

If anything, the real issue with bots in PAYDAY 2 is pathfinding, not their durability. Their survivability problems usually happen when the navigation system breaks or when they walk into bad positions and walk very very slowly. But that is fundamentally a pathfinding problem, not a stat problem—and it is already heavily masked by their enormous HP pool.

In fact, in vanilla DSOD, bringing three bots is often far more reliable than bringing three random players. Even after more than 2000 hours in DS loud, I personally cannot consistently achieve 15 KPM in real gameplay, while bots in your mod were reaching numbers far beyond that in testing.

Increasing enemy spawns does not really solve the underlying issue either. Due to the game’s tickrate limitations, increasing the number of enemies often just makes the AI behave worse. So I do not see why “4-player spawn logic” should be considered a meaningful balancing factor here.

Compared to the scale of buffs given to the bots, increasing the spawn count by one player’s worth does not really feel like an equivalent trade-off. If anything, it just makes the balancing feel questionable for actual players.

@act2498 Players should be free to enjoy the game however they want. I’ve been playing since 2013, and this is the first mod that’s let me actually complete DSOD. I’m not a bad player either — in fact, my friends are worse than me. Plus, this only gives an advantage to one player, and only in loud mode — it doesn’t impact anyone else. What’s wrong with me beating this difficulty without needing a hundred attempts? You could even keep the bots’ regular health and damage, so there wouldn’t be anything overpowered or unfair about it.

@act2498 Hello! Thanks for sharing your detailed test results. I appreciate the time you took to run those tests and explain your perspective.

You make a fair point about vanilla pathfinding—I agree that it's a major cause of many bot survivability issues, not just their raw stats. I also understand your concern that increasing spawn caps can interact poorly with the engine's tickrate and AI behavior. However, increasing the number of enemy spawns is not without merit; it does significantly increase the game's difficulty. Especially since some players might use FSS or similar mods to improve the tickrate issue.

Ultimately, I think we have different design philosophies for PAYDAY 2. In my own organic gameplay tests, a bot's total kill count usually ends up being similar to a human player's. Considering that human players have to split their time between handling mission objectives, moving bags, and surviving—while bots are 100% focused on shooting—the bots' actual kill efficiency is still lower than that of a competent player.

At the same time, I fully understand why a veteran DSOD player might see that as overtuned in controlled scenarios. That is exactly why I separated the mod into two versions. The MWS version is there for people who only want the logic improvements while strictly adhering to vanilla stat scaling, while the full version reflects my own broader balancing approach.

So while we clearly disagree on where the line between balance adjustments and cheating should be drawn, I genuinely appreciate the mechanical insights and the effort you put into testing.

Have a great day.

@ghost_ure Hello! Thanks for sharing, I'm really glad the mod could help you out. My main goal with this mod has always been to help solo players actually enjoy the game more.

You make a great point about keeping their regular health and damage. That's exactly why those stat bonuses can be completely turned off. I'm constantly working on adding more smart logic features to Better Better Bots, and as you mentioned, turning off the stat boosts won't affect that improved AI at all.

Hope you continue to have fun with it!

@neptuneisthebest
I think there are a couple of points in your reply that overlook how the vanilla game actually works.

First, regarding enemy spawn increases as a balancing factor. The problem is that this argument implicitly assumes players are using tickrate-related mods like FSS. Balance should not be designed around the assumption that players are modifying the game. In a purely vanilla environment, increasing enemy spawns often interacts poorly with the game's tickrate and AI update rate, which can actually make AI behavior worse rather than simply making the game harder.

Second, the statement that human players must divide their attention between objectives, bags, and survival while bots are “100% focused on shooting” misses an important part of how bots function in PAYDAY 2. Bots actually provide several passive benefits to the player that directly increase objective efficiency and survivability.
The Quick bot skill increases player interaction speed by 25% per bot, meaning that with three bots the player performs objectives significantly faster than they would alone. This directly reduces the amount of time a player must spend interacting with objectives.

Bots also provide survivability bonuses. bot grants +60 base health to the player, which is then further affected by skills and perk deck multipliers. In practice this means bots are not just shooting; they are also increasing the player’s survivability and objective efficiency at the same time.Also bots can carry bags.

Because of these mechanics, the premise that players lose efficiency compared to bots due to objective workload doesn’t really hold. The presence of bots actually improves the player’s ability to handle those tasks.

At this point, the most practical solution might simply be adding matchmaking lock. If the mod fundamentally changes bot performance or balance, adding a matchmaking lock so that players with the mod only join games with others who also use it would avoid most of these disagreements entirely.

*i mean modifying the tickrate

@act2498 Hello! I appreciate the detailed breakdown. You clearly have a deep understanding of vanilla Payday 2's numbers and mechanics, which I respect. However, I think there is a slight disconnect in how we interpret these mechanics in actual gameplay.

You mentioned earlier that bringing 3 bots is often more reliable than bringing 3 random players. That is absolutely true—but usually because bad randoms become active liabilities (draining medbags, going down in bad spots). However, compared to a competent 4-player human team, bots cannot split up to hold multiple chokepoints, nor can they coordinate to push different objectives simultaneously.

Even if the Diesel engine makes enemies slightly more sluggish at the maximum 4-player spawn cap, facing the absolute maximum number of enemies objectively creates massively more crossfire and area denial than the solo spawn limits. The sheer volume of bullets and enemies taking up space is the balancing factor here, forcing the solo player to deal with a 4-player horde.

You made a great point about the passive boosts bots provide. However, my point was about active agency. Even with a 75% interaction speed boost, the human player is still the sole entity navigating the map, exposing themselves to fire to fix drills, solving puzzles, and physically moving every single bag to the van. Bots are entirely reactive. They provide fantastic passive stats and covering fire, yes, but the human still carries 100% of the cognitive and mechanical workload to actually progress and complete the heist.

Regarding a matchmaking lock, I feel that is unnecessary due to how Payday 2's networking functions. Bot mechanics are strictly host-side. If a player using this mod joins someone else's lobby, the mod does absolutely nothing—it doesn't affect the vanilla host's game at all. If a player using the mod is hosting, it is their lobby, and clients simply experience a smoother AI team (or they can easily leave if they prefer vanilla AI). Forcing a matchmaking lock for a host-side AI improvement goes against general PD2 modding etiquette.

Ultimately, we just value different things in our PvE experience. You value strict adherence to vanilla limitations, while I value giving the AI enough agency and survivability so solo/duo players don't have to micromanage them.

As I mentioned previously, the MWS version has already had its global stat multipliers removed to strictly comply with the site's rules. So for players here on ModWorkshop, the "blatant cheat" aspect you are concerned about is already gone. The full, highly-customizable version remains on GitHub for those who want it.

Thank you for the deep dive into the mechanics—it’s always fun discussing Payday’s intricate systems, even if we land on different sides of the philosophy! I think we’ve both made our stances clear, so I'll leave it at that. Take care and happy heisting!