I'm at the point where the bots don't even bother me in the game anymore. I have about 4k hours dumped into this game over the course of when it became f2p so dealing with them isn't really that difficult and if there's a huge stack of bots it's just strange farming for 5 or so minutes with a group of buddies. On top of that most of the time when you catch 1 or 2 bots in casual they get kicked almost instantly if solo queue is your thing.
My problem is with the obvious cheater 6 stacks. Idk if rijin, nullcore, lbox, or whatever just became easier to download or what but it seems like lately I get into at least 3 matches each time I play with cheater stacks. People with unusuals flexing that they aren't getting banned despite auto-locking on anything that moves. Even if it's a stack of like 2 or 3 cheaters their team won't kick them unless they're blatantly spinning. I would join alternative servers like uncletopia but I actually like random crits so I keep queueing casual.
Also nearly all of the new cosmetics and unusual effects are ass. I feel like valve is just trying to bury this game's economy so people will move on.
Quite frankly, even clocking at around 500 hours I have started to notice glaring flaws with the game not just with bots, hence why I quit this game along side WoT on unironically the same week.
- Source Code: Best said by youtuber shounic with his videos. The Source Engine has been a great engine before but nowadays it has become so dogshit in optimization and basic functions that it handles like ass on both new and old systems. Unhelped by Valve just constantly adding cosmetics and maps without care of checking of the code would even be more alienated than before.
- Weapon Balance: Beyond having a ton of weapons being so fucking useless (i.e Righteous Bison), some are straight up upgrades, like the Ubersaw and Diamondback that smart players will abuse the shit out of and creating a boring ass "meta" that te game unnecessarily needed. Jungle Inferno showed Valve has not learned a thing or two as most of the weapons introduced are ass balanced wise.
- Cosmetics, lootboxes and the art style. Perhaps why I bothered quitting TF2, cosmetics have become Valve's main M.O, ignoring all forms of other feedback in addition of supplying endless lootboxes (no I do not care if it's strange or shit, let these cosmetics be earned in-game) to the point of conditioning the remaining players that spending it on virtual gambling is acceptable. The art style has also been gutted to the point of adding ridiculous shit not restricted to Halloween or whatever, with the idea that shoving as many cosmetics as one can think of to satisfy everyone and eventually piss off everyone. Also, what about unobtainable content?
- Broken Gamemodes: PASS Time, Robot Destruction, Territorial Control, Arena, Payload Race, Player Destruction, Special Delivery, Mannpower, Highlander and even fucking Competitive. All either broken, unfinished or unused by the community. If used correctly, can be used to make TF2 beyond control points and intelligence cases but nah, just leave it there.
- F2P: Locking F2Ps, from storage to chat functions by forcing them to use the Mann Co. Store was a spit to the face. The game should have been pay to play instead of that was the case.
- Unfinished shit: Ever remember Cactus Canyon or perhaps Snowplow? Yeah me neither because Valve barely gave a rats ass about the state of those maps even after 14 years.
- Offline Bot functionality: Offline bots are a fucking joke that you'd have to rely not on one but two bot mods to make offline play in TF2 fun and even then it can be buggy and demanding for older GPUs.
- MvM: It was great but could use a ton of new content from maybe just 4 more maps and new bot variations.
- Training: Still shit. (I also found out Valve added a Training Ground for DOTA2 but is barebones compared to the community's training so kudos for being dogshit. Enjoy our 150$ battlepass you paypigs).
- And many more I could barely mention.
TF2 used to be great, and it could be so much more if you've seen community output like the Mayann or Frontline content and even Team Comptress 2, we could even officialize Freak Fortress 2 into the game but instead Valve just sits on top of their golden horde of money and says no. The VAC and bots only exacerbate the issues and shows the skeleton state of the game. Why bother supporting a game that does not even respect your time and has a ton of issues unresolved by an unresponsive "developer" team?
