Player Discussion: This IS an issue.
When players come on the forum to try to explain the AI problem of: "enemy bots are stronger, smarter, better setup than the bots on my team which are basically useless", the typical response we get from the moderation team is "that sounds like a conspiracy theory". So, rather than using my words, I'm going to be quoting from a recent YouTube video from one of the games OFFICIAL CONTENT CREATORS, RuFFles.
https://youtu.be/Xro6MwQGLPA?si=WkbSiSr761L8aIFN
Starting around 20:36:
"So, now I want to talk about some of the things that I don't believe are issues that, but I still see them come up very often. Still on the topic of bots, still, one that I see a lot is the bots having like a quote 'team bias', where they will purposely throw the game for you or they will purposely do better; 'the bots on the enemy team are doing way better than the bots on my team,' that's the complaint I constantly hear. And yea, that's probably true, but it's not purposeful. It's random. The bots are random. If you were to flip a coin four times, sometimes it's going to land all four times on heads. Sometimes, it's not going to happen every time, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes, it's going to land all four times on tails. You're not necessarily going to notice; in fact, I can pretty much guarantee that almost no players notice or pay attention to when the bots are favoring their team."
I completely disagree with RuFFles on this one, THIS IS A MAJOR ISSUE, one that we tried to address way back in beta which obviously fell on deaf ears. Having the AI decide match outcomes (and let's assume for the second it is "random") negates the entire spirit of this being a competitive game. This setup negates matchmaking even, as even if the players are balanced perfectly, if the three-four bots on one team are predisposed to lose, than you've just ruined that balance between players. Ultimately, what this equates to is the game is deciding winner, "randomly" if you believe RuFFles. Your skill and ability, your spending, your actual talent with the mechs you play with are insignificant, if you're having to play one versus five because your AI is too dumb to leave the spawn zone.
Further, speaking as a long term free player (joined when open beta started, August 2020, no dollars spent), I can tell you this "team bias" IS NOT random and it IS purposeful. It might seem random to spenders, in which they might fight players whom have spent more and less than them. On the free to play side, the slant is far more than 50%, it seems closer to 80%. I have no doubt the AI is being used as a paywall: the bigger spender gets upgraded and smart AI, while the smaller spender/free players gets very broken and useless AI. For me, this has always decided my desire to spend in this game (or decidedly, NOT spend); I DO NOT want to spend for easier games because the AI basically feeds me while my AI runs the match. This is not PvP. This isn't even a game if the system decides the winner, rather than our talent playing the game.
Not for naught, at 50/50 to get stronger or weaker bots on your team, to "flip a coin and get head or tails four times in a row" is a whopping 6.25%. That means you have a higher chance to pull a gold implant from an advanced chest (7%) than to get four games in a row of consecutive superior or useless bots.