Deathmatch in Darkzone

I play single player / campaign on "Hard" from time to time.  Still haven't played enough to play multiplayer.
But the only level I can't ever win is Deathmatch in Darkzone.  I'm wondering if it is just my visual acuity or something else.  Bots see me and kill me before I can even see them, and I feel like they don't have the same "limited vision" that I do.  I'd blame my monitor's settings but I suspect you would tell me it's not the musket, it's the pilgrim.
Any feedback on this?

Yes, bots always see perfectly. The level is still beatable, though a tiny bit harder then most. Bots are relatively predictable and once you notice their patterns, you can stay out of their paths (they're very effective at short range), keep getting items and killing them from relative safety. Keep in mind, although DM sadly doesn't subtract points for dying, it's still a good idea to try to stay alive as much as possible so you keep weapons. RL and mortar are good choices on darkzone (on other maps vortex is as well). Read xonotic.org/guide, learn to combo.

Bots at this difficulty level time items so they'll get 100h, 100a and 50a as soon as they spawn but the pathfinding is bad and they only start moving towards it 4 s before the item spawns so they might not make it to one of those in time. I'll leave it to you to figure out which one.

As for visibility, at some point we'll hopefully make fullbright skins the default so they'll be a lot more visible. Before that, you can achieve the same thing manually.

I came to the forums just to ventilate my anger about this map. Deathmatch in Darkzone with invisible bots is just crazy. I played causally on default/medium difficulty and had no problem with any level so far. Only two levels of twenty I didn't win at first attempt. It was fun so I kept playing.  But than there was Deathmatch in Darkzone. Level 21. 10? 20? 30 attempts? I lost count. I couldn't beat it so far. Tried lowering difficulty with no effect. Tried raising difficulty had also no effect. This is no fun at all anymore. I guess I won't ever see level 22.

It's not that darkzone is harder than reasonable, it's that all previous levels are way too easy (to the point i suspect many players give up on the campaign, as it doesn't teach almost anything useful for multiplayer).

The campaign doesn't increase difficulty gradualy as i should. Technically the "skill" cvar increases gradually but various other aspects of the campaign mean there's a sudden jump of actual perceived difficulty at the darkzone level. See (spoiler i guess) the file which defines the campaign (0.8.2 version, switch to master branch to see git/autobuild but there weren't large changes). Darkzone is nothing compared to multiplayer with competent players ... though you will likely never meet so many of those at once

Basically bots are only good at DM, maybe a bit TDM, every other mode lets you win easily by just using your brain a little. CTF is especially bad. Most levels before darkzone are some "specials" which usually means humans with a bit of common sense are able to win easily. The only "normal" DM is oilrig which is a large map and bots don't have great pathfinding so they suck there too. On xoylent they seem to take way too long to switch targets, they're not very good at aiming to push someone off the map and they don't seem to aim for the ground to maximize the push so they're very weak; on top of that, the skill is set to only 6 even though previous levels got up to 8. Idk why, maybe an oversight? Darkzone then jumps to 9. I am not sure at what skill level bots start to time items but i think this is the first level where it's really noticeable.

And now the rant about DM: i think you can win most DM levels very easily by not really playing xonotic properly but just rushing everyone you see: if you kill him, good, +1; if you die, you lose a few seconds, respawn, and try again but don't lose points (unless you kill yourself). If you keep doping this fast enough, you can do it faster then the bots and "win" even though you're really bad at actually playing xonotic and you'd be useless at any mode which counts scores properly (in TDM your death means points for the enemy) or has proper objectives which can't be achieved by just shooting shotgun at everything and hoping for the best. On darkzone the bots pick up all the h/a (health/armor) they can get and go for some items *before* they spawn (might depend on selected difficulty) so the strategy to rush everything suddenly stops working. The bots might actually do dmg faster than you but even if not, they have enough h/a to kill you first. Being hard to see is imho just a cherry on the top, not something that actually causes the sudden difficulty jump. Try the level with fullbright players (megaerebus model) as the guide suggests and see if you can win then.

As for how to play DM properly - don't die so much, get vortex, RL and mortar (darkzone doesn't have vortex), learn to combo (again, guide) and keep your health above 150, the higher the better and don't rush the bots. Pick them off when they're weak or retreat. Notice their movement patterns and stay out of their way (i'd say being hard to see is worse when the bot is close but in general bots are good at close range and bad at distance).

> The campaign doesn't increase difficulty gradualy as i[t] should. 
That's the point. If levels would gradually teach you about weapon combos, bunny hoping, constant respawn times on items and stuff like that, would be great!
Also an easy access option for glowing models in this special case of Darkzone

The Quake 3 Rendering Engine - Brian Hook - 1999 GDC
Q&A-Section regarding single player
https://youtu.be/TFfkX_ahl94?t=6449