Here's a reminder that I have custom made nav meshes for community maps.
arcadiaThere are a few training-specific bot maps that people use to practice (tr_walkway, tyler rocket shooting, and some others, idk that many), but otherwise native tf2 bots are simply unable to participate in competitive because they would be hilariously bad. For example, when someone leaves a faceit match, a bot will join and generally they start to do things like building a sentry on last while you're pushing their second.
I don't necessarily agree that nav meshes should be banned if bots are bad, because bots could be improved in the future; it's not an impossible event. In the event that native bots are improved enough to be usable in competitive, it would suck to have bad or no nav meshes for a map, which already hurt the performance of native TF2 bots.
arcadiaIf you're thinking about more complex, perhaps ML bots, then that's a different story, but they don't really exist yet.
Doesn't stop them from being made. It would be difficult to account for the efficiency due to the overhead of modding engines, like MetaMod: Source and Sourcemod, but I wouldn't be surprised if I saw one. Machine learning could technically work, but it would take a lot of data, so it'd be a while before someone makes it.
However machine learning is not all that difficult; it just takes a lot of mathematics, training, and processing power.
A lot of improvements to bots can actually be made just by configuring the tf_bot* cvars, like I have done in my mastercomfig addon for bot support. Here's a list of tf_bot cvars!
If the TF2-specific NextBot code was refactored, bots could easily have skill levels comparable to players, like changing up Scout bots to be able to use double jumps, or make Sniper bots strafe while scoped aiming.
Definitely agree that the programming for bots should be reworked though; 'hiding in cover' should not just be standing around! I also agree that native TF2 bots are not ready for competitive, but it does not stop modded bots from potentially being included.