remove bots in online matches

Can't you just jack up the difficulty on the bots?  Hard/nightmare level bots should fare reasonably well.

Is there a way to even tell whos a bot and who isn't (obv asside from them dieing constantly) I'd like to know if I'm fighting all bots.

And even the hardest bots are like shooting fish in a barrel

And you can't turn off the auto adding of bots even in custom games

Then the argument might be made by amateur players that the bots are too difficult and are winning matches for their opponents.

I think the better solution would be to have some sort of "supplement system" for when people leave.  So for example, you sell off all of that player's items and split the gold among the team, and then you split what their gold income would be for the rest of the team as well. This way, you don't fall behind on Citadel upgrades or anything like that, but you don't have to worry about bots winning or losing matches for your team either.

The only problem with that, as was in DoTA, is that sometimes it became beneficial for a team when their teammates left.

Then again, that was because items played an omega-terrible ultra role in the game, so the dropping of a teammate allowed one hero to dominate the entire enemy team, depending on the hero.

I guess it's not as much of a problem in this game as items and heroes aren't as unbalanced as DoTA.

Bots have 0 ping on the score screen.

any solution is better than having AI in ladder matches...

Really, the game should end if one side is all bots, the human team winning.

And yeh, I agree that bots should be removed from Skirmish and Pantheon. There should be an option for them in Custom Games. 

For when people leave, the following suggestion sounds good. 

Bots should be HARD no question about it.

Maybe just have bots in Skirmish?? That will allow Pantheon to really be a test of skill with real players, then allow bots in Skirmishes and Custom games, as long as the host adds them.

As far as difficulty goes, I think they should be on hard. If a newbie joins and the hard bot is better than him and he cant do anything, then he can do a singleplayer or custom game match with easy/normal till he learns how to play. It shouldn't take to long to get just as good if not better than a hard bot.

YES!  They're stupid, tedious, and without a resign option they just force me to feed experience/favor to the dark. Blah.

Nightmare AI still feeds.  Most of them time I'd rather 3vs2 not 3vs2+1ai.

There should be a bot-ejection button on the scores menu.

You should be able to choose whether players are replaced by AI or not. 

Bots should also never be in any ranked or competitive type game - I'm looking at you Pantheon.

This isn't true. When hosting a Custom Game you can completely control every slot of the game and whether it's open, closed, or what level of AI is in it.

MP Customs with friends is all I have played, what game mode is auto-adding bots?

ditto.  see Should there be a resign option?

Simple solution. If a player drops he is replaced by a medium AI bot. If the rest of his team wish to contine playing with this disadvantage, that is upto them. A playing dropping should always be interpretted as a surrender whether it was intentional or not. If all the players on one team drop the game is over. This goes for Pantheon and Custom.

Bots should NEVER be selected in Pantheon to make up the numbers on one side at the start of a game. That is retarded.

Indeed, I'd much rather not play with any bots at all ever in MP.  Havn't got into a skirmish match yet that wasn't either all bots or me vs 1 human and the rest bots.  Makes it extra unfair for someone whos new, as I lvl like mad before they have a chance, and I can imagine they just wonder wtf...