[Spotlight Concept #4] Improve the Challenge of PvE

Have you been playing Company of Heroes as well? lol - While I love this idea and think it would be really cool; I can't see how it would work in GW's "over too fast battles" unless Anet really re-did the whole battle system as well as the AI.
This also is pretty close to the ABs we have now; which IMO, is really sad due to the lack of staying power over a "point of interest". If the game would actually allow for some strategy* and skirmishes lasted for several minutes on one point, I would actually enjoy such a system. This said, I can see in my mind how the game would work, but like I said, it would require a major overhaul to how the combat works in the game.

*By strategy I am refering to actual game strategy, not just knowing how to build a good character and smash buttons in the right order at the right time. I mean, flanking bonuses, enviromental bonuses (such as attacking from hill tops, from behind cover, ambushes, etc), and more. GW has none of these things but would be sweet if it did.

So, sweet idea; which then adds the above GW not haves as more to add to improve PvE.

flanking bonuses, +2on1 bonuses/penalties would add to strategy in pvp aswell

i mean if u r attacking a monk u cannot really defend urself from the warrios smashing u head in with a hammer from behind.
or 2 on 1 situation using a shield would be hard so u could use the shield armor for defence against ur target but would only get ½ aror bonus against the other dude whacking u

so more bonuses / penalties due to targettig or numbers might be part of the challenge, also some peanlties to casting if ur head is bing smashed in with a hammer it does affect ur ability to remember the complicate rituals needed to cast the spell, and to balance this ud need some protective spells with fast castig times, or spells that afect ur concentration...

running away ofcource does affect ur ability to defend urself. i mean if ur runing away from someone, u hardly have enough time to evade. also by realism, the armors in medieval times generally were weaker in the back due to weight issues, it was also presumed that u need more defence when facing ur opponent, and if the cowards who flee get killed, all the better
so a good ol' backstab for assassins?

tho im not sure but i think u get more criticals when attacking from the back? so some of this is already implemented

neway... not only are monsters copies of the am fah mob, but 1 area generally has 20 mobs of monster with exactly the same build...
sure 1 mob has 2 warriors an 3 rangers while the next has 3 warriors an 2 rangers but still. id leke to see more variety as in the level of mobs...

best territories are conquered by the strongst mob so an important intersection would have tougher opponents, while in between them u might have some easyer battles. also the groups size is pretty much always 8 or six or whatever is the max size of the party... how about a loner who has been abandoned by his tribe, or a smaller scout party with running skills patrolling around larger camp area with more heavy firepower. diversity not only in type of mobs as in am fah would be diferent from mantis but mantis would be different from mantis in the same area aswell.

so as to closing in on a camp area ud have to use a different strategy, more cautious approach for example.

I do think they do have the "weaker in the back" damage modification, and is more appearent when you are running away. (but I am not sure what is the exact number).

I think it is a bit hard to apply, as there are alot of movements and turning in the game, so it was never really that much of use in strategically. but I guess it could add some back stabing type of skill to enforce it better.

Another possiblity might be to incorperate the targeting. I always see targeting a target as if you are looking at it. This mean the other people/creature which you are not paying attension could do more damage to you (as you are harder to dodge their strikes), and visa versa. Not sure if want to do it passively, where enemy that you are not targeting do more damage to you, but could see few new skills that have the target as condition (more % to evade from targeted foe, or do more damage to the foe if they are not targeting you at the moment, etc) Might have it in a stealthing class like a theif.

Well, its a bit off tangent, but yeah, more usage of backattack would be good to build in more strategy into PvE encounters.

My favorite class in rpgs has always been a rogue. GW's lack of a real rogue has always been a bit of a bummer to me. The assassin was as close as I've gotten and, well, not real close on that anyway.

The addition of posisitional damage would be great. It was done in EQ years back. As a rogue, you simply got behind the target and hit the backstab skill and "pop!" 1000's of damag in one hit. Problem here in GW for something like that is that, again, the fights are over far too fast. So even setting a character into position is not really possible... thus very little strategy can be used post character build.

As a side note and on topic with this thread; for those playing the Nightfall event. It seems some of the things mentioned here have been, or were already put in. One of my biggest complaints was the mobs acting like PvP groups, or balanced groups of bugs. So far in Nightfall, I have just barely come across a type of mob that brought a healer. They are humanoid in nature so it makes since for them to know what a healer is. All creatures and bugs, and (pretty cool looking) plants seem to be acting like what they are and not like they just spent an hour LFGing in a town. Wonderful!

PvE can become harder in many ways.

1. Give enemies more skills to their skill bar, I look at what skills they use and it seems to be only half of the amount of skills we can use so if it is increased to 8 skills rather than 4 they may pose more of a challenge.

2. Enemies should make more mixed group structures. More balanced groups may increase the challenge.

Example: Afflicted groups seem to be pretty well balanced, having an assortment of every kind of characters. They should follow my first suggestion in order to make them stronger.

Bad Example: Things like right outside of Maatu Keep are not balanced enough. They lack the diversity of the afflicted groups.

3. More enemies with higher healths isn't the answer, so stop with the increasing of size and health and start with balancing more.

4. I feel that every skill in the game should be on at least one enemy in PvE. Skills like ignorance and arcane thevary are not used by creatures in PvE.

5. Make it somewhat like how actuall people play, like groups with very great monks and good pressure, put the thoughts that people use to make builds for GvG into what you want a enemy group to become. I am still waiting for a battle against an enemy mob that takes more than 5 minutes. Of course they wont be anywhere near player capabilities but giving them similar builds may increase their toughness.

Along with this give enemies a smaller energy pool, with tougher groups things like E-denial may become useful, yet E-denial on an enemy with 80 energy it ridiculous.

6. Have different behaviors for enemy groups. Some can patrol, some can guard specific positions, but dont have them necessarily chase down a character to the portal because they aggroed a little group. I hate having to run and run and run and the group is still chasing me. And then when I get close to a dead ally and still not in their aggro range they begin chasing again. I don't see the point of that.

7. Have weather affects that affect both players and enemies.

8. A more interractive environment, some plants that catch fire if a fire skill is used close by and damages enemies and allies. Corpses that don't dissappear. Cliffs that you can fall off of. Places where you can drown. Enviornmental traps, land giving way, branch falling from a tree things like that.

9. Enemies that don't attack until attacked.

10. Groups that have different styles of fighting, aggressive groups which will chase you down like most groups do now, defensive groups which will stay in a selecte area and defend it from attackers but won't chase. Passive groups which only attack when provoked.

11. More enemy group interractions.

Example: Minotuar and centuar in northern shiverpeaks end up fighting each other a lot. Another example is stone summit and mursaat.

Well, this thread has some excellent suggestions, (I especially like the idea of different "personalities" for mobs, and giving them the ability to evaluate targets better and not just be locked in aggro; and the idea of using the current target to affect skills). I would like to propose another thing that could make the game more interesting. Not necessarily harder, but maybe more challenging: Deeper player/NPC interaction.

When I first read about heroes coming in Nightfall, I saw a great opportinity to greatly improve the quality of the GW PvE experience by letting these NPCs interact with players in a more meaningful way. Baldur's Gate is what immediately sprung to mind. Of course, this isn't a single-player game, so you couldn't have just one player being the center of attentions. But then again, the fact that there might be more than one player in a party could make the interaction even better. What if a hero empathizes with one of the characters (a warrior), but despises the other (a mesmer)? Maybe he would go out of his way to protect the warrior in combat, but not pay much heed to the mes (or the other way around). This would, of course, be spiced up by a lot of dialogue, and amplified or mitigated by player choices taken along the way.

So, I could, for instance develop Koss - through conversation and in-game events - in such a way that he
a) hates elementalists with a passion. He'll always charge for the eles first, and might even defy orders to attack the nearest ele if not kept in check every once in a while.
b) is afraid of bugs. he'll be reluctant to engage them, and might use too many defensive skills in such a fight, or even resort to a secondary profession (using a bow or spells) for the duration of the combat
c) has a romance with Tahlkora: He will defend her at any cost if she goes low on health.
d) hate centaurs, and will not group with abother hero of that race.

These are just a couple suggestions off the top of my mind, and I'm sure the a-net team could think of better ways to deal with this. The suggestions also mean that you forfeit some of the control over the character in exchange for extra depth of interaction (which I think it's appropriate, in a way: those are heroes, they are supposed to be as important as yourself to the story, they accept your leadership but are not lowly henchmen that must yield to your every command. Interestingly, anet seems to have the exact opposite logic in mind). This could be offset by simply giving them positive effects to balance out the possible inconvenience of their behavior, such as extra resistance to poison, bonus damage against a certain creature, etc.

OR, all these changes could be ignored, and interaction could be kept on a purely textual level, where the heroes would talk to the players, revealing some of their story, possibly opening up new quests as they leveled up alongside the party and offering advice during missions and exploration (in fact, I seem to recall some hero giving me advice about the creatures of a certain area in the preview event)

and it's nice to see some of the things suggested here have appeared on the nightfall preview, such as:

Mandragors! I love their crawling animation.

Corsair net is a good example of such a skill. even the in-game graphics for the skill are nice and representative (which is kinda rare for GW skills). good going, anet!

There is also improved (if only slightly) environmental puzzles, monsters with a personality (even if that personality means attacking in a huge swarm - see skale mobs) and a profession-shifting boss... we can only hope there will be huge bosses with multiple target areas to destroy

As for double-interrupt, kuunavang has that already, right?

All good points, Hand of Death. I like 8 and 9 alot.
One thing I found lacking is there are not much room for much type of macro strategy, beside not aggro more than one group of mob, and target the monk first (there are alot of micro strategy on the skill combo level). For example, usually one don't do things like having the Warrior Hold the front line from on coming attack of mob to protect their ranks, as the enemy usually will by pass it with ease. There's not much of way to "hold" your enemy. (actually, I think there is, but a bit diffcult to do)
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Great suggestion too Solar_Takfar. Yeah, more of those Hero NPC interaction would be great. But one thing I hope it will not lead is like the henchi's speech dialog... which not many people read. They need to be made more appearent.

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Anyhow, playing Nightfall make me enjoy the passive monster again. I hope to see more of those, even in the high level areas. Adding more to this, is that I want to see MOB Enviroment Interaction AI.

I just don't like why the field is always fill with red dots, and all of them out to get you, but are always friendly with one another.

I want to see differnt type of monster fight another... like the you could see the Corsair hunting part hunting down irontooth drake, or higher level skales feeding on ther junior termits, and such. It create more enviromental interaction, and make them more believible, as part of the work, and not simply place there to be in your way. You can also work it into a strategy too, like waiting for two group to come agrassive with one another first befor jumping in to the fight, or lead one to another of their hated enemies. (Which I used to do in the early betas in the riverside mission... oh, the good times..) Of couse, this will not apply to all mobs, and most mob type will still on good term with one another.

Another idea along that line is where you can Make Friend with the mob on map. maybe have some item that you could use, like throw the Irontooth drake a Skale fin, it will not attack you.. and if you lead more skale to it, it will hunger for its meat... something like that. Or you could make friend with all of that mob's faction, (with doing some quest or so), like have a quest where you can help retreave some Harpies egg, and when complete, all the Harpies on that map will be passive with you... things like that.

(oh, and Bioshock, a upcoming fps, is using such AI interaction and various approch to the enemy encounters, as one of their main game features as well)

Create labyrinths and giant mazes that could possibly split the group up and make the players search their surroundings for resources to get their way out with mission specific skills aquired along the way much like Celestial skills.

Here's a scenario:

You're in a team of 4 and from an earlier quest you aquired several skills which you were told you'd need for future quests and missions. These go in the common skills area much like a Res Sig or Cap Sig (since cap sigs are exclusively PVE, so are these, and like Cap Sigs may also be temporary with no combat effect.) Your team comes to a darkly lit cave and since you need combat skills and non combat skills to get through you've managed them so that you and your team have a good balance and aren't overlapping in the skills. You enter and it is pitch black. One of your team mates has one of her needed skills, and it's an inherent signet (You don't have to use it to come into effect) named Fiery Torch which lights up a large area around you to show where you're going. But then up ahead after a few fights your party is forced to seperate into 2 teams of 2 because the floor inside the next hallway is like a see-saw. If one person steps on one side without another person on the other side, they'll fall off into the hole. Once you get to the end of the hall you find a room with various potions and a work bench with a book on it. You then proceed through, killing everything on your way and get to a boss which completely pwns your team.

Next time through youd do all of that, except you stop at the work bench and stop to read the book. You read through the book and it has 4 recipies for different things, and not all the ingredients are there. One of the ingredients is Vampire Blood, so one of your members with the Signet of Containment uses it on a vampire outside and brings it back and empties it into a cauldron. After getting the ingredients you then need to heat up the stove, so you can take out Firey Torch and heat up the cauldron. After all 4 are made quite quickly you all drink one, someone turns on fire, one on poison, one bleeding, the other gets some super effect, and you then have to remember what potion it was, go out and get enough for 3 more sets, and get the whole team to drink it, then go out and slay this beast with your powered up selves to kill it.

of course that's just something I made up really quickly, it probably would be much cooler if you saw what I'm thinking in my mind of having common skills and stuff and going down corridors in a cave with inscriptions along the wall, and if you come back later on you can decode them and use a special skill which could allow you to access hidden things to complete the mission's bonus like in prophecies... not some race to beat the clock like factions ugh.

We do not need balanced groups in PvE with the mobs 100% of the time. It makes it dull beyond belief and creates a system of fighting the same foes in different "skins" over and over (like Factions). This is PvE, not GvG or PvP. The AI can only do so well with it's skills. It can be scripted to execute skills in a paticular order, but it can not adapt to ever changing player "chaos". More so right now, the AI just seems to randomly execute whichever skills are ready.
Giving the mobs more player skills just makes the mobs more like players; however give them unique skills to what they are, such as the above mentioned Corsairs. They were unique and fun to fight against. They were "human" so we expected them to have healers and casters with them. Further in the preview, we started to see bugs with semi-balanced groups start to pop up. They became more and more of the same thing in different skins; and knowing how to take out one group meant knowing how to clear the entire zone.
A balanced group of maobs is also no challenge at all. You see a healer, take it down and the rest of the foes fall fast as they have no unique qualities to keep themselves going. The PvE mobs should be self reliant and difficult to take down per mob, not per group. Again, using bugs as an example: Bugs should know how to defend themselves and attack without the need to sit in a town and "lfg" to find themselves a healer. Therefore, they should act like bugs and not stand back and heal each other, yet swarm over the player(s) and cause some sort of panic. With a big enough swarm, the players would be forced to constantly evaluate the situation. Bugs, insects and the like use numbers to overcome foes and prey, not balanced groups.
This also comes down too, once again, creating each foe to be a challenge on it's own rather than a challenge in numbers. If each bug mentioned above was tough and self reliant, then having ten or more swarm the players (as bugs would do) there is the challenge. Once you know how to beat them, can you do it every time? Probably, but what happens when all those bugs randomly target your casters or monks?
If we want balanced groups we have the option of GvG and PvP. Lets keep those there. If we want interesting foes with unique skills and abilities that players cant match yet must learn to over come, let's start putting those into PvE more.
Nightfall had a lot of the mentioned things here, but also some lame toss backs towards Factions balanced groups as we got further in. I became very disapointed as I ventured further into my favorite zone of the preview ("The Bog" - awesome area!). More and more of the "bugs" started acting like the harpies, or humanoid creatures. Bleh.
At least there is still time to adjust that and fix it... hope they intend to read this thread and do so.

Thought: Imagine those Mad... bugs (however you spell their name) having a unique ability to create a noxious gas around them that acts like choking gas, yet also heals them like trolls and is a small AoE centered around them. Instead of a cast time, it's immediate, can't be interupted and is a "natural defence" of theirs. We now have a self reliant threat and can ditch the "healer" bug so the insect is now an insect instead of a PvP AI in a bug suit. This would create a situation where either the players allow the bugs to sit in the "gas" and heals constantly, while casting and fighting within a "choking gas" field, or pulling the bugs out of the field and risking the aggro of other foes.These bugs are now a greater threat and a challenge in their own rite without the need for acting like humanoid or human AI... or just another PvP AI group in a different skin.

How about that gas reacted to fire damage and made everything inside it catch on fire? Fireball/firestorm -> big burn -> tee-hee!!! More interactivity, and double the fun (TM anet)!!! Just watch out, as your warriors might turn to ashes, too...

Now that would be awesome! Monk, bring Extinquish please. hehe - A true challenge and something the players would have to actually think to get through... not see monk/healer spike monk/healer, repeat till then end and insert /yawn.

Close note: I'm really enjoying that idea of flamable gas. Put something like that in an area or attached to a mob so any kind of fire elemental attack or lightning would set it off. That could be fun. Completely work aroundable as well, you would just have to prepare yourself for it, therefore plan ahead and react and work with the game.
Could even place something like this in my new favorite zone "The Bog" in Nightfall. Swamp gasses that are flammable or while you are in it, cases a Daze effect; much like those shrooms in Echovald that cause you to miss more often. I liked that, made for a cool enviroment.

On one of the quest in playing Nightfall event, there are those Tomb Phantoms. They are great, becuase physical damage do very little to them, thus have to relie on magical means to destory them. I thought they are great! Since we can not change our skills in mid-map, I guess the strategy (with more various and "special effect" monsters) would come from giving some party member more advantage, while making other not as useful in that sitiuation.

Could have things like an Oblistic that reduce all effect of magic in surround area, or make fire elementals that gain hp on every fire damage, but extra weak to water damage... things like that.

(another thing I want to add is a "challenge quest" or a "Location quest".. but since don't have much time right now, will write more on it in another post)

Of course, using flames+gas would have to have some positive side effect, or people would just bring no fire to the area and that would be that. Your suggestion of bugs being healed by the gas would adapt well; so, the player would have to choose whether to either cope with the challenge of facing bugs with +8 health regen (or something), or use fire which would automatically neutralize the gas AND burn the bugs, BUT also burn any players in the area.

Another option would be to have the gas be harmful to players (ie. giving energy degen and/or making warriors miss the swings); to counter that, you'd have to use fire every 30 seconds or so, neutralizing the gas for that period but making all players within burn for a few seconds while the neutralization process took place.

Sweet, I didn't even consider that angle of it. Even better now. Love it.

I wish there was a way to forward this to a Dev so we know they are seeing this. So many good ideas here that seem really needed, mostly to put some challenge into the PvE side instead of the lean towards lame balanced groups that the players with half a brain can roll over.

Hmmm the "corsair net" gave me another idea... what about another monster skill called "bolas" (look it up if you don't know what those are)

This would make some foes rather tricky to defeat, especially if there were multiple enemies moved away when approached. (or how about a boss that kites, uses ranger's "storm chaser", assassin's "caltrops" and monster skill "bolas"? pretty cool, huh?). An alternate approach would be a mob group that has rangers with bolas and a ritualist with wanderlust. Would make the players' life a bit harder, especially against smaller parties.

and what about

Trying to move away would just fail, as if hitting an imaginary wall. The monster would then follow up with a devastating combo, or a couple PBAoE spells (stronger monsters could even have the effect applied to all adjacent targets, rather than just one touched foe). As a bonus for assassins, shadowstepping away would break the hex, as would using necrotic traversal or another type of teleport. The monster itself would be vulnerable to AoE for the duration of the spell, tho, and unable to teleport/shadowstep (... or maybe not? - maybe they could teleport themselves and the shackled player to another area, ie. a lava pool, if the monster is immune to burning, or just a separate room to mix up things).

This could actually be made into a mesmer skill (illusion - elite hex spell (touch), 50% fail with ill. 7 or less, duration 1...4, 1s cast, 10e, 30s recharge) rather than a monster-only skill. Surely dervish, elementalist, assassin and warrior secondaries would love to have this.

There's almost infinite potential for expansion of monster skill effects when you think that they don't have to be "balanced" for PvP. A-net has already started walking that road, let's hope they continue on their way to make PvE battles even more varied and fun.

that stinking cloud idea sounds nice... jst thought of another form of it...

somekindof acid version that softens ur armor giving not only the monster ap attacks but for any ranger type of critters further aswell a hex if u wil,
when ur in the cloud ur armor is penetrated for 10% also somekindof small hp degen, say -2 an perhaps minor chance to miss, not too much tho, something like 10% chance (since ur eyes sting). i despise skills that render a char completely useless like blindness,

the monster naturally wouldnt suffer from its acid since its armor is made of chitin.(or other monsters with chitinous armor, if it has natural enemies)
ofcource most acids are flammable aswell, especially those that are in gas form

tho id see this kind of skills as highly defensive that would not be used unless someone is adjacent to them. (not a real challenge if u could jst roast the bug with a secondary ranger using ignite arrows)

and another bug idea.. how about a mostly passive high lvl type of critter... a stinger queen insectoid (necro kindof) that goes around laying eggs in corpses (since corpses disappear somewhat quickly this wouldnt be too overpowered) and given say 1 minute incubation time the corpse would give birth to a full 8 monster party which in turn would be aggressive since little bugs need food to grow
these bugs as being newborn would be something like lvl 1 but with "poisonous bite" and perhaps a spammable "painful sting" that would serve as interruption skill, and ofcource after a full battle of 8 monsters one of the queens wondering into the scene would be a dread cuz 8*8 would amount to alot of tiny critters that die with a single swap but the sheer numbers would be the challenge...
so once u c these queens u dont get agro from them but u would have to think weather to kill it (for a 1 tuff opponent) or kill alot of those smaller bugs later (for numerous low lvl opponents) or jst use putrid explosion to destroy the corpses before they turn into armies

I like the fume idea too.

For the acid fume, how about make it go away if they receive water damage (wash it away), instead of burning the acid away?

s for difference it would be nice...
instead of burning u it would be poisonous instead when mixed with water? (only if u were at the area while this was activated)

kindof ripoff from stinking cloud but still variation

ah... jst came to mind.. this is a bit late at the discussion aswell... improvement on the mosnter ai so they would only use skills that may have some effect on them... to name 1, yetis use pet attacks happily after their pet is dead

tho this does raise a smile on my face

This actually, and the above "gas" concepts go back towards the universal AI improvements. So it's right on target for what's needed.
The AI needs to understand or at least be scripted to understand several things:
That 0-5 damage is not really a threat and can probably ignore that target or withstand an AoE of that magnitude.
That using a skill like Life Drain on a foe with 10 health is a waste of energy and time.
As said above, a dead pet means your pet skills do not work.

Added to that, animals and bugs should not have to cast or prep their abilities. Spiders for example should always have a poisonous bite or sting. Not after they've used the human skill Apply Poison. That's silly. Trolls should have "Troll's Ungent" up at all times, not after they've used the skill... further examples can go throughout GW.

These types of improvements are not really possible unless Anet begins to pull away from it's seemingly odd reliance on making battles PvPish; ie, balanced groups or my biggest pet peeve, bugs and "natural creatures (animals)" with healers... I find that so dumb it's laughable. Each of these types of mobs should be self reliant and not dependant on some silly bug or animal that understands spells... or, they move towards making some skills on mobs natural, in that they don't need to activate or use the skill for it to work. It just does naturally and all the time. I don't think Anet will stop this untill they understand further that GW PvP is not exactly fun or entertaining to everyone... but I'm repeating myself here, so I'll stop rambling.

now, now, let's not be too radical. having "every bug be self-reliant" would mean that every bug would be the same, look the same and do the same things. I'd rather have slightly mixed up groups that would still present some sort of tactical challenge (ie. I'd better kill this one first... but damn, he's being protected by that other one. "nuker! assassin! do your jobs!!!"). It IS a fact that insects have more than one function which actually bring different appearances in reality (ie. worker ant, soldier ant, ant queen). That is clearly where they're coming from, just exaggerating a bit, and I agree with that; it makes the game visually and tactically more diverse.

now... the tendency to have every bug group as a totally balanced group, that's where I think they overstepped. I don't want every group of mobs to have two warriors, two monks, an ele and a mesmer, because then playing against them will always be the same. Rather, each type of monster could have a couple types of professions they take on (except humans; balanced groups, with some variation, would be OK then). Prophecies does that well (ie. groups of stone elementals and stone furies; zombies warlocks, skeleton rangers and ghouls; grawl shamans and ulodytes), Mmaking the challenge more varied and fun. as for healer bugs knowing spells, just imagine it's some kind of natural power, or maybe just some power handed over by the gods, instead of hard-to-understand, long-studied witchcraft, which is what humans get.

Not at all. All "bugs" and animals being self reliant means nothing of the sort, rather the complete opposite. They could be entirely different and unique in each situation. The problem lies with the mobs using player skills rather than mobs using more mobs based "natural skills". Natural skills being innate abilities of the mob that can not be learned, stopped or interupted by the players.

We could look at ants for example. Ants are pretty self reliant creatures. they use numbers and "melee" to overcome their foes, while some ants have wings and can fly. We all know ants use scent to follow a trail. Now add in our fantasy flair and make the scent stronger so ants actually spray maybe an acid goo at the players that both slows and burns the player. Then the ants engage in melee with biting. Flying ants could be made to move twice as fast as the others and be given a swarm ability where they call more soldier ants to the battle. - A good fight and a challenge.

Now, lets look at another bug. A wasp. It's still an insect, but pretty nasty when you get stung by even one. Let's make them even more nasty by saying a single sting from one of these things causes long term bleeding and weakness. It's not a prep, it's a normal attack so there is no stopping it. Can you stop a wasp from stinging you? Only by killing it or avoiding it.

See the examples here, these bugs are self reliant and a challenge in their own right, without the need of a boring balanced group. Add in the above "gas" to say the ants, and now you have a danger area in which the ants can now self heal... not all bugs or things in a natrual enviroment should be able to heal, but to compensate, they should be pretty nasty to confront.

Let's look at a skunk, our favorite smelling animal. Add it's wodnerful odor to a mob. Now, it attacks the players and all foes within a set area are choking and losing health as they can't breathe. Let's up the danger and say you also get an energy degen and you are dazed.

What about a porcupine like creature. Where each time it is hit in melee, you take damage back. But to make it more self reliant and more durable, lets say it takes 90% reduced arrow and spear damage. Hmm, where's my ele?

Making each creature in the game self reliant doesn't mean to make each being able to self heal, it's making it able to hold it's own against the players.

I'm against the balanced groups for a strong reason... well, more than one reason really.

1) We have them in Factions and Factions is very easy to walk through once you figure out how to beat Jade Brotherhood... and that takes all but one or two battles.
2) It limits the imagination of what could be. Instead of seeing unique creatures, we are seeing a constant stream of "bugs" with healer "bugs" in a sad attempt to make a challenge.
3) Balanced groups are all the same. Ants and Wasps are different, they should act and fight differently. Yet they are still bugs and as such should have no understanding of what Orisen is.
4) and this goes with what you said in the rest of your post, humanoids and human AI should go with the balanced groups. However, those are rather boring so they should be limited in amount.
5) Undead should be in no way shape or form in any balanced groups. They should be a nasty fight and extremely unique. Giving them auras of "fear" or a constant cold damage when nearing them. Undead shoudl be amoung the most dangerous foes in the game, second to dragons.

Speaking of Dragons, how much more fun would our Factions Dragon (I don't like Factions, don't play there anymore so I can't recall ehr name) or Glint have been if they had been given some more unique skills, moved faster (like a giant lizard might) and had a "fear" aura around them that caused the players to be afraid... meaning their spells and skills have a 50% chance to fail or miss? I would love that challenge.

The talk of monster special ablity are all great suggestion guys.. how about starting a new thread for it?.. It might help gain more readership, instead of just discussion between a few...
maybe name it "Mob Encounter Improvement" or something.... and ask other to sumit mob's special ablity/behavior.

(I was thinking of starting one.. but decide to leave to one of you guys with better writting for it...)

Actually, I've done that in the past, with several suggestions. All of the suggestion threads I start simply die; a curse maybe. lol - either that, or flameboy trollies jump in and kill it off... not sure why. /shrug - So I tend to not start them anymore and only contribute where I might have (what I think) a good idea.

But on topic, the mob improvements only work if the AI is improved to work with them. So those have to work together... we can't let that slip out of mind.

Here are some basic ideas to improve the overall PVE experience:

-More variation in mobs and coordinated behaviors. For example, a group of stone golems paired with lightning djinns. The groups coordinate attacks to hit the group with enervating charge and stoning.

-Enemies that actually use a secondary profession. Omg! That warrior used healing hands!

-More monster specific skills with unique attributes. For example an enemy warlock summons a floating sword to attack you that has the properties of illusionary weapon.

-Better storytelling for the player to immerse themselves in... NF's cutscenes are ok, alot better than what they were but I would like the game to retain an epic feel that makes you feel like your doing something worthwhile.

-Improved enemy tactics. For example the group sees a lone goblen but he runs from the party. The party then chases him and gets trapped in a bed of ranger traps, and then 5 more goblin rangers spring on the party from all sides with weapons drawn. Maybe some goblins use siege catapults or some kind of machinery, erect walls to block paths, etc.

-Puzzle factor and surprises. A change from killing and maiming. Maybe a giant monster that the party has to move into a special trap like a runic circle or pit trap. Or maybe an investigation quest that has the players face the last npc they would expect to fight.

and much much more...

Sounds like Rise of Legends (good game), could be cool. Too much variation kills some immersion though... in some mobs. In humanoid and human mobs, variation is good and works well. When it comes to critters, bugs and animals, variation should be none. I've never heard of lions fighting with jakals for example, or ants attacking with bees. Doesn't happen as these critters stick to their own for survival.*

Human AI only. Humanoid and critter AI should be slightly more powerful on it's own without the need for creative thought that human players rely on.*

Absolutely! /cheer

Agreed

This would only work once, as once the players fall into the trap, they know not to go there again. Unless, these are added to a random encounter which is never in the same place. Then things like that can be scripted in all over and work fairly well.

I love puzzles and suprises and long lasting missions with a point other than slay 100 mobs to get to the end.

Like the ideas

* If five unarmed people come across a den of lions that are getting ready to pounce on the people, will the people live? Unlikely. Lions are naturally tougher, faster and stronger. The people have to use their skills and knowledge to over come a pack of lions though. Give the people tools (weapons and protection), and the people will out smart and destroy/capture the lions though while using their tools to aid them. Lions will still pose a worthy adversary though, as they are fast and strong.

Thanks to all who have contributed to a clearly great discussion (just read the last few pages myself). Head over to the next spotlight concept on PvP if you're interested - [Spotlight Concept #5] Improving and Expanding PvP.

Thread unstuck.

Give the mobs secondary classes. some existing mob names even infer a multi-class.

Corsair Berserker - Could be D/W
White Mantle Ritualist - Rt/N or N/Rt
Stone Summit Ravager - Me/N

I think this would add alot to the "variation" of the PvE game and some difficulty as you would not always be fighting the standard "couple tanks, 1 ranger, couple casters, 1 healer" groups of AI.


Also, spawns should definitely be more random, everything should not always spawn in the same place everytime. A good example of this is the prophecies bosses in the souther shiverpeaks and ring of fire.

Sounds good excluding the White Mantle, can you imagine a Prophecies only player seeing a Rt monster?

First, never forget: challenging/difficult is NOT the same as interesting.

Secondary classes don't automatically make mobs more interesting or challenging. Anet already gives some mobs special monster skills. And there are already warrior trolls with troll unguent (doh ), can't recall other mobs with secondary skills though (but not sure there really aren't any others).

If people want more challenging PvE, there's already the recent Domain of Anguish which some people are already grumbling about being too challenging (which part of _Anguish_ don't they understand ).

As for my go at trying to make PvE more interesting:
I recently proposed that there be an Anet blessed version of Droks Run or something similar- Challenge Missions where lev 20 players are to escort/protect low level players. I was thinking that human players would find escorting low level human players more interesting than escorting/protecting those silly NPCs you get in the other GW missions. You might be able to have more interesting ways to finish a mission when you are escorting/protecting humans - esp if you are trying to do it fast.

But only a few were interested. I guess it's only a few of us that found stuff like Drok's Run to be one of the interesting bits of Prophecies.

Anyway my proposal was here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10098013

I just skipped to page 6.

The only way for ANet to currently make the game more interresting is by making monsters better. No, ANet, read on! I do NOT mean making them lvl 28! Instead of bunching up 4 warriors with extremely crappy bars and constant frenzy, a monk with only spellbreaker and condition removal and some lvl 28 ele with aoe of 500 damage, make enemies lvl 20 (or maybe 22), and actually give them good skillbars. Instead, have 3 warriors for example, but with other skills each. Or, instead of 2 crappy monks, just have a WoH and an RC for example. Everything is better than spellbreaker as elite.

I think you could have a massively varied onslaught style challenge that would require great team balance. You might have to go against heavy pressure dealing enemies, then maybe at another time, spikers, and at another time a more suicidal enemy (like EoE), an all or nothing fighting style, and you would have to fight enemies who just try to outlive you and so on. It would be like fighting waves of different PvP teams, being acted out by NPC's. They could make the party size 12, put in massive rewards, and tailor the groups so that it will encourage the involvement of as many different classes as possible, this would deal with the current complaints that people have nowhere to take their assasin/dervish/paragon/bow using ranger.

didn't read through all 6 pages of this.
so my apologies if this has been mentioned before.

Numero 1:
A reason to take quests. Increase the money lower the xp from 20+ quests.
I skip over majority of these because frankly... There's no point to it unless you want to go for survivor. And even then majority of the quests aren't needed as you could fff door man, or farm something and earn quicker xp.

Numero 2:
Have AB scaled battles. Visnuh<sp Square was cool in my opinion. Having another group. But also annoying in its own if you got one that was ... "Duurrr What are afflicted?" As mentioned on previous posts. Onslaught, or even going back to the new fow / god realms ideas. Have a huge group come at you relentlessly from all entrances, enough so that you would need to split the groups and cover the sides. Defending a well fortified village, have the residences on the blockades firing arrows down from above. While the battle readied heroes defend the gates.

Numero 3:
More pets for rangers. Or animals in general (know that one was mentioned before) It seems so ... dead in the game. If guildwars is taking out the free roaming, kill stealing, ninja looting aspect of mmorpgs they should make the maps a bit more lush and pleasing to the eye rather than a constant roam around and mob the red dots on the compass.

Numero 4:
Completely unlikely but would be cool nonetheless.
mounts :P There's really no point to it but I have a constant urge to want to jump on Zhed's back and ride him into battle as he's firing fireballs :P

Numero 5:
(just thought of this while playing a bit)
Have it so when you're killing lots of monsters you get morale boost slowly.
We already see it happen when we have DP. Killing a few guys slowly raises it. Why can't we get cocky and have a 1% moral boost per... heck 30-40 guys? :P