Unaddressed problems since game release.

The game has been around for a year and half now, and yet basic problems with the game still exist, unaddressed, even though we have been complaining about them since release. Here is a short list off the top of my head:

-Z axis is still a joke. Flying henchmen and floating pets still exist. There is no lower limit on hit boxes, so anyone can attack someone directly above them despite the terrain. Set a trap under a bridge and anyone walking above the bridge will trigger it. ArenaNet remains strangely silent.

-Pathing is ridiculous. Hitting 'action' on an object isn't enough, as any sharp corners, terrain obstacles, or other characters will block your movement. Henchmen and pets regularly get stuck behind other henchmen or enemies and are unable to attack your called target. Enemy NPC's stay hidden behind corners despite being unable to attack (although this makes it a bit easier to farm). Again, ArenaNet remains silent.

-Pet AI is, again, horrible. Henchmen AI will at least be improved by the addition of henchmen controls, yet, if Nightfall is any indication, pets remain useless. At least with henchmen, you can call a target and have the henchmen attack it, or Shift+Ctrl click something to order your henchmen ahead of you. This doesn't work with pets. In addition, pets regularly switch targets, randomly choose to remain in combat long after you run, or lose their target at the slightest hint of movement on the player's part. As it stands, beastmastery remains being viewed as something tacked on as an afterthought, with no real work put into it to make it viable. (I won't even get into the lack of Beastmastery/ Wilderness Survival weapons, or the fact that using two consecutive pet attacks causes only the last one to initiate, thats something for another thread).

-Spell graphics, particularly for the elementalist class, do not properly show the true radius of the spell. This, compared to the above items, seems to be the easiest thing to fix, but it remains unchanged since Prophecies release.

Look, I like this game a lot. I really, REALLY want to see it succeed and do well. But I cannot log on without running into fundamental problems that make the game look half assed, and cause large amounts of frustration. These are things I've listed off the top of my head, I'm sure I and many others on these forums could add to the list easily, and all of them have been around since released, and have been complained about since release.

Just looking at some recent additions the the game, the inclusion of character sorting was a great idea, but once we actually get it, we get two almost useless methods of sorting, with no way to save the sort upon exiting the game. This is just half-assed. I want to see this game do well, but that means not doing something 75% of the way when it should be done 100% of the way. I don't work at ArenaNet. I don't know what the cause of this is. Maybe the programmers are lazy, maybe they have their priorities changed around. Maybe they think doing things half assed is a great way to make a game. I'm sorry if I come across as harsh, but its pretty frustrating to play a game you want desperately to love, and be continually smacked in the face with glaring problems that have been around for 1.5 years.

I would love to hear a response from someone at ArenaNet. Are these just impossible problems to overcome? Too much red tape to go through to get these things fixed? Are these things just not seen as important? In my humble opinion, basic gameplay problems are the first things a new player notices, and if nothing else, would be the one area you want to be flawless.

I think i would have to agree here...I love the game...play it daily but it does bug the shit out of me when pets/henchman/other players block me from attacking or moving. Same goes for in town items. I agree that the basics should be fixed and it should be a higher priority then it appears to be. As well as storage issues coming up soon with a minimum of 8 characters if u have bought all 3 chapters...and thats not even counting those people who have bought extra slots. As far as issues with beastmaster and pets attacks i can't really say since I only played it once and thought of it as a joke...so yeah i think it needs some tweaking as well.

SIGNED

I strongly agree the term of spell graphics.

/SIGNED

I agree with everything you've laid out. Very good points, indeed.

This topic has been sung to death....and should be in Sardalac.

The z-axis is a design flaw (probably a conscious compromise?) that would take a complete game rebuild to remove. As I understand it, there really is no z-axis at all, just one way entities to block you falling off bridges, etc. I hate it, but I think it will not go away soon.

The pathing on the other hand is shocking. PvP can be very frustrating as a result, sometimes, especially for a melee characters. I can't count the times a chain or spike has failed due to stubbing my toe on a rock, or tripping over a bush xD

/signed

everything you said is spot on.

/signed

All good points, though it should of course be in the Suggestions forum.

/signed

The only two that have really plagued me are the Z axis and the spell graphics (NO MORE 2D ETHER SEALS PL0X).

/signed

The Guild Wars engine has no perception of height. It's not something they can fix with a patch or an expansion; we'd have to wait for GW2 for it to be fixed.

If you're hoping for an ArenaNet developer to respond, you're out of luck. The best you can hope for is platitudes from Gaile Gray or Alex Weekes. Would that satisfy you? I am sure the dev team is already aware of the deficiencies you mention. They will not explain the difficulties of fixing them in public for the simple reason that readers of this forum will misunderstand every word (how many have CS degrees and understand advanced graphics programming?). And they probably legally cannot talk about the game internals. So us normal players who have no real insight into the implementation details will go around in circles arguing with each other. In other words, I think this thread serves no purpose and should be closed.

I think you honestly do not know what you're talking about either. While this should be in Sardelac, it does comprise an excellent list of issues that the dev teams should be addressing. That does not mean that they realistically can address it, simply that they should.

the one that really gets my goat is pathfinding, that really gets on my nerves.

Which is why the Z Axis update is wanted by alot of the ANet team (They freely will admit it) but it gets pushed back and will likely never happen even though it is a supported idea.

Anet's plan of pumping out chapters at an extremely fast paced rate means they have to give up on fixing some of the smaller things.

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Funny story.

Theres this one Hill on 1 mission that I call "Glitch Hill". This ONE SPOT in the game is so glitched and buggy its funny.

Its in the "Iron Mines" mission, A Hill before you get to the "Danger Zone" where two Stone Summit bosses spawn and catapults hit areas. The hill has 2 Groups of Summit+Golems going down one side, and some Mantle on the other (they commonly fight). Its on the way of the "infusion run", so you might know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, This hill is Glitched. The Enemies "Rubberband Teleport" all over the hill (It's NOT lag on your part - you move fine), They'll all of a sudden loss aggro of you while in the middle of a fight and run off down the hill, etc.

After you leave the hill, its normal again.

I didn't post this in Sardelac because I didn't really make any suggestments. Just a small rant on my part, and was interested to see if others shared the sentiment.

The henchies are frequently bodyblocked by a single foe. Sometimes a straight wall is involved, but not always. That's the only one that really annoys me.

Perhaps they should. That's hardly something us players can force by means of forum discussion, though. Players have been complainging about the lack of true 3d collision detection in this game since forever. I am sure the alpha testers discovered these problems as well. There is no way in hell the devs are unaware of them. And yet the problems remain unfixed for 18 months.

So, again, the best possible outcome of this thread will be a token appearance by one of the community representatives.

Or a stimulating conversation on why they haven't and why they should be. Of course, that doesn't exactly include your pessimism.

One more thing, regarding gr3g.

I'd be happy with an appearance from Gaile Gray or Alex Weekes.

Also, while no actual action may result from this thread, sometimes its cathartic to vent around others who feel the same way.

Stimulating conversation is impossible when both us players and community reps such as Gaile Gray have essentially zero insight into the implementation. We can conjecture and counterconjecture until the cows come home, but surely these discussion paths are well trodden enough that we can predict a trainwreck with relative certainty?

A well articulated non-flammable post with interesting and true points!

I like! [Borat voice]

Truly, some of these things need to be addressed, especially the z-axis and pathing.

/signed. I expected just another rant with this topic, but it actually has good points.

Gr3g, if Anet developers see this, they know people actually care about it. If no one talks about it, they aren't bothered to fix it.

/signed

Makes it very, very annoying to play a warrior and be body blocked by everything and anything in your way to make you stop attacking or unable to attack. Sitting around looking like I have my thumb up my ass, when I'm supposed to be doing something doesn't look good in groups either. Makes me almost not want to be in groups with pets, minions, or that powder keg guy in the final assault quest, lol. Body blocking me from underneath bridges is weird too, and even attacking something through a bridge.

OK so opinions about the thread's usefulness aside and whether or not the thread can solve the problems, getting back on topic, I dont like the fact that in Sorrow's Furnace when I enter some of the rooms and I have bridges over me that the enemies can start bashing down on me and I cant do squiddly squat about it (I only have my Warrior at SF atm) Also in Factions just after you get Senji Cornor and you're going for the Tahnakai Temple (or Ghial farming whatever tickles your fancy) that first bridge you come across, when ever there is a battle there (usually with that Acolyte dude) if Im more than 20 metres (in game metres ) away then everyone disappears. Is that just my bug or has anyone else seen (or not seen) that?

While I would like to see the suggested problems fixed, I don't believe these are as simple as other problems to correct. Many of the times when you pathway is blocked, it is due to the nature of the AI itself. Pets and henchmen are supposed to body block and they are instructed to move around relatively random sometimes. I've never seen someone get permanently stuck from this, but only temporarily blocked, so this is a minor nuisance at best in my book. The coding that would be necessary to fix this would likely have to change some of the most basic AI rules which could entail many unintended side effects meaning that extensive testing would be needed and the end result may not merit the change.

I will argue against times when people get stuck completely in the terrain since that glitch is indeed a crippling one and could be fixed by an option to have your character teleported to a location if this happens.

Spell animations would likely take a lot of time out of the programmers time to fix since either the spell radius would have to be changed (which would not happen since it was already chosen to be a certain size for balance issues) or the animation would have to be changed. To do this it would likely take a lot of time that could instead be devoted to fixing more important/crippling problems or to working on Nightfall in order to make sure it is the best product possible when released.


If these problems could be fixed easily, I'd be all for it, but I have a feeling there's "lazy programmers" is an overly pessimistic, overly simplistic blame for problems that are more complex roots than may be understood for those who do not spend their lives programming computer games.

It's not just you. I usually get about 3/4 of the way over that bridge, wait for the boss to start running towards me, then run back to the other side so that the two NPC guards will join the battle. Once I'm off the bridge, everyone -- enemy, henchie, guard, minion, and/or pet -- on the bridge dissapears, though they can attack me just fine. Step on the bridge and they're suddenly visible.

The one that annoys me the most is simply flawed map design. When you hug the wall and hit a deadend that simply shouldn't be there, thus making you backtrack. Sometimes it is only a small patch you have to go around, other times it's quite a large patch. At times they put in some sort of obstacle to block you. It's not so much pathing as pathing related. It wouldn't have been hard to curve around the obstacle from a pathing perspective when designing the map. Most likely they put in all the objects in a very late stage and not check if it would block people.

Fixing it now would cause quite a few problems one might simply be, the inability to complete cartography title. But I do hope they will learn to use curves instead of corners when designing maps.

/signed

Why did a list of problems with the game get moved to Sardelac? I didn't make any suggestions or list any new ideas. No chance of seeing Gaile respond to this thread now.

thats unless somebody sends her an e-mail directing her to this thread

/Signed

theres also 1 thing, i've seen people being able to attack enemy's that are underneath some bridges and they are standing on the top of the bridge which i find very strange.

I agree with the Sharp corners. Corners need some work. Also the Height thign needs slight work.

/signed

Pathing drives me nuts. Just try clicking on armor trader if you are standing in the middle hall of House zu Heltzer. You will get stuck in at least 2 spots along the way. The hench get stuck a lot in caves too.

ok

z-axis - Very annoying, but its part of the game's engine. A major engine overhaul is at hand here. VERY time consuming. Players floating is fine, attacking while someone is above you is ok with me too, but falling through the floor and getting stuck, thanks to a glitchy bridge is not. :[

I think this is what they need to work on the most.


Pathing - Also very annoying, but fixable. HOWEVER...this isn't a game breaking issue, and i wouldnt consider it a priority.

Pet AI - Izzy has mentioned this many times, its an issue of balance. Until they decide which way to handle it, the beasmastery line will remain crippled. But its not gamebreaking, and isnt really a priority either.

Spell radius - I think this isnt a major issue, since players who are used to it know their distance after a lot of experience. However it is still an issue.

Yeah it's really fun when it's an NPC, say Devonna from the Tyrian Hench team in Vizunah gets stuck in a staircase, thus keeping the entire Tyrian team back resulting in your having to /resign or die.

That happened to me last night but it was Mhenlo.

I had to start a whole quest once from the beginning because damn Nika got stuck -_-

I think we pay enough for each chapter to produce a working Z-axis. If it were 30 dollars an expansion than they could defect to the the poor excuss that it isn't in the budget to fix, but even than, it would be something worth fixing.

50 Dollars a chapter, that is how much it cost to market the original game, starting from conception, creation, and refinement. 50 Dollars per chapter is more than enough to completely redevelope the entire game from scratch and make proper height recognition, exsisting flaws and laziness isn't an excuss. And for the several chapters that cost 50 dollars, there isn't even an excuss, they just need to do it. And no it wouldn't take an entire overhaul of the game engine. Setting a height Value to each piece of ground and any objects on it isn't an outragious addition, but incase anyone doesn't know, there already are hieght values which allow rangers to gain added damage and range with bow attacks based on hieght. All they need to do is make triggers which allow players at significantly different hieghts to pass through eachother, and alter traps so they don't trigger or effect enemies at significantly different hieght values. It is an excessively easy alteration to add to the game, the actual mapping would change a bit.

Failure to process technicallities from the start isn't an excuss to ignore a flaw, it needs to be addressed. And in case anyone doesn't think it can be done, note that it already is. Go to Iron Mines of Molodune and try the bonus, and notice that the Inquisitor floats over the ground and can move over other characters. All it takes is a recalibration of exsisting mechanics, not new ones.

While i totally agree that this technical problem has to be prioritized, i dont see how you can call it "excessively easy". If it were that easy, they should have done it already. If it were that easy, they wouldnt let their glitches ruin PVP championship matches.

There are height values on each piece of a map, we have the ranger's height damage change to show this as a fact. This i would agree with.

But this is where the problem lies as i see it:

The maps can only have 1 height value per point on the map. This means that terrains with overlaps like bridges, and non terrain parts of the map (ramps, stairs, etc) are THE MAJOR problem.

This is why bridges are bugged. This is why you can hit someone above you or below you. If you are on a bridge, and someone is below you, its the SAME HEIGHT VALUE. This is why you can walk at a bridge and sometimes you fall through it and disappear...but keep walking and pop out the other side. This is why if you are on a bridge, you can hit someone below you. This is why if you are on a bridge, youll trigger a trap below you.

Your suggestions to fix it would fail to work because there are no 2 height values to apply. Only 1 height value.


To the game, a person below a bridge and a person above a bridge are exactly at the same height level.

The iron mines bonus boss could have merely had their body blocking turned off.

Sheer laziness is preventing them from fixing it, not ability. There are hundreds of 3D games out there, and making a new one is really just about renginering exsisting mechanics to fit your needs. The programming isn't that hard. Do not mistake procrastination for difficulty.

And because most of the spell radiuses where altered from what they originally were when the game was made, the spell animations do need to be changed, because they don't properly signify the location they are affecting.

Don't forget about how Canthan Pet don't grow any bigger yet the phoenix next to the emperor were HUGE, and the fact Tyrian Pets do grow bigger. I believe that need some fixing too.