Update on the new ai actions

You guys need to seriously relax.

If you'd gotten the CE version, and watched the excellent making of video, you'd see that Anet tests this stuff pretty intensely. They even showed segments specifically addressing the AoE, and once the during the QA testing phase showed a guy testing the AI response to AoE skills.

One of the other things they commented to a lot, was the desire to make the game slower overall. To encourage players to stop and smell the roses, and enjoy the storyline, rather than burn through.

Like RoF said, there are many ways to manage running with other spells. An ele could use snares before AoE skills. It requires more strategy or teamwork is all. Now you don't have to wait and find a Water Ele to join the team, because you can design and control a Hero who uses snares!

Just give it a try for a couple of days, with the new heroes and skills, and see if it's really unbalanced, or if maybe... it's actually better this way <gulp>.

We weren't using hench monks. The battle field is total chaos. Everything is running from everything. If you want to kill something, you have to chase it. Some baddies run without even being attacked. Apparently they need excercise.

Agreed, Kali Ma.

Just claiming Doom & Gloom louder doesn't make it any truer. If there really are bugs in the AI, I hope they get addressed soon, like the minion behavior. Otherwise, learn to deal with the change.

Even if things are as bad as the few of you are claiming, I still don't see it as that bad. So what, the monster runs? Screw 'em. No need to chase them. It just means one less member of their party you gotta deal with. Heroes chasing them down? Set a flag down, call them back. The fact that it's erratic, odd behavior almost gives the monsters a sense of personality, and I kinda like that.

I did get the CE and did watch the video. When you slow the game down to the point that it's frustrating it becomes detrimental. That's what has happened here in my opinion.

If they were trying to make it more like PvP, they failed. PvP battlefields are not nearly as chaotic.

You kinda have to kill them to complete missions.

I didn't say don't kill them. I said screw 'em. As in, let them rum, deal with the rest of the party that isn't running, then deal with them. Surely they're not running the entire time? Only when chased, I presume?

EVERYTHING is running. You have to chase to kill.

I was playing earlier, and I surely didn't notice that! In fact, I did notice that the henchies were kicking a lot more ass and that everything seemed a bit easier. Nobody was running from my warrior, except for the occasional caster, who only ran a few feet, stopped to cast a spell, and fell to my axe.

So unless things have changed in the past few hours, I didn't notice what your'e describing.

wrong.

i agree.. i want grind, cause it was an option - not anymore.

now its pvp simulation without the pvp. you cant simulate pvp with AI, they are still as dumb as you make em. a script can't make a human.

People do enjoy the storyline... the first time through.

Anyone else think that "slowing" a game down to "smell the roses" is stupid. We play games for fun not to just apreciate it.

I just Henchied hells precipice inspite of the new AI. What's going on with Cynn casting/cancelling 5 storm 5 times consecutively? and the Warrior henchies like to run at foes a lot more/dangerously over agro.

Damn...Looks like i have to wait until the update is over so I can get that Protector of Cantha title...There is no way in *hell* you'll get masters with AI like this.

Thanks, ANet! ! (yes, sarcasm).

At first when I heard about it, I thought it'd be cool to play with "PvP" tactics-bearing monsters. Eh heh, screw that. I've been sticking with RA for awhile now, it's too irritating.

But seriously, if they tested it, who thought it was a "good idea"?

Is there any chance they will bring the farming back?

I was doing the first mission for the "foreigners" this morning and it was so crazy how the ai monks behaved. 2 monks toward the middles of the mission kited and ran all over the map and the only way to pin them down was to trap them in a corner. So i would say there is very little chance there will be enough a way to keep tight aggro enough to kill anything solo.

To me, the new ai has made some things Too easy. I monked Thunderhead Keep about 5-6 times last night with pugs and we won Every time. And some of the pugs were horrible (.e .g- the OMG heal me! noob monk! /running solo into a group of heretics, kind of bad).

I preordered this game several months ago and had no clue that it would be totally different than the guild wars I knew. If I had known this was going to happen I would not have ordered.

Intentionally slowing the game down to get people more involved in the story line is pointless. Those who are interested could take their time and do everything before and those who weren't could blow through it. That's what was great about it. Now we're having it forced upon us. I have a character of every class and after I see the story line once, I want to blow the rest of my characters through. Can't do it.

If trying to make the AI respond like real people do in PvP, then the goal was not reached. People do not run like hell when they take damage from Spiteful Spirit, they stop attacking. They don't try to uncover the map when they take AoE damage, they simply move out it's range. And they certainly don't run away until their health has totally regened on it's own and then resume attacking. Put some monks in the groups and see if they can outheal the damage, that's PvP.

As for setting up a hero to snare people, this is an online game so that you can play with other people. I don't want to have to take a hero set up as a water ele with me everywhere I go. I want to play with humans and no one wants to play a water ele or trapper, it's just boring. Even if you did, you may be able to snare a group initially and kill one or two but you'll never get them grouped for another snare.

Farming was my favorite part of the game and for all intents and purposes it's gone now. That's the biggest let down of all. I don't want to play to the end of the game just to compete the story line, I want some killer stuff.

I was expecting today to feel like Christmas but instead it feels like someone ran over my dog. This game is not anything near what I paid for and that really sucks.

So... I played a Dervish in the preview event, and LOVED it, and have been eagerly awaiting Nightfall release ever since. (Played the plot, not farmed with.)

Am I to understand that playing that class is an exercise in hair-pulling frustration now?

Joy.

On the upside, I don't get my copy of Nightfall for another week or so, and this definitely sounds like a bug with the new "monsters don't always run" AoE system. Hopefully it'll get fixed soon.

Sounds like it's really horrible.

I haven't had a whole lot of issue with baddies running away from me as yet, but I haven't tried actual storyline play since the update. I did a couple of MM farm runs last night to test things out and about pulled my damn hair out.

The first run I went by myself, and found that it was still possible to solo my chosen area but it took longer because nothing was acting right. Everything aggroed on me 99% of the time instead of on my minions. The one percent of the time they aggroed on my minions, my minions would run to the BACK of the group and start killing (reminds me of a bad tank getting outside the monks' heal zone!). At which point the baddies in front aggro on me anyway, so I end up running in friggin circles around my minions so they can kill. Ugh! Two things that I noticed about my minions, on top of this, is that all 10 of them were attacking the same enemy which is not something I'm used to, and second when I ran on, only like 2 of them followed me while the other 8 just stood where they were and only when I stopped again did they run to catch up to me. I'm used to leaving 1 or 2 behind to catch up, but not the whole darn group!

The second run I went with 2 other guildies, an ele and a monk with myself MMing again. This time around I ran in with the minions to grab aggro, making sure that the ele and the monk were well outside my aggro bubble. Almost every attempt, the vast majority of the enemies would run right past me and either attack the ele or the monk (niether of which had cast yet), ignoring me and my minions completely and to top it off, if I wasn't attacking an enemy, my minions wouldn't attack at all, even with the enemy standing right next to them! I can deal with the minions attacking one target and then switching off to chase/kill another (which they didn't do before that I noticed) or completely ignoring the enemy attacking me to kill whatever one they are working on, but when they just stand there and do nothing, that bothers me!

I do hope they fix these issues.

I don't think farming is over. I think it will be more costly to farm as you may need more ppl in the grp to farm hence splitting the drops (more costly).

Here is an idea. Two tank use none shall pass. one on each side of the grp of baddies. One nuker hit at the same time. Possible? If so then the new farmin' build will be a three man build. That would mean the tank would have to be wammo's to heal themselves because a monk would make it a 4 man build.

Even if I wrong and this idea sucks I can assure you someone will think of something. Hell, they have already figured out that nec's can still solo UW. It just takes longer