Has the fun been nerfed?

I consider myself a normal PVE player and I've read all the threads which have sprung up today as a result of the AoE change.

I'm not a major farmer, but occassionally do duo UW runs and one or two other things like that, but only for an hour or two a week....
I do them as they're part of the game and most importantly - because it's fun.
I also do all the missions and quests because it's fun.
I feel I play the game normally and the way it's meant to be played.

I'm not a CR'er or into making millions of plat - I really don't care about it.
I have no 15k armor and a modest money bank with 8 characters - 6 of which have done all missions in both prophecies and factions.
I love this game, it's gorgeous graphics and the fun and challenges it brings.

Now this AoE change has come and I'm not going to say it ruins the game for me, or my farming builds, or that I quit BUT what I am going to say is that it reduces the fun of play for me.

Last night (playing a normal quest) I hit a monster with a sword and he ran away from me, one hit and he ran and continued to run away - what's the point of this? it doesn't make the game fun - I just ran after him, 30 secs later he runs out of places to run and I kill him.

Now do that with every monster - instead of spending my time fighting and using skills etc I'm going to spend the majority of my time chasing after stuff?
Is running after stuff considered fun - not in my book.

I don't know what anet will do (if they do anything) to put back the fun but I really hope they do.

My CE and standard editions are in the post - this has taken the edge off of my excitement as I think of having to chase monsters across wide african plains......

For those of you who play PVP - this is akin to someone only equipping running skills to deliberatley piss you off in an arena - is that fun?

With this patch some fun has been removed and it does sadden me.
I hope anet find a way to address this problem.

It's not about - OMG my farming build is nerfed, for the average player it's about having fun. For me the fun aspect has been toned down a notch.

People can agree or disagree - I really don't care but just like I hate trade spamming and I hate pointless running. Strategic running is fine but that's not what we're getting.

base on your gw experience, what you think you can do to save yourself 30 seconds of chasing?

hint: take a look at the skills you have

The point there is, maybe you should consider packing a slowdown skill now.

Great idea, everyone must now bring snares in every build. I agree, not at all fun.

Honestly if they would have just made it work like the description said in the game updates:
Monsters will not flee from AOE if they are high health or feel that they are close to killing off an enemy

then it would be great. But the AI update is so screwed up it made the mobs into cowards who run from standard attacks, not just aoe attacks.

It appears that A-net is trying to encourage more team-play, and that is what it may take to round up all these "critters". Henching it may be harder than ever (I'm talking about Prophecies and Factions -- I haven't played enough of Nightfall to form an opinion).

On the lighter side, I'm looking forward to chasing the Perfected Armor at THK all the way back to parts unknown.

Aoe nerf or not, I had a lot of fun 3 man trapping at UW yesterday. If the 55/SS team won't work, hey we still got trapping.

I didn't say everyone, but at least someone in any party should carry a snare. Maybe the Mesmer has room for a Burden, or the Ranger can pack Pin Down for once.

Allow me to quote the film Philadelphia: "Where there's a problem, there is a solution". The game has evolved, so must you. You face new problems, now find a solution and put it into effect.

I am really getting tired of all these complaints now, it's getting me down.

I know I could change my skills to incorporate running/spikes Supaet,-
My point is that running around after stuff is not fun for the vast majority of people.

If running was fun we'd be given wide open areas with no monsters!

There's a difference between increasing challenge and increasing frustration.

For me this increases frustration and not challenge.
The more I read the update notes the more I think that the intention is right but the implementation is wrong.

The intention is that monsters get out of range to recover or stay in range if victory is near, but that's not whats happening and running is the outcome from the first swipe of a sword or wand.

I think for elemental class it has gotten better. I am having fun playing the game agin with class i like the must.

how many more RANT topics are you ppl gonna post?

This is not a rant - it's an observation that because of the latest update monsters seem to run away way too much.
More that what the update notes suggest that they should.

This is not a "OMG they killed my build post" - instead this is a thread which points out a few things.
1. what's implemented currently is not what the update notes say.
2. unneccessary running has greatly increased
3. running after something is not fun (my opinion)

Sure I can easily change my builds and skills but doing that won't get me all the way back to the same level of fun I was having...

It's so sad that the concept of "fun" in gw has been reduced to how much gold, runes and drops one can farm a minute. How many bosses with greens one can lone player can loot in an hour. How quickly and mindlessly a player can run through uw smites chasing after pink globs because to them that's the only form of income they can use to support their spending habits.

I don't know what has happened to the old days in which I started out as a dirt poor ele, always requiring sacrifices and decisions in order to purchase armor and runes. Fun was going on quests with other players, even if Galrath was only worth 500 xp, we travelled across half of tyria to reach the end and we had fun doing it. Or the many UW groups I joined as a novice elementalist, watching in awe as the monks in our team kept our tanks alive the big baddies which could kill me in a mere 2 strikes.

As far as I know, many of these players have moved on to other games. And all we have left are the farmers to grind and grind for worthless loot. And therein lies the rub, most of the loot is worthless,

Is it because people don't want to change their skillsets to adapt their play to the game, or is it because they simply have no clue how the skills work since they just copied it off some forum. Lazy people will always take the path of least resistance.

When I go to towns, I can't even find a party half the time. It's invariably full of "chest runners", "boss farmers", "solo farmers", "green farmers"', "solo farmers" and dancing naked eles. They should really create a solo farming district just for them, where they can spam each other w/ their WTS messages as well.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to play Nightfall before it is taken over by the neverending plague of farmers.

Seriously. STOP THE RANTING THREADS. We get it. You're pissed about the changes. But post in the already existing threads!

so you have fun by using the same 8 skills and killing the same mobs the exact same way everytime?
if there's no drop, will you still do that? if yes, guild wars is not for you.

But I bet that a lot of your fun comes from drops. So don't give me the crap about you farming for fun but not for drops

Well you lose that bet then.

Where did I say I use the same 8 skills?
I adapt my skills depending on the monsters I'm fighting and the terrain I'm in.
I play the game....

Who said anything about drops?
If I was only interested in drops do you think I would have done all the quests and missions as I stated in my opening post?
I repeat I play the game.....

I don't have master cartographer but I'm not far off on many of my characters. I have protector of tyria and cantha on some toons.
Where do you think I'm excessively farming?
I occassionaly go to UW with a regular friend for the fun of it, again I state that I don't have a mountain of plat and not a single piece of FOW....
I don't need to be leet just have lots of fun.

Farming in groups was always more interesting anyways...the chinese monks never said much.

Blackest Rose, there are a lot of people in serious denial, here.

I just wanted to mention that you aren't alone in your opinion. I completely agree. There's nothing even slightly heroic about stabbing fleeing monsters in the back. It's just not fun, no matter what people say.

I hate the way this subject keeps getting turned into debates about farming. Forget farming. This is simply about fighting (not chasing) monsters, and having fun doing it.

I'm of the opinion, due to the description of the AI changes in the update notes, that it's a bug, though. Hopefully I'll be proven right and it'll be fixed soon.

It probably is a bug, but come on... In PvP, it makes sense to pack a snare for some gametypes (particularly AB, where Assassins can suddenly get a few hits in before turning and making use of Shadow Refuge). Why should it not make sense to do this in PvE?

How hard can it be? Pack snare > Fight mob > See mob run > Use snare > Kill!

And what's so heroic about roasting a crowd of monsters who just stand there and let you burn them to death?

And why do we need a dozen threads complaining about the AI popping up everyday now?

Seems like people missed the good'ol days of group massacres, surprised to find that monsters actually don't want to get killed!

Tearing through mobs because they let you burn them to death is slightly more heroic than spending entire trips chasing things around in circles. Its also alot more fun.

While doing Elona Reach (properly) the Monk boss fled into a corner, getting bodyblocked, taking us 10 minutes to kill. Why 10? Because spirit AI is ****ing pathetic. I stood there with Attuned was Songkai on and they would spam attack the Monk soss, then for no reason at all change to hit a ranger. Then we came across the Mesmer boss, who never actually attacked us, it cast 2 spells then started to run around.

I don't want to have to bring Deep Freeze just to make the frigging enemies stand still for a change. If i wanted enemies to flee constantly i'd play more PvP. I'm not saying everything should stand in AoE until death... but this is just stupid. Its like the problem with animated undead standing in AoE. We came to accept it, they attacked relentlessly, now they spend most of there time running off. Even if Anet have commented on it, its just retarded, if they don't know how things are gonna react to updating 3/4 of the game then don't ****ing do it!

Sid,
No one is saying that we want them to be standing there doing nothing but today they take one hit and run away. This is a problem.

In PVP does a warrior take one hit and then run away? No - tanks are tanks.
They are supposed to fight until in danger of dying.

It makes complete sense that if a monster is low on health that they run away and that's what the update notes say but that's not whats happening.

Thank you Rhedd - I was hoping to not be alone here....
And I agree I hope anet recognize this implementation as a bug and fix it.

i dont see any fun in duo UW farming

Hmm, fundamentally the AI seems to be exhibiting 2 different type of behaviors post-update. I have not had the time to do any testing, but it seems that certain players with their particular play styles are experiencing a single enemy monster either running away continuously or pursuing a player continuously.

Other players have experienced the exact opposite, a group of enemy monsters that focus fire solely on one player, generally the warrior, and just keep whacking on him until they are quickly burned to death by the other players. The enemy may run outward from aoe, but will just as quickly run back into aoe to be quickly destroyed. It is as if the rest of the party does not exist to the mobs except for the single warrior.

The only difference I've been able to see so far between the two AI behaviors is single player/single player w/ henchies/hero or dual players vs a sizeable party of players. Also when there is a single or dual enemy vs a entire group of enemies, the single will run around a lot, the group will not.

something just seems very broken

Reza - That's completely ok but let me ask you if running around trying to catch a monster after hitting it once is fun?

And you need to do this with every monster....

I havent had monsters run away from just one hit of a sword like you described. Of course, that doesnt mean it's not happening to you though. But for the most part, people are simply complaining that monsters no longer just stand there to get killed.

In PVP, a warrior most likely won't run away after taking a hit. But any other class WILL kite. A squishy caster in PVP certainly won't let someone bash on him without running away. Heck some people will pre-kite you even before you reach them. Not everyone in PVP is a "tank" and not every monster should be a tank.

Anyway, unless monsters are running away into the next country to the point where you cant even catch them, there really is no problem. Now snares will find some use in PVE. That is all.

The funniest thing of all Sid is that it was the tank monster that took one hit in my game last night and then ran away.....

The squishies I hacked to pieces and they stayed exactly where they were even when low on health.

It's all very strange and looks to be broken....

Doesn't it make more sense that tank monsters actually are less susceptable to running away and healers, mes and necro monsters more....

The hour or two of playing last night showed quite the opposite.

Cripple.

Adapt.

I suspect that was done because melee monsters are popular farming targets...

Man, in all honesty the fun has been nerfed a long time ago..

So monsters finally did lern2kite?

What a silly notion, enemies that don't want to die? -_-

Well i must say all the 'cripple', 'snare' kind of comments are working a bit on my nerves. And that oh so old comments of 'And in PvP blabla...'
PvP is NOT PvE. if you think you can compare any PvP build with a PvE one then so be it. I must say i wonder how you'd survive.
If people complain about monster AI and in masses this is not a made up isssue.
All the comments here i've read are about adapting and other useless info.
Ok. we know this already.
I too farm occasionally and yeah it's actually challenging to have to calculate what enemy gets what hex over him etc. but chasing an enemy over an entire map is not an excuse to come and start having a bash at the OP becoz he should 'adapt'.

Try chasing avicara who naturally run faster then you.. only to attack you in the back if you don't chase them.

Yep stupid indeed. Running away from a mob and having one enemy out've the entire group follow you even as you sprint the hell away is annoying (while testing all I did was try to run past them without attacking/targeting). If it's a melee target or a caster, it will follow you. Then the rest of the mob comes to your location forcing you to fight them. Soon as you attack it, it runs away and comes back again. WTF?? Waste of time.


Last I checked not every creature had sprint/charge/rush/illusion of haste/windborne speed etc. Yet they run after you as if they did. If thats the case, please get rid of all running skills and let everyone just run (if monsters can have invisible speed buffs, so should we). Otherwise what is the advantage?? I love how everyone says adapt without considering the facts. This isn't normal. Don't tell me every creature in this game can catch up to anyone who's using a speed buff skill without activating one in their own list of skills programming. And for RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs sakes please don't compare pvp to pve.


I truly hope this is nothing more than a glitch and gets fixed.

Yeah if this is really how it works now... kthxbye. I'll have to test.

This has been causing a lot of overaggro with henchies today.

It pisses me off when people comment without actually testing anything, play some PvE and then put some useful into into the thread. Simply saying adapt, stop crying etc doesn't help anyone, especially if some of these so called 'cry' threads hold truth.

From my experience, the extract from the update notes Improved Monster AI does not appear to be working in the intended way.
-Monsters are running when they have full hp once they get hit
-They engage targets they cannot see (ie: someone holds aggro, someone else is miles away who they will go straight for)

To me, one of the aspects of this patch is to encourage more teamplay. Well personally, I HATE IT. I don't like farming or grouping with other people... mostly because I like the challenge of relying upon myself and to take on hoards of monsters all at once like a godly hero(good ol d2 days). For people who enjoy playing the game solo (like me), the update really kills what fun i have left after i complete all missions and quests (not to mention the low level cap, which to me is one of the reasons that makes this game short). The new patch made this game very slow, boring, and relatively hard (though it is possible) to solo and kill high level mobs.

Now I realize why they might want to nerf solo farming because of some apparent reasons... This is a problem in most online games already, so it's nothing new. Why not just implement a better system for finding cheaters? Something like the warden system blizzard has. Nerfing farming for everyone doesnt necessary make the game better. Not to mention now some skills become rather useless in pve gameplay.

To me, farming is a important aspect in online role playing games... It provides somewhat of an replay value. It's what makes these games so addicting because people need to be able to find a source of income to afford expensive items... the satisfaction of being able to buy something cool... Yes you people can say I'm being materialistic, but what's the point in playing a role game if you can't make your character cool??

As you can probably tell, i'm not really that big into pvp, although I do play it sometimes. But I mean, pvp gets boring for me after a short period (kinda like... cs? i dunno). I find myself quitting this game regularly because of the lack of replay value. I'd stop for weeks or months at a time. I dunno about you... but the last chapter was REALLY SHORT... Now i'll admit that I am planning to try out NF... but i'm not too sure I will continue to do so in the future if I can't continue to find satisfaction in replay value.

However, being the optimistic person that I am... I'm sure that ANET will try to invent new ways of solving this issue and making everyone happy.

IMO people are just getting confused and frustrated because of tactical atrophy.
That is what you get for farming mindlessly with the same skill for the pass several months.

Ok I gave it a few more hours of playing into the campaign, with henchies and heroes only I might add, and I still dont get what the fuss is about. Seriously, I dont see where the frustration is coming from. It really is harder but NOT THAT hard. It made PVE go from mind numbingly boring to actually somewhat fun.

The A.I. did indeed run around a lot more, but snares helped fine. And also you yourself have to kite a lot due to the warriors running erratically towards the backline at times. Sorry folks, I still dont see what the fuss is about.