Has the fun been nerfed?

Well nobody forces you to read them!

Anyway, there was nothing wrong with the old AI. Its more the way the programmers make use of monster AI and map scripts lacks creativity:

-Instead of running away you can make a monster fade out when health becomes too low; meaning the last blow needs to be a huge one!
-Instead of x monster groups patrolling you can set 1 huge monstergroup on guard, spread over a large terrain. Once you attack the boss in the middle the others will hurry in...
-Put several neutral groups in the map, that is: neutral to the player. What the player does not know is that some groups are alligned 'friend' to players enemy, so when he attacks that enemy the allignment of some neutral groups change to enemy too...


There are many ways to make a map more interesting. The question is why programmers always seem to stick to the same concepts: patrolling and some fading in (spiders). Because they can avoid changes to AI when they limit the amount of (farmerable) patrolling groups and use differend scripts.

Ok..its time to establish something here, with all of you people.

Wether you like it or not, you know that whenever ArenaNet changes something in this game it creates controvorsy. Now, this makes no sense. I mean, why would anyone get pissed off if the company that makes your game is expanding it? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT!

This game is not being expanded. Frankly, I know that whenever an update happens, things are changed, not expanded. Now, you may think these statements are the same. But they are not. How about this Anet, instead of spending months and months making double waste time weekends why couldn't you have added quests or expanded on the landscape, added new weapons, or things like that? In other games companies do this, I don't know whats limiting you. And no, Nightfall does not count. Why? Because these are not NEW QUESTS. Yes, they may have different names, but you are doing the same thing again and again. Run here, kill this, its like a factions reversal all over again.

Do they really, you ignorant little complainer? You are about as contradictory as John Kerry, your third paragraph and fourth just contradicted each other.

To me, all of these people who are praising this game and revering it as "excellent" and "obsessivly fun", the "possibilites are endless" are LYING.Yes, I am calling you out right now. Why do you people like to argue for the sake of arguing?

I can verify this for people saying its fun to repeat missions over and over again with new characters. Why? With a comment like that, you have just labeled yourself as a liar for being obsessed with this game. Anet is lucky, for their little updates and redecorations of the same tree (reffering to Nightfall)
are just good enough to fool players like you Avarre. This game amazed me before. But now, I realize what it has become, and what it will continue to become.

Have a nice day people, I'm sorry if I came out a little angry but I am kind of distressed right now

But these threads push the better threads past Page 2 very quickly, making respones to them feel like needless bumps

Yesterday, for gits and shiggles, I went to trap the low level grawls to see if they'd drop some dyes for me (they didn't...). Anyhoo... pull some into traps, they pop and die, but for this one grawl shaman or whatever. OK... no prob, his wand isn't doing all that much to me. So, I run over next to him and start dropping a trap. While I'm doing that, he turns and runs! Finding myself amused, I chase a bit... he stops and I get there and try to trap again. He runs again! A couple traps later I finally get behind him and chase him back the way we came from into the traps, which finally get him. Got 6 gold, I believe.

This was so hilarious that the obviously annoying aspect of the change was covered up. Changed to a barrager and ate them for lunch.

Yes, it's different, and yes, changes are required. In a month or two we won't even see posts about this anymore.

OK, I been on for 5 hours in last 2 days....
WHERE are these "INTELLIGENT ai" foes??
They dont even have the ability to "LEARN" how is that any where near intelligent??
Adept is the prove of intelligent, until monsters know how to change their tactic base on different classes with in players team, using landscape like players do, they are not intelligent. Bug brain ai is not intelligent.

Ok lets look at the farming..
Green drop solo farm- Not much change, its usualy build in a 1 on 1 case anyway, you can still do most of them.
Chest run- Well if you do it solo, there isnt any change, I heard the rare drop is random now, no more you get gold= I get gold, but havent yet to see it myself.(every one is doing NF>.>)
Money farm- where we solo a group of crazy bug brain and exchange most of the drop for gold. This looks like the farming style that been effect the most. Like the last aoe update, a lot of hit farming place dont work like they used to. But is money farm gone?? Of course not, unless you have a bug brain like the ai...just look for new type of foes, and use a different combo(in some case you dont even need a new combo). I had found nec, warrior, and monk, still working on my rt(which going to take some time...I want to start NF somepoint this weekend) This is not hard, take like 30 min of thinking and recalling the map and foes in there that I ever walk pass(you can use wiki too) a few times to refine your skill bar. There, its done, you are good for another few monthes. And if you are intelligent, keep it yourself, then your farming map and skill bar might live longer=P(griffen anyone?)

Yes, it has.

What I see here are people who are willing to use their brains a little and people who aren't. The people who aren't don't embrace any changes to their game. They don't want to actually have to do something different, to adapt. Well, c'est la vie, mes amis. Life is full of changes. You adapt or die off. I'm fine if you who refuse to change all die off, it just means there'll be less people running 8 swordsmanship W/Mos in PvP and higher quality PUGs in PvE, for those who actually use PUGs.

With that said, I'm done here. There's nothing much to discuss really, either you like it or you don't, either you're adapting or you're just whining.

You're lieing, Enemies dont flee from warriors, in fact I think Anet did something that enemies only attack warriors now.

I'm strictly a PVE player. I've played my W/E since last October. This is my first (to date, only) MMORPG, and my favorite game overall. I own all three chapters, and the one thing I've come away as far as a philosophy to playing this game is:

Learn to adapt.

I didn't know too much about builds and skillsets when I first started playing Prophecies, but I learned how to go to forums, see what builds people were running, and how to tweak my own builds. I really didnt know too much about farming until I finished Factions; now I look over a majority of builds (tested and untested), experimenting with what works for me--and I'm having a LOT of fun in the process. I find this aspect of the game fun-- re-examinng those skills that I initially wrote off as "useless", only to come back, look at that "useless" skill again, and find a use for it. As such, my tactics change as a result--whether I was completing a mission for the umpteenth time, or farming in my favorite spots.

Now, I dont know if all the complaints I've been hearing or reading about is some type of "glitch" in the monster AI, or if it's an attempt to shake everyone into thinking about our builds differently, but I havent seen any threads about new builds to deal with Nightfall--just complaints. Is everyone just packing it in because we're being forced to alter our builds a bit? Where's all the creativity that was in Prophecies and Factions? We're not out of the 1st weekend yet folks, and I'm reading about, "Oh, this sucks", and "This game's ruined; so long!"

This is reminding me of the weekend when the "correction" was made to warrior's armor, and the shields were changed to "physical damage only" protection. And yeah, I was mad-- for about a day. But I was too into the game to not give some thoughts to how I could deal with the change. I did--and my gaming experience with Guild Wars went on.

IMHO, this is no different. Don't think of it as ANET trying to make the game for like PVP play--instead, give some thought as to how you can play your characters differently. You've all invested a lot of hours (not to mention money, especially if you bought all three chapters) to waste time being mad, especially since you're talking about only playing the game for 2-3 days.
The best analogy I can think of is Madden football. Any Madden player will tell you that Madden 2006 is NOTHING like Madden 2003, but they keep playing--and they love it too.

Learn to adjust and adapt, folks. IMHO, if you feel this way in about a month, then you have a legit reason for complaint....

Semantics issue aside....Anet is changing the game. I do think they are making it more complex with micromanaging with hero hench and waypoint controls, more customizable with the slew of new armor and weapon options.

These are the major changes that people really SHOULD be worried about.

The AI's idiocy is trivial compared to this.


Maybe thats why they are called Chapters or Installments instead of expansions.

Hmn.....maybe? perhaps? mayhaps?

We have no proof as to the reasoning behind the double weekends.

My opinion, is that they are testbeds for changing drop settings, XP settings etc. Look at the double faction gain thats PERMANENT now.


Lack of people i would imagine. Their Dev team is busy working on new chapters constantly, since this is their business model.

Their business model doesnt involve going back to older chapters and adding new stuff. Oh wait...Totem Axe...hmn...Icebreaker? No...they never go back and add new stuff.

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10067724


And other MMORPGS are different?

"In order to become a ____, journey to the 4th level of this dungeon in the middle of nowhere and get me an item from some bad guy."



LOL. I love how you used Kerry in there. Contradiction is very different from someone misreading or misquoting you.

I argue cause its fun. ^_^ <---loves debates.

I love this game. Its not perfect, theres goods and bads.

But the real reason i argue is because i see people who just cant see past the brickwall they rammed their heads into with frustration over one little thing and cant see the whole picture.


I will point up

I dont think these is a LITTLE update. Try rolling a PVP character and see how little these updates are.

Are we talking about 55 monks? No. We are talking about a much bigger change than one skill. We are talking about a change that has taken away content.

Adapt? Sure, I may - or I may quit. But what am I adapting for - so I can still do FedEx type quests and missions - all to realize that when I am done there is no real end-game content? Great! can't wait to play that game.

PvP... hmm, I do play r5, my old guild drifted between rank 400 and 1000 in GvG... I understand how to adapt, but I'm not like you who is going to kiss the ass of the butt that shits on me and the game i've spent a lot of time in (not to mention the fact that I spent money to purchase the games).

It doesn't matter whether it is a game or life - its still part of my life, and I have every right to complain as an unhappy customer. And guess what - in the end Anet is a business - and if they see that this is going to lose them business - they might listen.

I know, I know, you are going to say that we shouldn't have a say, or that they never listened in the past... guess what, I hope when ANet alienates all the poeple that love the game except you from all the changes they made - we can watch you in here crying when Anet files for bankruptcy and your character is left alone in a world where all he can do is solo - but the monsters keep running away.

Let us speak our mind without stepping in and telling us how we "have" to play the game. Or "adapt" to the game - as you like to say it. The game is weak - I'm leaving and I'm sure as more people do that is going to affect GW's quite a bit.

You gotta have money to keep the game going - and they are going to lose a lot of money.

Peace!

I've noticed this too, say if I run in first with a dervish, and my hero warrior runs in next. After I take the first few hits they end up targetting him instead of me. I find the AI to be smarter then most games I have played in the past even ones that boast their AI is the best in ages, A-Net hasn't even said that and I would have to say they have done a pretty damn good job with the AI.

For those that are complaining about farming still, it imbalances the economy that is why they had to change things because later on down the road either everyone would end up rich or be forced to farm in order to pay for things and be rich themselves and this defeats the purpose of the game. A game is exactly what it is a way to have fun and play, farming was never part of the game or ment to be. This is an online game which requires things to stay at a balanced level so everyone can enjoy it, but that doesn't mean farming will ever be gone builds just need to change.

If the AI stayed the same way forever I'm sure more people would get bored of how easy they are to farm or kill or how stupid they react to skills and spells causing everyone to eventually quit the game. This game is about quests, enjoying the story, playing pvp and playing with others which is what an RPG is all about.

For those quitting, there will always be new players ones that will accept the AI for what it is now and will never really know what it was like before the giant "NERF".

"addapt posts" are plain tupid -.-
anyway, agree with rose, if ppl enjoyed chasing mobs they would look for firestorm eles before this update...instead, if the ele had no decent AoEs the whole team would tell him to do nothing at all, an afk ele is more useful than a firestorm one...by far

Ok some of you are just being willfully ignorant here. I can fully understand that some of you are having problems adapting to the new A.I. And yes, sometimes change is annoying.

But to you that are calling us LIARS?!! Just because you can't seem to adapt and others have is no reason to call people liars. You look pretty damn petty right now for doing so.

The way you're so quick in calling others liars about adapting just shows your own unwillingness to adapt and change.

Wow you're sure coherant and articulate. And nice argument about why "addapt posts are plain tupid"

This new AI has KILLED the FoW.


it's like booktrick all over again, and i HATE it. am there right now, 5 man, but it's ok, i don't need to look, nobody's going to die, the tank has vig spirit and our bonder has LB, Barrier and Vital blessing stuck on him. every now and then i will cast dwayna's kiss.


This, clearly, is a bug.

yeh..that kinda ppl would say "adapt" even if they removed armors from GW

Finally, someone that sees through the same perspective as me. Listen to this man people, and stop being ignorant.

Lyra, that is the problem. This game is stagnant, and as far as I can see it will remain that way; Anet has no plans to stray from the path of least resistance. (Btw ya Kerry can pull the misrepresented card, just as his fellow loser Clinton but it cannot change the truth )

How does mobs acting like people would and not rolling over and dying take away content?

Since when is r5 impressive, when there's r9 iway pugs? Guild rank 400? Took a PvE guild to rank 139 with 8 warriors once. None of these accomplishments prove that you know much of anything, much less how to adapt. How has ANet shit on you? They've improved the game imo. I've spent time in GW since July 2005, and I like these changes. I'm tired of being able to steamroll every mob in the game without any reaction from them. Apparently you liked it, so you're leaving. Well, have fun in your new, carebear-friendly game of choice.

Chicken no offense but imo did you select your username by finding which animal had the closest crainial capacity as you?

SPIT SPIRITE!! lol I can see you mean it when you say GW is part of your life.
The game is weak, I agree, I thought that is why A-net is toughen the monster up?? Not saying its good, bug brain isnt better ai, I am waiting for the update when monster will dance on my corp(or eat it) Better yet, different ai for different type of monster!!

"No offense" -insert trolling here- ... Make up your mind kiddo. Either you mean offense or you don't. It's cranial, by the way. Perhaps you should use words you're more familiar with, instead of trying to sound more intelligent than you are.

My reasoning behind my name is of no consequence to you, so I think I'll keep it to myself.

Is there anyone for changing this "nerf" back to the way it was who doesn't resort to random flaming to try (and fail) get their point across?

I agree with the original OP that this update has taken some of the "fun" out of the PVE game. I have played quite a bit since the update to see how things were working and this is what I came away with:

Went to do some quests in the jade sea with my elementalist and a guildie took her SS necro. The rest of the party was henchies. This was the easiest time I have ever had fighting in this area of the game world. The enemy AI fixated on the warrior henchies to the exclusion of anyone else. They would only occasionally flee from AOE but only a few steps and then would go right back into it. Frankly it was so dull it was like watching grass grow. I didn't have to kite, use any kind of defensive or self heal skills, or really think at all. At the end of the quests we both said the same thing.... that was wayyyyyyy to easy.

Next we tried a run from Warcamp to Granite. I played a healing monk and she played her axe warrior. Once again the bad guys fixated on her and the henchie warrior with the exception that they would now flee from her at the slightest amount of damage inflicted. We ended up chasing bad guys all over the place to kill them. The really dumb thing was that no matter how close I got to any of the enemies they never bothered me. They didn't interrupt me, hex me, attack me, etc... We even purposely over aggroed on one occasion and it was a piece of cake to fight through since I only had the warriors to heal and didn't have to worry about kiting anything.

There is no doubt the AI is totally screwed up right now. This can't be what Anets intent was and its just a bug they need to work out. The AI behavior has turned them all into running around like chickens with their heads cut off. At the start of a battle I have seen the enemy forces go through my warriors like they are going to come after me, only to have them do a 360 and run back to attack the warriors. I have stood in range of Naga archers and not have them even attempt to hit me with concussion shot or any other interrupt for that matter (prior to this update they were very effective at interrupting me if I was not careful).

For all those saying just adapt, my question is "Adapt to what?". I have to dumb myself down to create any kind of challenge? Sorry but this AI update is absolutely horrible from the standpoint of PVE challenge. Really poor decision on Anets part to release this kind of update in addition to a new chapter and the halloween stuff. How anyone sane could have tested this prior to release and said it was okay is beyond me.

I'm not even going to bother installing Nightfall until the AI and that stupid self centering camera are fixed.

Since when was adjusting a build for the current situation associated with dumbing down? Adapt to whatever you're up against! Cowards? Snare them and top them! Rampant Eles? Elemental Resistance ftw.

[EDIT] No idea WHY I put Physical in the first place...

Did I say that my accomplishments were impressive - No. I did use them as a means to show you that I have and do PvP - which clearly you attacked me on earlier.

My carebear frienly game of choice, btw is going to be The Saga of Ryzom - much better community, content, and a storyline that keeps on going and going...

But I guess you're happy with running from point A to B to C back to A - collect reward, rinse repeat. The new AI isn't any harder or more challenging - or more lifelike. Its more annoying, easier, unrealistic, and boring. But, I guess you can't go back on your words now, so i don't expect you to.

Well it makes sense that the people who refuse to adapt or think are also the ones who can't make an argument so they resort to petty insults and flaming.

Seriously though, I've been playing for about two days now and STILL don't see what the huge fuss is about. The gameplay is just fine and I'm going along at a rate that's pretty fast. The AI cant possibly be hindering anyone from completing missions or normal gameplay.

Um....yes the game gets stagnant.

Thats why things get changed around..........


Theres no way to give you a completely new game. All they can do is add stuff and tweak things a bit to make it FEEL different.

And i think they do an excellent job because lots of people complain how its completely different now ;P


Dont get me wrong.

I think the AI's currrent setting is ANNOYING.

Try being a warrior...chasing stuff sucks.

But...it does make me use different skills i dont normally use in PVE like Cripshot

Obviously you didn't get my point. I don't have to change any build to get through this new moronic AI. In fact I can go with only 4 or 5 skills on my bar and be just as effective. Snare? Why bother. Just ignore them switch targets and they come back to you. By the way, with only henchie warriors they don't flee so no snares needed. They sit in a nice bunch and get nuked to oblivion. Next time try reading my entire post with some comprehension before responding.

I hate chasing monster around. Especially when I have a bunch of minions around and they're standing in front of me. *lol* You just have to test a few strategies. With my N/Me if there's more than 4 monsters I crowd them in with Chaos Storm or just kill one and makes some minions(they always attack minions first instead of henchies or other players) and then cast Shadow of Fear while with my A/W I either Cripple the baddie or make myself faster with Sprint. Use the strengthes of both your professions. I've found that having one melee profession and one ranged profession is a great way to deal with different monster situations. W/Mo is a good example.

Lyra lyra, im dissapointed in you

Are you really going to say that in this game its impossible to add new content? That all they can do is change it around to give the weakminded a sense of progression and improvement?

Well, I for sure as hell didn't spend 800 hours of playing to believe that, but I do belive that Anet did take the path of least resistance, as you know.

Also, these people that are complaining are only looking the obvious changes a toddler could decipher. Really, if Anet did change this game the effects would be much more widespread.

It's likely perspective. I mostly play SS so I'm a little nervous about the changes, but guildwars.com clearly stated that monsters *no longer run from AoE if they are in good health* and don't cluster up so much so SS won't smack them as bad. I'm consistantly missing something in regards to monsters in good health not running from AoE = bad, but maybe the point is that the update didn't do what it was intended to do. If this is the case, post in a bug report thread; ANet will be more likely to listen to that than a rant thread. Or post a thread with the title "Enemies running away from melee combat: bug?" or something.

I think that asking that monsters not run away when you fight is a reasonable request - frankly, if I go into an area, an enemy enters my aggro, and they attack me, I expect them to fight and stay there and try to kill me, too, not run away. That's a fair point. Saying that the fighters can't hold aggro any more, fair point. These are actionable things, these are solid examples.

But the random "waah this sucks I'm not having fun", well, I think complaining is probably nerfing at least a few people's fun. Legit bug reports, letting ANet know what's working and what's not, and good solid feedback about gameplay, these are good things. It's all in how you present it.

Re: fun. The last two days, I've had to try really hard to get my husband to stop playing Nightfall before 5am because he's so happy smacking stuff with his E/N. He loves that he gets points for just killing stuff all over (he loves just running around and smacking stuff). I've never had this much trouble getting my husband away from Guild Wars. He's now an addict as bad as I am.

Lastly, agree to disagree, kids.

I'm having a lot of fun with the pve content in Nightfall.

Why are pve players so opposed to increases in difficulty? PvE in this game is so easy it could have been made by Fisher Price.

Bull's Charge 4tw.

Seriously, people might have to THINK to play PvE, and we know that's not a good thing, right? I mean, they might have to exercise their cranium, which hasn't been used ever since they typed in "effective [insert class here] build" in Google.

Still more fussing I see. Well, I went out and did some quests and missions last night, and I really didn't see any problems. I went out before attacking a mob, set the flag to let henches go into formation, then proceeded to attack. The monsters also have their own formation when attacking as well, something I kind of liked for a change. The melee fighters focused on the warriors, while the casters stood back. Occasionally I would get one to run, but then switched targets to keep pressure on the other melee, he came back, and I targeted him, finishing him off. Perhaps if there was a healer in the mob he would have been healed when he ran, but there was none.

The point I'm trying to make is that I no longer just c+space my way through things, or just bring a load of skills that say DAMAGE, and expect to come out winning. I actually have to pay attention to their formation, and if I get a runner, I don't chase them. If I wanted to, I could of brought a snare or cripple and finished him off before he ran. Not necessary though since he just came running back. They're still predictable, but not as predictable, which is a lot more fun for me. And I'm not just kissing ass, or whatever it is you complainers like to come up with, the game is actually more interesting to me now. Instead of mind numbingly killing things with damage buttons, I start to think that other skills like snares and crippling skills on my assassin actually have a purpose in PvE, not just PvP. Maybe now more people will stop forming brute force groups to accomplish things, ignoring some of the other classes that could help them get the job done better.

Just some thoughts.

/skipped the pages

imo, fun was nerfed 1 year ago

I think it was nerfed when protective bond got it and the AoE nerf came in so much for it.

Ok I do realize that it's all about perspective too. Some people find mindlessly pressing buttons without any thought to kill mass numbers of monsters to be fun. Others find that having to use some strategy and some adapting to the situation and challenge to be fun.

Which type of player are you?

See heres the thing. Theres content. Then theres features.

Guild Wars makes a distinction of each being that:

Content you pay for.
Features you dont.

Now. Anet double talk will sometimes take something thats content and make it a feature later on, so we can disregard those.

Case example: Storage Materials Tab.

Changes to the game's engine/ui/AI/graphics engine/skills etc. These are considered Features.

Everyone gets these for free.

New maps, new monsters, new weapons, new skills,professions, PVP modes, storyline, quests, missions.

These are considered content and are usually not free. These usually involve buying a new access key to gain this content (which, you downloaded even if you dont own the game as part of the updates)

Now....

lacasner:

Corrrect me if im wrong. You are saying that the new AI changes and AOE changes are NOT part of the expansion.

This is correct.

However i think you are wrong to say that the game is not being expanded.

The new micromanagement feature with heroes, armor customization, weapon customization and team control through waypoints and map flags.

This is NOT a tweak. Its not just changing things around. Its a radical departure and pushes the game into a strategy game's direction.

This is HARDLY taking the easy route. These updates are massive and every chapter from this point on will incorporate this new type of gameplay.

HOW COME NO ONE IS COMPLAINING ABOUT IT?

my type? hmmm lemme think about that ...

well the main thing is that i hate when i ve no freedom, means i wanna do what i want in a game when i wanna do it...

now it has become the one and only game where i always have the feeling that i m playing with a gun pointed on me and a guy saying "stop that u dumb fu**, u are not supposed to do this all by yerself, leave and come back with 7 other ppl or we ll remove that from yer screen and btw STOP putting gold in that stash or u ll regret it"

@Lyra: i wish that those crap AI, nerf and brand new useless changes were only applied to ppl buying NF and further chapters... leaving ppl who got only Core and/or Factions with what they have, unchanged

why? that would involve splitting up servers. which would mean more money and an even less intergrated gaming universe. that just doesnt make much sense.


The game will change, it will keep changing. It will gain new fans. It will lose old ones. They add things, they take things out.

This is the only real thing we have to deal with.

Learn to deal with this reality first.

Then you'll see that the AI thing is trivial.

here is the general official policy