Anet : Is the AI update working as intended or not?

Dear Anet,

A simple question :
Is the AI update working as intended or do you believe that there are issues with it and working to fix them?

It's not too much to ask for a response.

There are many threads reporting that AI has been improved/broken/no change.
We need clarification so we can get on with things...

Please don't post on this thread unless you're Anet - I think we have enough debates going on.

Until I know one way or another my CE and standard edition stays unopened.

Yay. The 455462nd thread about this issue.

Here is an idea: try playing Nightfall before you go demolish the AI and have a little faith in Anet. My bet: the AI is working like intended for about 95% as intended. Some extravaganzies like Monsters running away a thousand miles will be ironed out. Monsters will still run though.

i rather like the heros ai. hand minimal issues.

eh he is just a person on one side of an opinion .. you are people on the other... it breeds conflict..

But the side that is his side.. is the side that is seeing the most people..

so that should say somthing.

People complain when they get mad. its just what they do.. he raises good points.. and you really shouldent have tried to sound like you know it all and shut down his post.. you asked for it

"Don't be mad, don't be mean"
Nelly Furtado

OK Mods - as the opener I'm asking that this post be closed.

I was really hoping that we could be grown up about this and ask a simple question to Anet of whether ongoing AI work was happening or not, was there a problem being corrected or not?

Obviously I'm mistaken....
Sid couldn't resist "having another go" as he thinks differently and can't respect other peoples views and opinions without comment.

Whiplashr thanks for the clarity you brought to the table and for saying the things I was thinking after I saw Sid's post.

I wish.

In all seriousness: AI issues or not, GW nightfall is currently the best GW that has ever graced this green earth. If you chose to skip out on this then that is your call but I honestly think you're missing out.

Maybe you're right Tortoise.
I have really enjoyed Prophecies and I liked Factions well enough.

But I can tell you this - With the current AI I can't see myself bringing all my toons through NF and enjoying it.
The most I would do given the current situation is bring one through to experience it once.... if I was to do it at all.
That's not enough to keep me playing for 6 months until chapter 4 or justify the cost for 2 accounts ....so I wouldn't continue with GW.

On the other hand I think of Guildwars as a constant demo.
I usually play demos of games before purchasing - if you don't like the demo any more would you buy the game?
That's the way I feel right now - I was soooo excited about NF, counting down the days to release - and now couldn't care less when it arrives in the mail.

Metaphorically (sp?) I've been punched in the gut, do I go ask for more?

This is just a basic question, not a rant or rave, just a question to ANet. So, if you really, really want to be banned, flame away. Note: I'm referring to people whose posts were deleted. Not to the posts still here.

It is blatantly obvious that there is a major issue with the AI update due to the number of separate threads of a number of different forums. The lack of Arena Net's response is absurd, but par for the course with them.

AI is fine imo, the only people that feel it isn't are the people who can't or won't accept that things have changed and they neeed to change along with it.

I've noticed no real issues, mobs tend to only attack the warrior (not a bad thing) heroes do run to random spots on the odd occasion during a battle (pugs tend to be worse)

The only issue I've had so far with the AI was during one quest where you had to escort some guy from Kamadan to that other town (sunspear great hall??) in the plains. There was a group of corsairs that you had to kill to continue the quest and they ran off when I attacked their medic. Dunno if they were meant to do that but they did and I had to go hunt them down when I realised the guy wasn't following me anymore.

The AI seems to be too smart now. They love targetting my survivor wannabe and ignoring my henchies/heroes even though I usually send Koss and the other melee chars in first

I myself belive AI is working as intended, i.e., making solo farming and running pretty much impossible. If this is something good or not its another matter.

Is this AI in any way smarter, i.e, making PvE more challeging? Other than solo farming/running, no. Sure healers and most other caster run miles when being attacked, but they also chase you after they have been forced to kite, so you can isolate them from their group and kill them (most casters affected are either monks or heavy mesmers, but not only).

This wasnt a AoE nerf or an AI improvement per se. It was a solo farming and running nerf. Makes harder to farm gold and items. If you just want to play missions/quests you just need to change sligthy your strategy and exploit the new AI weaknesses.

I would bet the ai is working as anet intended.. but i wonder if they thought this one through enough..


People no longer play diablo 2 for the storyline.. they play it for the item drops...

that kinda longevity can only be had through farmin.. its odd that they would hinder this way of extending the time between chapters..

because if you think about it.. with ai the way it is now.. when people are done with nightfall they are ready for the next chapter.. when if the ai update did not happen.. they would be content to farm for a few more months before even thinkin about chapter 4....

Im not to sure anet thought about this outcome enough.. cause if you think about it.. they wanna make the game last as long as possible right?

From their business model I actually don't think so. They aren't getting paid for you to play every month. If you play the game, beat it and stop for a few months, then thats a few months of less server wear and tear. Really to them you playing after you beat it doesn't matter just so long as you buy the next one.

well i would like to know if this is intended too....
yesterday i ran myself from Lions arch to ascalon (with my dervish), and after a while in the nothern shiverpeaks i was like "what the heck?" the shiverpeak PROTECTORS had followed me across the WHOLE map just so they could wand me , but why the protectors? if the warriors followed me it could be reasonable but a prothealer following me ....

except if you take into account customer satisfaction. if the amount of people dissatisfied with the changes anet is making to their product, then the amount of people buying more anet products is dimished. while im not sure as to the exact number of people upset with the changes, it may or may not be some cause for concern to anet.

This is what I'd like clarity on. I've been henching around, and it's just too easy. I throw Healing Seed on the warrior hench, and I can go make a pot of coffee. Pve should offer enough challenge to remain interesting.

.. it doesn't fall in line with the whole "let's make PvE harder," "let's minimize farming," and "let's not allow people to make gimmick builds to overfarm high-level areas."

With this, all one needs to do is have a toon with incredibly high AL and nothing but stances and such.

Sort of like the whole "book trick" thing, except APPLIED TO THE WHOLE GAME.

Right now, my warrior is set to stance + doylak + ripostes.

QFT

I have a question for all those who think the new AI is working great and makes everything more challenging. If your a mesmer and you have the choice between interrupting a warriors power attack or the monk's heal party which would you choose? How about if your an elementalist. Who are you going to mind burn if given those 2 targets? Obviously you go after the squishy monk in both cases but right now the AI is acting like an utter noob wasting what skills it does use only on the high armored warriors. The rest of the time its too busy running around for no reason to actually do anything useful.

Chase them down, use a snare? Why bother. Ignore them, change targets and they will come running back to their doom shortly. The new AI is not even remotely challenging. Sadly it is actually encouraging poor tactics for those new players who just purchased their first GW game. Certainly not going to learn to kite or be careful of positioning when your left untouched and don't have to worry about being interrupted.

It's not even that for me, i think the ai (+heros) have other issues, the major of which is canceling. I've watched the ele's spam glyph of lesser energy till they had no e and the healers continually cancel various spells till they were dry. The only one that seems unaffected for the most part are the warriors. That constant "clicking" you hear is the ai canceling spells till they have no more energy. The only good deal about this is that the enemy ai suffer from this as well, although not nearly as often.

Even though the ai "understands" certain spell/skill casting orders, the necros still won't put up awaken the blood before spiteful or any other curse/blood spell most of the time, the ele casts glyph of renewal for fireball or flare, the monks still use healing breeze as a damage buffer and i wont even go into what the mesmers and interupt rangers do almost all the time. What happened to the queueing of skills BTW? If you click a skill, then click another before the last one casts, why do they cancel the first one?

Don't get me wrong, i think the ai has improved greatly, especially with the added placement control, but there are still some major bugs and they will still aggro craploads of enemies at the worst possible moment. There have even been time's through an entire battle (varesh) that koss actually stood there kicking the dirt like he was bored.

I get it, I'm certain that ai programming is a pain and problematic to each persons play style, but some of these things are just "drake on the plain" screwy.

Yea..
Was trying to buy another piece of armor in Divine Path. Had to go through the whole Imperial Sanctum mission, and of course I was leader, but when Shiro "banishes" me to the little area below him, all the henchmen *try* to follow me, which draws their attention away from shiro (I was doing the mission with my bf) and he was practically solo`ing shiro/shirokens (henchmen wouldn't even heal him) while i'm trying to move to the big orb at the top to get out. After he (my bf) informed me that the henchmen we're trying to follow me I just stood still whenever I got sent to the bottom pit of spirits.



Fix? T-T

Sounds like a facet of the "improved" AI code....

I hope it gets fixed for you.

I think its pretty damn smart. It's almost human smart.

Last night I was doing chest runs through the Southern Shiverpeaks. Mostly I try and avoid the groups of Avicara as much as possible or the grawl if going through Wittmans Folley.

Now I had noticed with the new AI that all mesmers/Necros would alwys cast somethign on you no matter what. They didn't used to be as bad as they are now, but you can pretty much be assured if you run past, you're getting some sort of Hex on you. I expected that, but I didn't expect what happened next.

The avicara started chasing me. Now they always do froa second intheir own aea, but they usually trail off after a short distance. These guys this time literally chased me around the Shiverpekas, non-stop. I picked them up close to Droks entrance and ran all the way around towards Rankor and then towards the far eastern and northern reaches of Talus Chute. They didn't give up one bit. The funny part beign none of them were warriors. I had all casters chasing me. Even when I used sprint to get ahead, they'd keep on coming. It was insane! I decided to do a second run, and the same thign happened yet again.. It was more of an annoyance than anything, so I said screw it and went out into Wittmans Folley instead. The grawl did the exact same thing.. I was dumbfounded and was like WOW!

It's not that big of a deal, but it just made me realize more the changes that had been made. If you want to run from a fight now, it's almost impossible because you will be chased down.. It looks like better builds/skills are in order from this point on out.

Having not seen this happen before the recent update, I can only attribute it to the update....

Is anyone else getting tired of enemy spellcasters running away when you attack them?

My usual tactic when facing a mob was to take out the spellcasters first (monks, mesmers, elementalists, necros) before mopping up the melees/rangers.

Now, though, doing so causes the spellcasters to run faar away, and following them usually results in aggroing ANOTHER mob.

Any suggestions for this, given that 3 of my 4 characters are warriors?

yea there are some really good threads on this.. please try searching for them.. i think the mods are gonna kill someone if we dont start using search.

Well theres your problem, you have 3 out of 4 melee attackers. It's pretty much focused on AL i think. i usually have one tank and the casters never really get very far, if they run at all. Get some casters!

i totally hear ya there buddy.. i had to watch the same thing from the ele hench. all they did was spam and cancle the glyph spell untill they where outa energy. funny thing is my entire party was standing still.. myself included... then when the mob hit.. she just ran around in the back feild.. but hey look on the brightside.. now they dont have enough energy for the victory firestorm!!!!

I'm wondering why they don't spam "Please don't kill me Mr(s) Hero!"

I like the AI, don't break it, its actually starting to get better and smarter.
Try a snare...

i made a run from piken square to la. and the fkn charr shamans would chase me all over the map forcing me to aggro more groups of gargoyles and then if i made it thru them they still chased me until i died... not cool. i never die in that area. not even solo farming.

the AI is pretty broken

Anet seems to have either bugged the code or purposely dumbed down the game for the players new to GW w/ the release of nightfall. It also seems like they made changes specifically to target solo farmers and runners, regardless of how much they broke everything else.

everyone keeps going on about snare this, snare that, hex this, water is the new fire, etc, etc
really. the only player who needs a snare are the solo farmers who can't chase down a monk enemy.
And even when farming solo, I just use SOJ and the silly monks come back and suicide themselves on me.


seriously, there are many skills and tactics that are no longer needed w/ the new AI:

- no need for snares/cripple, etc, if anything, mobs kill themselves faster on SS and meteor shower now than before
- no need for kiting, mobs target the highest armor player which is 99% of the time a warrior, completely ignoring the casters
- no need for glyphs of concentration, etc, as mesmers and rangers don't bother targeting the casters. just stand right next to that fow spider and pbaoe to death as the only thing in their view is that oh-so-threatening-high-armor warrior
- no need pay attention as a monk, just go browse the net while you heal. come back and throw a healing seed or something on the warrior every 30 sec or so... remember the fow book trick or gear trick and how exciting healing was back then...? yeah....
- no need to learn about "aggro bubbles", you know those things that used to get you or your monks killed if you got too close to a red dot? well, now you can just run around and pull them and as long as you overlap w/ the warrior in your group, just watch the enemy make a beeline straight past you towards mr w/mo
- ranger/warrior pull? who cares.. go tell that lazy ele to pull the bladed aatxes, it's not like there any danger anymore
- enemies fleeing from aoe? as eagerly as they flee they rush right back in. I've never had an easier job as an SS necro than after the update lol


here's a fun experiment to try. go out w/ a group.. let the mob aggro on the highest armor player as they usually will.. let that high armor player die. Watch the aggro transfer to the next highest armor character or if all casters, as they start going after the 60 armor players. Use a res sig on the original high armor player.
viola! Watch the mob immediately drop what they were doing and converge on the newly rezed player.

Wake up the monk who fell asleep

^^ Yup...
I just noticed this in Elonia. I hadn't leveled Koss and went out to level him with some henchies.

Lil' ol' Koss was a level 2 W/N vir-tank. He just runs right in and start swinging. I think... oh he's dead so fast (since we were fighting level 20-24 monsters). However, to my surprise, he lives through every battle. Poor old Devona... she's the one getting the beating throughout the entire engagement. All the AI is aggro'ing on Devona and Koss is basically shoving his sword into the monster's backsides.

The only time he died was when he got too close to Devona and some Ele would spam an AoE.

Sorta funny, but mostly pathetic.

meh... Nightfall may be the last GW chapter for me.

I'm not sure it's perfect, most of the time it just requires some changes of your tactics, but the oddest thing I keep seeing (as was mentioned before) is that a caster or casters will follow you for a huge distance, sometimes leaving the rest of his group behind. In mineral springs last night a single Avicara Ardent followed me for the entire map, and those things are fast enough to keep up with Dodge so no chance of losing him.

If this is an anti running thing, then it's amazingly unrealistic, I'd rather hope these odd behaviours are bugs just waiting to be swatted...

So many behaviors are so totally broken that it better not be working as intended.

LOL i wanted to try this theory so i decided to give it a go.. went to elona as my w/m even jacked up my armor level with doylyaks.. i had zero damage skills and i did not attack.. just held aggro..

i then had the monk cast one spell SIGNET OF JUDGMENT one single attack.. not a chugger.. and hardly not a aoe bomb of anykind..

Well before we knew it this is what happend: i even intentionally got my health below 50% to make SURE that i had the aggros full attention.




they also followed the monk untill they killed him.. he ran all the way back to spawn..

SOOOO ya ... that kinda shoots down the whole.. always on the wammo idea

Finally, a few people who get it.

Somehow a lot of people were thinking we had no idea how to deal with runners.

The new AI isn't more challenging -- it's less challenging. Those who say to adapt, well, adapting to a lower state isn't really that difficult or fun.

The new AI is less intelligent. To illustrate this just pretend you were in PvP.

If your monk took off running far far away from the rest of the team as soon as he was attacked would you say that was intelligent? If the other team targeted only your high armor warrior instead of the squishies would you say that was intelligent?

If you did decide to chase the enemy running monk out into the boonies for a while then return to battle using Charge or some other running skill, yet the monk was able to keep up with you and hit you with the occasional wand attack, wouldn't you be a little bit curious about how he managed to keep up?

The previous version of AI wasn't perfect either, but it did keep the monks close to their respective groups to help keep them healed. The enemies did tend to go after the squishies if you didn't pull and hold the aggro correctly. They did break off attack when hit with duration AoE, but stayed in physical combat with warriors. They couldn't outrun you or keep up with you when you had running buffs on, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

What are you people going to say when it becomes commonplace to kite aggros from accross the map into helpful NPCs in certain areas to make things easier? How about when more people are able to solo areas never before soloed by using this kiting trick to separate casters from the group one at a time and pick them off?

Will you still think the new AI is "improved" at that point?

Many have said those of us who don't like the new AI dislike it because it's too hard or challenging for us and we simply don't posses the ability to adapt to this new challenge. I submit that those people actually like less of a challenge and are just happy that those farmers finally got what's coming to them.

Incidentally, to check out the farming scenario I brushed the cobwebs off my old whammo build and tried a few old farmgrounds I've used in the past.

For some of them there was no appreciable change at all. For others it was still easy, but just took longer. There are a few that are nearly impossible now due to the running monk syndrome, but overall it's not enough of a problem to slow down farming more than a minor percentage.

It just seems like a waste of time and energy to change the entire system to cut down on farming (and largely fail) and dumb down the AI for the rest of the game at the same time.

That's my 2 cents, but if you like the new AI then by all means voice your opinion and enjoy the decreased challenge.

The AI does run forever for no apperent reason. As far as not being able to solo anything you have to be joking. I haven't been having any problems soloing stuff I normal solo example Queen and all her crew, Scar Eater ect. You have to adept slightly. My friend has even done solo UW runs with little problems. The AI when you are fighting normal (not soloing) is just annoying now. The mobs goes down just as quick as soon as you get done chasing them all down. Its kind of easier to kill them since thier monk is so busy running the don't get anyone healed I hope the AI is a bug and will get adjusted. I am not saying put it back the way it was. I really don't care about that. It just needs to be adjusted so that it actually does what it says it supposed to do. The running is just boring and a big waste of time. The should have put in the update .... Made all the monsters yellow bellied sissies!

I have had issues with hero AI - cancelling skills repeatedly, not maintaining enchants, sacing out.

Fix those three things, then I will find more. :S I should be a playtester. :P