AI Changes for monster/henchmen 10/31..for the worse?

Eh??

How is the AI perfect, when what your basicly saying is that it ignored easy targets (monks) and went for targets that instead it had no real chance of killing, perfectly dumb more like.

Ok fair enough, but i dont

I enjoy using my warrior for pressuring their monk, and doing more than tanking, i feel more challenged.

Also anything that moves people away from the must have tank/nuke/heal mentality is GREAT, im sick of tank/nuke/heal, its so old and so boring, CMON this is a 2 year old or whatever game, havnt you got bored of that yet, isnt it time for a change?

I mean you even provide the greatest example, using a hammer in PVE, i mean cmon before this update youd have been called a nub by nearly every pve group, now hammer builds dont just belong to pvp.

ok that changes the entire concept of different professions I mean if u are bored get e new character with a new prof and play differently

I'm one of those crazy people who like the new AI I guess. I don't feel it's at all like the PvP game. The AI is far to strong for a PvPish game play (strong in that they are over buffed and tweaked - sthis is good and bad; more on that in a moment).

If Anets goal is to make the battle in PvE like PvP, then all mobs must have PvP based skills and attributes. All levels must be taken down to level 20 or the average of the area. Doing this however destroys any possible improvements to the AI in PvE for any and all future mob types. Every fight and struggle will be the exact same thing over and over. Do this 100 times in a single zone and it'll be time to quit GW all together. Making PvE like PvP is the worst possible idea Anet could come up with... and that's not said because I don't care for the PvP play, but it is said because of the following reasons:

1) The AI needs to be made "danger aware". With NFs release, we saw some of this. For this to work proper, we need to divide creature AI and human/humanoid (going forward I will just say human for both human and humanoid) AI.
1a) Creature AI should not understand what a monk, caster, warrior, etc is. They should not understand what a sword, spear, staff, ect is. Therefore they should have no clue what character classes are and should aggro and use creature like behavior when in combat. Creatures should be made far stronger, faster and more resilient to certain types of attacks. Why? Lets look at a simple insect. Hard shell, typically faster moving than a human (if on the same size scale), no understanding of what bug spray is. Put this idea into game, insects use numbers and speed to over come their foes. Spray an insect and as it starts to die, often it will keep fighting to the death, not flee.

1b) Human AI should understand the tools used by the players. It should understand the threat before it hits them and act as such. These AI humans should be made just as their level states, not "over powered", but with that level attributes and skill setups. The threat from these is the knowledge they have. They know that monk is going to keep the warrior alive. They know that ele has a punch. They know that annoying as hell mesmer is going to frustrate the life out of them. They know that assassin is looking at their healer with hungry eyes. This AI should understand kiting and standard fight techniques. However, it should scale with level of area and not be standard throughout the entire game world, else it becomes boring.

1c) Anet needs to also understand the basic rpg game play model. The players are playing the "heroes". The heroes are supposed to be greater than the enemies in both smarts and power. Making battles act like PvP (a setting of balanced play and competition) is out of place and creates a world of mediocrity and dullness where the "heroes" are nothing more than additions too the populace. However, a delicate balance needs be made so that the players "feel heroic" when over coming a grander foe. PvP play has no place in the PvE universe and it's far past the time Anet learns this.*

Sum: Creature AI should act like creatures, not like a balanced PvP group. The players should be only "annoyed" at coming across a group of creatures, however the players should be wary of large groups of creatures as even a pack of lions is dangerous to a person with a single sword and shield.
Human AI should act like a semi-smart foe with basic understanding of it's tools and skills. This should scale as the game goes on to make the end game more and more difficult. End game battles should not be over as fast as a boss fights at level 10.

2) The reason PvP can not become the play style of PvE, is simply this. Without the above, each and every fight will play out the exact same. Factions did this and it simply became dull and boring half way through it's very short chapter. If you came across a Jade Brotherhood group, defeated it; You knew how to defeat a group of Wardens hours later. The build up and AI was the exact same. Same situation with the "fish" in the Jade Sea. They were different in only skins and a few skills, but they acted the exact same as the Jade Brotherhood.

Sorry that's long, but that's my take on the AI and where it should go.

*PvP play is wonderful when kept seperate and on a level play field, so I'm not suggesting removal of this game play, just keeping the playstyles seperate. A lesson Anet should have made note of with Factions.

Of course not. Tanks don't kill; tanks...tank! Unless there is nothing to tank, which in turn is forcing me to play Hammer. I don't have a problem with Warriors being damage dealers, but then why provide them with tank skills in the first place?

See my avatar? Need I say more? What use has this skill now?

At least provide us with a permanent Protector's Defense or something.


No.

When I'm bored of tank/nuke/heal, guess what I'll do? I'll play a different game. Now if Guild Wars can't provide me with my daily dose of tank/nuke/heal, I'll have to go look elsewhere.

Moving away from the tank-nuke-heal mentality in PvE is not great, and will kill the game. 95% of the PvErs play either in PuGs or with henches/heroes. The simpler the things are, the more accessible it is to people. Nobody understands or even wants to understand the concept of applying pressure, kiting, etc, because it should not be required in PvE.

If I feel like facing challenges and being competitive, I'll click on my guild hall button and go do TA/AB/HA whatever. When my intention is just casual leisurely exploring/farming/questing, particularly either with people I've never met before or with bots, I dont appreciate every fight with a group of monsters being a drawn-out, seesaw pressure, tagging, kiting battle of epic proportions.

And this, coming from a player actively playing both PvE and PvP since release.

QFT - this is staple RPG game play; if a change is made to the basis, then the game becomes something besides what the PvE crowd is looking for... If it becomes a AI mirror of PvP (which makes it nothing more than a PvP vs bots - ie the very worst in PvPish play... Battlefield vs bots anyone /snore) it becomes something unfun and dull.

Even the game manual states a warrior being a tank. This mentality should not be removed completely. However, as I stated above, human AI should also "act" accordingly to the "tanks". Not avoiding them entirely, but work against the tanks known weakness... elemental spike damage for example. While the mesmers and ranger make sure the monk is interupted... just as an example.

From the beginning GW has had the worst of all possible worlds when it comes to grouping. Having to stand in one of potentially dozens of discrete instances typing "LFG!" over and over is neither effecient nor enjoyable. This has led a lot of people to simply hench everything, something that is, with time and patience, relatively easily done. Anet presumably knows all of this and with Nightfall they had the choice to A) Improve the grouping system, B) Give us better henchies, or C) Both. They choose B, in spades. This seems an odd choice at best, given that it had to be a more difficult task than 'A' would have been and that it will inevitably fundamentally change the nature of the game (Single-player MMO, indeed), but that's what they decided to do.

Given that, it is utterly absurd to sit there and say that, essentially, Anet never said heroes and henchies would be any good. The lack of any improvement to the grouping system (and arguably making it harder with the ability to ping one's bar and the inevitable FOTM-only demands, not to mention the requirement of certain heroes in certain missions) combined with the introduction of Heroes is pushing things towards this being a Single- and Dual-player game. That is where Anet has purposefully brought the game, their heroes and henchies had darn well be able to live up to their side of things.

As good as a random PUG? Talk about a low bar. No, they'd best be better than that.

Currently they're not. Frankly the way the Heroe/Henchie AI is right now makes me yearn for the days of Alesia tanking Titans for no apparent reason. At least that was entertaining, in a "What the...?!?" kinda way. The current ""Why yes, kiting is my main purpose in life, why do you ask?" AI is far less so.

Less 'A', more 'I', please.

Tank/nuke/heal can leave the game anyhow, since it was sub-par to begin with in terms of dps even to groups of enemies. Also, you dont need a hammer to be an offensive warrior, just attack skills with good weapon attribute investment (~15), instead of near worthless ones like dolyak sig. I know this will be a shock to some, but warriors are the single greatest damage dealers in both short and long timeframes, followed closely by assassins and rangers.

As far as th OT is concerned though, taking the heroes out of heroes ascent is probably a good idea. Although, if Anet is going to do that, they might as well remove the henchmen from there as well. Taking the heroes into gvg seems kinda silly as well, although i have no idea if it is actually promoting more matchups for that format over time or not.

What game are you playing? The only profession with more natural damage mitigation towards elemental damage than warriors are rangers. "Elemental" damage is the worst thing to throw at high AL targets like a warrior. The "best" thing to throw at a warrior is AL ignoring damage sources like lifestealing, attack skills, or just straight up shutdown like blind.

Degen works pretty well on Warriors too. So does slow down attacks. Mind Freeze, Blurred Vision= GG. Because regardless of what you think, that will shutdown the warrior enough to be able to beat the group then the warrior. Just keep a slow down on him and everything will be fine. Ele's shouldn't be the main damage, however that is what my ele plays and it's working fine for the moment, but I have the ability to become support when I need to.

Fact is, later on, Blurred Vision gets casted on you along with mass degen. It's extremely hard to keep my damage warrior alive when I'm taking that much damage. I needed to use stances a couple times, haven't used Dolyak yet. I do like playing a damage warrior but in almost every group in Torment there is an anti warrior attack that NO henchy or hero can keep up with and heal the entire team at the same time. Sorry.

Even though I slay countless numbers of them still, I'm just saying. There aren't very many interrupts coming in, very few that I can think of in Torment lands. But ele's are very useful there. If not for the slow down or damage reduction/evasion for their KD damage from MS. That will save you enough time to save yourself and have your hero/henchy monks get everyone up to par. Warriors and Ele's both help out a lot, even though I usually don't use an ele..because rangers interrupts are useful..although now I will be changing my strategy.

Eh in the last two paragraphs I'm talking about how the casters/warriors now go for monks. So Slowdown/anti warrior attacks (like that which an ele or mesmer can give) are very helpful. There is no rit so I didnt' include them. I also don't know about Dervs or Paragons as I haven't played to much of them even though i always had the paragon henchy with me. I wish they would increase hero amounts to 5 or something. Because 3 just isn't enough. If I could have my ele, ranger, 2 monks and necro with me I'd be dandy. Then take henchy monk and maybe paragon/Eve or someone.

Refering to an area that needs improvement. Sorry, thought I mentioned that.

But yes, "tanks" should be made wary about an ele's damage... something that needs working on still.

hmm the new AI seems fine to me. I personally never like tanking with my warrior. AI imao should work like real human being, if you see 4 ppl in TA, 1 warrior,1 mesner, 1 ele and 1 monk, who will you kill first? not the warrior for sure. same logic for the monsters, why should they kill someone who they know they can't kill? they go for the soft target, imao the make up of the mob group is broken, they should have 2 healers, a couple of damage dealer and more interrupters.

The new monster / hench AI would have been acceptable IF and ONLY IF arena.net would have provided new skills with Nightfall, skills designed to control the aggro.
With "meta-skills" about aggro, warriors willing to tank would have be to cast "Catch me if you can !" signet to make monsters around them stop running after casters and taking care of them.
But that's not the case, and it's a bit late now to introduce new skills in this way.
I hope AI will get fixed soon.

That will make things even harder. The problem here is lack of hero space/ability. They cannot keep up with the damage or degen in later areas and the henchies don't cut it . If I could take my 2 monk Hero's, the necro, ranger and ele I wouldnt' be complaining about this update at all as I'd be able to adjust everything so that I'm able to kill without having to go through a bunch of trouble. They run out of energy fast and I really can't supply a BiP necro over an interrupt ranger or Support/KD ele. That won't make things any easier and Eve doesn't seem to do her job all the time. More interrupters that have unhumanly interrupting skill would be most excellent yes /sarcasm.


@ Kais, that's not even needed, then it'd be to easy. It's that Anet has crappy henchie skills and only supply 3 slots for Heros. You almost always need 3 monks and well I'd rather have the safety of my hero heal and prot monk then only one of them which would destroy me. Cause Mhenlo is bad, bad. It's very simple, all we need is 1-2 more hero slots so I can throw in another Supporter that has the skills I pick for him. Or make henchies/hero's choose skills more wisely, in the heat of the battle I can't heal and attack at the same time. Hero's are improved henchies I guess because you pick their skills/can use them. Their AI is still almost as stupid as henchies and way below human/enemy AI, which isn't right.

So basically what you're saying is we should all play Wammo?

Just have every Wammo take healing and condition/hex removal.

Heck, we got Lion's Comfort, we can all take Purge Signet and use it on each other.

Tada! No more squishies! Everybody's a tank!






Can we have the old system back, please?

Have you considered the side effects of such changes? If every mob groups was like this, after then 10th one, how many people would still find it entertaining. I mean, we just fought the exact same group a minute ago, only in a different skin and maybe (if we are lucky) a differently named skill.
This is fine in PvP where you can expect to fight real people, but against an AI that you must battle against 1000's of times, this simple becomes a very boring game... and even fighting 1000's of foes of differing AI types will become dull after a thousand hours of play. Making them all the same, rushes that boredom.

I still stand by creature AI should be made tougher, faster and will even add more self reliant - meaning they should be able to take care of themselves without the need of a typical balanced group. Take a troll for example, they should not have to "use Troll Ung", rather it should be on them 100% of the time. Poisonous creatures should not have to "Apply Poison", rather it should be on them 100% of the time. Undead should have an "aura" around them that creates a difficultly of movement, or causes shouts and spells to cast/shouted twice as slow. Things like this would create a more difficult battle without falling back on the "boring balanced group" make up.

And yes, Human AI should act and understand its targets. Meaning prioritize correctly. If the warrior is the biggest threat in terms of damage, then shutting him/her down first should be priority in PvE mobs. Not killing him/her, but shutting them down, slowing or getting him/her out of the way. After that, then going for the back line. PvE and PvP play are different and should be played differently. Mobs heading straight for the back line in a perfectly cooridnated attack (from three different groups of differing mobs) with exagerated attacks and spells is not fun nor enjoyable.

well it is the late area so i assumed that you have what it takes to get there? btw you shouldn't be using hencheis and heroes in the late area imao, go find someone good to play with ya as for most ppl why dont you think of this? your warrior run into mobs, dealign damage, while your water ele and cripple ranger stop the mobs from getting closed to your group, your warrior use bull's charge to knock them down. your assin run in and cast ward against foes to slwo them down, and mesner use hex to slow them down too.. this change will make the pve more challenge the AI seems more like human for me, it is like if you see somebody trying to kill you and your teammates, you will probably run to call for reinforcement<aggro another even bigger group of mobs>, what we can do is cripple them so they can't run away.

Either that, or give more Hero slots. With the right skills they could do just that. Need more than 3 slots unfortunately to do it right. I don't know how you people are doing it, but the realms of Torment clearing the zones are not easy in the slightest and almost just to much to deal with.

This game is called Guildwars right? so get a guild dont play with random pugs. Why wouldn't you guys consider joining major pve guild such as xen of heroes<xoo>? they do master group for nearly all missions in all 3 chapters all the time. Stop being selfish, and be there to help out your fellow players for the love of guildwars there are way too many guilds in guildwar. why just not a handful of them? everyone is big and really helpful.

I guess this is where we tend to disagree.

Yes, most of us would have LOVED if A-Net had implemented a better way to find parties. Absolutely, positively no argument there.

Yet, to extrapolate their failure to do so to the concept of "A-Net really wants us to play this game in either Single or Dual player format" is a bit too much.

On the contrary, I believe that A-Net really, really, really wanted to introduce the concept of heroes, but realized that their introduction could be interpreted (as you've done above) to mean that they almost DISCOURAGE group play.

That is why I believe that they made the henchmen/hero AI changes they have so far. Could they be improved? Absolutely. Will A-Net buff them to the point where they actually will perform better than your "low bar" average PuG? I'm skeptical.

They realize (as much as we do) that the human interaction facet of the game is a part that they don't want to limit to PvP. The introduction of heroes (e.g. look a Heroes Ascent) has the potential to almost completely eliminate that facet of the game out of PvE.

Please, Please, Please, stop sayin that the AI should be more like a human being or PvP. If i wanted PvP, i would have bought the PvP version unlocked and played to my hearts content, but i'd rather play CS. Honestly, AI that is more human like is not feasable nor is it "more" fun. Honestly, if i were a mob of margonites and i had human AI, i would immediately snare every part of the map i spawn on, so that when i do go after the backline, they cant run. I would also make sure that all the warrior atk-ing the midline would have crippling, or knockdown atks. And if my mob isnt doing so well despite the traps and warriors keeping the backline immobile, i would go ahead and call my buddies only 10 steps away and bring another 10 or so mobs to help me about. Oh, and lets not forget that since i think like a human, im gonna go cover every resurrection shrine there is with a bunch of mobs. And for the ones that do get away form the traps and the criplling/knockdowns, ill make sure to mind freeze, deep freeze, ice spikes, and gust them all. They're AI for a reason.

Excellent point. Because of the lack of a better PuG forming system, and the limited henchmen/hero AI, this may be where A-Net is pushing us - to join guilds to find adequate teammates to tackle the hardest areas of the game. Heck, they did that with Elite missions in Factions (make them only accessable to guild groups that hold the top towns), so this could be a logical extension of that intent...

just a little something for the people who keep saying "adapt, PVE is so easy your a loser if you can't do it". have you ever considered that some people who play the game have disabilities? that they can only adapt so much and still be able to play the game?

that is what happened when there aint any elistist pvers around, what anet can do is make the pve uber easy or do something to get back the elistist pvers. By destorying the item market and 90% of the elite pvers quit GW to play something else, there aint any good pvers around anymore to help out the bad ones. now see who anet is pissing off! the Heroes wont cut it imao. The problem is the players not the game. with the new AI update thsi game is still far from hard imao.
image 1000 to 3000 TOP players with BEST IN GAME ITEMS spening 8+ hours killing one uber boss who can blow 300+ of you off in a single blow. These players have to team up in forum and practice for a couple of days before they encounter the boss. how can what you guys are fighting be hard compare to them? Some mmorph require their players to play full time in order to beat the boss<no work just play game>, it require professional training<they got coach! who actually train them to kill the boss>, and decent teamwork. you dont have a top guild to play with you? too bad you dont kill the boss. I think that Heroes are for early mission and quest but certainly not for the late ones.

Just because I have better henchies/hero's doesn't mean I'll stop playing with people. I'll use them when I want to go fight in a big area or something or want to do a mission when no one is around. So they can make them a tiny bit better (or include more hero slots!) than they are now and the Co-Op with other people will still be happening I think.

Mainly because you get better/more drops when you have people on your team.


I don't want to join a more popular guild (more people=bad for health), because a lot of non Guild Wars discussions and immaturity or to much maturity goes on, I like it where I am now and don't want to change, so I guess since the majority of players like being "cookie cutters" themselves to society and not being themselves as a whole get the better end of the bargain apart from the social outcasts such as myself. But that's how it is. I like the AI and I don't, challenge is good to the point where it isn't over challenging. Giving me 1 or 2 more hero slots would fix all my problems, for now I have to figure out a way to have interrupts and support and 2 hero healers in my team. No henchies suck at that, we have what? One interrupter that has two of them. Sorry that doesn't help out as much as a hero Dom mesmer would, but damn I don't have room for him.

I agree with you completely lunksunkunk.

Especially that part.


No, but seriously, the old PvE was great. Why change it?

Tanks have guns.


So let me get this straight, your job as a warrior is to get in the middle of it, bashing there monks,creating pressure and you need me to explain why you need armour to do that.



About as much use as it ever was to a good team, none.



ill tell you what sell your computer but keep the keyboard, there you can re-creat tanking anytime you want by pressing c space go, why go to the effort of buying a game to re-creat that. :P

Guild wars is trying to be clever and different, and you dont want that, fair enough, i however like a game that requires some level of attention.


Sorry but i dont buy the argument, "most people are stupid so lets make a game for stupid people", im not stupid, i dont want a stupid game.

I assume you quoted the wrong person, I never mentioned any of the above. I was refering to general AI improvements as a whole. Not only towards end game nor in turning the entire game into a single PvP match.

Also, why should players be forced to PuG in the later areas of the game. I would love to know why we are using and equiping the heroes throughout the entire campaign only to not be able to use them because the AI for them is sub-par vs the mob AI. That's something that needs fixing by Anet, not worked around by players.

Running for reinforcements is dead on, and something I am currently loving... when done by human AI. Creature AI should not have that knowledge to "run" for, rather a "howl" or other sound related call for help would make the creature act like a creature.

The AI needs to be made "real". All the devs need do is look at nature. Creatures rule and survive by strength. When they lack the strength, they use numbers. Humans rule by strength of mind and the tools we use. Put a man in an arena with a lion without a tool (weapon) and he's a lion snack. Put that same man with a shield and spear and he now has a fighting chance against that lion.
Put that man against another man armed or not, the out come will be messured in both skill and strength.

Apply that simple structure to the game world (PvE game world) and we can start to have a winner.

Lastly, before anyone mis-understands me. I am for making the PvE more difficult, far more difficult. I believe however the way to go about this is a far move away from PvPish balanced group build ups. Making creatures more self reliant (as mentioned above with a few examples), and human AI act and react correctly and less scripted - as in the second the AI sees a monk, they bee-line for it, completely leaving their own back line exposed.
The AI needs to be damage and threat aware. The fact that they now do not flee an AoE that does no damage is a step in the right direction.. when it was working. The fact that the mob monks flee when attacked is a step in the right direction as well, but it should understand it's surroundings and not run away, rather attempt to run you into it's warriors or other front line tanks. That should be simple battle tactics that the human AI should know, and should be tougher and improved the further into the game we go.

As for hero and hench AI. They shoud always be a step above the mob AI. Always. They are "heroes" after all, not less than common criminals or nameless grunts on the field.

what i think the problem is the player base, most ppl who play or buy gw are really casual causalist, many of them are nto even 18. alot of ppl in my guild are like 13 to 15. what do you want from a bunch of kids? many of you might argue that adults shouldn't be playing mmorph, but hell i never play any game when i was back in high school. Now i got a little bit more free time playing game when i am in the office<now i am reading the forum while i am doing books for my clients> from what i know most ppl in wow are in late 20s or early 30s. they have the skills and resources to play. man our fellow players need to really work out abit. The new AI would force the bad ones out and bring in the good ones. all i have to say is that if you want to complete the late mission and area, YOU HAVE TO JOIN A GOOD GUILD. if you want to play with just heroes, i prefer you to play singel player game not massive players

I agree, it's completely rediculous now. If a group of 8 level 20's are dyying with those dumb insects in marga coast, then something HAS to be done. The AI now is pitiful, casters are the worse, canceling till thier e is gone, warriors that have actually stood around for an entire battle, monks that hardly ever heal! I have my hero windows up and dunkoro can be running around with a full e bar and the party is dropping dead, mostly due to him running around like a chicken with his head cut off.

Whatever they did to the ai, it's so bad now, it's pathetic. Prior to this update it was tolerable since the focus of aggro were the higher AL targets, so if your a monk you could just worry about keeping the tank/para/ranger (in order) alive and let the AI cast/cancel and still manage to kill mobs. The hench controls are now really pathetic as well. Before you could flag and they would actually disengage and go, now they stop attacking/healing for a good 20 seconds till they finally start to move (if they aren't dead by then).

When NF was first released the AI was pretty decent, although nominaly buggy, but now it's like playing with a bunch of AFK noobs. It's very sad and there is no strategy that we as players can impliment to correct this horrible AI issue. This needs to be fixed asap, even if it means rolling the AI back to the release version.

Not all of us are that bad Tommy, it's just some of us don't want to be playing with humans all the time, but still want to play the same game. Anet has made this possible, but it's tedious, because of the way the hero/hench AI is handled.

The only problem for me is in the higher areas and I suppose it should be. Still I would like to see 1-2 more slots for hero's as that would give a big advantage and all you'd have to do is use the right skills. It'd still be a challenge, but you'd have more of a defense against it. I'd also like to mention that the Desolation wasn't that easy either. Then again we aggroed 3 groups plus a desert wurm and were fighting over 20 enemies so it was likely people were going to die.

Since having the monk not kite gets him killed and having him kite gets you killed, what you have to do is stop the creature chasing him. Have a support ele or mesmer or necro..blind, degen, hex blind or hex slow his attacks or movement down. That was to gabrial.

Another tip is, have your support guy, target that main person and keep them under control so the monk doesnt' have to kite as much and can heal without being killed himself. Monks should only kite when they are taking damage from the melee not when it's coming.

i think that anet needs more time to work on the new AI. just give them some more time. Every 6 months for a new chapter seems a rush for me. they can make money from selling special in game pet and dance. or special skin armors like maplestory they dont have to sell new chapters every 6 months imao. they seriously need more time to work on the new AI
and to Gare, why dont you consider to team up some good players at weekend for the late missions? yeah not of you are bad. i know but you can't dissagree that most of GW players are bad, i think they got too many characters they play on, they need to focus more on their main char.. imao you need to spend atleast 1 year to really understand your char. having 10 to 20 diff professions are not a good idea.

I think the real problem is that people haven't had the need to try. Before, you could bring the worst skills possible in an instance and still roll all the groups like they weren't even there. Now, you actually need to outfit every character to have a real role and have people know what they are doing. Chasing after a running monster is asinine. Snare it somehow and then do your damage. AoE skills actually need some tactics and strategy to be effective. See the monsters in a bad position? Body block them/snare them and then slap down your favorite AoE spell. Bring Aegis/Wards/Warrior-hate too to help the survivability of your party. The game has now progressed to where you can't just grab a tank, two echo nukers, two monks and just roll the groups.

I haven't had a single problem yet in Nightfall regarding the monster AI. I've pretty much hero-way'ed my way through it so far (just me + friend). It's a matter of getting good builds, good tactics and energy management.

It's not even about the later areas with this AI, not sure why the op is focused on that and I'm just talking marga coast with a ranger +heros and hench for skill cap runs, pretty simple and low level stuff. The hench AI is pitiful, they die on NOTHING level 16-20 enemies, cancel almost every skill, stand in clumps to get nuked, completely ignore target calls and run off like little girls into another mob (flags or not). Forget about doing any caping in higher level areas, or trying missions, or even doing anything without a full party of GOOD PVE human players. The hench/heros right now are almost completely useless.

The release version of AI was usable and quite affective, even in the higher level areas.

Oh I have friends that I go with, and my lady when she plays. I'm not upset to much about the AI, some things are a little shifty but I can deal with most things. Me and a warrior friend took out Domain of Secrets over a 2 hour span of much Dunkoro dying. It was a bit harder and took longer than it usually does but wasn't totally impossible. Granted most players don't have time or patience to deal with that, so I'm thinking Anet should take that into consideration.

I agree though that a lot of GW players are bad, FoW has gotten much worse over the past 3 months. I've been to down there many times in the past 2 months before NF and it was horrible a lot of the time. As for needing a year, I can learn the character fast, and I have time in a day to play it usually to learn it, but yeah most people don't or aren't as intelligent as others.

I'm saying one easy thing that would make at least my world in Guild Wars a lot funner/easier is to add more hero slots. Only 1 or 2, maybe all 8 who knows, I'm sure at least one person agrees with me. The Hero AI with skills you pick for them, while not as good as people all the time, are a lot better than henchy skills. If I was able to have 2 support, 2 monks at least I'd be able to handle things much easier. Yes you can team with other people to get their heros, but they aren't always there. Like I said sometimes I just want to be alone, playing the game still but by myself with henchies and change like that isn't ubalancing really. At least give it a try Anet.

The only reason I like playing with people, is for the drops whether they are mine or theirs I like to see what drops. I'm also a very social anti-social person so it's nice to have people to talk to.

Gabrial, it was unbalanced and while fun for a time, got boring because nothing was a challenge. Being one to get mad and complain when there is a challenge, I can say that's what is happening a lot in this thread. Me and Yun have seen these monsters get smarter and the henchies stay the same though and now it's a burdensome challenge. Challenging enemies are good when you can provide a decent fight, it's hard in tough areas to do that now and I don't think it should be. The problem isn't the enemy AI, it's the human AI.

Yeah, to some degree you can blame the players on this one. But when the AI doesn't even use the skills (or use correctly) you put in thier bar, then you can have the most suited build for the area your in and still get raped. You can't body block with hench/heros. I'm glad you're having tremendious success, but if you haven't noticed a change for the worse with the hench since the update, then you honestly cannot be using them all that much. I've almost completed the game with just hench and heros up until the update, but even before that i decided to go back and work with guildies that were behind. All the missions i mastered are now next to impossible to even complete, just using the AI.

Yeah another thing I've been wanting to know if it could be implemented into the game was the ability to tell your hero's when to use certain skills. An example would be..Convert Hexes.

My prot Hero used this skill when I had one hex on me, you know what Convert Hexes does and that's a waste of it, considering the recharge and 15 energy cost.

You should be able to pick an option that says..

1. Use when a hex is on a (player)
2. Use when 2 or more hexes are on (player)

You could even go farther to tell them what skills are worse than others so they remove those faster. But that could be time consuming and impossible? Not sure. Just a thought for Anet to consider.

Despite their name food stamps are not edible nor is the bullfrog the size of a bull. I think people have the right to decide how they want to play the game.

Hero A.I. needs some work. Monster A.I. is fine as it is. That is all.

Yep. Henchy and Hero AI isn't differentiated, what Hero's are..are Henchies with 3 more skills and they are picked/can be utilized by you. You can also tell them defense/ attack / avoid combat. But I noticed that pick either one, they still kite regardless of what strategy you give them. To put it short Hero's are Henchies more player tuned. Hero's are good because of the skills you give them, not their AI. That's the problem their AI needs to be tweaked just a bit.

Oh and GIVE 1-2 MORE SLOTS PLEASE!