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

First of all, you are the one calling people names. Second, I've made my opinion of the A.I. very clear on at least 5 other similar threads. So sue me if I thought that I already stated my opinion on yet another thread.

But since you asked for my opinion, I think the monster A.I. is just fine. If I can get through the campaign even after the Halloween update, then I don't see why so many are complaining that it's too hard. And I am far far from being the "best" players.

As I've said before and many others have as well, there are ways to improvise and adapt to the new A.I. It is far from impossible or frustrating. It's no longer a mindless clickfest of skill buttons now and that's a good thing.

EDIT: Also Thallandor, you should stop PM harassing me with swearing and insults.

Well throughout the course of this thread my opinion varied. But I think I've finally come to a conclusion. This update was for the better. I just realized that if I keep my hero prot monk, use Mhenlo..and then have a support/damage with another suppor ele that has remove hex and heal party with some defense earth skills for the part (or water) that I'd be just fine off too. I'm going to test it out when I wake up or when I next have a chance to see how it works.

This update does require you to think, which is okay. But I do think some tweaks in the hero's AI needs to be implemented. Such as proper use of skills at the right times to maintain energy.

When I get a chance to play, I have perhaps an hour or 2 at a time. Sometimes I want to just come online, grab a couple of henches and KILL something. I don't want to come on and keep dieing as soon as I walk out the gate. I don't want to spend 2 hours just adding to my death count.

Like I said in an earlier post or 2, I am done with this game, and not buying NF. There was enough challenge to this game when I bought it. Now it is impossible. I have been playing 10 months, finally have a character (E/Me, a mix of fire & water) thru all the missions (2 weeks ago and with only 348 deaths), and now I have to learn the whole thing over again.

I will watch here to see if and when the balance is returned to what it was when I bought this game.

hmm not really, that is why anet is pushing ppl to play the way they wanted. you buy FIFA and need for speed, you play soccer and drive cars. you can't kill nobody in fifa right? you only pay the fee to enter anet's house, you dont own this place you are just a guest. you can 't really do w/e you want, in most mmorph you can't really.you neither change yourself or you change the game you play, i dont think anet will reprogram the game for you..
and to Perkunas, then you are not coming back i am sure that we will miss you. anet nerf aoe long time and ago and they they never change it back and i doubt that they will change thsi one. and btw you can still kill things with your heroes, i kill most monsters outside the gate with easy. just not the high lvl ones...

I find it really funny how both my healer hench + Cynn are able to die against a single Margonite group, and even more funny when i sent Koss to attack a group, to get aggro but the monsters just ignored him, even though we were out of their aggro circle. This AI sucks, and if Anet dont change it, i will probably get bored of this game pretty soon.

This change is by far the worst thing Anet have ever made. I'm not going to waste my money on a hero(Who by the way, is unbelieveable bugged), give him runes, and find a working build for. If you thought we were going to use our Heroes all the time, Anet, then you were wrong. How am i supposed to control 3 heroes, who can take up to 10 seconds to move back, when i tell them to, and attack random groups outside the aggro circle. I can't have 4 skill bars to control, because that would be too hard for me, but i have to. Heroes dont have their elite as a priority, and have no working energy management(Unless you call cancel a skill several times "energy management". Henchmen have skills they know how to use, and runes i dont have to pay for, but even though they know how to use them they still have a hard time because this other group or the group im attacking just decided to attack all on the monk. Anet, either update the heroes use of skills or change it back the way it was. Because this is change is not acceptable.

Wel I'm not sure if you have really bad english or you're 10, but none of what you wrote makes any sort of sense.

People don't go to "houses" they don't like visiting. So if anets house is a shambles and the AI "in" it are horrible, they won't be getting any visitors.

No one here is discussing the aoe changes they made over a year ago, we are talking about almost totally unusable hench/heros for the most simpilist of things in the game. We are talking about AI that doesn't function in a viable way, thats really all there is to it.

yeah, English is not my first language and i am reading this forum with my English translator. my point is that you guys dont pay the monthly fee. you only pay the fee to enter the game. So you have no right to judge whether or not this game is good or bad. You dont run this game, so you like it or not doesn't have any impact on this game. You dont play the way you want, nobody really can. I want to dance for money, and i dance in LA for hours i only get 500 gold. I play with heroes, i did just fine. I dont use heroes in mission i only use them for quests. I got a guild i can play with my guildies. Obviously this AI is bugged, Anet needs more time to work on it. and when did Guru become an English speaker only forum? your point makes no sense for me either. Heroes work for quests imao but not for missions. so get real ppl for missions and take heroes for quests until anet fix the problem. Keep pushing Gaile and Anet wont do any good. It will only lead to more bugs. and btw you can control your heroes, you can force them to use the skills you want them to. open the heroes' skill bar next to their name. press it and that is it. you can also position your heroes. man you need to learn how to work with your heroes first. Here is a good example, good player like my old guild leader can henchies all missions in cantha and Tryia, bad players can't even finish a quest with them. You need to learn how to work with heroes not the other way around. I seriously dont see how is the current heroes not usable. i found them still better than the vast majority of pugs.

Thats like saying you have no right to judge if you like bananas or not. The one you bought it from says "This banana tastes good!", and according to you, the seller will always be right.

It have a huge impact on the game. If there is a change that a most people dont like, and Anet dont give a ---- about it, then they loose money(They dont buy next chapter). So if the majority dont like the change, Anet have to change it.

As far as i know, Guru dont allow people to speak German, Danish, Russian and other languages. Only english.

Maybe you like to have 4 skillbars to control, but most people dont. Most people wouldnt even be able to.

You old guild leader? OK, but that was BEFORE this "update". I could hench it all aswell, but not anymore.

We don't pay a monthly fee by design, as intended by anet/ncsoft, we also don't buy any future releases if this is the way the AI stays, which mean no one plays. So i think as players we will judge whether or not anet or anyone else for that matter says we have a right to. Anet of course KNOWS the player base must be happy with the game, so they listen and make changes accordingly. Another usefull way to see that comes across from the forums. You of course are judging as well, which according to you, you shouldn't be doing either.

I'd glady go back to tyrian hench AI and sure i can beat both campaigns with those hench, so I'm thinking that the old hench aren't an issue right this moment. The issue is with this update and judging by the posts in this thread I'm not alone in thinking the AI is, for the most part, unenjoyable and hardly worth adjusting strategies to meet the way they are now.

If you don't see how the are unsuable then congrats, but you are in the minority so it seems. I'm not threatening to leave the game, I'm sure i would figure a way to adjust or not use the ai heros/hench at all. Concidering this is a new campaign, with new prospective players, if seasoned players are unhappy with the changes, I doubt this games AI ,the way it stands, will be recruiting new paying and judging members.

You're right, this game is designed a certain way and then modified to make it fun for as many people as possible, so if you're trying to dance for money in LA and not getting paid, then you're playing the wrong game, since the quest to dance for money, last time i checked, was unavailable. Again thats not even remotely the issue here.

Wrong. Anyone who pays for a product has full right to express his grievances/dissatisfaction about it, and this forum is a very appropriate place for people to let out their thought/suggestions about the way the game is evolving.

Anet has the right to make changes.

We have the right to voice our opinions about those changes.

Anet is not required to respond or react to our opinions.

Fewer positive changes will be made if no one voices an opinion.

It's really that simple for me. I like the ability to set up heroes and their skills, I like the scenery, I like many of the other new changes. I do NOT like the AI as it is now, because for me it resembles true intelligence far less than the previous version did. It appears to have been aimed at farmers/runners without enough consideration to what it did to the rest of the game.

Heroes need better energy management. Continually starting to cast a spell then canceling it cannot be considered intelligent on any level. The monks should be willing to cast bonds/sustained enchantments on other party members if we set them up to do so.

The running monk issue is worn out, but again doesn't really resemble intelligence, nor does the kiting across an entire map while leaving the group far behind. The ability of enemies to keep up with speed enhanced players is just plain cheap unless they are packing running skills.

We should also keep in mind that not everyone has played Prophecies and Factions for a year or more. Things at the beginning of the game do need to be easy enough for others to get a handle on how the game works. IMO this includes not only level and skill bar, but also the AI used for the enemies.

Ultimately it would seem to me that the more people who can play the game the way that they enjoy it, the better off the whole thing is.

If someone wants to spend all their time killing the same 20 things over and over again so they can get some spiffy new armor I really don't care. I'm not personally interested in doing that, but it doesn't hurt me any if someone else does it.

If people just want to mindlessly hack and slash through the game that's fine with me.

What would make sense is a "difficulty" option so that you could match the AI to your preference of gameplay. Of course the drops should be adjusted accordingly so that only the best ones showed up on the highest difficulty level -- and in groups I guess the leader's choice would determine the difficulty level for the party.

The other thing is more variety in AI. I expect certain types of monsters to be smarter than others. A Mursaat Elementalist is likely to be much more intelligent than Vermin and the AI ideally would reflect that. The Vermin might be smart enough not to stand in a Firestorm, but it's unlikely they'd think it was necessary to break aggro from a single guy with an axe. The Mursaat on the other hand might be smart enough to put a slow hex on you, interrupt you if you tried to do anything, use spells that knock you down, and use other spells that have extra impact if you are knocked down.

I've said all that to say this: There's no way to make everyone 100% happy and no particular style of play is "right" or "wrong". However, the more options that people have to play the way they want to play, the better the game will seem to each individual.

Although I like the idea of difficutly options, I can't see how they would be implemented into the game. Basically the only time they would be available is when playing with hench, because I just don't see a group of 8 people agreeing on what difficulty they should complete the quest. I was in a group last night that couldn't even agree on which way to go!

Very interesting thoughts there Kilgore, thanks for sharing.

In my opinion, Master Difficulty quests and Elite Missions should handle this. These are meant to be challenging and hard, requiring intense coordination and focus, and if AI owns you time and again, and the mission is beaten only by a few groups in a day, its none for the worse.

But the ordinary casual PvEr, looking to tramp along joyfully through the main story shouldnt have to face such nuances.

Np. Some things would definitely have to be ironed out. Maybe a system similar to the standard/expert/master completion of missions based on the difficulty setting in which you completed it. I think if you just let the leader choose the difficulty it would be fine. I see all the time in Factions, "Masters GLF xxxx (usually monk )". I think you'd see something similar with the difficulty settings.

Depending on how the game is set up this could be very difficult to put into practice at this point -- perhaps next to impossible, but it might come closer to making the game fun for the casual player while still allowing a challenge for the hardcore gamer.

I have a lot of time and money invested in this game. (the original game, factions, an 'extra' account, extra player slots for extra storage characters, etc.) It has taken me quite awhile to find the build I could work thru most of the game. Now with all the changes in the last few days, it is like starting all over. I still have 2 classes of characters I haven't tried at all because of how difficult the game was. Now not only do I not have those 2 classes, I have to go back and 'rebuild' my current characters to be able to play again at the level I was getting comfortable at. At present, I don't have that kind of time. That is my beef. For me it has gone beyond being a fun challenge to impossible. To me, NF has made my original game no longer any fun.

That is a great idea!

*sigh*
Point of frustration has been reached.
Tried to cap the Avatar of Dwayna. I approach an enemy. He starts running straight into a second, third and fourth mob. I do not follow, he comes back and heals. I try to engage him again - he runs again straight into the mob.

Funny thing is, i had a snare and a speedbuff on me. He would run faster than me with speedbuff (a god damn priest!) and the snare was insta removed.

Tried to cap the Avatar of Balthazar. Needless to say the boss totally owned the party in a whole. One Attack -> everyone is dead.

That's it for me, i won't log in anymore until i read about another update to the AI. If that is the end of playing GuildWars. So be it. I played it to have fun, not to have to suffer from frustration this update has caused. And yes i know that A-Net doesn't care about this. They basically said so in one of their chats.
I might just be one but you know... i see a lot of frustration in the game currently. Guildies moaning and ragequitting out of missions because they're pissed by getting constantly spiked. Friends telling me they quit the game until the AI is updated again. Local channels a collective cussing about it...
Tell me whatever you want, mark it an improvement and say that you'll never revert an improvement. But know, an improvement might not what it is named.
A thought blessing might turn into a curse, like this update.
So you're not reverting an improvement, but moreover a mistake.
So long.

They need to learn from WoW. Humanoids run when they are low on health. Monsters do not.

QFT

Also, tanks can actually tank there by taunting foes..
I compare it with what it would be like if Blizzard decides to change Nefarians AI to 'go after priests and ignore sunders and taunts from warriors'. It might be realistic and challanging (although, this case would be impossible), but not fun..

I guess someone will quote me and say : "go play WoW then", but I'm not too fond of paying a monthly fee ...

I haven't noticed to much of a problems with Henchies as before i can send them in on thier on to get a jop done.The missions would be the testing stage.

i was capping in ice floe and noticed some strange ai behaviour. i came across a mob with the monk boss i wanted to cap so i went about my business and targeted the casters first. as soon as i hit a caster they started to run, i didnt want to aggro more mobs so i regrouped and targeted the warriors the second time around. no problems as none of the casters ran off, it just took a little bit longer to kill the warriors because of the heals [not a big deal].

ive read in a bunch of posts that casters are runnin for their lives if you target them. the same happened to me when i targeted the monk boss. he was runnin, literally all over the map, so it made it near impossible to kill him. after runnin around in circles for a bit i noticed that the monk boss had strayed so far off from his original mob that it deaggroed the warriors. after noticing this, i went to the warriors and killed the remaining members that were in the monk bosses group. after killing everyone in his mob, the monk boss stopped running and i was able to kill him.

Got me to thinking... why is it that I never (repeat never) have these issues... what do I do wrong/differently? Just had the thought that in the PvE battles for the most part I'm targetting closest and not worrying too much about monks and the like (this being on the training Island). Maybe you need to engage the non-monks, get the monks busy and they'll forget to run.

Side note... today I made the mainland for the first time.

I'm giddy.

That is basically why.
The problems occur during the mid to endgame of the campaigns, when the mobs start to be more balanced on classes and the levels rise above 20. It's not that noticeable before simply because your level is higher than that of the monsters.
Once that pendulum swings, you'll notice the problems at hand quite fast.

QFT the bolded section is worse, this needs to be fixed.

Edit: Sid Soggybottom dont come here and pick fights if you cant handle/finish it otherwise learn to post and if you still have a problem, pm me instead of flamebaiting here and read the forum rules:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nes-id2030.php

From the last few days i played through the game, i admire that the end part of the game os pretty hard, but with right heros and right henchman, there's the way to deal with those lvl 24(Shadows,Margonites,Shiroken) and lvl 28(Rain of Terro, Spear of Torment,Blade of Corrruption,Shadow of Fear,Scythe the Chaos, Word of Maddness,Arm of Insanity). Me personaly is a paragon, and i use a condtion Necro, a fire nuker,and a water ele for the hero part, and use 2 monk henchies,1 war hench,1 paragon hench. i can personally take up to 2-3 groups of lvl24s, and max 2 groups of lvl 28s, the thing is, u just need to get uesd of it, and most important thing is choose your hero wisely(the monsters are all fleshy creatures btw, so condition can kill em quickliy with Virulence and Epidemic).

I can deal with everything else, honestly. I can adapt and work around it. What I can't deal with is my henchmen and heros casting and cancelling spells constantly until they have no energy. They're still doing it. Anything with a glyph does it the most, but even my monks are doing it to random spells too.

Yep. The only valid problem that people are bringing up are the hero skill cancelling quirks. Everything else can be easily worked around. Whether people are willing or able to do so is another story. There's just too much unwillingness to change going on...

In Cantha I started attacking the charging axe weilding Jade knights first, then killing the casters. I has worked better for me in PvE, for a while. If there has not been any charging ass'n or axe weilder, then I attack the casters first. If I had wards of protection , then the strategy would be adjusted.

Play into profession strengths, not their weaknesses. If you are wasting 2s every so often to keep yourself running in pve using something like purge sig, you are not causing enough offense to offset the frontloaded enemies of higher levels. Some things you just have to let others deal with, but its definatly not a damage dealing caster's job, that is for certain.

If you are really interested in the dollars and cents of the matter check out the following threads.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=113319
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10015193
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=141050

Allow me to make an analogy. I love analogies. They can prove you right no matter how wrong you are. Of course, in this case, I am right.

Let's say that ArenaNet is an automobile retailer.

Two years ago, they sell us a truck (Prophecies). People buy this truck and like it. They like it so much that a year later, they buy an extra trailer for that truck (Factions).

Now, almost two years later, we go out to buy yet another trailer for our truck (Nightfall), but instead, this is what happens.



"Hey, what happened to our truck?"

"Oh, yeah, your truck was getting old, it's a sports car now."

"But, I liked this truck..."

"Are you an artard? Sports cars are awesome! They're fast, they're sleek, they're red...women will want you!"

"But..."

"Come on, now! Try it!"



* goes out to try the sports car *



"So how did you like the sports car?"

"Yeah, you were right, it's fast and sleek and red...I also picked up a few chicks under way."

"Well, another satisfied customer!"

"Yeah but can I have my truck back pl--oh, he's gone."



* sells the sports car to buy a truck from a different company *

Ahhh, a classic car analogy.

Anyway, I just played PvE and didn't really mind any monster AI changes; what was most annoying was that my ally AI seemed to lose their targets often, after I had called actual, live targets. That and I might have noticed some skill cancels. But as for the enemies, I at least got through Consulate Docks while underleveled and not knowing what to expect from AI on the first try, and I don't exactly consider myself an awesome PvE player. Maybe it get worse later on, but so far (now in Kourna), I'm not noticing anything huge besides perhaps a bit more pressure on my casters, which I can definitely accept as it makes the battles more dynamic than just having the fights "over there" while you can stand back and fling your projectiles or whatever. It's mostly stuff with *my* AI allies that's annoying here.

Well i dont know about you guys but i think the fixed the AI for the monsters now. i havent seen anything i would consider unusual behaviors, except the very rare extra long follow if your running. what do you guys think. though i do have that damn cast cancelling prob, just not as bad as it was though.

I'm finding the AI still to be rather good in a challenging way; though it does need some work and tweaking still.

The Human AI is very exploitable still. That enemy monk or caster is dumb as a brick and far to scripted to just flee as soon as it's hit. Why is that bad? Come up from behind it and hit it... it runs into your group and keeps going even after body blocked by your back line...

The creature AI seems pretty good so far. Onto the mainland and finding creatures are still less "smart" than the human AI is. The creature casters are less likely to flee when hit (this makes fighting creature different then humans and that's good). Their AI also seems more aggresive and less defensive, again a good thing.

My only complaint so far has been the quirky multi-group of different mobs all coordinating attacks on one target. In player group, we watched two full groups of Kournans and a groups of "roaches" all coordinate an attack on one monk, then the next, then the ele and so on. How the "roaches" are talking and communicating with the Kournans to do such a wonderous feat is beyond reasoning... and actually kinda dumb.

Anet should mix that up and actually add some thrill to a fight like that. A mixture of mobs like mentioned above shoudl quickly turn into a free for all battle... as it was, it was a mixed up bag of quirky AI vs the players. A better illusion of a living world would have been if the "roaches" also attacked the kournans as well as us players.

PS. that wasn't a bad pull mentioned above... we were "Leeroying" to have some fun. The fun was short lived as we watched the AI act as above and left us wondering about AI issues, rather than thinking "wow, we just got our butt's handed to us"... see the difference in mentality from a "living world" to "oh yea, AI needs working"?

Or, the cold reality of inefficiency could be hitting you. In either case, it really doesnt matter.

It does matter to these people (as it doesnt to you "obviously" maybe you should find a better way to spend your time) as people actually enjoy playing this game, its not something they just do because they have no better things to do.
I would neither apply dmg output calculations from single target to PvE as it contains so many more factors. I would consider doing so to be dumb.


Well back to the point, anet is doing the old twix r us thing, which has proved to be the way to go in the past (ironic), just look at utopia (and if you dont know what game it is, voila) it got tweaked to death, more or less.
Eventually they went back making it less complicated and thus holding on to some players, but not before they had lost a great deal of its community.

In short people wants to have fun, if this means being able to go through a game relativly fast even as a newb (not noob) so be it.
In prophecies they solved this in making two new realms (fow and uw), for the more expereinced gamers.
Later they begun tweaking the AI, some changes were ok some were not, mainly i think they've cornered themselves into a dead end with this.
This instead of learning and adding new parts instead, realms if you like that etc.

This is something i've learnt during my gameplay.
Activity comes from having fun, which is its turn is based on three things manily.

1. Simplicity. To play should be easy, thus making it easy to leap away to another place / time / dimension or whatever you want to call it. You also need to be able to experiment / discover.

2. Accessiblilty
IF a player wants to become better it should be easy to learn, this means having an easily accessible community aswell as it being easy to get some fast action.

3. Personality
You have to be able to identify with whatever it is you play or make a special mark on it. You also have to feel comfortable with the game in itself.


GW
1. Prophecies was easy, maybe not the first time you played it, but when you had done it once you knew the tricks and you knew how to play it.
This was good as people like being able to predict how a mob reacts and know how to go about with things, which gave them time to focus on other things, the surroundings, quests, bonuses etc. New mobs however required new actions, and still kept some focus on how you had to play.
This was why the lvl number and skills varied so much, which a new "smarter" AI this wont be as necessary. Neither can u experience as much fun knowing that the mob will react in a random way depedning on the groups composure. With the extra time it takes to defeat a mob, going through mobs quickly is gettin more important due to time reasons. - In short they force you to put more focus on the game and less on relaxing / having fun.
You can also experiment in a totally different way if you do know that you wont risk flaming etc taking skills that are not essential to the party, but could prove to be. - Let humans be smarter then the AI, let her be the core of the game and let her feel pwoerful and smart, do not take the game away from the general player.
(this is all generalisations, if ure HC or professional gamer you might find it to be another way).

2. IF something is easy to do, people wont have so much hesitation in doing it, (this will help players get through the game easier and be more intrigued to go into the harder parts of it) as more people will play more parts of the game. With the new parts of the story coming out every 6 months (?) there will still be plenty of "money sinks".


3. Here is where gw now starts to shine, even though i would like more ability to fustomise the charachters, the longer the game goes on though the more unique the char gets. I did however not like factions any way near as much as prophecies, this imply cause it didnt feel half as well done as it. Freeing up time from these kind of tweaks could make anet actually improve the work on the game. Now theyve tried to do both, and i havent rushed NF so its still up to see how they have suceeded.



In short id like ot see GW work as a good book where you write your own chapters in your own pase. That is how i think it should work and why chapter 1 was so popular.
Keep the game simple, dont increase the skin amount so extremely, make more realms instead of tweaking it to pieces and
for gods sake make it more fun again.

QFT couldn't have said it better myself even if I had tried.

I quite liked the old AI (like did most other people) it rewarded coordination and even a form of tactics. Tanks tying up aggro, monks would heal, nukers would nuke and utility classes doing the uncategorized. All in all it was a good (although a bit repetitive) system that gave a sense of purpose. This was when monsters weren't visibly aware of their own mortality nor excessively telepathically aware of your team's armor, health and intentions (interrupting 1/4 s casts ftw!)
Of course I would agree that improved AI is good thing that keeps things fresh. However the monster behaviour is nowhere near intelligent at the moment. Part of it IMO is the distinction between being believeable and going totally overboard. Going after the casters in its own right would be a smart move being the backbone of damage and survival (old system handled this quite well). Going after them when they are jillion miles away through enemy's front- and midline while being crippled, blinded, poisoned and warriors hacking at your back (and losing heart and fleeing when halfway through your hp bar) is not very intelligent however. Quite the contrary even. If thing are to improve monsters should be made to be more aware of their surroundings. Literally they should cover their rear end more and act so that it exposed as little as possible. You don't see me charging ass first into the combat do you? Which is exactly what a monster does when trotting through your ranks

Lot of work to do there good folks of Anet because hardcoded monk hate just doesn't cut it in the AI department.

The problem is, if you aska disturbing amount of people, they'll want dumb briks that they can 'farm' for cash. They'd prefer a working Prot Bond so they can go solo the UW over a difficult area that takes teamwork to get anywhere in. They'd want monks to stand stationary in 'uber'-double-echoed meteor shower. Too many people want some ultra-easy PvE so they can farm for more gold and get.....what?

The old AI rewarded coordination, and a form of tactics, sure. It was all based on a shockingly stupid AI. Is the new AI one that players can't defeat with coordination and tactics? I sure hope not. The new AI isn't perfect, it might be a bit smarter, but it can certainly be exploited as well. There are definate 'tactics' you can use to smash them in to peices. It just so happenes that these are different tactics, and people hate change. Now all they need to do is to give the AI a full skillbar to play with, and things might get even more interesting.

At the last major AI update, eles were 'made' useless at killing (actually, they were as 'useless' before the update, but that's another matter) and people adjusted. Now the monsters that you really don't want running, run, and the monsters you don't want chasing your casters, chase your casters...so take a snare! Even in later areas, the AI is still much worse than an actual player.

....If a group of level 20s are dieing to insects on the marga coast...you have problems. The problem there, however, is not that the AI is too hard, but that the team of players has an AI deficency. Is your Koss running a frenzysig wammo with mending? Was Dunkoro given any healing skills besides arcane echo and breeze? Is your armor equiped?

There were areas in some of the begining of the game that were more challenging than the Marga coast, typicaly in the form of overleveled ele monsters.

Guys, the argument that human players are smarter than AI (which is actually a very dubious claim when applied to the GW community), is moot. A lot of people play with henchmen for convenience/preference reasons. If the monster AI is going to be buffed, the hench AI needs to be buffed also. For instance, your henchmen will not scatter from aoe damage under any conditions. They will all stand together in a nice little clump while those Ruby Djinns and Roaring Ethers wiped them all out with stacked nukes. It's infernally stupid behavior that makes a lot of areas much harder than they have any right to be, simply because the henchman AI hasn't been updated to balance the monster AI.

I agree that the henchman/hero A.I. needs to be tweaked. Especially with the spell cancelling bug. So I'm not at all opposed to fixing henchman/hero A.I. at all. But it's really not too bad at the point where you can't beat the Monster A.I. Afterall, it's still ultimately human intelligence coordinating the battle.

I do think the monster A.I. is just fine though and a lot more challenging. The monster density is lower too, so you're no longer fighting swarm after swarm of mindnumbing fights as when you did in Prophecies or Factions.

It appears that some minor changes have been implemented. Before the 10/31 update, I was moving relatively easy thru certain areas. Was dieing some, but not getting wiped by every mob. With the 10/31 update, got wiped just going out the gate and with every mob I encountered. Taking several deaths and trips from res shrine to mob to finish the mob. Today, something is different. More like before the 10/31 update, but not quite. Again I am able to kill a mob or 2 with only a couple of deaths. Can't rush in, but now you can at least form an attack strategy, where you were wiped just targeting before.