Why I think current AI is good

The update that caused the ai to run away in self defence, switch targets often and generally behave in a less robotic fashion has caused outrage in some and happiness in others.

For me I'm pleased with it, I have played for 17months. During this time the ai pattern became somewhat predictable, because of this after a while predicatable=boring. The problem was there were certain builds and classes, skill tree's and effects that were deamed useless by the pug playing masses.
EG a snaring water ele would never be taken over a meteor shower nuker.
Now with this new update this mass snare water ele is incredibly powerful. While the enemies are moving they aren't attacking.. so the slower they move the more time you get to deal with them Simple really.
In the old days what would happen is a tank would draw agro.. stay there and the ele would cast ms and all would die.. now the ai runs around not centering agro it means all these 'useless' skills can get alot more use and be seen in a better light.

The argument of course is farming in many area's for many people has become alot harder. For me thats not part of my game.. I gvg and play pvp alot and pve for me is just a wind down. I'm not saying the whole economy/farming thing isn't important to the game but for people who don't care about it this new ai behaviour is damn good fun.

Basically anything that makes me think more about use of my build and using differing builds for differant area's that aren't 'cookie cutter' and still be useful is great.

Anyones thoughts on this?

Oh btw.. no flames please, I am aware this ai has royally annoyed people in some area's, i'm not saying you should shut up. I'm just explaining why for me its all good

DIE AI. *rips eyes out with rusty spoon and tears own heart out while screaming that phrase* I HATE you Anet. Rebirth = useless WEEEEEEEEE@#W!#$!$)!*$&(!#$@&

ok You are trying to order a hero that won't move? If thats a case then yeah it sucks.. happens to me sometimes but its very rare.

Looks like a case of long range agro to me. If so whats wrong with that?

Btw loved your idea for a comp heh, pity i wasn't around for it.

*edit* just reading your post now.. heh I don't believe the ai is as bad as you say imo, but we shall leave that convo for your thread.

I for one am saying i like the challenge.

Thanks for compition comment. I enjoyed it.

Anywho. No, actually, what is happening here is that most of my party wiped. I cant run in there and rez using rebirth because monsters wont unaggro. So I have to order my hench monk to go die and me to go die (thus incurring more DP) just to continue (hopefully) onwards.

I had this prob till I noticed a way of stopping it.

I and a friend had our heroes wiped and we were getting long agro from a mob.

we found that the agro only stays for a while.. you can wait it out and it stops. The best place to test this is the forts with the acolytes in. the acolyte mob does long range agro for a while after you engage. However after a period in time they stop.

I'm not sure what the parameters for forcing the disengagement is but what I was doing was 'draw killing' by luring a group out.. the other mob would long rage agro.. I'd then snare the first group up and walk back with my mate. Once we killed one mob the other lost its agro and went back to normal.

I think more testing is needed lol.

Not really had this problem yet. The closest I've come is in the shadow challenge. After hitting the portal wraithes and running out, they do chase you for a bit, but they give up soon enough. Not seen this bit where they chase you across whole screens.

I like the new AI but I have seen this

in the Elona mission, if you grab the 3rd crystal and run
- the boss may chase you all the way back to the hero

I was chased by the mesmer boss (nothing else) all the way back

we killed the boss at the ghosts feet before turning in the crystal but I've never seen that before (and Ive done this mission 20+ times)

offtopic

Whilst rebirht can be usfull, i would love for it to be deleted, im sick of people using it mid fight.

LOL, true. But still, my reason for removal is because of the AI being STUPID BEYOND ANY WORDS THAT CAN DESCRIBE IT (/endcapsbomb)

BTW> those words didnt describe it, because as i said, you cannot describe it.

Strange how it appears different to many others. I have waited 5 minutes and still have the mob getting aggrod even though it was miles away, just because they wiped my party. 5 minutes IS a long time.. The mob should go away, and you should be free to res without problems.

It sounds like you dont PvE much, and use your time in PvP more so you maybe havent seen the horrible AI for real.

The in-combat AI, with switching targets, some kiting, and general improvements, is actually not too bad. My main problems with the current AI are the chase/flee problems, where they chase or run forever. But when you can get a group of mobs to settle down for an honest brawl, the new AI makes things a bit more challenging, without being absurd.

Do the quest to rescue Koss, and watch the enemy priests run TOWARDS you from two aggro circles away, leaving their groups behind.... I'd say the AI could use some refinement...

We were in ToPK a week ago on the last level. We had an almost complete party wipe against The Darkness. Only myself and one of the monks had survived. Both of us split off from each other and the Terrorweb Dryders were aggro-locked on the monk. They followed the monk from one end of the map to the other. They finally took the monk out. I was sitting way aways from everything and waited. I watched them come back and lock on me when I wasn't even close to them.

same here. i'm glad the AI moves when i'm wacking it to death. i've enjoyied it beside the buggy part of it but ya i agree the NEW (minus the slight bug) is a lot better

I've had instances of mass aggro where there was no wipe involved. I targeted one group, that was well away from other groups I might add, and suddenly the entire zone rushed me. I only wish I was exaggerating. It was just this unending mass of enemies coming at us and of course we died then only to have the long range aggro kick in and keep us from moving forward. This was in Mineral Springs, a bad place for mass aggro. There was no waiting it out. They came at us at the rez shrine. The AI is bugged, end of story. I would infinitely prefer they just revert it to the chicken run AoE version instead of this PvP like version they have now. PvP behavior is too complex to be scripted into an AI without these sort of unexpected interactions. I might also add that PvE is not supposed to be like PvP. While you may see the challenge as invigorating I know that myself and many others see this new AI as frustrating. At this point it is literally making me reconsider my purchase. I'd rather pay a subscription fee to WoW, which has a proper PvE AI, than play GW for free with the current AI. I can't even bring myself to progress through the game anymore. I've been helping people in Ascalon mostly rather than deal with the aggravation of the AI launching mass aggro against me and bum rushing the rez shrine when I wipe. The rez shrine behavior in particular makes me think that they tried to code PvP behavior into the AI. I mean if you can wipe a team why not camp the rez shrine and just keep on them? that's basically what the new AI does almost without exception. Camping is lame in any game regardless of who or what does it.

Actually Str0b0 me and a friend had a simaler problem, we where going though mineral springs 2 man as we where bored, and after we aggred one group, anouther came a bit before they where killed, we first though it was a patrol, no biggie. But them anouther came, and we got killed, and after we rezzed we went back to try to pick them off and more kept comming. (more avicara that is) It was quite annoying, but kind of amusing, eventually seeing around 20-30 of them all camping the shrine...didn't take screen shots sadly. =(

I like the current A.I as well. It's at least made PVE a lot less boring and tedious. And yes I've even experienced all the issues that people have been complaining about, BUT I've only gotten each of them one or twice. Most of the time, I've been able to get around them. And a couple of times resulted in a wipe. No big deal, bugs happen.

Yes bugs do happen but they should be fixed. I think accountability here is the issue. By and large the response to the AI has been negative so why does it remain the same? I can't argue with the fact that bugs occur and that it takes time to fix them, but the point has been made that this may not be a bug so much as it is a shift towards a more PvP like AI in PvE. If that is the case then the AI is functioning perfectly and doesn't need to be fixed persay. Still if you have a significant portion of your player base, indexed from forums that are assumed to represent a cross section of the entire online community, then I think it should be changed period. I would rather have boring and tedious than frustrating. I think more of a middle ground should be found here. The AI in PvE was supposed to be stupider than a player for a reason. Monsters outnumber you significantly and can also out level you by a fairly significant amount as well. For that reason alone the AI should be much stupider to allow for a balance between their sheer advantage in numbers versus your advantage as a flexible thinker.

Hmmm current AI is dumber than ever...

Battles have fallen to new depths - it's a game of tag now. Chase and being chased.

Why the hell does AI become PvP-like? Because some elite players want a challenge? Well go play PvP then. Monster AI should be dumb for a reason. They already have:

-LARGE supply of energy
-Ability to cast skills very quickly
-Godlike reflexes - the ability to interrupt 1/4 casting time spells
-High levels
-High armor
-Ability to do alot of damage - more than a player could do
-They are with alot in 1 group
-Ability to see you coming from miles away


So why the hell make them intelligent as well? Monster AI has enough advantage over us players already, no need to toughen them up even more. Sure, some people find it boring and want a challenge, but alot people don't.

I'm really confused by some of your posts. You're saying that A.I. is now dumber than ever, and then argue that A.I. SHOULD be dumb and not so intelligent. Help me out here.

Also some complaining about the A.I. are saying it's too easy. Others saying it's too hard.

yeaaaaaaa i like the new AI too, it destorys litteraly the 55s anbd whammos making money, which i make money by soloing underworld/ectos d so its all goooood

Edit: I meant to say the AI doesnt matter to me because i only farm greens and ectos d

If you were to go try to kill something in real life that wanted to kill you back you wouldn't simply be able to "unaggro". What you're saying is you're mad at the game for being unpredictable. Sure, you were screwed but that's just the situation. Deal with it, it happens to us all.

I would argue that the AI is smarter. It's meant to be a challenge so that the game doesn't end in a week. When the game was easy like in the case of Factions, people complained it went too fast. If you're good, nay decent at the game, then you won't have trouble. I don't and I'm not that good in my opinion. Only Rank 1 in the PvP world.

So your whining that the AI should be nerfed because its to hard. On noes what should we do the priests kite us the warriors attack our monks omg omg.

Last I checked, I have:

-A zealous weapon that insures I almost never run out of energy
-Ability to spam skills very quickly
-Cruddy reflexes but my heroes are amazing at interrupting
-Level 20 which is enough for me
-High armor
-Ability to do a lot of damage
-A pocket Minion Master in Olias
-Ability to see mobs coming on my minimap



I think the game is still easy with the new AI, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions I guess.

Is it just me or does the new AI defeat the purpose of rez shrines?

A rez shrine is supposed to ressurect your entire party so you have another chance at taking out the monsters, the penalty for this ressurection is an increase in DP and possibly having to retrace your steps back to where you were.

It seems rather unfair now that not only do you incur dp, but as soon as your part ressurects, your last engaged mob or 2 or 3 from 3-4 aggro circles away starts rushing you immediately. Half the time you're fighting an enraged mob before fully recovering your or your hero's energy. With the increased dp, it certainly may be tougher, but with depleted energy to start with you may have to attempt to flee instead.

dp begets dp, and soon enough the mobs will be literally camping the rez shrine thanks to their long range aggro.

I thought the point of rez shrines was to help you out by teleporting you to a safe location to recover, hence their location near zone portals and other out of the way areas. But w/ the aggro behavior now, the incredibly "smart" AI knows exactly where and when you rez from clear across the map.

I have yet to see any "GLF water Ele" or any other snare specialist for that matter. Personally I don't run with snares and only rarely do I ever regret that decision.

I'll agree that some previously rarely used skills have become useful due to the new AI, BUT in the process several previously very useful skills have been rendered nearly useless.

The point about a challenge (which I've seen quite often) is a completely bogus argument. You've always been able to control the challenge level by decreasing party size. You will rarely get down to just yourself on a quest or mission before you find it extremely time consuming or nearly impossible -- with either version of the AI. You also get more drops per person when you do this, so there's that advantage as well.

One of the builds I enjoyed playing the most is very difficult to use now because of extended aggro/follow across the zone nonsense. It is a solo build for taking out bosses, which is not exactly part of the main game, but very challenging and rewarding when it worked. I can still use the build, but in fewer places than before. So for me they nerfed one of my favorite things to do after completing the game with this change.

I haven't found the new AI to be significantly easier or harder in combat - just different. But the chasing across the entire zone and ability to "see" you outside even your radar and come running has put a serious damper on what I liked to do the most after the campaigns were done.

Before you anti-farming people go wild, I don't have tons of cash and don't sell most of what I get. I either keep it for me or my heroes or give it to guildies. Only if there's no other use do I sell the stuff and then usually below the "going" rate. My point is it's not about the cash, but about the challenge and enjoyment of going solo where it normally takes a full group, diving in to take out the boss, pick up his loot, and still make it out alive (and failing often enough so it's not boring). It's dodging groups of roaming mobs and actually being able to outrun unintended aggro with skills. What's the point of having running skills if no matter how fast you move the enemies can keep up with you?

Sorry, done with the rant now...

I haven't said that the AI is too hard now.

And the AI does NOT attack our monks, and they shouldn't do that either. AI is dumb for a reason. Kiting is a very bad thing as well. Sure, kiting for a Symbol of Wrath/Firestorm is okay, only 20 or 30 skills get useless that way :P

But kiting for every little friggin thing... It's just plain annoying to see monsters scattering everywhere and running away in all different directions. When I do PvE, I want to battle monsters, not chase them all around the map. They have all these advantages over the normal players, and still they are made 'smart'...

'ohh just snare them noob'

No, that's not the problem. The only 'staple' in anyones build should be res. The good thing about GW was that everyone could have his/her own build. I don't want to be forced to take 7 skills just to keep the AI in check.

AI is just a mess now, A-net should really think about how they want to make the AI - chasing around mindlessly or actually fight like a monster.

I'm of mixed opinions about all the AI changes. Overall I have to say I approve of them, but there are issues. I enjoy the combat more now, although very rarely do I use any snare tactics or have monks flee and am able to take them down with regular builds. One thing that is annoying though is the extreme aggro range and yah, the rez shrine camping. I've had that happen a couple of times but thankfully not when I was doing anything important, or I might have got frustrated.

It also hasn't changed my solo sin green farming build as the only things that I've noticed try and kite Sliver are Rampaging Ntoukra (sp?) things and I try and avoid them anyway cause they can strip enchants... No bosses try and kite though.

Also with heroes you don't need to solo bosses anymore, just team up with a buddy, kill the group leaving hte boss alive, send your heroes way way away and go two man him. It works wonders.

But I have to say more intelligent mobs are a good thing, just catch the bugs plz Anet.

Dont what youre playing, but Ive rarely seen mobs not go straight for the monks. The first thing I do is keep an eye on where the monks are(hench especially, theyre too dumb to know trouble when it come knocking) so I will have a better chance to protect them.

True, the only skill anyone should always have, unless its absolutely vital it be dropped, is a rez.

It's true that you had more build options before. The thing is that before, it didnt matter what build you brought because PVE was so mindnumbingly easy. There's a difference between having the flexibility to make your own builds and being able to bring any build because it just doesnt matter anyway due to it being too easy.

This isnt really limiting build options that much, it's just weeding out the really bad ones.

That may be true to some extent, but by "weeding out" the bad ones, you essentially end up with only a relative handful of builds that are actually effective for each class/combination. The more you do that, the closer you come to forcing "cookie cutter" play rather than encouraging variety and innovation.

Personally I see things opposite of you here (shocking, I know) : In other words it won't really matter which skills you bring because they are all roughly equally ineffective. Every time we get a set of skills that work well together, it seems something gets nerfed so that is no longer the case. Take a look at the new skills. Many of them require another skill to be effective - does extra damage if enchanted, hexed, suffering a condition, on fire etc. The base damage (or effect) for many of these is not sufficient to justify them by themselves, and the only way you can be sure to get that benefit is to burn up 2 skill slots for one effect. This further diminishes the flexibility and creativity aspects.

As I've said elsewhere before, if PvE is/was mind-numbingly easy all anyone ever had to do was decrease party size to attain the preferred level of challenge. No one forces any of us to have parties of 8 just because they are allowed. Frequently I'll start out with just me and heroes on a mission for that reason. If we get wiped I'll add one or two henchies or grab a guildie.

I really don't think that the AI changed gameplay much in that respect. Sure you might load a few different skills than before, but you still end up with your preferred 8 skills and do the same thing over and over -- just like before the update.

The thing they've changed is what people do when they finish the campaigns. Bot farmers don't care if it takes a little more time to gather money -- bots don't get tired. However, for actual players controlling their toons and enjoying for whatever reason the past time of collecting items and cash, that has been nerfed somewhat.

From the point of view of collecting money for the game and using less bandwidth in the future, that makes perfect sense -- but only if you don't plan on releasing any more campaigns in the future.

The bottom line is I don't like what they did to the AI, I think they did it for the wrong reasons, and releasing the new AI just before the release of the game that many people had already paid for without knowing how significantly their gaming experience would change was a bit on the slimy side.

Just a bit of highlighting on that. Factions wasn't fast because it was overly easy - it was fast because if you wanted the bonuses you had to complete it within a certain time frame. Some people found Factions VERY easy, others not so much.

For me it isn't a question of if its too easy or not, its about the sheer level of frustration at giving chase to a monster for 20mins. Kiting is great and as a ranger I am always amused to watch them kite my arrows, no biggie, one of them will eventually hit its mark. But when they run away like mad and never fight.. THAT IS NOT like pvp unless you mean those annoyances that most of us kick from our group after they have been little dill weeds when we would rather restart the battle cause he wasn't smart enough to bring a rez in the first place and now he refuses to die like he did any work during battle because he was so busy running? give me a break -_-
(sorry that wasn't aimed as hostile, just annoyed at AI )

If the AI worked like they said it's supposed to in the update notes, it wouldn't be bad at all. All that would be different is that monsters run from AoE when they are low on health instead of whenever there is any AoE whatsoever, and that monsters stand farther apart so you can't AoE a whole group as easily. How bad would that be? It would be making the monsters more challenging, but not frustrating or unfair.

Right now, the monster AI is either annoyingly stupid - non-warriors running around like chickens with their heads cut off because their health is 575/600, or vicious - chasing you literally nonstop, through speed boosts, even when they have no speed boosts, and aggroing your party when they are nowhere near your aggro bubble. None of these behaviours are enjoyable or challenging, instead it is frustrating, and unfair in the case of the overzealous aggro.

I see a few people saying that when a mob charges you from across the screen when they are not near your aggro bubble, it is because you have aggroed that mob before, and retreated, and now they are re-engaging you. That is not the only time a mob will charge at your party from far away and with no provocation. I was in Marga Coast yesterday and the first couple groups of Kournan Guards came running from the edge of my radar, charging at us. I hadn't been anywhere near them, as it was the beginning of the zone, and I had never attacked them, but they rushed over and tried to stomp me and my group. It happened again and again with every Kournan Guard group. There might have been 2-3 Kournan Guard groups that did not rush us from across the radar screen, by that time I was surprised and wondered if they were broken. When I ran up to them and got them in my aggro bubble, they attacked like normal. So maybe the Kournan Guards are all on drugs and use their super-heightened sense of sound and sight to detect our groups and charge over to attack.

They need to fix the monster AI to act the way they described in the update notes, not this poor excuse for monster AI we have now.

Sont know where you people come from, Ive never found PvE "mindnumbingly wasy". Not terribly difficult, but far from easy.
And no, its not limiting builds alot, but Im not sure its wedding out the bad ones/ Arent there "supposed" to be few "bad builds", to allow players alot of flexibility in what works? Obviously youre not going to try water magic in Shiverpeaks, or fire magic in Fire Island(unless Winter is up), but there should be more than just a few builds that are effective in certain areas(not just the "max damage" ones).

After 18 months I am sorry if I feel the new AI is not a challenge but GRIND. Taking longer to do something you have been doing for 18 months is hardly a challenge. The true challenge will be getting me to part with another 100 bucks for a chapter 4 ... I hope you are up to it Anet.

Sorry this isn't a dig but it begs for the sarcastic remark:

Nope they do it like in the old west, they stick their ear to the ground and check for vibrations

LOL, I wish they did, then I could kill their scout before they reported we were in the area.

how true.



Me? I like the new AI so much more now. First off, you can still pull mobs. Second, they SHOULD go after the healer (duh). Third, running at low health is something every whammo does when faced with a mesmer, and you expect the monsters to be dumber than whammos? There is no reason why monsters should act like the noob assassins that gave the good ones a bad rap.

Nah Horseman, it's not just that, I've seen them run without even getting attacked too... I'm not saying they should sit there and take it, but there deffinately should be a limit to how far they bolt or perameters in which they run. There is a huge difference between kiting and running just because they feel like it.

My favorite is when the enemy warrior is chasing my monk around in circles, while my warrior is chasing the enemy monk around in circles