YAAIT (Yet another AI Thread)

As you're probably aware, the Artificial Intelligence in Guildwars was changed in recent updates. These changes have caused a major uproar in the community, countless threads were started pro and contra the update. The problem i see with these threads is that they're quickly turning into flamewars. Legit arguments are drowned in bitterness, frustration, trolling and an all over aggresive tone.
So why another thread then? The answer is quite simple, there are currently bugs in the AI that cause it to react in a probably unintended way. We can't expect A-net to wade through the countless rants and trollposts we have in most of the threads.

Please take note that this thread is not meant to discuss the intended changes to the AI but moreover the side effects which came with changes or have been there for a long time.
Let's call it one huge feedback and bugreport thread if you will.



We start with one basic statement:
The AI is good.

I guess we can all agree, that all that is necessary is finetuning it and bugfixing it. However in order for A-Net to finetune it, they must know our opinion and unless they've got some sort of telepathy system we need to tell them in a friendly and respectful manner.

In case you're not aware how the AI works, here is a quick summary. If you want to read more about the details, you can look up the article section of GWGuru, there should be a few AI articles going into details.

Every mob in Guildwars starts in a state of Awareness. They're not fighting yet and they're doing their business. Their business might be guarding a stronghold or going about their patrol business. Whatever it is, they're caught in their own personal business unless you scare them, let's just call this their "Homezone" for ease of description.
Every character, every henchmen and hero has a so called Aggrobubble or Dangerzone as A-Net likes to call it. The dangerzone is the white circle on your minimap and as soon as you enter the dangerzone of a monster, it notices you, calls the buddies in his group and they go in for a bashing (Note: Nightfall introduces the Spotters, they seem to have a much larger Dangerzone than other mobs and will notice you earlier).

There are two ways to end this, either kill them or retreat from the battle. If the latter happens, the enemies normally will retreat to their Homezone and resume their business.
Another thing to note is: Enemies will run from AOE damage.
There are many more things to the AI but that is a basic summarizing of it, once again for more details head to the article section.


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Now comes the interesting part, the very core of this thread. A list of things we, the players, don't like or think is bugged.
Do not use this to complain, do not whine about farming, do not troll, do not discuss whether running from AOE is good or not. Got it? Thank you, these basic rules will keep this thread alive.

Note:
Some of these things are bugs, while others might be intended features. We don't know for sure.


Permanent Aggrolock
Description:
This behavior has been around since the release of Prophecies. Though back then it was mostly a random behavior. Every once in a while a party of enemies would lock their aggro. This is not much of a problem if everything goes well but it becomes increasingly annoying if things went down the drain and need a fixing (as in - ressing the team). With one of the latest changes, this bug become more prominent and also a lot worse.

What is happening:
Imagine the following situation, your team screwed up. Everyone except for your last monk is dead on the floor. Your monk brought rebirth and could save the situation. He ran far away to shake the Aggro and finally succeeded in convincing the mobs that he has more endurance in running away.
The problem however now is, once that monk starts sneaking back to res his team, the enemies will immediately re-engage the monk. Even though said monk is about 3 radar lengthes away.

What is the problem:
The enemies do not resume their normal state. They never re-enter the awareness mode in which they abide to the dangerzone. Once you've aggroed a mob you'll either kill it or resign it.

What should be changed:
Make the enemies properly break aggro. Once you've run far enough, they should go back about their normal business as they sometimes did before the latest changes. Once they're back to normal business, they should only abide to the dangerzone again. Thus allowing the team a fabulous comeback.

Permanent Aggrolock II
Description:
Very similiar to above bug

What is happening:
The mobs will chase your character endlessly. Let's assume the above team went into another wipe situation and that same trustworthy monk is now on the run. For some reason though the enemies will NEVER break aggro. They will chase the monk all around the map. If the monk stops running they go into wandrange, attack with their wand one or two times and then start running away.
Once the monk starts running in either direction though, they will immediately come back for him, wand him again and run away again.
This bug is also around since Prophecies, just not as bad. Back then casters would be stuck in their spellcasting loop and insist on casting that one last spell only to return to their homezone. This however got worse, they won't return to their homezone but they won't do something properly either.
You can /dance them to death if you feel like, they're either running back and forth if you're standing still or will just stare at you, doing nothing.

What is the problem:
Once the monk starts running for his buddies, the enemies WILL engage battle again.

What should be changed:
Just like in the above part, let them break aggro and resume their normal every daylife business. Much frustration could allready be stopped by these two minor changes. The team is allready suffering from Death Penalty, don't make them suffer with a wipe if someone was clever enough to retreat at the right time, give them a chance to come back.


Endless AOE Running
Description: This behavior is intended and good. The enemies will run from AOE Damage once they're taking huge heaps of AOE Damage. This is good, this was intended. So why list it here? The problem here is that they endlessly run away if you're chasing them.

What is happening:
You damage a mob above 3 with AOE Damage. Sooner or later they will start running out of it's area of effect to avoid the damage. The problem is, should you decide to go after them to finish them off, the will just keep on running and running and running. This can get really annoying having to chase every single group of enemies.

What is the problem:
Chasing a runner is allways a little bit frustrating and even if you're bringing specific counters to running like speedbuffs or snares, it feels tedious to chase around every single mob in an area. And there are plenty of them.

What should be changed:
Include a maximum distance of running away for melee mobs. Make them run a few steps, just enough to be outside of the AOE and then force them to engage another or the same target again. If someone is coming for them, don't have them run more than it takes to no longer suffer from AOE Damage.
After all, they're meant to run from AOE but not from everything and not forever. That's how i understood the updatenotes.

Aggrozealous Kiters (Enemies, Henchies and Heroes Unite!)
Description: If you start to annoy an AI Monk enough he will start running. While he does so, he is moving in random patterns. This is a good change, kiting is important. So once again, why list it here? And once again, it has some quirks and problems.

What is happening:
While the monk is kiting he doesn't pay any attention as to where he is actually running.

What is the problem:
Sooner or later, the kiting monk be it friend or foe will run into another mob. If it is your monk he'll happely aggro another mob onto you, probably resulting in a total desaster and partywipe. And if he doesn't aggro another mob, he'll run away a great deal, effectively taking him out of the game for a while (Dunkoro ran that far away that his name greyed out once -.-)
This is extremely annoying as it feels like totally being out of control, something you couldn't do anything about as for some strange a kiting monk ignores movement orders.
But this also affects you if you're playing with players. Often enough the enemy monk starts running the second you target him. And he will run away from you in a straight line, straight into other mobs and patrols. If you chase him, you'll aggro more enemies. If you let him run, he'll be back in time to heal that specialy "buddy" of yours.

What should be changed:
Hero and Henchmen monks should never run away further than the dangerzone of their respective "owner". This basically means the monk will have to kite in circles and the center of the circle will be the Teamleader. Also, enemy monk should abide to the same behavior, they shouldn't run into other mobs.
On a sidenote, ever noticed that the kournan priests are the worst? They actually start running towards you and then invite you for a runner's marathon :P



Feel free to add, comment or substract.
If you have further insight onto matters, by all means, post them. If you know of more quirks in the AI that could use a fixing, by allmeans, post them.

But please, do NOT under ANY circumstances turn this into another "AOE NERF, Good or bad?" or "i hate this/i love this" Thread. And most certainly keep the "heroes are bad" or "remove heroes from xyz" out of this. If you want to discuss those, there are plenty of different threads for this.

Keep it free of flames and trolling. Don't post the normal harsh elitist comments. Discuss in civil manners and maybe, in a community effort, we can get this AI into a perfect state that everyone will like.




[FEEDBACK AFTER INITIAL POST - Thread summarize]
fatmouse noted that it might be primarily a problem with kournan priests [X]
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Faith Angelis furthermore backed up the impression that it is mostly casters that act strange [X]
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Sid Doog provided the insight that attacking of spirits (as in ranger spirits) also results in Aggro [X]
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Eviance described situations of weird caster behavior and added a new quirk: Heroes are hardly following Targetcalls [X]
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FalconDance also noted problems with the Flagsystem - Heroes tend to ignore movement orders [X]
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ChaoticCoyote pointed out that it might be a continent dependent. [X]
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Sidra added that other mobs than the Kournan Spotters seem to have a larger aggro circle as well. [X]
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Epinephrine posted (besides the valuable other point of view) that Enemies sometimes run into areas where you can't reach them properly, yet have to kill them - a follow up problem of instant kill zones. [X]
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Sir Kilgore thought that it might be profession dependent how the AI reacts about Aggrolock. [X]
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saphir added another possibly frustrating aspect. Left behind minions which meet a patrol will result in an aggro for the full party, no matter how far they're away. Hard to explain, he/she explained it better. [X]
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Narutoscryed explained two more occurances. One of which is the AI runs from AOE as soon as they're hit by it, no matter their health (updatenotes stated otherwise)
The second thing is a mystical secret speed boost in enemies. I'm not sure if this is an AI concern or another problem entirely but it seems that all enemies have some form of inherent speed boost without using skills for it. [X]
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Orinn furthermore backed up the inherent Speedboosts in enemies and also wrote that heroes and henchmen will ignore dead party members which are safe, to ressurect another monk which is not safe, resulting in a wipe. [X]
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There are many more posts in this thread now, all of which provide further insight into the matter. They're certainly worth a read for more details. I've however tried to scan the thread for not yet reported behavior in the AI. In the case that i somehow missed your important point, please send me a PM with a link to the post and what the essence of that post is. Thank you.

If you want to explain a problem which has not been noted in a fashion like i did above, feel free to post it and i will update the starting post accordingly. Thank you.

I thought kournan priests were the only bugged ones, I never noticed anything with margonites, demons etc. Once had a kournan priest run off the radar and nobody was even chasing him, he eventually came back for round 2 when his whole party was dead. Needless to say it wasn't pretty.

Would be worth further testing, i had margonites and co run away great heaps before but the most annoying runners used to be kournan priests.


This is not meant to whine and as you've probably read, my basic opinion is that the AI is good, but has some flaws. And those flaws are what this topic is about.

Agree with pretty much all of it, to be honest. Some would argue that enemies kiting in to other mobs is more 'realistic', but then the oddest thing that I observe is that in cases of 'Permanent Aggrolock II' as above it's always the casters (usually the monk) of the enemy mob that chase you way away from all their buddies and support.

Example: On my presear character, north of the wall, I aggro a group of Charr comprising an Axe Fiend, a Hunter, an Ash Walker and a Shaman. I run to a distance of one and a half 'radars'. The Shaman always follows, giving me leisure to stop and kill him away from his damage dealing buddies.

As soon as the Shaman is down, the Ash Walker begins running to my current position from the group's starting position. Alone. 1.5 radars away. This lets me kill him easily too. After the two casters are down, I can then stroll in and pick off the remaining pair with relative ease, free from hexes and with noone to heal them.

That's not realistic, that's just downright dumb.

But then contrary to this, I have encountered situations where the only possible outcome is a wipe, because the survivors can't get in to res their buddies - even though the dead are well outside the original aggro bubble of the enemy group. This happened to a skill capping team I was on in mineral springs a few nights back - the enemies had retreated a half radar or so to the east, back to their start position, and my teammates had pulled back to off my radar to the west (I'm dead - obviously ) - as soon as the two survivors (monk and mesmer) enter my radar from the west, the Tengu begin to run back to them, reaching my corpse significantly faster than they do due to their 125% (I think) running speed. Guaranteed wipe, and no way to get out of it.

Still, I think this thread is a good idea if it stays constructive and civil, and what I'd really like is some clarification from ArenaNet here to say that either this is intended, or it is a bug, and if it is a bug, is it being fixed?

I would like to add here also that killing there spirts (mind you while the mob is an easy 3-4 agroo bubbles away) makes them instantly agroo too you ??? Have no idea why to me that isnt realistic at all just my little rant and 2 1/2 cents

I've had things run away long before I ever touch them. No AoE, they just bolt! Example of such: I was in North Kryta Province farming ettins on my wammo and as usual I was running through the bogscales. I had a whole group that proceeded to give chase for an awefully long time, so I decided to just take them out. When I started running back at them all but 2 in a group of 6 scattered before any of them took damage and then the one I wasn't even attacking fled! They went off just far enough to start attacking again like I had holy wrath on or something. One of them just kept running... not sure where he was headed but he kept running and in some odd kiting way even though he wasn't taking any damage. I thought maybe it had been because they followed me so far a distance, so I tried a stationary group and they did the same thing. To me that seems a bit buggy.
Oh and for the record my bar had one skill that might be concidered AoE which was Glads Defense, but I didn't use it fighting them.

Another bug is that neither the heros or henchies are following called targets, they really do have their own agenda.


Amity this thread will likely get flamed (I really hope it doesn't) but what I WOULD recommend is posting a link to this thread within the report bugs area which the Devs are keeping up with. Let them know its a thread that contains all or at least most of the AI issues that players are seeing and that it is hopefully mostly spam and flame free.

If there was a way to give +rep, I would. This is a good post. I may not agree with some of it (as I finished NF and didn't experience things like the monk marathon), but you definitely went through cause-and-effect for each of these. I have to say though, I haven't experienced anything but the "always run after AoE" bug. Monks never went nuts for me.

QFT! If u kill a spirit that a mob has putted they automatically run towards you even if out of aggro bubble. Maybe the spirit has some sort of walkie-talkie mechanism :P

This didn't happened before the update.

Ive been playing Prophecies for a year now, and can honestly say Ive NEVER seen any aggro-lock until that last update. Ive said in other threads, the kitings fine, and can be dealt with, but the aggro-lock definately needs a fix.

I think that Gallie has already responded to the AI thing saying it wasn't a bug, it was a feature.

While I do agree that these instances are very annoying, they don't happen, at least to me, all the time. Just some of the time. And I want to pose some questions....

Should you ALWAYS be able to rebirth the whole team? Should enemies ALWAYS act the same exact way? Shouldn't enemies run into other groups so that they can get some help? Shouldn't sometimes the enemies be a little quirky? Shouldn't enemies "remember" that there are ppl running around that they want to kill? Should the interrupt skills work 100% of the time?

I'm only just asking the questions, I really don't have an opinion either way. If they fix it fine, if they don't fine, I'm still gonna play.

I think Anet asked these questions of themselves, realized that they would never be able to please everyone, so they made a decision of how they would like it and will be sticking by said decision.

I've actually never experienced anything in the OP, except the 'Permanent Aggrolock', which has been in the game long before Nightfall (mobs such as Smite Crawlers, etc.)

It depends on whether the spirit is counted in the mob's group. In most cases throughout GW, attacking one member of a group will pull the rest regardless of whether they are in aggro range.

I've experienced all of them actually...

I experienced the PermaAggro "bug" before even Factions came out - in the Fire Islands. We crested a hill and ran smack into a mob. No problem, we thought, and proceeded to teach them a few manners. Then a few of their buddies joined in from way over there. We had one monk alive at that point (after the second inexplicable aggro) and every time he tried to resurrect, the mob would zero back in on him and chase him a long ways back. It became an oddly humorous adventure that we've reminisced about several times (three of the four of us are family and the other a local friend).

This really needs to be fixed. I have to click like a maniac to redirect heros and henches to the called target sometimes - and that's time I don't always have the leisure of in a furious fight! Plus it doesn't always work.

Another difficulty is that the flag system also does not seem to consistently work. I have flagged my party in safer zones so my ranger could move forward and pull an enemy without everybody in the world coming with, and the heros still follow me! (I seldom use it for this very reason.) Either it needs to be consistent and work properly or please take it out altogether.

I hear and sympathise with everything the OP says... and I also HATE those Kournan Priests...the only time they stop trying to run away is when they are applying Reversal of Fortune.

I like the aggro madness, makes the game more fun ( specially on teamspeak )

Never know when it's going to go totally fubbar on you either. But its funny to me. Also I loved the new AI update on 10-27, before it there was no reason to bring pin down, hamstring, or whatever skills there are to slow enemies down. Use to be before the update they pick their target and just camp out in front of you.

Now that they run it makes it more fun. After a while you know who's going to go kiting and you make sure they stay in one spot before you take them out.

When I played my dervish crippling sweep is the first skill I use on foes and they don't go anywhere.

This is probably why I didn't notice the arrgo as much untill I switched to play my ranger through Nightfall and I was the only one with pin down equiped.

Now I make sure all my hero's have something to slow them down.

Use the lock target button in the heros control bar.

My heroes aren't following my orders too, starting to feel like my pug days all over again .

Anyway, I've experienced all of the situations described in the OP, some more often than others. In the case of perma aggrolocks, I usually just /resign to save time, luckily it has only ever happend to me on short quests.

That's what I do eventually, however target locking 3 heroes whenever you change targets could be a bit tedious and can cause me to miss-time some interrupts.

The spirit thing can be used to your advantage. I was doing the Kodonur Crossroads and was ready to storm the final bosses but the one patroling group that walks right by the fortress were still around. I didn't want them to aggro and make the last bit any harder nor did I want to wait until they were not near the fortess to kill them. So I attacked the ranger's spirit and the group came running (monk first)

As to the other issues I don't think they are that big of a deal. Permanent Aggrolock does not always occur and it seems that it happens more often with humanoid mobs which you would think would be smart and remember that you attack and kill some of them so they will want to kill you before you kill them.

Other things I agree are odd I have also had Dunkoro run until his name greyed out. A limit on the distance ran would be nice.

Like Avarre, I never really experienced any of this. Groups have stayed aggro on members that run away and will turn around and charge them again if that person starts walking back to them (thus re-aggroing), but if that person runs away, stops and waits there for a little bit instead of turning back around, then the mob will eventually unaggro. I have seen a lot of people who run away, stop, then come back before waiting long enough, then running away again when the mob comes back after them and repeats this over and over not realizing that they just need to wait longer before running back.

Untrue.

Last night, in Tasca's demise, my daughter's monk ran all the way from the northern exit to the southern one after a group wipe. She never stopped, and all enemies were off her radar.

As she STOOD STILL outside the gates of Granite Citadel, a lone Titan Heart entered her radar. It had chased her completely across the map, and was still chasing her EVEN THOUGH IT WAS OFF THE RADAR and SHE WASN'T MOVING.

It makes *no sense* for a single enemy unit to chase a monk entirely across the map when it can't even SEE her.

Hero’s AI

Acolyte Sousuke & Zhed Shadowhoof : often will ignore a called target and both will run off to attack another target even when flagged, pulling henchmen/hero monks past a flag point just to heal them.

Caster hero’s kitting will some time’s run a path behind the enemy AI and stop on the other side. Also caster will run off before melee hero’s to attack first.

All hero’s will run back to attack a group if a minion is left behind and fighting.

One word sums up this "new" AI since the update - CRAP

If this is a feature then I'm afraid the next chapter might not "feature" so many players who have been with GW since the very beginning and are pretty annoyed with it as they'll just go play something else.

My daughter's monk and my ranger went capping last night on all three continents, and we noticed some odd differences in the behavior of the "new" AI.

Or, more correctly, everything was "normal" in Cantha (Rhea's Crater, Shenzun Tunnels, Echovald). No weird kiting, no non-boss monsters with exceptional aggro bubbles.

The story in Tyria was a tad different.

We were doing the Titan quest in Mineral Springs for my daughter's character, a healing monk. I've done these quests before with other characters, several times, and I've been to Mineral Springs on dozens of expeditions over the last year. Something has changed.

On our way through Tasca's Demise, we encountered the large group of Titans near the North exit, and things went "badly". My daughter's monk, as she always has, kited away, back down the "safe" road. One of the Titan "Hearts" followed her.

The monk ran, the titan would go off her radar, she would stop, and the titan (alone) would reappear shortly. In fact, my daughter's monk ran ALL THE WAY to Granite Citadel's gate; a few moments later, the titan appears on her radar again, still following.

This is not how it used to work, and it makes group recovery almost impossible. It makes no sense for one lone titan to chase a monk across the map from OUTSIDE radar range! There is no point now in one or two survivors trying the Rebirth a group, since aggro *never* breaks.

Please don't tell me the monk should have waited... she did wait, once the Titan was long gone off her radar, and every time she stopped, the Titan would reappear on her radar after a few moments, no matter how far she had run.

The next anomaly was seen on Kessex Peak, while I was doing a bit of mapping. Again: I've been to Kessex Peak numerous times with various characters, with and without Galrath's quest active, and something has changed.

In this case, it was wild kiting by the followers of Verata. By "wild", I mean running all over like roaches exposed to the sun! The problem wasn't getting our party killed, it was that we couldn't catch the buggers to kill them! It took an hour to clean out that mob. Poor Koss ran himself ragged!

I've had little or no problem with either of these issues in Elona or Cantha. But in Tyria... well, things aren't going so well in my ranger's homeland.

I'd appreciate clarification from Gaile as to whether what I've described is correct behavior. I do know this: Something changed in the last few weeks. Was it intentional or not?

I think this is a great idea so long as a flag overrides it and makes that spot the center for the dangerzone. There are times I don't want my Monk inside my danger zone but want to keep him on the outskirts healing me. If I could set a flag and know that he would never let that flag leave his healing range, I could better plan for his safety.

I would also love to have a "Path Pen" for the mini-map. When selected you can draw a path for a hero or henchies and they will follow it.

The last thing I would like to see is a Henchie/Hero "attack" button. No arguments about range, no questions asked, just freakin' attack that target no matter where I am and pound away until it's dead dead dead. The whole attack range thing is a little weird.

Overall, the AI improvements they've made since Prophecies are amazing (I just started really playing again this week). Softies kite my scythe better than most people in Random Arena, requiring a cripple attack to make short work of them. Henchies and Heroes can wait in ambush while I pull the enemy back to a safety zone. I can only imagine how nice it will be to play a caster type now that you can really make sure the warrior Hero goes first.

Loving Nightfall....feels great to be free again after the 3rd person hallway crawler that was Factions. The AI is awesome and I hope they continue to hone it to the point where it's like playing against people controlling both our allies and the enemy

edit:

And this helps how? Don't post just to post, please. There are countless places and threads to bitch about the new AI. Leave this one for real constructive criticism and helpful ideas. You help nothing with that kind of comment and the OP specifically asked (very nicely, I might add) to save it for another thread

Seeing as it wont get fixed, it doesnt really matter what gets said here as A-net havent even bothered to comment on any of the other threads across various forums or made any changes in the last update, and the only way they might listen is when sales are down when the next chapters released because the majority of the playerbase has gone elsewhere.

That constructive enough for you?

Ok here is what I do not understand. Some people have NEVER experienced any of these issues, some have experiences maybe ONE of the issues... I have personally experienced them all!

I wish this were a "learn2play" thing but I really don't believe it is. I'm not playing any differently than before and I never had problems before, so why should it be different now? I understand the new AI features and what was intended and so forth and when not experiencing these oddities I do fine - but when I am experiencing things such as the OP has stated and then some, what I see is not as what was described as "features", if it is, well then.... ;_;
Obviously there is SOME issues or we wouldn't have so many going "this happens" and others going "never had it happen". Seems kinda unfair for some of us to be totally trashed on the field while others are having a grandly leisure time about it...
As ChaoticCoyote said it does really seem to differ in each continent. I have absolutely NO issues in Factions except the VERY VERY rare agro lock - so rare its not worth mentioning at all the grand scheme as to me it seems more like a glitch and the agro lock usually dies.
In Elona we usually don't have many problems, but there is the occassional runner or odd agro of the zone and so forth, but its not EXTREMELY common. In Tyria all monsters are either taunting little chickens or heroic monsters looking to make king of the mountain and chase you till DEATH!...

I'm sorry I have seen such variety and oddness that I cannot believe that ANYONE would think that everything is working as intended. However if Anet wants to look for the best examples of what we think is odd they should indeed check Tyria first as it will surely give them the best example for most of the above cases.


Blackhawk, take your opinions to another one of those threads then, we are TRYING for one that the devs don't have to wade through spam posts in order to find precise issues.

I've had experiences with 1, 2 and 4, and find all quite annoying.

The other night in the Depths of Madness I was getting aggro-lock quite badly and after trying to have Dunkoro rebirth the team for probably 20 mins I just resigned and returned to the outpost. I do understand why they might like that, but with no possible way to actually rez your team it's frustrating and makes you want to get rid of that skill anyway! Hopefully this is unintended but if not it would be nice to hear which way.

Other than these issues though I think the new AI is an improvement and GJ ANet.

The aggro-lock was with my Canthan born Assassin (obviously yes I know) with Dunkoro, Master of Whispers and Sanosuke and 4 henchies. (Gaile was asking for these details in another thread). Haven't had any issues with my sin in Tyria but I haven't really spent much time out there other than for a couple of caps and to go kill Glint.

The ally monk kiting is driving me nuts. Tahlkoro cosnsitently runs out of Ward of Harm, around the map, and into another mob to avoid damage, and when she stops moving it is usually only because she is getting pounded instead of doing something smart.

Seeing as the OP pretty much summed it up in his first post, I'd say they wouldn't exactly have to look very far now would they, which suggests they're not exactly bothered about it and are obviously more concerned with keeping the whingers who complained about having no Divine Aura happy.

Seeing as how you are not contributing to this thread at all, I don't see why you are bothering to post beyond the standard emo bs of "A.Net never reads so don't even ask them to change things".

Seriously, there are some good suggestions in this thread and the thing that makes a dev stop reading are posts like yours. Your constructive post was just a more elaborately phrased vesrion of your first.

Just take a deep breath, resist hitting the reply button, and let those of us who want this to be a light-hearted "we like the AI and we would like it even more if..." thread have our say. There's nothing to be gained by contributing uselessness except making yourself look like a troll.

I try to minimalize my stay in threads that I don't agree with. I'm asking you nicely to do the same You've said your peace and responded to us, now let us play happily and see if there's some more ideas out there that can hopefully reach a devs eyes

Another possible problem could be the super-aggro. It seems to work very much like your spotter description, but the group has no spotters. It seems to happen randomly (I've had it twice, once in the Pre-Nightfallen Garden, and somewhere else in Kourna :-P) where a mob just comes in from OFF the minimap (spotters seem to have a 2 or 3x larger radius of aggro, these come in from anywhere) and immediately set to beating the shit out of your party. It gets very frustrating, but people have only reported localized instances (from what I've seen) so it's not very publicized. Nice thread, BTW.

I still like this thread how it actually try to asnwer why something is happening. Analysing AI is quite easy but few pay attention how AI works so this thread is useful indeed. Still it is mostly when I get resurrected and hero or henchmen who survived teleport to me after resurrection. Enemy group still keep that target until they reach it.

Im now thinking it has something to do with targeting. I recently noticed(hadnt thought about it before) that if you target somethong/one, and then travel so its off radar, and target display disappears, then go back some, it will reappear without being re-targeted. I think maybe that because mobs dont stop chasing you, they get you "auto-targeted" when youre in radar range, and thats why they come at you from radar range. Not sure, but a possibility.

I don't think this makes sense.

Either learn to spike the monk out, or ignore him and finish off his buddies. Running into other mobs makes it fun, you have to learn not to just follow blindly.

One thing I'd like though? Make sure they don't run into areas that automatically kill party members but for some reason don't affect them in missions.

Through chance, a priest in the Consulate Docks mission ran through the fire on the bridge near the start. He's part of a group that you MUST kill to continue the mission, but was in an area that instantly kills party members. Being a priest he was very difficult to wand to death, as the party didn't have a ton of ways to deal with him. It's frustrating to have to dig around for spare wands to equip your heroes with to wand a guy you can't get to.

I've experienced everyone of these issues as well.

My worst case was with my necro. I was fighting a boss mob with heroes & henchs when a patrol joined the fray. While trying to retreat, the few surviving heroes/henches kited instead in a circular path and died, leaving me alone, chased by a monk corsair.

No matter how far I ran, the corsair wouldn't stop chasing me, so I decided to stop and attempt to kill it. With the first hit from my wand, the corsair turned around to run back. When I followed, it kept on running. Annoying, but I thought: fine, I'll stop for now to regenerate and deal with it later. But the second I stopped, it turned around and attacked me again.

For the next 5 minutes, whenever I tried to attack it, wanding or spell, the first hit (the corsair is at full health) would prompt it to run. If I follow, it will flee further. But, if I disengage, it would return to harass me. I couldn't kill it, being built as a minion master with no snaring skills, but it couldn't kill me either, as I could heal myself as well as it could. Not a very fun stalemate.

Deciding to ignore the monk corsair, I decided to run back and resurrect my team. As I approached the area where my heroes & henches fell, I noticed a few red dots speeding my way. It was either the remnants of the boss mob or the patrol, I don't know which. They ran straight for me so, as any lone adventurer of guild wars would, I ran, too. They didn't follow. Yet, they wouldn't allow me to approach my team mates either.

Any time I'm in the vicinity of the area, long before their dots appeared on my map, they would return post haste and give chase. I couldn't resurrect my team, even though the foes aren't camping even near the corpses. As if they possess some invisible surveillance ability on that area, I couldn't approach my team mates without incurring their quick return.

And all the while that lone monk corsair is still wanding away at me...

It must have been my unlucky day because usually I don't experience all the AI bugs together in one mob encounter.

Of course, this isn't always the case or the game would be a pure exercise in frustration, but these AI issues have occurred a few times for me and, I feel, if they are a feature, they are detrimental to the game.

I've experienced a lot of the problems listed...

Permanent Aggrolock II - I got chased by a Stone Summit Gnasher across half of the map in Grenth's Footprint. I stopped to kill him and he started to run away after Koss hit him once with his hammer. I also got chased by a Stone Summit Heretic and Stone Summit Ranger for about 4 radar lenghts in the same area, eventually I had to run down a winding path and they cast a snare on me while I was below them and managed to catch and kill me, which meant my party wiped. So far, this is very rare for me, thankfully.

Endless AoE Running - I did not use any AoE on the enemies, but they frequently start running away after taking 1-2 hits with a weapon, when their health is really high so they should not be running, and they will keep running for the most part and not stop. Occasionally they will stop to cast one spell or wand me, but as long as you chase them they will keep running. They should only run around in proximity of their monster friends. This happens with pretty much every enemy group I fight, although I did notice that the monsters don't run like crazy very often in Cantha and they run like crazy in every fight in Tyria and Elona. If a monster starts running and I switch to another target that is attacking my party, the monster stops running. If I kill off half the warriors in the monster group that is attacking, the casters no longer run for some reason. This also happens sometimes where one of my monks will run off of my radar screen when trying to kite away from an opponent, if I always throw down the Heroes and Henchmen flag at my location it doesn't happen as often.

Super-Aggro - A group of monsters at the edge of my radar screen, i.e. approximately 3 aggro bubbles away, will suddenly run over and attack me for no reason. Sometimes this will also cause another group or two of their friends to run over and attack me, although the additional groups were not even on my radar screen. So far, I have only had this happen in Elona.

I've had a very similar experience as Persephone has. It's very frustrating, and definitely not something I enjoy. While I enjoy most of the game mechanics, and the scenery is beautiful, the AI detracts greatly from my enjoyment of the game.

Could that have been the new enemy spotters? I've noticed they see me pretty far out of aggro range and send out a patrol to dispatch me and my party post haste.

I didn't say it earlier but I have also experience all of the OP's issues before. Some before Factions and some not until I picked the game back up (hunting IDSs would often end up with Mergoyles chasing me across the map just to cast their stupid spell and run away, for example).

Hopefully the devs eyes will see this thread as a little bit of free QA and take a look at the aggro code for at least a couple of these things

I moved 4-5 full radar screens away, then went afk (food break) for 45 minutes. When I returned, as soon as those little red dots apeared on my radar again, they re-agro'd (I was not in the "danger zone"). Other experiances with this issue, I often do not even have them on my radar at all.

Anyways, good to see someone competent post on this subject. Only addition I have seen is every once in a while (was a great deal worse just after the ai update), would be henchmen and heroes start casting a spell, then break casting to run away REPEATEDLY.

/signed to fixing

yep, have seen most of the posted problems.
permaggro-----even thru the whole zone, never able to get back and rez (even when its not a monk character left standing----made most of my heros /mo with a rez skill so they can pick us up later).

will comment on the heros:
I put most of them on defense since they have the idea that killing anything within the zone I am in is ok (most noteable the eles). However, Koss on defense wont fight until I do, even if I call a target and start running....he I must put on offense. The monks have ideas of their own which I have yet to comprehend. And I have noticed that when I call a target most of the henchies arent fighting it...nor will they (I noticed this when I was dead and the target I had called was just about dead as well, all the henchies were fighting someone else even though the target was called before I died---well we all died and it was just about the last thing still standing!) Also noted that picking the target for the hero doesnt work either....have tried to get them to aggro first, nope, have tried to change them from the target they are bashing on, nope....not sure if its just me and my hubby or there is somekind of bug. (my hubby was dead and locked Koss onto a target, he never would engage that enemy even after my hubby was rezzed.....)

AI kourman monks always run INTO my group and we slaughter him/them quickly.

Bugs/plants dont seem to do these things....the healer stays put while we kill it off, same with the skrees....its just the 'human' like enemys that seem to be headless chickens for me.

was thinking of changing my monks to smite and then changing my eles to monking skills just so we can get more heals then the monk can run all he wants! ( and even had that ducko run off my radar as well......had to run around awhile to figure out where he had gotten to, in the middle of a mission no less!---he could have just asked for a pee break )

good post hope it keeps going without the flames (nice to read too)