Make PvE Challenging

That is a cool idea. Sort of like the Uber Diablo in Diablo 2 2 sort of a random super monster that dropped magical goodness.

Better bars/playable bars with secondary classes would be great. Just like 5 bars per monster, or bits of bars that go together to form a full bar.

Then, if Anet wanted the monsters using all of their skills, they would all have to be useful in playable bars, so they'd have to make them better.

Also, enemies with res sigs would be ok for things like bosses or quest enemies, but not for your average monster, since you will end up fighting groups over and over again anyway. Playing whack-a-mole with each and every group of monsters would get a tad boring.

/signed

Better enemy AI is always a good thing.

Why don't we just raise the level cap while we are at it?

Oh my god, people complain about running monks, I couldnt imagine people who had to fight enemies that had good/great skills, all the time. I remember the last topic about pvp and how some people wanted to make it easier to hold agro on mosters and such.

Hell no, I don't want to see countless threads about people who can't get past a certain mission because of a Boss or monsters.

While I wouldn't mind better bars for the enemies I'm afraid Squidget is probably right: even if you give the AI decent bars, they'll screw it up in the execution 90% of the time. It would be scary to encounter a Euro-spike in PvE but I cannot imagine the AI being good enough to pull something like that off (which, according to some is still one of the easier GvG builds to run).


I'll second Thom Bangaltar's idea though.

Awesome... Simply awesome. Really, if done properly this could add an entire new level to the game. Man, would I have fun with that!

/signed.

will be a great way to implement a PvE challange. it would also reduce the class racism. i would actually be able to use my mesmer which no one seems to want until the Abbadons mouth where the 2 bosses next to each other crush idiots. a mesmer has the ability to completely shut down a boss..

Each area would need different builds for the area to make it more
of a challange and having to adjust your skill bar alot more to accomidate. i would agree for less mobs, that are maxed around lvl 22 with good balanced FULL skillbars, not 6. Sure it may take alot more programming but man would i love it. you could change a creature as a assassin a little bit by having them wait till the wariors angage and then shadow step next to the casters and start slashing away, causing things like blinding flash and enchantment shatters to be brought into play.

I would rather have a hard fight than what im doing currently which is with 3 heroes and an extra healer henchi (im at vabbi) with my nuker and i just have to do the same repepetive buttons to destroy mobs in short amounts of time. make them smart and use spells and skills that actually can affect a characters playing style. make mobs actually think about what to attack first instead of always going for the weakest armor, or the biggest dmg dealer. mabye have a mes creature try and shut down the human player high dmg dealers why their warriors are programmed to go after monks first. and Enememy eles nuking warriars that are on their monks making it a pain to stand and try to actually kil the monk because your getting knocked down by a meteor every few seconds. AI could stand in friendly AoE to try and turn human players away from them.

i also like the idea of having better chances of drops with more human players. not number of players but on number of HUMAN players. this would highly discourage farming and would make the economy and the comradarie much better. you still have to win the random drop to get it but you have a better chance of getting a drop.

i also like the idea of making you use less people for the elite areas instead of just super high level monsters. Last Days Dawn was an amazing quest because of this. yes many people did it from yaks bend, but it was a huge excitment factor when my group of 3 friends and I were able to finally beat it. just because of the challange in it, it was fun. the amount of time it took to adjust my build to get the right one to win eventually.

just my 2 cents.
/signed again.

Compare DoA with Factions Elite missons.IThink Factions Elite missons are more fun to play.You need to use your your head to slove puzzle.
No fighting aganist 8 boss equivalant monster group just like fighting 16+ monster at the same time .It just insane that any class with out portective spirit gonna survie any attack even with "mass wanding".

I remember someone posted a thread on GWO titled "How would you redesign DoA" shortly after it was released... and I posted a long rant, a lot like the OP, that making monsters deal triple digit damage isn't a good design solution, while giving them real skills bars would be.

So, yeah, I agree 100%.

I'm currently getting my mesmer through Nightfall to cap some skills and playing PvE as a mesmer seems pretty dull... because there's absolutely no need for mesmers. What good is diverting a skill for 60 seconds when fights last between 15 and 30? What's the point of shame if AI monks' bars are so crappy that you don't even notice if they heal or not?

Monsters with real skills instead of stone sheath and ravenous gaze would make this game more fun. Maybe I'd even endure more than 2 hours of PvE a day... casting frustration on stuff and then PDing every irrelevant skill said "stuff" uses is only fun for so long.

The solution, then, is to have a variety of different profession builds to be scattered around the mobs of the same type. Example, a third of each of the mesmers found in a area can carry Migrane, Crippling Anguish, or Ineptitude with a variety of other skills. While you could have your Searing Flames eles on one side of the map, the other side will be sure to pack Shatter Stone and Mind Freeze. The idea being that, when facing many diverse builds, you'll want a diverse build yourself. Skill, then, will be the deciding factor. If some group of people can decide on a skill set that's best suited for the "Metagame of the Zone", then they have shown skill in correct skill selection.

I absolutely agree that skill diversity is the means to a true challenge. Not jacking up the foe level and smearing Environment Effects. After getting my Ele to Domain of Anguish, I've concluded it's simply not as fun as it possibly could be.

This is a tactic used in PvP too, with the likes of Searing Flames and Essence Meteor Showers. If the initial damage burst can be absorbed and healed, and the team ressed, the advantage is yours. My advice though, is that a Hero Mesmer with Cry of Frustration will go a very long way to prevent "death by initial spike".

/signed, with this quoted for emphasis. Real skill bars, sure, but if you start giving monsters real skill bars, they should LOSE double-damage level 28 half-casting time half-condition time half-hex time. If you want them to be more challenging in a traditional sense, then you need to remove the mechanics that allow them to easily surpass players in DPS, spike damage, and survivability.

The way PvP is set up, you're dealing with opponents who are facing the same restrictions you are, but who are creative, coordinated, and very dangerous not because they're inherently better, but because they can adapt to changing situations.

PvE is set up that you face superior numbers, with higher damage output. The drawback is that they cannot fight in a creative fashion. Tehy always follow the same script, and that makes them beatable. If you give the PvE monsters more build flexibility and more options, then you need to remove the things that set them apart as inherently superior numerically: higher levels, higher attribute pools, immunity to environmental effects, and (for bosses) special inherent qualities like "half casting time, double damage on all skills."

DoA is a perfect example of what ANet does to "challenge" PvE players: just crank up the number of mobs and the damage they do. I don't like this solution, but giving them better bars on top of that is just miserable. Remove the monster-only skills, THEN give them better bars to work with. Remove their inherent qualities that make them superior to players, then make them more able to use the skills they have. Do NOT give them better skillbars and leave the absurd, immersion-breaking "monster only" skills in the game.

I don't know why enemies don't have a decent build anyway. Why give something 5,000,000,000 hit points when you could give it half of that and REAL skills that people use.

Gimmick builds shouldn't be counted, like Ruby Djinn's spamming SF. That's stupid. But yeah, enemies with smarter AI would be nice.

I do not agree.

What you are suggesting will not be good for the casual player.

For instance I have taken breaks from GW for months at a time and sometimes when I get back into it it takes a while for me not to die continuously because im facing some of the more difficult mobs.

Once you get used to them sure they are not very difficult but it can be very frustating at times and just makes me stop playing again.

I think most mobs should be as they are now with a few Elite mobs (Boss mobs) in each area that have the type of thing you are suggesting.

If we are /signing then, /signed

Very good and refreshing idea.

QFT!

I don't know how many times I've said the exact same thing.

hell, ANet could make it a competition and have the skill bars done by the community...

There are only so many different types of enemies and it would be easy to update all the enemies in all three chapters to use a second profession or just to update them with an 8 skill bar

Some groups in nightfall already have an use res Sigs

I Want To See Boonprot Mobs Dammit!

/signed

would be nice to implement smarter enemies, and i don't think they would be that hard just refreshing and spuprising during battle

It wont be very newbie friendly IMO.

/not signed

Ah, but you misunderstand...

the difference being that the enemies would scale up as your character did (not taking into account running, etc), so in Ascalon for instance, you'd only have bosses with a second profession, etc and then as they start to use elites then they could start using a second profession sets, ir whatever

hell, if they change things, they could add greens to high level Tyrian bosses (besides the SF ones of course)

Sorry but then what happens if you take a break from GW?
When you get back you are going to have to go backwards to go forwards again because you are not going to be used to the game anymore.

I think what some people seem to forget is that not all people play all the time.

Umm, how so?

1/ its an evolving game, it changes, you adapt or give up...

2/ this won't affect the casual gamer in anyway, only to make it more challenging where they are, and hell, it still won't be a challenge if they are in a guild and actually ask guildies whats changed and ask for help...

Ok, quick question, do guru posters not belong to guilds?

I think the missions in GW need improving to make PvE more challenging. Make it so you can't do the whole game with the same MM, 2 monk, 1 Nuker etc etc rubbish. a bigger varity of mission objectivs. A few idea:

THK could have been very fun, siege style, but they never added enough foe in the defending section of it, I'd love to see another mission like this, only more armies and defencive structures added. The kind of mission where spirit spammers and MM could proivde a battle of numbers. Could make a fun challenge mission.

They should make a mission like Visunh square, with foe that don't explode.

just make missions that can require many different tactics.

I agree with most people who say that monster AI should be improved, but strengh weaened, I'd rather fight smarter foe, than powerful but stupid.


Overrall /signed.

hahaha, you obviously don't remember the THK good ol' days when this mission alone sorted the wheat from the chaff of players! Idiots got stuck here and never made it further, this was the benchmark mission in the game

well, regardless of what it was before, this mission is way too easy now. They should make a challenge mission that involves defending a fort from an army of large numbers, among siege weapons. Or we could just have GW helms' deep >_>.

/not signed.

Thats not to say I completely disagree...
It might even work if exactly the same was done with henchies... giving them a better skill-set too...
But I wouldn't push it further than 6 skills except for bosses.

But it is important to remember that monsters across an area come in very large numbers sometimes... and occasionally quite a variety. If the span of what they could do was increased across the board.... their adaptability.... then it would make the game tougher not just on a linear scale but an exponential scale.
I already have to vary my builds depending on which area I'm going through... and while at the moment I have builds which are pretty good in a lot of areas...... a change like this would make it so I had a lot of builds that were only just passable in certain areas. It would necessitate the spending of a lot more gold on skills... gold which couldn't be so easily aquired any more either. The whole game would slow down and become more of a grind...


And just to throw another grain of sand on the pile.... situations like the other day where my Nan phoned while I was in Rhea's Crater... I'd get killed the instant I took my hands off the keys if I wasn't absolutely careful. The necessary change in strategy not just from mob to mob but from monster to monster within a mob would result in finger-ache among other things.


I wouldn't want PvE to be made too much like PvP. It would take the fun out of the game...



One thing I would go for however is variety in monsters of a particular type. I mean... I know for a fact how to deal with an Afflicted Ritualist now, and I know with the exception of bosses that they're pretty much all the same....
It would be more interesting to do at least one of the following if not both:
#1. Speciality variety: To give different monsters of the same type slightly different skill-sets and attribute distribution. Not too different if randomised though as it would damage group-synergy.
#2. Strength variety: Rather than have all monsters in an area of one type be exactly the same level.... why not put some random variability in the level and magntude-based capability of the enemies... like the possibility of running into a Newb Afflicted Ritualist, a Normal Afflicted Ritualist or an Advanced Afflicted Ritualist... with different levels and attribute points accordingly (as well as different XP reward)....
It would add an extra element of luck into the game... giving the possibility of getting past a group by pure fluke alone and being able to progress to a further part of the area.


Thats just my 2p.


[P.S. [wiki]Mungri Magicbox[/wiki] should be made level 40 and have 12 skills (incl 2 Elites) because he is just that awesome.]

I only read the OP.

Yes please. The one thing that annoys me most about pve is this monk skillbar:
# Spell Breaker
# Aegis
# Watchful Healing
# Dismiss Condition
# Divine Intervention
Plus the 2 abaddon skills.

Yes, you will recognize this as the Margonite cleric. This is a boss you find at the very end of the game.

It can remove conditions and give +3 health regeneration. And do some protection. On a lvl 28 monster. Sorry, but that's illogical. This guy gives no backup to his team at all. What about this:
Margonite cleric Lvl 22
# Martyr
# Mending touch
# Orison of healing
# Shield of absorption
# Healing touch

This is a better monk bar, but ofcourse, you can't throw 3 of this in a group. So, make multiple skillbars that can be put on the same monster. For example, also include these ones:

# Shield of regeneration
# Guardian
# Reversal of fortune
# Reversal of damage
# Judge's intervention
# Smite hex

And:

# Glimmer of light
# Words of comfort
# Orison of healing
# Healing ring
# Protective spirit

These skillbars are much more challenging to fight. Please, ANet, don't make monsters that are lvl 28. Just give them decent skillbars. You can even ask high ranked guilds to make decent bars. Just don't give them such crappy skillbars.

I like the idea, but the difficulty comes in programming the AI. I've done some AI programming before at another game company and the hardest part is coming up with an AI system that's dynamic.

Even if all the monsters are outfitted with 8 skills on the skill bar, over time, humans are able to adapt and change to exploit flaws in the skill bar.

The developer must then go in and modify the AI accordingly. Unfortunately for GW, the community will most likely figure out the exploit within a couple of weeks.

The second issue is the complexity of programming the AI to use the 8 skills correctly. In AI theory, if the developer covers 3 situations where the skill can be used, it will produce close enough to human useability. However, with 8 skill bars, each type of monster the number of events that must be programmed to produce "human-like" usage would be 8 choose 3 in statistical terms.

With the vast number of monsters in the game, it would be too much work to develop a comprehensive system.

To make an improved system, I think would require a re-write of the AI system. This is one reason why PvP-type games are a lot easier for game companies to develop because AI systems are not really involved.

A really neat idea for the AI system would be to feed off of PvP. The AI system could "observe" PvP games by parsing through the logs and capturing events/situations where players actually use their skills. Through statistics, the system could "understand" which targets to choose and when to use skills.

This is no easy task to program, but would allow for the PvE environment to change accordingly to the current Meta game. I could only imagine going through PvE facing Spike Groups, IWAY groups, etc... It would increase the difficulty immensely and the best thing would be the developers would not have to constantly maintain the AI system, but rather monitor it's decision making process.

I can't seem them implementing such as above, but with any static AI system, the system will fall into the trap of evolution and won't be able to adapt to human changes.

Why not make an area that is riddles or hard to figure out tasks but the answers/riddles/tasks change or spawn different - so people can't just guildwiki the answers then complain the game is too easy- everyone would have to solve the problems with their team.

hehe, your post made me laugh.

"complain about running monk" was the complaint and "fight enemies that had good/great skill" was what most people were asking for...

Running foes were always easy to take out, as that's all they did; run. Something that actually fought back and used skills... hell yea, that would be awesome.

Something I've been wanting in PvE for, well, forever is a move away from any and all player based skill usage for the mobs and removal of all PvP like game play. It will never happen, but imagine two situations:

Poisonous creatures that are "always" poisonous, hence they do not need to use Apply Poison to poison the player; or a Troll with Trolls Ungeunt up 100% of the time vs having to use a player skill of the same name... I mean, those are skills, for those creatures they should be innate abilities, something that comes natural to them.
Second, the bigger tougher mobs shouldn't have to try and pretend to be in a PvP match to be challenging. To the bigger and stronger mobs, knockbacks and knock downs should be added to their hits, again though, not as skills. Those towering Crag creatures should literally send the players sailing backwards and onto their backs when they get hit. However, instead they simple shamble in broken pathing in sad attempts to get to the backline while being destroyed...

Moving PvE away from PvP would give the PvE a huge amount of room to improve it's challenge factor - thusly escaping the limits of needed balance towards the PvP game... like I said though, doubt it would ever happen.

Best. Post. Ever.


I hope devs are reading (and taking this) into account.

So... Since when are lvl 20 monsters with good skills less newbie friendly than huge lvl 28 nuclear reactors that blow you up with 1 spell?

Why not add a boss named Anatol Kasparox and place him in a chess-playing instance. Also, make him give you a Chesstial Sigil after you've beaten him. The Sigil can then be used to upgrade ones guild hall in terms of adding a giant chess table with figures the size of men. \o/

What about Sudoku? GW could be the next glorified Brain Age.

I would love to play the game described by the O.

But it is unlikely.

I have some experience as a professional game designer. And what I learned is: The average player can't beat even a weak AI. Make the AI smarter, and the truly casual player will complain that the game is too hard, chasing away your custoemr base. I've seen it many times, where a game has had to add an "easier" difficulty mode after release.

Perhaps a difficulty mode is what GW PvE needs -- a way to specify how difficult the game is. I would suggest that the loot also be enhanced at higher levels of difficulty, relating reward to challenge. Beat the boss on "harder than heck" and he *always* drops his green, for example. The provide a "relaxed" mode for people who just want to bash monsters and progress in the story. Make the titles dependent on beating the game at the highest difficulty rating, perhaps.

I realize such a suggestion has its own complexites, but "one size fits all" doesn't.

Humm interesting thoughts guys might work but you missed the point of the post

If people didn't look up how to do everything and what builds to use - it might be challenging

within a week of adding these new skillbars Guildwiki would have a breakdown of what skills they use and how to beat it and we come full circle

O'course you know what I'd do:

I'd whip out my chess computer and crank it to hardest difficulty... and basically set the two sets of AI against each other (by playing the middle-man translating the moves of the AI in each game to my own in the other).

Then even though I suck at chess (fvck knows why I got that chess computer), I could still beat the pants off the GW one with minimal difficulty! =P


And you know what?
Soon everyone would be doing it.

Come to think of it: I don't think it would work out. Does it really matter whether the enemy beats you through tactics or raw power? When people get owned in the realm of Torment nowadays they're screaming bloody murder. Is it because of the level of the mobs or just because they get owned?

Frankly, I don't think many people would enjoy the game more if the AI was using better builds and kept owning them in the same way they are getting owned now. Just imagine a realm of Torment where you get slaughtered by, for instance, a couple of spike based builds. Will the frustration really be less just because that little number in the monster's bar says 20 instead of 28?

In the end a mob's lvl is nothing more then a numerical value determining it's difficulty. True, with good AI that number could be reduced but would it really change much about the technicalities of the actual battle? In the end, a number is just a number. If you own SuperAI lvl20 mob just as fast as you own CrapAI lvl28 mob then what is the difference? In fact, imagine mobs with 'super skill'. They'd be lvl 15 and still destroy 75% of all PvE groups. Would that really be what we want?

My point then, is that the actual 'lvl' of the mob matters little. What matters is the actual threat he poses. Right now lvl 28 mobs do pose a significant threat. Whether or not mobs have decent skillbars is irrelevant. What matters is if you can, or cannot kill them.

The beauty of PvP is the variety of tactics you see. You can be caught off guard, you can be misled, you can try out different things in one battle trying to determine weak points. Real skill in GW only starts to shine in battles that take longer then 2 minutes. The way to actually have 'skillfull' battles in PvE would also include lengthening the average battle length significantly.
Both of these things wouldn't necessarily be good for PvE. I can't imagine the AI being so complex to actually be able to analyze the PvE player's builds and exploit their weaknesses and similarly I cannot imagine PvE players actually wanting to invest 5 to 10-ish minutes into every battle.

.

It would make all the difference in the world to me... when you lose in HA to some lameway jagged bones build, it just leaves you with a sour taste. When you lose to a good balanced team because they were simply better than you, you can say "Oh well. They're better than us, fair game. Let's go again"

Getting wiped in PvE by enraged margonites that wand you for 150 damage is kinda like losing to lameway.