AI needs another update

The update that made mobs break aggro from the tank and go for the weaker AL people is fine but the AoE scatter is just too much. As a warrior you run in and take the first hits, target an enemy and start beating it, then it runs away to go fight a elly so you chase it, beat on it a bit more while it is attacking the elly..then the elly does a firestorm or whatever and the enemy starts to run around like a chicken. So a tank just chases it around getting in 1 hit every few seconds. Doesn't make things any harder just makes them take longer. I am all for difficult but long and boring is another thing. Yes I realize if they take away AoE scatter then it will also benefit farming...SO WHAT!! If people want to spend all day killing same mobs to farm gold, greens, etc who effing cares. It does not destroy economy or anything else. If they are so worried that things will cost too much that is easy fix, make ecto drop for every 3rd character you kill and boss drop a green every time he dies, then anyone can get anything they want without grind farming or buying/selling. If you want to play the I have xxxxxgold and xxxx ecto and every rare in the game and want to seel for more gold so I can say I have more money than you then play the stockmarket or sim city or something like that, not GW. Now after they stop the AI scatter from AoE then give monsters all full skill bars. After that is done all areas will be difficult but still fun and not take forever to kill a mob because they are all running around like idiots

Sounds like PvP. Now bring a speed buff, KD, or snare.

/unsigned

I don't like the scatter too. Mobs who scatter are even worse than non scattering mobs because they take damage while running without doing any damage to my group.

Scattering is annoying and makes pve fights NOT harder.


Therefore

/signed

[QUOTE]as you yourself said

it does not hurt the person playing the game for fun as they dont care if it takes a bit longer.

it does hurt the bots and a lot of hardcore farmers who make a very good income in hard cash for that 10/11/12 hour day of farming.

and dont even try to say that someone putting in the equivalent of 2 full real time jobs 7 days a week is doing it for the fun of collecting rare items.

after a nerf some farmers have said Anet should compensate them for loss of income or reverse the change.

Anet says the bots/hardcore hurt the game and i will take their word on it as every time they have made a change hurting the hardcore /bot the rest of us have benefited.

superior absorbs increase?
sigils increase?
dye traders?
rune traders?
guaranteed rune salvage?

all bitterly opposed by farmers
all good for most of us

/signed - this is extremely annoying and needs to be resolved. Warriors are tanks/damage dealers for a reason, they should aggro onto the warriors and stay there.

and just sit there in the firestorm/meteor shower that is killing the 2/3 mobs the tank gathered for the farmers harvest.

they will not do something like that to make the bots happy

I say just take the current AI thing off...Monsters didn't run from tanks then, why should they? I realize we do, its called kiting, but monsters aren't susposed to be as smart as human players. THEY ARE MONSTERS. If they want to take the first AI nerf off (where monsters started to run from AoE) thats fine with me, it will promote bots...but Anet has that handy dandy ban gun, dont they? This is a game economy, not a real life stock market. If it crashes (like the what, 2 times in the past?) all they did was roll back the servers...Correct me if I'm wrong...But it would be a good idea to remove the recent AI change. A monk monster running a tank into 3 other groups in FoW when you have to cut it close sucks.

/signed

The change I would do in AI is LEVELS.

A MArgonite is not as smart as a salving cacti, but it seems that creatures act more depending on the area than on the type they are.

There should be levels of inteligence:
- Block head: they are stupid, they gather around and rely in brute force (Plants, Golems)
- Bug: They act as a 'pack' they have no fear in they are in great numbers. Once there are less of them, they may scatter.
- Animal: They can feel fear, know when they are losing and try to avoid battle and scape, but they do not plan tactics. (Pets, Beasts, Vermin, Trolls)
- Humanoid: The better AI possible would be given to them, (NPCs, humanoid cratures, intelligent races...)

The creatures with better AI would have better drops, too.

Yeah, they were so scared of it messing up the economy. Yet look at how much Superior Absorption costs now. Back then it was 50k-90k. Now it's under 500 gold as most runes are. Mmm yes, big crash that just had to have a rollback.

What do you use when those skills are not yet available to that character? Some of the 'healers' in pre now run.

Since there's talk of fire storm in there, along with nonsensical ramble in a big block of text I can't really decypher, I'll conclude this has to deal with either starter island or the Kournan areas.

It's still surprising that the incredibly limited AI outsmarts people.

If you find a mob running away from you, you have two options. Snare it, or leave it alone. Quite easy.

This is the primary reason why you lose agro. Not because mobs ignore you, but because you're chasing one mob leaving rest of the group unprotected. Leave them, let them jog around as much as they wish. They'll stop running once they're dead.

Having ranged classes makes all this running a non-issue as well.

And lastly, there's party wide defenses. Wards, enchantments, shouts.

Warrior is not a tank. They can take a bit more damage than other classes, but their role at agro control is irrelevant in all places before Rot. The only place in GW where warrior does do all that tanking stuff is FoW and DoA.

Remember, you are one warrior. Then there's a team of 7 other players besides you.

It's not that the AI outsmarts players. It's that the AI is still as one-dimensional as ever, only in the other direction.

It's BORING having to chase down each and every monster in a pack, for each and every pack that is in your way. It's not harder, or even more difficult, it's just more time-consuming. One of the things I liked about GW originally was the fast-paced combat where a lot of things were happening at once. Now, each fight seems tedious and drawn-out.

If they really wanted to make "realistic" AI, they would make them run away and STAY away, trying to avoid the players entirely. Monsters would scatter at the very sight of a group of level 20's in a level 5 area. Realistic? maybe. Fun? Nope.

One of the things to remember was something I heard was on the Stormreach boards: at the end of the day, the developers should NOT care whether the AI is having fun or not, they should care whether the PLAYERS are enjoying the experience the game provides. I still enjoy GW, but anymore, the combat ranges from boringly lethargic to maddeningly chaotic. Random targetting, scatter, all casters permanently kiting, these slow down each combat and make it more of a chore than an exciting, fast-paced battle.

The AI was absolutely fine a year ago. Why they had to even play with it and change it is beyond me. But experience has shown that everytime they change it, something goes wrong or someone isnt happy about it.

1) Tweaking the AI will always cause issues somewhere.
2) Tweaking the AI will always annoy someone, because it will not longer suit their playing style.

Basically..... leave the AI alone, until you get a solid idea of what exactly you want it to do and how you want it to behave.

They dont actually improve the AI when they tweak it anyway. They simple give the creatures a few more intructions on how to respond to certain attacks.

The worse thing they did was making creatures run away. Its a good idea, but not to the degree that they use it. The creatures run too far away, and usually end up running right into another mob and then you have twice as much trouble on your hands.

Thats especially true in the ROT quests and missions, where you have limited space to have creatures running away from you, and you have very tightly packed mobs.

Or the other fun AI trick is when a creature targets you, and wont stop chasing you, and you end up running into another mob yourself while trying to concentrate on the creature behind you.

Anet just leave the AI alone, until it works.

As an alternative to bringing a snare, you could leave firestorm off the hero's skillbar and/or leave fire ele henches back at the outpost. I have Zhed / Sousuke equipped with Sandstorm or Searing Flames/Liquid Flame - none of which seem to cause much scatter. I stopped taking ele fire henches a long time ago.

If some change in AI tactics is causing things to take longer, you should change your tactics in response. That's what makes the game interesting. Keeping things unchanging and the AI dumb (Make the AI stand under my firestorm!!!11!) is what I find boring.

If you had started a thread about player tactics to deal with scatter, that could have been interesting and productive. Winging about it and suggesting Anet pass out greens and ecto's like festival hats is just silly.

I like this game because I have to adapt to my surroundings and be on the move to outwit the AI/n00bs. If they scatter, then snare. If they snare, then block. If they block, then scatter(I generally surround the group and attack at all sides with artillery).