Why change the AI so that the enemies run away?

I know this is an old topic and I also did a search and didn't find anything about the actual reason why A-net feals the need to change the AI to discourage farmers.

SO...

Why did A-net change the AI so that it runs away from SoJ, VwK, and SS? Just wondering because they had the AI nerf from profacies and these three skills were not affected by that nerf. Then when nightfall came out they ruined these skills FROM FARMING.

Why would you do this? A large amount of Guild War's fan base is farmers. So why make them upset and want to quit and go play another MMO that incourages farming?

p.s. --> don't say that they are making NPCs smarter because thats dumb. NPCs that kite right into a massive mob becuase they had one enemy beating on them isn't smarter. Also, a monster that is hitting me when I have VwK isn't suppose to hit me multiple times until he is to about 50 hp and then run away and sit without attacking or anything until he "naturally" regens to max health before starting to beat on me again.

Yo man, you should play GvG coz the NPCs there are dumber than those that are in PvE.

It was probably primarily to cut down on the chinese farmers that sell gold on ebay, or at least disrupt them for a while.

For casual PvE it just means you have to use searing flames instead of sandstorm.

it's because they unfun the game for farmers, despite Gaile saying they have nothing against legal farming.

Someone in a thread long ago said something that's stuck with me: Anet is the only dev that discourages you from doing what you like doing, whether that's farming, going to uw/fow/canthan elites when you want, etc......

I still don't see how people find it fun fighting enemies that set like magnets on the first guy to aggro them while an Ele nukes the living shit out of them - or they kill themselves hitting said tank from skills like SS, and they just stand there and die. Might as well load up doom 3 and play super turbo turkey puncher on the arcade machines.

its so much harder to bot now. since the enemies wont just stick around.
that was a huge problem before the update. ever been to elona reach before that?

Is the AI smart? No. Is it smarter than it was by running away from detrimental sources of damage as apposed to going gung-ho into it? Damn straight. If it annoys you, good, that means it's working - it's staying alive longer than it was - it's harder to kill.

Obviously the AI still has bugs and kinks to work out. It always has. It's not perfect. It needs to be smarter, better, not reverted back to how it was.

and who wants to play a game thats annoying?

Pssh, it doesn't annoy me. But that's because I have a brain that allows me to think of strategies to kill the enemy quick despite it's need to survive. If it annoys the mindless farmer, of which I was intending that remark, then that is perfectly fine with me.

I have no problems with AI changes. I mean if someone was going to meteor shower you, wouldn't you move ? LOL ! Enough said :P

Who cares if they run away? They're easy enough to kill unless you're trying to solo farm. And solo farming isnt exactly the way the game is intended to be played.

Tell that to Witte Was (Kind of a Solo King)

Anyways they don't run from vwk or ss if your just tanking 3 at a time
SS on smites is undoable these days though

As far as the scatter goes, its effects is really annoying either way you are playing. Its supposed to emulate PvP and as these kinds of threads pop up as they do, we can see alot of ppl dont care for it.

And really, the scatter effect is hardly noticeable in PVE where things die so quickly. I dont even notice things running anymore....

A lot of people like punching their keyboard continuously and attaining a high social rank (FoW armor, or high level in anothergame).

Most PvErs don't.

In PvP, everybody starts shouting at you that you keep standing in a meteor shower. In PvE, they blame the monks.

Usually.

Children...

Anyways, as Ernada said, solo farming isn't what the games intention is was or ever will be. period. WHY do you think they nerf those skills, adjust AI, etc.? Play the game with your mom, friends, guildies, gf, or whoever it is you would like to play with. Seriously I can't stand to solo farm anything other than for what I'm trying to get. I got my sskai's sword, boom I'm back to doing missions, and other fun stuff. I didn't keep doing it for profit and doing it and doing it, until AF code kicks in, then AI is buffed to run away. Then come on to every GW forum and whine about it. sheesh lol. Btw, this isn't meant to the OP, just every whiner I've seen on any forum period.

The Balla

Keeping in mind that change does not equal progress, I'd have to say the AI changes have been failures. They have not made PvE more difficult, more challenging, more interesting, or more fun. They have not stopped solo farming or gold-selling on eBay. They have encouraged people to use more PvP-style tactics (snaring, spiking, interrupting), they have not really brought anyone from PvE to PvP, nor have they actually made snaring/spiking/interrupting necessary (you can still simply out-damage the mobs in most areas without bothering with anything else).

What have the AI changes achieved? In combo with various skill "balances" they've made most of the AoE skills mostly useless for their basic purpose (AoE damage) but still mildly useful for another purpose (aggro control/tactical manipulation of mobs). *shrug* Nothing that cannot be or hasn't been addressed successfully by players, but still -- I cannot honestly say that any of the AI changes have improved the game at all. At most they've made certain mobs take longer to kill, and at worst, they've run roughshod over a core profession (Elementalist), an entire class of skills spanning many professions (AoE damage), and driven away many players who didn't want to bother adapting.

Overall, I'd say the AI changes have been a waste of programming time and reflect poor choices by Anet. Yes, Anet's intentions have always appeared to be to discourage solo farming and to make PvE more like PvP/attract more PvE players into PvP. They've utterly failed at both, and only managed to get people upset with unnecessary changes that have done absolutely nothing to improve gameplay. I love this game, but seriously - the AI changes have been just plain moronic ever since November '05.

Grouping will earn you Obsidian armor how? If I had to do Uw with 8 man groups to collect 105 globs....... Same can be said of Fow. Getting obsidian armor is something else

btw isn't meant to the op? qft

I was a big farmer back in the day (55 monk UW and all)

I dont agree with how Anet went about nerfing the botters, but I personally think they decided to change the AI aggro because it was the easy way out for them. If they didnt change the AI, then the only other way would be to micro-manage accounts to try and weed out the bots from the legit farmers. I know they still try to do this with the bot detection code, but it doesnt work very well. Farming is discouraged in this game, and its very sad for me because I really enjoyed that aspect of the game. I can still farm, but pulling groups of 3 at a time to hold aggro is a mind numbing experience. The only thing I like about the changed AI is that I can use something like Firestorm to break up aggro if a group is mobbing someone in my party.

I don't like people that whine about not being able to farm anymore, even I do it and I suck at it. I don't like it as well when they do stuff to encourage farming at the expense of people that really PLAY the game. Without the current AI changes a lot of skills would be useless again. I had to get used a bit to the AI and i think THEY OVER DONE IT ON THE CORSAIRS!!!! But playing now has a more smooth feeling to it. I wasnt planning to play the 'tanks tank and nukers nuke' routine forever anyway, as it gets old really fast. Going straight for the monk gets punished too now because the monk runs away and the melee mobs rape your backline, teaching people that monk stomp is stupid :P
Besides, a running healer isn't too bad. because he is shut down anyway. Running targets have a 100% crit. chance so if you bring sprint or something like that you only deal more damage.
The above does only apply on extraordinary situations though, most of the time if I meet a mob in PvE I just spike the first one to death, no monk NPC can outheal that.