My idea of how to improve PvE

I want PvE to be more replayable in general. I think this could be accomplished by making the game slightly different, and making different encounters seem less copy/pasted, and also letting them use bars that don't suck (yes, perhaps bars more like players).

Idea #1:
Remove super-special bonuses that are given to monsters. This means:
Normal Energy Regeneration.
No half Hex/Condition duration (except for exceptional bosses)
No fast recharging/casting (except for exceptional bosses)
No absolute-immunity-to-specific-things *looks at Mallyx*
No superpowers for Hard Mode monsters
Levels closer to 20 in high areas
No double damage

Idea #2:
Bosses, key opponents, and hard mode enemies should be set apart by:
Better AI
Organization across groups
Thought out skill bars
Unpredictability

Idea #3:
All enemeis (excepting the most basic beginning areas, AKA early Presear, early Monastery, early Istan) should be semi-random. This means:
A couple choices for each skill
Random placement, spawns, patrols (except bosses)
Little randomly distributed AI quirks, like cowardice, leeroy-ing, relentlessly picking on one target, follows behind an ally all the time, etc.

Now, that's all well and good, but maybe I should give some examples. Let's take a look at the Charr hoards faced in Ascalon, as they are:

Charr Blade Warrior
Frenzy
Wild Blow

Charr Chaot
Conjure Phantasm
Energy Burn
Shatter Enchantment
Shatter Hex

Charr Martyr
Infuse Health
Heal Area

Boss: Garfazz Bloodfang
Faintheartedness
Life Siphon
Mark of Pain

Nothing remarkably special. The Charr Chaot has potential, but it just throws the spells out wildly, shattering whatever can be shattered as soon as possible. More of an annoyance than a threat.

So, let's see if we can add some variety to these things.

Charr Blade Warrior
Frenzy/Flurry/Berserker Stance (various types of IAS)
Wild Blow/Power Attack/Bull's Strike (simple attack skills of varying effect)
Shield Stance/"I Will Survive!"/"Watch Yourself!" (varying types of defensive skills)

Charr Chaot
Conjure Phantasm (dependable enough)
Energy Burn/Power Spike/Diversion (various caster hate to throw around)
Shatter Enchantment/Drain Enchantment (maybe add some better enchant removal AI?)
Shatter Hex/Inspired Hex
Energy Tap/Channeling/Power Drain (they need some energy management now without their bottomless pool)

Charr Martyr
Infuse Health/Heal Other (following the theme of things for allies only)
Healing Seed/Restore Life/Remove Hex (various utility)
Heal Area/Healing Touch (self healing)

Boss: Garfazz Bloodfang (We'll make him more of a support-ish boss for now)
Blood Ritual
Well of Blood
Shadow Strike
Life Siphon
Strip Enchantment
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Resurrection Signet

(A full, reasonably usable bar that has secondary class skills and even a res signet. This is what a boss should be, rather than a normal monster with a slightly weird skillbar that happens to have silly bonuses.)

Ideally, going through the game, you'd encounter slightly different groups with slightly different skills each time. No more going through Zen Daijun and facing basically the exact same thing 20 times. No more "cheating" enemies, (except maybe things that ought to cheat, like demented gods, etc.).

This is just what I think would make PvE more fun...to me. Feel free to agree, disagree, suggest, comment, or type some comment related to PvE being too easy/hard like this.

/nostigned

There's already a place where you fight unpredictable level 20s with good bars who act like players. It's called PvP.

/signed to a point

I would like to see more multi-class enemies and give them real bars. Those few that are multi-class are fun to fight. Its a challenge. You dont have to change all of the enemies as this could be very time consuming but add a few random spawns (similar to what we deal with on perdition rock) of more powerful better thought enemies.

Make a group or two per zone that work very well together. Skills that layer and if the party isn't ready could wipe them. Yeah it would make it hard but then maybe we could reach a nice middle ground.

Hard mode, isnt. Yeah they have higher lvls and a few good skills but a good bit of it can be done with heros and one person. Hard Mode would be multi classed pissed off creatures that dont have rez sig but a real rez.

and to the post saying play PvP. Why? Part of the fun of PvE is the adventure theme. But the fighting is a bit weak. We just want a buff.

~the rat~

Sigh
Yet again its a pvp player with a solution to a pve question
ie go play pvp.

When will the pvp players get the hint this is a pve question GO AWAY

Look you bought the game for your reasons and to play it your way.
I did the same.

I bought it to pretend I am some great mythical hero out to save the world not to play fight club.
Others bought it to go into arenas and take on other players, well good for you.
I never answer pvp questions as its none of my business

1. No. They are so dumb that that's their only way to have a chance to be better than... someone. Specially for bosses.
2. AI can be NEVER be unpredictable.
3. Your example is not the better one. Those enemies are found in Ascalon, where you are level 4..12 and have few skills. So enemies must be the same. You don't have many choices, they are the same.
People with tomes and unlocked skills can get all of them, but newcomers will find that they have to fight enemies with random bars with the preSearing build... poor babies...

No the AI cant be unpredictable but we could give it more of a chance with better skills. And When I said random I meant spawning areas. Perdition Rock is like this, not all the bosses spawn in the same place. And as far as the ascalon example of the OP I think hes meaning hard mode, maybe not but I think so.

~the rat~

Hard mode is a different thing. In hard mode it would be nice to have random builds and such, but troublesome to balance. Currently they can add and remove skills, increase decrase attributes and other stats, weaknesses and resistanes and such.

Making things 'variable' would make a hell of a fix in skill balance updates, having to check all possible situations.

It would be nice, yes, but would take too much effort.

Hmmm.....

QQ much?

PvE will never be replayable in the aspect you want it to be.

PvE doesn't need improving imo. It is already replayable in the way that you get titles

/notsigned WTS pvp.

/Not signed.

I disagree and have found so many bad examples I cannot begin to list them all. So I'll say this.

AI: This isn't Oblivion, it's an online game. Monster AI is impressive considering some other games.

Levels and Abilities: Because of the AI, they need these buffs to be halfway challenging to kill. You try some programming and then tell me that the AI needs work.

Replacement Monsters: Just a bad idea in general. Not all the spawns are the exact same anyway. You'll find diversity, it's just not major, for good reasons.

I like ops ideas, frankly, at least attempt to improve pve without introducing retarded stuff.

Stuff like Jade bortherhood mobs prove that mobs which don't need L20 to become threat can exist, and do very well. And better bars than theirs can exist.

Ai is proven to be cabable using given right skills to good effect too (heroes...)

Ramdonmess was always huge replayability fact in random games /tons of roguelikes can testify it/

Only thing that would suffer is human ego (pwnd by ai and not being able to just claim its was their imba bonuses...)

...........lawl yep do pvp its way more fun

Idea 2 isn't bad, 3 is bad and 1 is terribad.

/notsigned for 1 especially. 2 and 3 sound like the same thing, and wouldn't accomplish much; good PvE players already have builds designed to function well against almost anything, with variations for areas with known special hazards.

I don't PvP at all. Ever. Well, I might have done Ascalon Arena once or twice. You want a fair fight, with opponents you can't predict who are balanced with you. That's called PvP. Personally, I like PvE the way it is.

AFAIK, there are no drops in PvP. How useless

Ok you got me there, it seems I am overly sensitive to apparent pvp remarks to pve questions.
Its horrible that reading forum posts has made me feel that way.

I dont want a complete rework personally. just a small buff to a few of the spawns. And as far as PvP comments,

No loot
People bitching if you are trying a new build
rage quiters (heros havent done that yet)

but you do get a challenge it can be fun. I wonder though why everytime someone wants to improve (in their eyes) PvE people say play pvp. PvP is fun for some but not all.

~the rat~

And Gremlin I love the guild name.