Crazy new elite mission idea: The Zaishen Temple

/signed

Good way to introduce people to different forms of gameplay and strategy.

To perpetuate ranking in places outside of HA so everyone is forced to know each other and people who aren't very social are effectively cut out from part of the game?

Well I thought it was to add more playing time to the game but what do I know...(although such a title would do that AND the 1st paragraph)

so basicaly this is a pve version of ha?

In having an area like this you would just get people running builds that have a decent chance to win against anything due to the randomness of it, rspike anyone? Any balanced would be discarded by the majority of players due to the fact its harder to run. Then theres the retarded ai of npc's that manage to interupt skills that a normal player wouldnt be able to interupt and the long list of other retarded stuff ai can do that players cant do nearly as good, smite heros? Seriously though if I wanted to play this type of gameplay i would HA.

You honestly think this would prevent tank and spank? You need to play in some decent tank and spank groups and you would realise how easy it is to ball up npc ai even with an SB monk + obsi tank. Once all the mobs are balled (will take seconds with a decent tank) its just a case of aoe snare and bomb the crap out of them, and are you honestly going to put sig of disenchant in every single enemy build just to prevent this? You dont need pve skills/pve versions of skills to do this. Anet would need to do some heavy ai changing to even make the concept of this elite mission idea possible.

Also, what exactly do you mean by random guild wars boss? does this include retarded bosses like mallyx and urgoz? or only nice easy bosses like undead lich?

...meh i dont know all in all this just feels like an attempt to mash pvp together with pve and its already been proven that doesnt work, hence the skill splits.

You're trying to force PvP builds into PvE and this won't ever work because the AI can never be as good as a human being (except in the case of interrupting).

How about you give them PvE builds instead? So for level 5, the enemy would have an Imbagon, Minion Master, a Signet Mesmer (interrupts, enchantment removal, condition/hex removal), some Cryway Elementalists, a Psychic Distraction/Power Block Mesmer etc.

Most PvE builds are designed to be idiot-proof (or hero-friendly) so the AI should handle them well.

You and the guy above you both seem to think the AI is completely retarded when this is not the case. The AI in normal mode is quite crap, and in HM it's not completely perfect, but for the most part the AI can be quite intelligent (see: Heroes which seem to use HM AI but better). All they need to do is fix up a few things (weapon swapping, flag running) and make them not be so stupid in a couple of situations (like physicals not blowing up when they got hexes on em, not balling up) and you'd be good to go.

Even the builds you're suggesting wouldn't be run as good as a GOOD player (cept maybe the Minion Master, heroes have unreal Death Nova speed), but that isn't the point. Expecting any build to be ran as good as a good player by some AI is unrealistic, but you can get close in-game already, you just need them to have good builds and correct a few issues with the AI.

The hero AI will never be good enough because it's always predictable and those PvP builds rely on being unpredictable. No matter how much you change it, a programmed code will always be a programmed code, and it will still be countered by a gimmick strategy.

But why do you even want the AI to be just like human beings? Last time I checked, PvP was alive and kicking in GW, so why not go PvP instead? The experince that you're trying to give in this missions will never be as good as simply playing GvG or HA.

this looks like HA to me lol...

There was a discussion on something similar a little while ago, whether an AI can beat a team of players. I believe it's possible, but too costly. On the other hand your posts made me think that the AI could get a lot smarter and suddenly become extremely difficult to beat: they would always act in the most appropriate way (provided the devs correct the programming, as there are always bugs and this is what many players exploit, I think a bit of randomness in the right place could make that impossible), never cast anything when under a Mesmer Hex (unless it's deemed urgent/important), always renew their enchantments at the most perfect time, dodge, be aware of the whole field (as the AI has no notion of "locality", they're the Borg!). Sure it'd be amazing for GW1, but let's hope GW2 will surprise us. And for the purpose of this discussion, I think it's safe to leave this point outside of it.

The earliest AI program was Elisa, you'd be very surprise how such a simplistic program would look unpredicatable. It's actually quite easy to make a program unpredictable, but Anet devs haven't done it in GW1 (I bet bot developpers do that a lot, use any basic modern AI technique such as neural networks to convince yourself of how easy it is, although you have the resource problem of running it many times on the server). But let's not detail this thread, this is Sardelac, not Riverside...

Re-read the thread: dark is proposing something new, in-between PvE and PvP, more exactly the ideal place to help move from PvE to PvP. Of course people look at it from the "PvE side" or from the "PvP side", but never from the middle/3rd way.

1) These builds rely on being able to handle any thing thrown at them and not crumble instantly, instead needing calculated teamwork and tactics to beat, not being "unpredictable". Being unpredictable is a facet related to PvP in of itself, because if you're predictable the enemy will beat you. However, this is not PvP, but AI can still be unpredictable (and is actually done in a few cases when it comes to the current AI, although not very largely done, it would still be a challenge.)

2) Show me where I say I want the AI to be just like human beings? Do you think that just because you throw on a bar ran by humans because...y'know....it's a good bar that I suddenly want the AI to be just like humans? I don't want the AI to be just like humans because if they were, they would be awful and make lots of mistakes, get into drama, call the people playing noobs, spew vulgarity, and probably wind up taking over the world.

3) I do play PvP, in fact I am a dedicated PvPer who does PvE on the side (PvXer). I quit being a main PvEr when ArenaNet failed in it's PvE design by adding lots of bad and unnecessary crap to it that abandoned what they intended. I play it casually now, and this is everything their PvE was supposed to be. Just because something has a taste of PvP in it does not mean it isn't PvE anymore. If this was the case, you could argue that the Crystal Desert Missions and the Charr in Eye of the North are not PvE because they have PvP objectives and because they wield PvP bars (with 1 PvE skill).

If you removed all the said bad and unnecessary crap and gave monsters actual good bars that worked together you would get the same result I just gave you. This is because monsters with good bars that work together need to be able to respond to any variation of builds the players throw at them to actually provide a challenge, and it just so happens bars that oddly look similar to PvP Balanced builds (which have the same objective) are the best at doing such a thing.

That doesn't mean I want it to be HA (I have no clue where anyone is getting HA, both builds are GvG builds and would fail in HA for not abusing its poor mechanics) or GvG, because that would be dumb. It's not HA or GvG the instant you make it Humans vs AI, it's just a type of PvE that uses similar mechanics, has similar builds, and rewards PvE style of play.

Yeah they won't be smarter than players, but you can still provide a legit challenge even with the current Hero AI for most PvE players (and it'll be a challenge until they learn a lot of the advanced stuff). Most PvE players don't even weapon swap because there is never a real need to in 99.9999999999999999% of PvE, and if they do go on to PvP, they have no reason to start doing it because they never needed to in PvE. You don't need humans and you sure as hell don't need level 40, half duration hex/conditions, 75,000 hp monsters to provide a challenge. The Jade Brotherhood is a good example of that, they aren't as good as what these guys would be, but they are still one of the best designed group of monsters in the game and they provide a decent challenge assuming you don't use any of the dumb and broken stuff in PvE now, but back then they did. These guys would too.

PvE was always intended to lead players to PvP, and Anet failed on delivering that. This is the type of thing you need to successfully do that, on top of a complete tutorial that actually teaches you stuff like quarter-stepping & quarter knocking, proper kiting, weapon swapping, spiking & pressure, in-depth mechanics, a proper beginner's mode that is player bar friendly like Costume Brawl, better scrim options, rewards for PvP that links back to PvE like tonics & minipets that are only gotten through winning PvP, and other such stuff.

It really sucks that you don't seem to agree though.

That sounds quite interesting but I don't see any similarity between that and general HM PvE.


1) Most of those builds are outdated; they're not good for anything, anywhere. If you want to see the "5th level" just go to Observer Mode.

2) So far you want the AI to have the same build and strategy as real players. Most people don't leave Local Chat on.

3) You're a veteran PvP-er, and you want PvE to be more like PvP? This sounds familiar XD I like the idea that you want a "bridge between PvE and PvP" but I don't like how you want to implement it.


Personally, I think the Stone Summit from Vloxen Excavations HM and from Slaver's Exile are the most balanced and challenging group of foes in all of Guild Wars; even harder than Mallyx and his servants (and they don't have any Environmental Effects like in the Torment Lands).

Here you don't see it, you can play something that looks like it (of course, it'll never be like it, the purpose being that people who couldn't be there end up in a dungeon where they can experience fighting against high-end PvP buildsets).

I guess you're talking about darkNecrid, because me I'm the average casual PvE player, nothing more, but eager to go into PvP (but at a snail's pace :/ and I did try to get my guild into PvP, before everyone left) and this idea sounds definitely interesting, as it's tied to the PvP meta (and its history).

P.S.: the guy that creates an "AI to be just like human beings" is going to be very, very, very, very, very rich and famous (he'll win the Loebner prize and be hired by the NSA, serious).

P.P.S.: sorry for hanging in this thread so much, but I do think it's an excellent idea; oh and dark, don't worry, you (as Anet) can't please everyone and you'll always have people who don't like your idea, which is fine anyway.

/signed

make the entrance fee a celestial sigil though

/not signed
Why? Because I'm wondering if the guy who created this idea can actually think of builds to counter that.

There is no "countering" it, if you could straight out counter the entire dungeon you could farm/run it which defeats the entire point.

Run a balanced build and don't suck = profit.