What is Anet's objective for PVE ?

disclaimer : this is not a PvE vs PvP and should not derive into such, but all points of view from all players are welcome

The main objective of the game is PvP as we are all aware of, and i'm fine with it (thought i almost never do PvP). But i'm starting to wonder how does Anet plan to make PvE evolve in the long run.

I'm 95% PvE (the 5% left is PvP in team arenas with guildies) because i like the MMORPG-look that GW has. Looking around me i see a huge fanbase for the PvE aspect of the game and i know many people that prefer to do missions/explore rather than play PvP.

New content such as tombs or SF is refreshing, and surely cantha will improve the PvE aspect of the game adding some fun while exploring it. But what's the plan on PvE game modifications for the futur ? Is Anet going to focus more on this part of the game (not dropping the PvP aspect of course) by making it more dynamical ?

Best example of small tricks but good add-on value, look at the titans quest. Mineral spring is the same area but the quest/mobs is different and it adds some interest to go back there and face a different challenge. I wish there were a lot of new quests using this principle it's a great feature.

Maybe PvE isn't the main goal of the game, but if there's a big fanbase improving the PvE aspect would surely benefit the game.

At least that's what i'm thinking what about you ?

Of course PvE will be improved. How, I do not know. Just have to wait and see.

Since GW is still rather new and still working on it's balancing, it seems to me that all tweaks and balancing "get permission" from PvP first. That is not a knock at PvP at all. Keep reading.
Any and all skills that need improvement for PvE have to be checked and double checked in PvP so that the PvP side maintains it's balance. Problem with this is simple, AI does not equal a PvP player. So, it opens PvE situations that are exploitable or makes the skills completely useless.

I don't play PvP at all. 100% PvE. PvP opt in/out was the only reason I bought the game. I love it, so please no silly comments like "You're playing the wrong game". All people in my guild 100% PvE.

The way I see it, and in talking with guildies and others that claim to 100% PvE, too further improve PvE is to seperate the two, not bring them closer.

Take Factions for example: What does it mean when they say "Pull more people into PvP"? I don't want to be pulled into something PvP. In fact, after my first forced PvP session going from pre to post searing I sat there allowing the other team to kill me off while I went to go get a drink. I find PvP boring and just wanted through the area. If Factions has more quests and missions like that, I may find myself playing something else. That's not a rage quit threat, it's a simple fact that I don't enjoy PvP. I do hope to see some multiple group situations vs the enviroment though. I think it's awesome some people do enjoy PvP and I will often cheer on my country for gaining and keeping favor. There should be enough for all player types to play as they want, not a forcing of each on each other. PvP only players complain they have to unlock via PvE, I think that's unfair to them.

As too where Anet is going with PvE? We'll really have to wait and see. Forcing PvP or "pushing" it will cause me to leave as well as others I bet. PvP may sell to a small group of people (probably larger than I am giving credit too), but PvP does not keep long term players. Shadowbane? Asheron's Call 2? Each of these had strong PvP or all PvP aspects to it, both are dead. I think Lineage (2) is the only one left alive that focuses on PvP so stongly, but that is set to such a massive scale, it works. My feelings on the matter are PvE sold me and others, PvE will keep me and others. I am sure Anet knows where they are going though... well, at least I hope so. I enjoy this game right now and would like to continue doing so.

Lastly, PvP allows for some lack of creative building on a devs part. What?!? This will probably get me knocked over the head, but that's cool. Think about it. Arena type games (FPS) are game engines with a story line thrown on top of a PvP game. The devs set the stage with the game engine and the players bring the content. I would rather the devs give the content, build the engine for the content then the players (me) enjoy it.

My opinion anyway.

yes there is a pve update in factions the elite ones for factions that hold the town. sure it'll have some pvp in it but probly not to the extreme competiveness that turns you away from it.

well the main prob for pve is its to easy to beat. thats what the game lacks is a challenge in pve. if you look at other mmorpgs you can see there no basic end to it they always have new content to explore new quest etc. as for guild wars there been what 4 additions? fow uw topk and sf. all these are easily beat and once theyve came out builds have beencreated to beat them as fast as possible. example bein is barrage pet in topk with it you can beat the entire map in just over 30 min. and with uw theres the 55 monk tanking. they take like 0 damage and yeah. as for beating the game all u do is beat hells precipe do the titan quests and boom ur pretty much done. they need to give pve more things to do like add in new maps more often. or makn the old ones have fresh challenges like lets say adding new monsters to the different regions.

Yeah, i to am 95% PvE, most of my guildies are to. I would be concerned if factions was being brought out to try and lure more pve people into pvp, because if thats so, Anet is a dreaming about something that'll never come true.

But, if factions is aimed at pvp more than pve [And if Anet state that it is], then i would hope for some more areas and sections of tryia to be opened up for pve.

they need to have randome skill sets for monsters =D

New chapters will have to include more PvE content. Think about it .... how much can you add to PvP except new maps, new skills and maybe new armors. Other than that it's the same old "team A vs. team B" with minor variations. PvE is where new content can and will be added. New missions and quests, new unique drops, etc. The only thing I don't like is this attitude the PvE players will be forced to PvP in order to get more content.

We shall see.

Mobs desperately need unique skills to compete with players. The AI will never be strong enough to be challenging.

They don't have to unlock via PVE. They can just PVP to gain Faction, and unlock things using Faction points. Generally, unlocking 1 item costs 1000 faction.

Now, that just means that it's more *efficient* to unlock things via PVE, but really, if you're that PVP focused, you don't have to touch PVE at *all*.

Now that's just crazy talk! Sounds like some old school SP fan talk to me. :P (SP = Single Player)

You're right, though, many games these days are taking the PVP craze and farming it for big bucks because it means they don't have to put as much work into the campaigns, storyboarding, etc.

Hell, HL2 was probably voted "GOTY" when we all know what the real story is: it's a thin veil of a SP campaign for a game engine that was created to drive more counterstrike sales for a few years.

Cynical, I know, but probably not far from the truth...

If you focus on PVP in your game, it also means you get to skimp *ALOT* on time that would otherwise be spent on refining NPC AI routines, which leads us into our next post...

eudas

Oh, come on, that's not true.

They just need to put a little bit of programmer time onto the Henchman and Monster AI. They all, largely, use the same AI, and it's largely pretty stupid. They need to go through and create customizations on it, refinements of the AI.

If they spent even a little bit of time on it (and I'm talking more than just the AoE AI update), you could probably make the monsters pretty damned murderous. Thing is. nobody wants to hear the bottom 10% complaining that "it's too hard!" That kind of thing impacts sales, you see, as the uber casual gamers who can't be bothered to even reach nominal proficiency in the game avoid games with challenges and go play Barbie Horse Adventures. The other thing is, they got the AI to a "good enough" stage, and now nobody wants to spend more time on it.

Anet: SPEND SOME MORE TIME ON MONSTER & NPC AI ROUTINES.

eudas

From what I understand you'll have to play some form of PvP in order to gain access to elite PvE missions. Not sure if I like the idea or not due to not knowing what the whole deal is. I'm certainly not a PvP player and my guild is 3 people including myself and I think they're even less PvP than I am. heh....

I think the SF update gave one indication of where PvE is going. Mob spawn triggers based on quest updates, more interactive NPCs during the quest and a general increase in quest difficulty are all seen in the SF update.

A second indication of where PvE is going is the mob AI update. Ultimately skill balance is based on an 8v8 PvP situation (i.e. GvG). The closer the mob AI emulates player behaviour in GvG the more balanced a skill will appear in PvE. An imbalanced skill in PvE will be an imbalanced skill in PvP and hopefully will receive an appropriate change.

Can mob AI ever emulate player behaviour? Probably not, but currently there is plenty of room for improvement. And if you were in an optional PvE mission and could not communicate with the mobs (local chat was disabled), but the mobs you were fighting exhibited very strong AI in both skill selection and execution (and had player type names) are you fighting advanced mob AI or players dressed in PvE clothing?

See, that's kinda what I'm talking about. Heck, Anet has access to server logs for just about everything. Watch some of the top rated Healers in GVG wars, and program the mob monk AI's to emulate that behaviour. Watch some top rated Mesmers, and have Mesmer AI's act accordingly. Etc. Stick it in a feedback loop, and you can have the PVE mob AI's changing tactics based on new things learned in the PVP environment, so that if you change a skill to make it less attractive and players stop using it as much, the mobs will, too, and vice versa: make a skill more attractive, and players start using it more, so mobs do too.

Make the mob use certain subroutines based on what skills it has access to (i.e., which skills you've allocated as available for that particular mob type), and code some optimization based on available combos of subroutines (a really fancy way of saying to make the mob look at what it has available to use and use intelligent combinations of skills, much like a player would). Heck, do like the feedback loop mentioned above, and have it learn based on skill combos that players use as well.

The better you make the AI, the more playing the regular game becomes an exciting campaign against intelligent, coordinated opponents instead of dumb mobs whose job is to die. It also has the side effect of training the general populace better for PVP environment, which may itself have a side effect of increasing PVP involvement and creating a healthier ecology in that environment.

eudas

(In my own opinion) I think that eudas' last idea is pretty idiotic. PvE is not the same as PvP... and just because you attempt to make the monster AI act like the PvP Humans' Intelligence... that really won't work out as well as you're thinking. In a typical GvG match, its 8v8 total... people will die on both sides, and you'll end up with DP on both sides... and it'll be (hopefully) even the whole way through. Now... PvE, you're probably not gonna be fighting 8v8 at any time... it'll either be 6v8 or 12v8 or whatever, but its not gonna be the same balance there. Also, if the computer can perfectly emulate the Human Intelligence... then the human players are gonna die, which puts them at a SERIOUS disadvantage, since they still have to try and drop many enemies... with less health/energy to do so. How does this "balance" PvE as much as PvP? Just my two cents.

Well I know that Anet is working to improve the rpg of this game. GW ia not only a pvp but a rpg. They market their product of such. The Fan base for GW is mainly pG'ers fan base Anet has said that. So they really making fractions more pve players. However Anet sees both pve and pvp as important. Anet knows they did not make a strong enough rpg and they have said they will work on it.

In fact Gaile grey did say at want one point when they were making fractions she was a little worried. Anet is still a new company they are still learning. I am sure they realize both pvp and rpg players need to balanced for this game to work. Anet knows that their rpg is weak and they are working on it. PVE is very important to GW.

What I have to say to Anet is night and day is very important.

here is a link
http://www.gwonline.net/articles/art...7&action=part1

My only beef with PvP is the forced grouping. This is another point where I expect people to say." You're playing the wrong game." I don't like being thrown together with random people. I like structure and order and a team dynamic that can't be accomplished with random groups. That's why I solo most of the game or use henchmen most of the time. I'm all for more PvE content. I enjoy that aspect of the game more. I like finding new items and trying them out. I find that more rewarding than a little fame and a rank up on the ladder. It's a palpable reward as opposed to the reward of simple recognition. I could care less if I'm known or if my guild is known which is the only real reward for PvP, aside from the occasional tournament prize.

A healthier PvE dynamic would increase the fan base as well. Many who enjoy a more traditional MMORPG type experience and who are turned off by the PvP aspect of the game might be persuaded to come around with the addition of some more PvE content. I'd like to see the streaming updates used to add more quests and maps and other goodies for PvE players. Again I may be accused of "playing the wrong game" but to me a game like this should focus more on PvE and have PvP as a sideline only. Particularly with the way this PvP is set up with groups. Now that is not to say that a sideline cannot be as robust and well rounded as the main stay of a game. Tack on all the PvP content you want just remember this is a RPG and RPG's are about building a character and exploring not about racking up frags. I can appreciate the unique direction ANet decided to take when they made this game but I think it would benefit from going back to the roots of the genre.

I have said this before to alot of pvp players you cannot change pve to what pvp player wants. pve is alot different than pvp. Pvp players want different things than pve player. Anet knows this and they are going to ask pve players on they want in pve. They will not ask pvp player how to change pvp. They did that once and had a major back lash. Pve players want to enjoy the way they want to play.

I would like to say that the main fan base for GW is people who play pve. So meaning you upset the pve players, it will have a major impact on pvp.

*chuckle*

well, ok, maybe it's not the most brilliant idea in that context... i may have gotten a bit overenthusiastic.

But my point, i think, still stands: there's a lot that the AI could learn from watching the humans that play the game, and while it doesn't have to learn perfectly (because, in the extreme case, it would then *always* defeat the humans, and that wouldn't be fun for the humans), the data could still be used to improve the AI from where it stands now.

eudas

I'm 100% PvE and if Factions is all about PvP then you'll find me with my new assassin and ritualist spending 100% of my time in chapter 1 prophecies.

To keep us entertained to buy the next chapter.

On the note of setting monster AI to observe and learn from human players....talk about a coding nightmare. Regardless of the language used it would amount to a massive amount of If Then statements that would have vastly different variables to monitor. Success in PvP isn't all about damage done, especially not when you are talking monk and mesmer. It's a great idea in my opinion, to a point anyway considering that monsters always outnumber humans in PvE, but I don't see how it can be implemented. There is just too much work involved. The same data could be obtained just by having a game developer observe the top ranked guilds and their strategies and then apply that to the AI already in place rather than having the AI monitor all that itself.

now that statement I'll agree with. Unfortunately, if they continually make the enemies harder, then it will become even harder for anyone who wants to come up with a "unique" build... which is what you can very easily do now due to the "difficulty" the game presents to you. If they continually make the game harder, it will eventually fall into the "Diablo 2 Cookie-cutter builds only" mentality... which is DEFINITELY what we don't want to happen. I just wish they can end up making the computers more intelligent, without increasing the difficulty to insane proportions.

I hope they add more mini quests to GW:F! I remember when i first got the game and when i got to piken and yaks bend, there was loads of little quests to do. You had to group up with people and it was ace I met loads of good people! Then... then you get to LA and its all downhill, there is 5 (?) quests there! And its like that all the way from then on

Just my 2 cents

In eudas' defense I don't think he's talking about creating deep blue here and analyzing every possible move and knowing the perfect counter just spicing things up with a splash of intelegence given to the enemies so that every single time I get near an ettin it doesn't automatically run up to me and hit irresistable blow.

As to the pve vs pvp discussion: my personal view is that guild wars is defficient as an rpg. Some of the pve stuff is fun and every now and then will be challenging but you have to invent the challenges for yourself and when they make things that are actually challenging then the real challenge is not the challenge but rather finding people to take the challenge on properly. I like the pve stuff but to me (volitile opinion warning) guild wars is a really good pvp game with an rpg styling with a campaign tacked on the end. If I was looking for an rpg and an escape into a different body/world I certainly wouldn't like guild wars nearly like any of the 10000 other rpgs that have better story, bigger areas, more interaction and customize ability. But what gw does better is, what I think they set out to do, make a level playing feild and create a fun 'rpg' that is pvp, and more specifically team deathmatch, orriented.

Just my two cents. Oh and I am very excited to see the new pve stuff in cantha.

also the fact that Microsoft recently patented (successfully) that concept may cause problems to implementing it. at least I believe it was Microsoft. it was a month or two ago.

That's pretty much the jist of it.

microsoft patented AI learning?
Links plz...

eudas

For organized armies, the patroling groups should have multiple patrol routes, and each group should have a runner that would go and call nearby groups at the first sighting of players, thus, a player would need to eliminate the caller to prevent more aggro.

Also, have commander units, and by destroying them first, there would be a short period of chaos when the enemies will not know what to do, thus allowing one to escape or kill off more enemies. This would be useful if they started to include mobs of 10-20 monsters, instead of the 4-5 we have right now. Also, without a commander, enemies would be more prone to escape if you are able to kill a number of their comrades.

For organized armies, most enemies should continuously keep chase except for special guards, thus, patrols will not stop giving chase even if you run outside their "range". However, you'd then need ways to hide players, so maybe camoflauge, or places to hide? Think MGS^^

genitic AI. i saw a game a couple years back with it(it was some guys testing thing to show the feasiblity) it was a shooter game. basically each of their sim things had slight variations in stats and their AI. and at the end of each round vs. the player the game would take the most sucesseful of each type. make copies of it again with slight variations(random/semi ratinal). although i'm not sure if thats the type of learn microsoft used. but its would be perfect for something like this with a massive number of people using it.

and there are lots of variations to take from in GW skills brought, slight stat variations, health, power ect. eventually- probley the days after its released the AI will beable to easily take out builds that it sees all the time.

though this idea would prob be for a couple of areas.

Wow... If you don't like being randomly grouped, don't go to random arena.

And please don't tip toe around the whole 'PvE vs PvP' issue. Frankly, there are no anti-PvE PvP players; if there were, they left sometime last July. All the strife comes directly from PvE only players.

I am tired of seeing these 'we're jealous of PvP!' threads. PvP hasn't goten anything new for the majority in months. The skill balances work for PvE and PvP, and were made to be that way.

Its hard to understand how all of you can still have these 'anti-PvP' tensions now.

What? Yah, maybe last June.

-----------------------------------

I think PvE needs more quest and mission content, not just 'here, farm your brains out in this dungeon!' stuff. It might be ok after awhile, but there is only so much you can obtain in this game through gold.

Maybe randomly generated scenarios or something? That might be interesting and wouldn't get old very fast if done well.

Alot of games try to get around this by putting the farming inbetween segments in the game. I think we need to stay as far away from that kind of thing as possible.

Paulscott, that's not a bad little idea. That's basically just taking the game of Life (http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life) and adapting it for the GW skills. Interesting thought.

I have been 97% pve. I helped my guild do some GVG when a core member was away on vacation. My main reason for not playing more GVG: No developement. I cant gain experience. There are no quests. You have a battle, then move on to another battle. Sure, you are trying to string all those wins together to get to HOH. Then you get to stay in HOH and battle challengers. Ok, and if you win your reward is to battle someone else...You didnt unlock a skill. However it seems that this might change somewhat in factions. Instead of holding HOH, you will be able to hold towns and outposts (or at least your alliance will). I might have to keep one of my 2 new slots open for PVP

Even simple learning takes a lot of coding. Even if you only expanded the AI to learn new tactics based on the simplest of actions, for example. If player runs then perform this action. If action results in a hit then repeat. The actions we take for granted as simple thought processes are incredibly lengthy when translated to computer code. An example from one of my programming classes was where we had to write a program to make a robot perform the simple action of opening the door, seeing if it was raining and if it was picking up an umbrealla and opening it. Even using metacode instead of actual programming language that simple series of actions was well over 50 lines of code because each action must be acounted for in the program. Now imagine the hundreds upon hundreds of lines of code that would have to be implemented to create a learning AI of even the simplest type. Then take into account the massive amount of code required for this game as is and you begin to see just how monumental an undertaking something like that can be. With server and disk space limitations and just flat out processing limitations not to mention the cost of maintaining the extra server space and processors just to run that code with all the rest and you end up with a rising cost. Since they do not charge a monthly fee you can see where we run into problems right away. Even though we aren't talking about Deep Blue or the World Sim here we are still talking a lot of money in man hours and implementation.

The game of Life idea is intriguing but it would have to be expanded upon in a big way to make it function here. There are certain rules that the enemies must follow. Generally speaking their skills conform to a specific profession and so the application of taking more or less random stats and applying them and then keeping the ones that work the best wouldn't work so well in a game like this simply because of the rules already in place within the game code. You could certainly work within the class, juggling skills around and what not, but then you would end up with just as much of an imbalance because the game code would not be able to keep up with the player. We all have our own special little tactics for defeating certain professions that universally work regardless of skills implemented. It's not so much which skills they use as it is the limitations of the class itself that allows us to exploit their weaknesses for our benefit.

Also throw into that equation the fact that unlike the AI in the game mentioned where it takes the most successful traits and copies them the characters in this game are all unique, to an extent. So the game would have to figure out the best enemy skills to use against, not only each profession but also each unique build set and profession combination. That all just adds up to a lot of processing power and a lot of code and a lot of database space getting taken up just with the learning AI.

sagius, if skill balances worked for pvp and pve, then why are all the elementalists left standing around looking pissed?

simple. pvp elementalists are a tiny minority, and HUMANS run away from AoE spells.
all fine and good, but pve players like to have their mosters stand around getting fired ect by aoe spells.

i resent being forced into PvP style play by a company that siad i could leave pvp alone.
i resented it when i managed to get to thirsty river, i resent it when i have skill patches forced on me because PvP players are using the skills in a different way to the way PvE players use them in game.

sure, a lot of the 'lets kill PvE off and leave the game PvP, like it should be!' folks buggered off...
and true, there is still resentment on the pve side of the family...
think of it like siblings that one child always finds their presents bigger, better and brighter every time.
thier bedroom is fixed faster, because they scream more than the other kid.
they get seerved their food first, their in the bathroom all the time first and they get to sit in the front seat every day to school.

thats how some of us feel
no amount of PvE skill to PvP style will ever make some of us join in a PvP battle...*snowball arenas not included*

*pant*
ok, goten that off my chest (and its ample enough lol)

yes, i think the random scenario is a good idea.
but just making the AI smarter makes them always harder....perhaps, since they are not players...the henches should be able to go past lvl20..i mean, if the bloody monsters can, and the avatars of the gods can....why not the henches

I think factions will be more pvp based than chapter 1. From what I read even hardcore pve players cannot avoid team vs team games since some vital missions will be about 1 team beating the other...

That is why gaile grey was worryed there might be a back lash on the coming fractions game. however it has to be said there is more pve players than pvp. In fact due to iway there has even been a decrease in pvp players.

Well if they go PvP centric and actually force players to fight in PvP matches to get through mission areas I'll go to Gamestop and get my money back on my preorder right now. I'd like to have this confirmed though before I go screwing up my place in line for the game because I'm first in line so I'm guaranteed a copy. PvP should be an option not a requirement. I mean sure the first little one you have to do in pre searing is fine. It's there to give you a taste but I don't think it should be a requirement for advancement.

Anet already knows, anet said people will not be forced. i was one of the people that voice my thoughts on it. I also made alot pvp players unhappy that day too. They were trying to change the game and make it harder for pve players.

Ok well good then I don't have to get my money back. I'm glad too because despite my gripes about some aspects of the game I really enjoy Guild Wars and I think ANet is a fine company. They just put themselves in the unenviable position of trying to please everyone.