PvE: Give us more "tricksy" AI

There has been a recent call for:
"more challenging content" (Meh..the high end stuff is pretty darn challenging already IMHO.)
Advanced tutorials; to teach gamers new to GW ways to implement pulling, power and aggro management, and teamwork principles.
More groovy and unique loot items; people always desire to have something about their characters that is rare or unique.

Why not kill all three skales with one stone?
Crank up the creature AI for advanced missions.

Already there is great potential to be "tricksy": creatures that retreat and bring reinforcements, creature "teams" that pair complementary class abilities, and terrain features where you must choose between "death from which direction?" (running through lava only to be beset by fire imps was deliciously wicked ANet)

Give us more of the same, but make it even HARDER - make the PvE game something that is truly bragging rights to accomplish. At the same time, give us some finer tuning on the NPCs to give us proper tools to tackle these challenges - and give us the party "kick" command where disruptive or nasty players can be replaced on the fly by NPCs of similar class.

You will at the same time:

---> remove the negative impacts of people "rushing" content because they lack the skill or the resolve to tackle it.
---> remove the scammers and idiots currently charging a premium to "rush" characters through content that have no business being there in the first place. (Forge run anyone?)
---> place an emphasis on the community to work together in a constructive fashion to build teamwork, complementary tactics, and whatnot.

Oh yes, and lastly - make these advanced challenge areas OPTIONAL (Like UW and FoW) because there will no doubt be a hue and wailing cry by the same group of babies that want everything on a silver platter NOW that they are being "unfairly punished" for their immaturity and playing cluelessness.

Ideas? Criticisms? Lighter fluid? YES!
Bring it on baby!

Talesin

none here

I agree with everything except the removal of rushers. I myself have never made a run or payed someone to do it. But if someone wants to skip part of the game because they have already played it, I see no problem with that. The path is obviously there to allow people to do this, otherwise it would've been removed.

Are you complaining about PVE Talesin ^^

I back ya 100%

I agree fully. Good suggestions.

in regards to more tricksy AI, I've noticed several types of mobs (ettins, some of closer-to-end-game stuff) will pull. That's very cool. But it's frustrating to see an enemy always go toe to toe once the fight has seriously begun. I'd like to see them circle, run around a bit, play possum (run then turn back right away), etc. I don't really have and good suggestions, but I just don't find it very exciting when it's just a dmg/heal vs. dmg/heal match (the m-rs--t are the absolute worst enemies in the entire game... 3 to 10 minutes of standing still and clicking buttons till a pair of bosses are dead)

Yes, this sounds great!
Do we have a trickster god?
Lyssa perhaps? Surely it's planned in future to have areas for each god in the TOA.

I hope so... I hope that the final one is Dwayna and that Dwayna's is a "heaven" of sorts... where the primary quest there is to cleanse it of the impurities from evil invasion

I'd like that. It would also be nice to replace people who leave in the middle of a mission with a henchmen as well.

Tricky monsters...bring it on.

Remember that boss monster at the end of sanctum cay? He resses his teammates...how cool is that?!!

I'd like to see occasional enemies retreat and lay traps or go alert the next nearby group of enemies to your presence.
Even now i scream "OMG!" at my monitor when i don't watch the compass and i see a big horde of mobs join in the fight which i may be struggling to hold up (Galrath anyone?).

I'm sure the brains at ArenaNet can think of the best ideas.

On the other side, let's keep areas that have high end mobs which are relatively easy to kill so players can easily get back their refund points (unless of course we get more character slots). It would be nice if we could have enough slots for example, a healer monk, a smiting monk etc rather than juggle the points.

Nice topic talesin!

this has been asked for enough that I beleive it will be introduced. It has never been argued without some sort of alternative which means that pretty much everybody agrees that there needs to be a way to remove or replace non-team players.

Making the game more dificult to finish will completely alienate all the casual players, which in terms of marketing is a bad thing to do on ArenaNets behalf. It is already hard enough to find groups and players or coordinate your guild members or find time for certain missions when you dont play a lot.

The passionate PvE players amongst us will always require more challenges to look forward to, but I do not think ramping the current game structure/missions is the way to do it. Arenanet need to take care of the not so passionate, the pvp players and also the casual gamers all in the one game, maybe by using your suggestion in the new area's they plan to add might create that challenge that will require the high levels of coop and skill and strategy.

No question. Changing the difficulty on existing content is a bad idea.

FYI, Tengu, Avicara, and the enemies in the Fissure of Woe seem to be a cut above just about everything in terms of AI.

I have seen caster enemies cancel casting a spell after being backfired. They also resist pulling, instead rushing the players (more to the point, rushing player casters) as a group.

And it's great. I want more.

Wrong, you just missed the initial conversation. Here it is for you and there is plenty of reason not to have a vote kick system in place.


Leechers and kicking them


#1 reason not to have a vote kick system, is players will fear guilds that play together. As a member of a guild that plays together, I do not want people to stray from grouping with us.

I proposed a system to help in the origional thread on it, but it would require coding that is not profitable.

And, based on my experience with other games, rightly so. The only times I have seen a votekick system really badly abused has been by guilds like the nazi cheater guild TMG (apparently they call themselves ita1ianpride now) in Americas Army: Online.
We'd most likely see 'evil' guilds occasionally griefing single players like that in Guildwars too if there was a votekick function, but I still think the advantages of having votekick outweigh the disadvantages.