Why are animals tactical geniuses?

I understand when an intelligent species targets the mages (artillery) and the monk (healer) in order to cut of service to the line. What I do not udnerstand is why every sowbug, scorpion, floating fishface, and energized weed has the intellect of a military educated tactical unit with command, control, and communications nets superior to anything deployed in the field by Earths best technological forces.

Why is it that every creature in the game targets the healer? Not just the intelligent ones, but everyone. What kind of perfume is Alesia wearing? And why did Dunham, Claude, and Orion put on the same perfume. Or is it that warriors don't bathe and the bugs in Tyria, which live in the dirt, have a preferrence for cleaned meat?

It seems to me that three forms of tactical assault make sense over all. There is the combat with AI of sentients expected to have 90+ IQ/EQ ratings and act accordingly. These would perform in a regular military tactical or strategic manner. Then there are the other two: 1. The arachnid type that sets the ambush, and 2. The rest which attack closest without regard to tactical or strategic advantage.

So far I have seen bugs run past my warriors to gnaw on Alesia and Orion first. I'm convinced its their perfume. And in Orion's case, I'm simply perplexed. With Alesia, well - I've played long enough just to expect to resurrect her at the end of each encounter.

Does anyone else think there is an AI problem that could be tweaked here?

Fitz Rinley

The AI is pretty shallow. Most AIs are, I guess its hard to program. Improvments can be made.

I cant prove it, but I think that once the first thing is in aggro range the AI goes for it. If there is another target before the mob reaches his target he will figure if its a priorty or not. If it is, he will run to it instead. It targets a priorty target based on the weapon your caring. So if you have a healing staff or fire rod, your high priorty.

Call your targets to your hench warriors get attacked first. This helps keeping the mobs from running past the warriors. If your the warrior and your henches are following you...I think your s.o.l . Because once you aggro your henchs will be in range and dont kite very well.

I may be wrong, but thats what Ive picked up in playing and Ive followed these rules with good success.

Why should bugs and battery powered aloe plants be carrying a list of priority targets in their pocket? LOL. Are they on a deck of playing cards with cash prizes for which one of us they get first? It doesn't make sense ot have such an AI for them.

I doubt your experience is inaccurate overall. It is simply insane that every animal encounter has a West Point graduate running their assaults. Against other intelligent species I can understand. I don't against everything out there. Every sowbug is a Naploleon Bonaparte or Alexander the Accursed.

Fitz Rinley

The AI is dumb as a box of bricks already. And you're saying that half the enemies should be even stupider?

A plant or bug that can pick out of a group of completely alien species who is the 'spell castor for lunch' is not showing any lack of intelliigence. They are showing an unparalleled capacity for observation that is not even available to many of the people driving on our very streets! <wicked grin> They may indeed be cunning, but they should not be able to pick priority targets based on class information for which they should have NO intelligence (defined as essential elements of information). Someone with the ability to study and identify culturally relevant material (Centaurs, Dwarves, Char) should be able to identify spellcasters and operate accordingly in a tactical manner. Animals shouldn't.

Fitz Rinley

Who cares? So what if the AI in the game behave the same? It doesn't matter.

How is this even an issue in the first place, anyway? Take a step back and just think about it for a second.

Use shift+ctrl+space right outside of aggro range(the shaded circle on the radar) to order your henchmen to attack. This ensures that 95% of the time the aggro will be on your warriors. Before I was attacking first and that usually draws aggro to me, my monk.

hey guys let's throw a bunch of ridiculous analogies into my post but really they amount to absolutely no meaning

and when i say a bunch i mean like three every sentence

four if i can get away with it

Some of us grew up with real English rather than this American bastardized drivel created by Hemmingway. He should never have been recognized as having the capacity to write anything above children's workshop material for pre-kindergarten development. Otherwise, Americans might know something about how to read and write and their language textbooks might not have such idiotic terms as 'adverb phrase' instead of the correct 'adverbial phrase' used by those who should know better. Analogies, metaphors, hyperbolies, and references to literary and mythical devices that are a part of the universal unconscious are good language. That audiences have been taught they have no responsibility to be capable of comprehending what their own laguage is comprised of is a crime making them indolent and insolent.

Fitz Rinley

Still i do notice a difference. Although many species will target the healer not all will do it as feriociously as the avicara do.

All the time when i go to bergen hot springs with hench .. EVERY avicara from far and beyond will JUMP ON alesia like ....... welll they all jump on her and she dies in seconds.

Unless ... she survives those first few seconds.

So with my E/Mo i concentrate on healing her for a few seconds to give the warriors time to scrape off a few avicara so she can survive on her own.

Firstly, that's just rude.
Secondly, if you grew up with "real" English you'd spell it bastardised, and if you were the least bit erudite you'd know that hyperbole is of Greek origin and thence through Latin - it is not pluralised in English, and in Latin is hyberbolae. I'm the among the most vocal in promoting proper grammar, but your remarks are churlish and needlessly inflammatory. Better to lead by example than to deride others, you simply come across as an arrogant prat otherwise.

Edit: Oh, by the way, your title is also suspect, it should read "Why are animals tactical genii?" if you truly care about using traditional language.

I somewhat blame this on Alesia. She seems to arm flutter and run about looking under rocks and rose petals for anything of which she might have a fear. She and Thom, who is still trying to live down charges of cowardice, are my worst agro members at any given time.

Thom frequently runs off by himself to fight something without instruction. I often find myself sneaking up to the edge of agro range to resurrect him while Alesia runs back and forth between us, uncertain what to do.

Stefan and Orion are my most trusted and stalwart members.

One thing that would really assist is if I could organize them to formation. Or if parties could be arranged to formations. Single file patrol, bounding overwatch, arranged front with artilery to the rear. Allow a party commander (or seccond if he is down) to lead/command in tactical situations by clicking on the desired formation. This would require an addition to the icon options however. Something similar to what existed in ToEE but placing classes in specific areas - warriors and pets to tank, others at range.

Fitz Rinley

I would truly like to use traditional languages. I was raised in English literature in American schools. I am quite aware of the limitations this incurs. I have also studied Koine, Hebrew, Deutsch, Hangulmal, Gaelic, Geilge, Francais, Classical Latin, and Klingon. I promote communications above grammar and language, and the responsiblity of the audience which has been lost in the liberal ideology that they should have none. Of course this is inflamatory, it means people would actually have to make an effort. How conservative of me? How erudite and prating? How prudish and tyranical can one parapatetic pedagogue become?

Fitz Rinley

I'm not going to bother prettying up my text with multisyllabic synonyms to impress you; I think that the subject of the thread is fine, but attacks on any nationality are uncalled for - even your own. And what do you mean by insolent anyway? Being less versed linguistically has caused them to be overbearing??? It hardly makes sense.

Just ignore the trolls, talk about your subject. And as mentioned, plenty of reasons to target spell casters. Easier to bite, they don't strike with weapons, smell different and so on. After all, warriors would need to oil their armour and weapons, and any creature will learn to associate a painful blow with the one who swung the weapon, while magic is less obviously attributable to anyone. The weapon has both a proximal and temporal link to the pain it causes - immediate, present threat value, while magic is less obvious and would present a challenge to conditioning. Given the choice between the easy meal wiggling his fingers and the one with the sharp weapon I know who I'd pick, even as a bug. Assuming that they can link cause to effect for a spellcaster is ludicrous. Facing a warrior, proximity causes pain, and the weapon is the obvious cause - conditioned fear of swung implements is not a difficult thing to imagine. Since warriors even smell different that's an additional cue. Spellcasters are not as obviously linked to the damage they do, in fact it is as likely to rain fire around a warrior as around an elementalist - the firestorm will happen no matter who you end up attacking. Of course, this is a behaviourist perspective, and with you mentioning Jungian archetypes you might not like that model.

I say!...well thats absoulutely frantapulously groovemungus! what a right pair we all are.... us intelectuals superifiors to these low lifeis who cant speak proper Elglish. I say HOW DARE THEY, who do they think they are. If you cant bloomin type,./,/,/. spell or speak pwoper english then away with you 'Avaunt I say' if you aint got good grammer like what I have got!./..

Im better than you!

Don't be idiots. The OP raises good points and last time I checked, this IS a forum for public discussion.

The only thing I've found rude is people making fun of how they choose to write their posts.

As Fitz pointed out 'Analogies' are part of the english language and a way to communicate better our view points and opinions. They *do* have meaning, much more when you add them into a text in which they relate to something you have already said.

For the english language enthusiasts (Yes I know I might have grammar and/or syntax errors/mistakes/misshaps). The english language and *all* languages for that matter is always in constant evolution. Your grand-parents speak in a completely different way than you do and your children will do so as well.

In america
Colour has become color
Grey has become Gray
It's like picking a fight over the pronounciation of the word 'Tomato'.
Some regions just write differently or learn how to write inappropriately.
And who's to say that our way of writing is appropriate as well?
The British? The Americans? Canadians? Australiens?
I say write how you want but please make sure you understand the terms you are using.

If you use the word: 'leer' instead of 'gaze' or 'stare', it means something else entirely.

I'd like to add to what someone else has already touched on. It was mentioned that the Avicara are the most ruthless when it comes to prioritizing targets. While some enemies can be convinced to attack non-casters via several methods, the Avicara seem to be too smart for cheap tricks. They will stick to that one target of priority until it goes down, and then they'll repeat the process. On the other end of the spectrum there are enemies like Minotaurs. In my experience, the Minotaurs more often than not will attack the first target they see. However, if that target proves too difficult, doing such things as using evasive stances or running, they'll switch to another nearby target.

So when can this thread got locked? Epinephrine posted a nice explanation why lower beasties target casters, which seems to punch a major hole in Fitz's...whatever Fitz is trying to get at--because, honestly? He makes no suggestion in his original post. He asks a question, nothing more. Before the question, there's irrelevant rhetoric that has zero bearing on the question.

Seems to me this thread is a major waste of space, because the reasoning that the beasties may use when targeting casters:

Big, burly, heavily-armored man with a sword is standing next to a squishy-looking prettyboy waving a wand around.

The target choice is obvious to anyone (or any AI).

I say that if plants can pop up of the ground and shoot seeds at you at a great enough velocity to hurt and ultimately kill you, they should be smart enough to throw seeds at your monks.

If we wanted everything to be "in character", we should have squishable scorpions, Charr on four legs, plants that just sit there growing, and Avicara singing morning arias as you walk by.

Yes, I'm being a sarcastic, hyperbolizing ass. Maybe I'll think up a good excuse to make this game even easier than it already is later.

I suggest you contact ANet Support. It's an outrage that some henchman should smell better than my characters.

You're wrong about one thing Fitz: these aren't animals. Animals are the cute non-aggressive little critters that wander aimlessly until a ranger charms them with a bit of honey and suckers them into a life of violence and pain.

The creatures you have described are magical monsters, and thus probably possess more intelligence than you might attribute to them at first glance. For all we know all the various aloe seed monsters are part of a giant telepathic collective that has written prose and verse so beautiful and powerful that the Gods themselves wept, and granted them healing and smiting magic that they might defend themselves from savage monkey farmers.

I take umbrage at your flippant elucidation. For all you know, I could be a pretentious pseudo-intellectual proudly presenting my scholastic merits as an erudite scholar of The Classics. I deeply enjoy partaking in contemporary philosophical discourse; it truly stimulates my frontal cerebral cortex - I always leave discussion enlightened to the wonders of human development.

I am Lebeziatnikov, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin is my hero!

As you can see, I am far from a savage monkey farmer. I am merely arrogant, bent on displaying my many colorful, colorable credentials - so please refrain in the future from making such assumptive comments about my civility. Because I am highly learned, and a great scholar, of course. So again, please refrain from your uninformed comments.

By the way, did I mention that I am a highly erudute student of European classics? You should know that fact, because I am very intelligent, and I have studied the manuscripts of the great - in the original language of course! Yes, it was a great deal of work, but my hard work and persistence truly paid off!

So, please, refrain from calling me a savage monkey farmer. Thank you, my beloved underling.

The parody escalated a bit much. Sorry.

I probably should have stopped at the second reminder that I am a highly erudite scholar. And I am, did you know that? I've read Shakespeare, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dumas, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy.

You should know that.

You know, many animals are very intelligent. They just have a different kind of intelligence than humans, which makes comparison a bit hard, but they're not stupid. If you own cats you'll know what I mean.

Ok. That explanation makes some sense. Warriors should take more baths. Then the bugs would try to eat them too.

The question was to see if the AI was capable fo being tweaked to better represent something more realistic. If so then a proper consensus could be reached and presented. It was a topic for discussion. Locking the thread makes little sense under that concept, unless one doesn't like discussions or debates. Then of course, why be here.

Epinephrine, you are partially correct. I accept the universality of behavioral manifestations which are inevitable based upon biological determinants such as hunger, reproduction, or testosterone causing the inevitability of patriarchy, or even the primary thought pattern of a male being dispersed in the brain while a females is in the frontal lobe being sufficient to promote engendering females away from combative behavior in order to avoid damage to the crittical thinking portions of theeir brain. (See recent studies from Irvine, Ca.) Within that limited framework archtypes control the reality of human beingness. Written history is not as important as existential (folk) history which brings us to terms with psychological imbalances both at the individual and group level.

Fitz Rinley

PS. I do not always use the first definition or the modern one, nor am I above being fascetious, sarcastic, or difficult.

Works for me. As to the AI tweaks, yeah, the AI needs massive work. I have troble believing even the dumbest Charr on the planet would fire arrows at a brick wall while you nuke him through it.

I've PM'd you about the other.