Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

Agreed, I would really love to see what our non-english speaking comrades think of this update. I won't assume any of their reactions, but I'm very curious to see how this update is received in Europe and Asia collectively. Not just the members who post here...

Stuff like Water Trident now might have a purpose in PvE. Yay for water magic!

Ok, Memphis I've been biting my tongue all day because of your posts. I really hope you aren't this stupid in real life for your sake and all those around you.

Gaile has admitted they messed up with the invinci-monk. Just goes to show what happens when clever people put their mind to things--the invinci-monk build was genius and I salute the person who invented it. However, it's not what GW is about, and not what ANet want from the game. The game is intended to be played by a team, be that a team of people, or one person with a group of henchies. There was an exploit, and now ANet are trying to fix it.

I for one, and I'm not alone, like to feel I deserve my rewards in a game. I like nothing better than to come through a tough fight having won. Therefore, anything that makes the AI of this game tougher and more like a semi-decent human player is a great thing for the game. It will give the game longevity and make it fun.

If you want a game that is so easy to play that you can do the equivalent of solo-ing end-game areas while eating, please go and play tic-tac-toe. Oh, and please stop posting your flame-bait here.

Where did I say that? I said I don't need to be told how I play my games and with eating while playing specifically mentioned twice now I felt within my rights to milk the whole the a little more and base my point on it. Apologies you missed it, however that's not my fault now is it. Some people like to play casually and yes, sometimes when I play with guildies we play VERY casually as we all have lives, run homes and sometimes can't sit glued to a beige coloured box for hours on end. Gaile was entitled to her insinuation that I sit at my pc munching pizzas and I was entitled to mine.
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I happen to be an avid FPS player having played everything from Spear of Destiny through to Far Cry and Quake 4. I'm simply making the point that this so called AI update was no such thing and that even after the update, the AI is as dumb as bus load of bricks.
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Rubbish. I'm sorry but all they changed was that monsters don't hold aggro so a solo player can kill them easily. I again am free to state my opinion that this was a farming nerf and not an AI update. Made even more obvious by the faults being found now and being told that 'further updates' are on the way. Until then we're forced to play a badly bugged game.

Skills don't come into it. It's movement that has been changed. And yes they do cast through backfire still. Henchmen still stand in lava. In fact everything that needed to be updated regarding the opponant Ai hasn't been touched in the slightest. Why is that I ask? Hmmmm let me think....

So you never buy anything in game? Farmers are causing the prices of everything to increase.

Uh...

That has nothing to do with skills, then...

Huh... I... well...

Gaile you have made some good points however lets not forget you've made a few ppl mad such as:
1. Nukers
2. Smiters
3. Farmers
4. Ppl stuck on certain missions

I agree farming gratted a lot of money to the farmers but you need that kind of money making sceem to get these kind of items



I bought this game because it wasn't based on time spent playing and I STILL HAVE TO SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS TO GET OVERPRICED ITEMS AND GET CERTIAN SKILLS .

I am currently considing leaving Guild Wars and buying Age of Empires 3 instead of getting Chapter 2.

I take that as, I dont want to have to concentrate at all. Because Guild Wars is really not that much harder as a result of this update.


Avid FPS player? Sorry, Half Life AI is far worse than GW AI, even if you take out consideration that half life AI can only do 1 or 2 things offensively. All AI are dumb period. It is almost impossible to code an AI to adapt to every situation possible. The reason AI will never be smart enough is because of predictability as to what the AI will do in response to something you do.

Why are you playing 2 sides of an arguement, you say somehow the game is now requireing too much concentration that you're eyes bleed and yet you go on to say that the ai is still too retarded?

Wow, 61 pages in before I got to say something... So here goes-

1) PERHAPS we should have stayed in beta a LITTLE longer instead of rushing the game out like SWG?

2) While I'm all for the "adaptive gameplay" of GW, I distinctly remember posting up my guilds list of requests back in MARCH that many other guild leaders requested at the same time was for some NPC's with some brains. Were all still waiting... and waiting. Quit nerfing the decent builds for a few days and maybe make an NPC worth taking and then maybe that would fix the soloing "problem."

3.) Truthfully, Im all for an intelligent enemy that runs away from firestorm.. like the Dwarves, Tengu, Charr etc. In reality only a DAT is dumb enough to sit around in an arty barrage and pretend nothing is happening, so I guess I can handle it in the game. But again, in return I would really like my NPC monk to heal me once in awhile in combat, especially when its just me and her!

BTW- I fully agree with Feminist Terrorist- I really dont care about PvP in the least since Im on dial up and it makes it quite difficult to do anything against the cable and DSL clientele. I do enjoy my PvE immensely- except every wednesday when I dread finding out what aspect of my character got cut to accomodate the PvP crowd yet again.

I rarely buy things from other people. I use collector items, things I've found/salvaged and drops. At times I'll buy things from traders; things I need and don't have time to "shop" for. In any case, that wasn't my main point, which was that I'm not having fun anymore, and having fun was the reason I play GW.

I guess I'm one cause I'm asking, but what is a "pug"?

I've tried to figure it out from context, from posts all over the place, and I just can't do it.


While I do agree with some of what you say Memphis, you really need to work on your delivery if you want anyone to listen for any length of time. We all have a right to rant and rave, but if you complain and counterpoint things people say with decency and respect, it goes a LONG way.

I know I'm putting my foot in my mouth even for my posts here, even though I'm trying to keep it mellow.

you can attribute those prices on farmers. at least the absorption you can. sup vigor is really just vanity since its only a 9 hp difference and 70k more. not worth it. black dye has always been expensive and peaked at 45k. i think 8.5k is a big improvement since then. now if we can take the farmers out of the picture and deflate the econemy image what those prices would be. just be thankful they capped prices at 100k. absorption woud be way past 100k by now if it wasn't capped.

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I bought this game because it wasn't based on time spent playing and I STILL HAVE TO SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS TO GET OVERPRICED ITEMS AND GET CERTIAN SKILLS [/QUOTE]
That would be due to farming, with the amount of gold being poured into the economy what do u exsepct the traders prices to be at? They go according to what people are paying for them. Think about it this way, if your in a place where the minimun wage is 5.15 an hour a 2 bedroom home will cost somewhere around 400-500 a month, while in a place with a 7.50 an hour min its more like 750-850... understand? if not ill try to be a little more detailed

i've heard different acronyms for it. i use public united group.

Pick Up Group. All these acronyms can be hard to learn and remember.

And that despite of alpha-testing and month-long closed beta-testing paired with one weekend a month open betas for pre-orders/people with access-keys. Even during the very last beta before release updates came in every 5 minutes, which was still the case when the game went gold. Several skills had been removed, rendered not as effective as they were before or even made an elite (hundred blades).
All of that gave me (and others) the impression that they should have maybe prolongued beta-testing instead of rushing into release, since obviously a lot of things were still in need of tweaking or changing.
But yes, I admit that the already existing player-base had been aching for the release, since one weekend a month simply didn't cut it

So the game was released, and minor fixes here, major fixes there, some things never got fixed up to now...and now suddenly, seven months after release (plus alpha- and beta-testing before), the devs at ANet realize that the AI wasn't the way they wanted it to be? Well, that took some time I guess.

How did they realize that it needed to be different? If I read Gaile's statements right they got feedback about the monsters being too stupid, so that must have opened their eyes.

Now...looking at this thread, looking at the petititions and reading what people type in the gamechat, I would roughly approximate that 75% of the players think that this update was unnecessary and that they are not happy with it, for various reasons. Which leads me to the conclusion that only around 25% of the players had a problem with how the game was before.
Now *this* leads to the conclusion that Anet listens to a few people who complain about something that the majority is happy with, and changes it, so that now the majority isn't happy but the few, formerly complaining people, are very happy about. Doesn't really make sense to me.

I mean, ok, I see it like this:
If people are unhappy then they will give feedback about that. And that is what ANet got from whoever wasn't happy with how the game was.
And that was probably all the feedback ANet ever got, because...if you're happy with the game, do you send ANet mails, telling them every day about how happy you are with how the game is? I don't.

But right now Anet gets a lot of feedback from unhappy players, and maybe they should consider the possibility that in fact the people who were formerly unhappy were just a few, compared to how many aren't happy now. And if ANet really listens to their players (not only those who say amen to each and everything) it should matter.

Where did I specifically mention invincimonks and that I want an easy game?
Noone wants an easy game. What's the point?
If I wanted something easy and could play with my eyes closed I'd load Doom, type IDDQD and never need to buy another game in my life.

I agree that games shoudl be rewarding and there is indeed no sense in playing one that is otherwise. Although I will stress that different people have entirely different views on what rewarding actually is. Some people may indeed cheat their way through a game and find it 'rewarding'.

Bottom line is the entire game mechanics cannot cope with this update with regard to the casual player as everyone know's PUGS can be as uncoordinated as a bunch of blind crabs dancing the tango on crutches.

Having played SWG as well (regretfully), GW isn't nearly as bad. Not even close.

I've seen many people complain about henchmen, even before this update. I did just about the entire game with henchmen on my Mesmer. The missions I joined a PUG for were: Iron Mines of Moladune, Thunderhead Keep, and Ring of Fire. Even Abbadon's Mouth was done with me & 7 henchies. I'm not a hardcore player either, I play maybe 2-3 hours a day total. And that's split up over all day, not just a 5 hour evening.

I freely admit I've been frustrated with the AI at times.

"Why, Alesia, do you run AWAY from me when I run TO you so you can HEAL me?!"

"Claude! You're at half life! Now is NOT the time to Blood Ritual Orion!"

Frustrating and challenging, but not impossible. It's not the easiest thing to control the henchies either. I definitely recommend using 'ctrl+action' to call targets rather than just 'action'. They're much more responsive, and focusing all your henchies on one target can take things out quick.

Don't despair, henchies are good enough, but you have to be 100% the leader. They're not gonna see 4 red dots and decide to take out the Stone Summit Heretic first on their own.


This thread was in response to =WM= Azrael. God this thread is active at 2:30 am.

Lugosi, no flame intended, but I think you need to go back to page 1 of this thread and start reading. You seem to have missed every single point here.

I was referring to the fact that the AI hasn't been changed regarding the use of their own skills. Orion still casts Firestorm and mobs still use the skills they always did, as they always did.

The movement code has however been changed to make it flee from a spell that registers as AoE damage.

this game has a directional goal. when the invisimonk came it destroyed everything they had planned. now they had to focus on fixing a huge problem that many people liked. so do you let it slide and let the problem eventually kill the game before its time or do you fix it and piss some or majority of you players off?

i'm happy they took a stand. before now they have been bending to the player's will and now they are trying to get back on track with orginal goal. only the devs know what that is and for us to find out later. one thing i really love is they not only say no they enforce it unlike other games have (D2).

play the game and enjoy it. if you don't enjoy it give it a break for a while and come back. if you don't want to come back you can always sell your account for time spent and give someone else a shot at the game.

I edited my post, but after a certain topic gets rolling, editing is completely pointless.

Anyways, thatnks to those that answered.
One of my pet peeves is overuse of acronyms, no one here has done it yet that i've seen, but in game, wow.

Entire sentences all in acronyms, even when they're plenty of room to type it.

you henchie it to somewhere a little advanced and it's all

LFG TkE ADio ADO END WTF ADc

Line after line of things like that, makes me dizzy. I do get a kick out of it though once in a while, someone puts in

LFG TkE ADio ADO Ranger END WTF ADc

Or something like that....Like a news caster with zero accent, suddenly sounds fluent in mexican or russian for one specific word or name.....


Edit to avoid doubling
Don't forget Orion has a habit of casting an AOE right at the very end of the last monsters life, before the update even, effectually wasting the spell.

Point being, Orion wasn't the brightest bulb in the box before the update anyways.

I don't think so, but you can of course tell me if I wrote something wrong In my posts. I read from the first post on through the whole thread up to this recent post now, which is what my last posting, which you don't seem to see a point in, is based on.

1. Take it as you like, you're wrong.

2. Why yes I am. Half Life's AI did it's job. This does not. Unless you count that job as being a bitch to kill with an Area of Effect spell. Which in fact it does just fine. Which is what Anet wanted to stop monks. Shame it's buggered everyone else really. So from ANet's point of view, the AI is great. For the players who don't want enemies frantically running to and fro with no sense of purpose it's crap. Someone mentioned the game being easy and we'd hate if monsters found cover before firing back. That would be GREAT. Unfortunatley we don't have that. We have a cheap fix which some are happy with and some are not.

3. Was a mistype on my part

Uh, I don't see how this buggers Warriors. Or Necros. Or Mesmers. Or Earth Ele's. Or Air Ele's. Or Water Ele's. Or Rangers (do traps incur this 'flee, flee' behavior? If so, then ignore the inclusion of rangers in this.) Or Healing Monks. Or Protection Monks.

So uh... it's buggered Smiters and Fire Ele's.

Smiters and Fire Ele's = everyone else? I think not, seeing as I don't have either.

How does the spellcasting relate to the latest update. I am sure in the future we will see better order for casting

(including durham using distortion all the time nuking his energy, and wild blow on the axe hench so he can never use his exicutioners).

From what I am seeing is the devs are taking steps to make the AI smarter, they chose to add the ability for the AI to detect aoe spells and move out of range like normal players would. I would expect in the future they will make further improvements including cast order to make the AI a formidable opponent worthy of my time. They are doing it one step at a time and for some reason they chose this as their first step.

Ok, I'll start with the economy. It's messed up. Big time. And the game has only been out for 6 months. Why? Because of the Invinci-monk and solo-ing. The fact that it's messed up isn't something players need to complain about. ANet watch and can see it.

Because solo-ing is so rampant, bots have hit hard. Another thing ANet is watching.

Lastly, AI. Everyone has complained about henchie AI from day 1. Many people have said the PvE game is too easy. Since I'm sure henchies and monsters are using the same AI engine/rules, an increase in the AI for one crosses over to the other. The result is that henchies finally get out of AoE, and so do the monsters. Gaile hints at other AI fixes coming, and I'm pleased to hear it. Maybe next Alesia will remember she's a healing monk.

People hate change. Always have, always will, even if ultimately they will benefit from it.

If you're in an inexperienced team, mid-battle and someone casts firestorm to scatter a slew of Axe weilding charr everywhere, is it just the elem who dies?

It doesn't. That was what I was explaining to the smart arse who quoted me with 'um....arrrr...murrrrrr'

Ohh, so now the update buggers inexperienced players.

Isn't that why you're allowed to do missions an infinite amount of times, and can always retry a mission/quest if you fail? Because it's a learning experience.

That Elem who cast Firestorm will remember and think 'bah, last time they all went running, and I died.'

That's called progress.

trial and error can only make you better.

well, i read gaile's statement..it sounds reasonable to me..but at least it might good to put in some delay before the monster runs off when they are being nuked??? the longer the delay the better. At least this will make the players and devs happier. What is point of a good update if it makes players quitting the game?? Between realism and fun of the game, i GREATLY prefer a game to be fun. It would be bad if GW starts to lose players due to a single combat update.

For me, PvE is the part where i take a side trip after PvP session. This combat update had pissed everyone off and if no one is going to buy chapter 2, i think this game is going for a slow death.

I can see that some players can take up to the challenge but as you can see, there are more players who are pissed at the combat update than those who are happy with it. I see more ranting than good comments in most of GW forum. Plz anet for the sake of the future of GW, NO MORE NERFING!!!!!

Just took a while to get through your anger to get to your point.

Simply posting, the ai improvements did nothing to fix the following fallacies of the current AI system:

AI getting stuck on other AI, or AI blocking players into corners they cant get out.
some AI standing stupid instead of being active (like in abbadons mouth).
Hench AI running in wrong directoins grabbing more aggro
Hench AI using res sig when all monks are dead instead of using it like they should, as soon as a player drops saving monk hard reses as a last resort instead of a first resort.
Incorrect fire order and inneffective skill bars on some henchmen.
Instantanious reaction to nearly everyting, an added 'human like' delay would be nice (0.5-0.7 seconds).
Henchmen trying to cast through harsh spells like soul leech and backfire.
[fixed] henchmen standing stupid in the middle of aoes.

would be far better.

So anet has more work to do. Dont whine about current changes suggest more!

Well said!

Ok, he's saying the warrior decoy, and the monk healer, now cannot rely on the aoe killing any longer.

Took me a minute.

I am still anti patch, better things could have been done, spell tweaking and whatnot(my other topic, to which like 3 people have replied while the fires burn here)

Anyways, while I don't like the solution, I don't mind some of the possible results of better patches, finding new ways for people to form.

The tank and AOE is around in alot of games and is cookie cutter by design, once upon a time it was neat and new, and the result of good teamwork, but it's certainly not original. If knight online can do it, well, it's crap.

I see where some people are coming from. Kinda the theory that no two video games are the same, you don't make a build that's exactly like any other game, it creates competition. It's a niche market that's being explored, and GW says it's trying to get out of that cookie cutter. It sure provided the skills to do it with.

I'm not saying we should be forced to break that mold, they gave it to us, but ultimately it's their intention.

OK edit, I didn't realize my other topic was moved tothe sanitarium.. I figured this was fine because the flames about patches are here......

if you're interested, and tired of arguing
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=79661

ok I've calmed down from my last post and well I've relized why people are so mad at this update.

Farming was one of the only money makers that each profession had a version of (yes I HAVE seen one for each profession) solo farming. People are mad because something that they have depended on to get gold is now gone .

This may set a chain reaction that may hurt the Guild Wars Community.

Loss of Farming---> Less Money for Runners and increase in difficulty to sell weapons---> Decrease in Chapter 2 Buyers due to members thinking too hard to get gold----> Decrease in Anet Funds---> Sale un-avaible to cover cost of server maintainment cost---> Servers in Guild Wars being shutdown leaving the shutdown of Guild Wars Forever

Sure step 3 and beyond may be a bit exagerated but certainly Step 2 is definitely going to happen.


Anet Plz give us back farming or give us something to get money by.

Just one thing:

This is only my opinion, but I'd rather have Stefan/Whoever use their Res Sig to res Alesia/Lina than myself. I can't heal Claude or use Prot Spirit on Orion, so res'ing them is more important than me. Especially since I don't bring res sig, heh.

"A substantial number of people have been testing these changes for several weeks. But none of us really caught the fact that some of what we were doing wasn't quite right, and that some was, in fact, quite broken. Monster run-away was a selected, intentional mechanic. However, having them run away in a Dance Macabre, "like chickens with their heads cut off," wasn't on the To Do List. We made the change purposely because the feedback we got was that monsters were too stupid -- we knew that was true. But the change options were (1) have monsters run out of the AOE and stand on the edge in order to attack again, or (2) have them run away without the turn-and-fire, making them harder to track down and kill. We are trying for greater variety of reactions and certainly believe the animations were improveable over what we had last night."


I appreciate Gaile's comments here, because it gets to the heart of what is currently wrong with the new update.

Once again folks, the problem is not that enemies avoid AOE spells, the problem is how enemies avoid AOE spells.

Instead of fleeing preemtively, why can't they avoid reactively?

Online games are bound to change as time passes. If you do not enjoy the game anymore, there is no monthly fee, so you are free to leave and return as you wish.

The effects on AoE were drastic at first, yes. However, today I have been using shatter hex and cry of frustration extensivly, with no ill effects. For now, I will take that to mean other one-shot AoE's now work fine. I also noticed that symbol of wrath was not causing immediate monster panic, nor did the monsters run like "headless chickens". They backed away for two-three seconds and came back. Sometimes they did not even move out of it.

The AI needed an update. Yes, much of the player base is more interisted in an hour a day (or less) of mindless monster smashing, and they will soon return to that. However, the argument that you "don't have time to make a new build" is foolish, you obviously had time to create the current build you are using, and if you copied it, then wait a few days for a new build to come up that you can use.

The farmers. Let me say that I had finaly decided to get fissure armor. So, I started farming griffons. This is no longer as viable a process for income, and so my obsidian armor is once again a distant goal. Am I disappointed? Of course. Am I bitter at ANet for it? That depends on their next move, which I will come to in a moment. It is a team game, and it should not be possible to take down 30+ enemies of a higher level than yourself all at once, alone.

The fire elementalists. Yes, you can no longer just nuke your way to victory, and I am sorry for that (it had zero effect on me how they chose to play) Fire is not a dead element however, because so far I have seen few problems with one-shot AoE. I guess you may have to echo fireball instead of fire storm, but that is really a small change (remember all the monks moving from prot bond to prot spirit?).

What I would dearly like to see ANet do next. (please keep in mind that this is what I wish to see, not what will happen or what may be best for the game)
Remove farming. Farming is based on time, and in a game of skill it has no place. WoW will provide you with all the farming you can possibly desire, and I would prefer if this game moved as far away from it as possible. This can be done by first removing the capability of monks to solo areas. The skills rend enchantments and lingering curse exist for a reason. Make use of them (and not with the laughably weak UW monsters) This would also increase the overall difficulty of areas, because of monsters that can remove enchantments.

(in relation to my part about bitterness towards ANet above.)
Increase the drop rate of ectoplasms and obsidian shards in underworld and fissure of woe, or remove items such as obsidian armor. Such armor is impossible to attain without extensive farming or through pure luck with a drop. Farming removed means that the only way to attain obsidian armor would be through pure luck with an item drop. Then you would have to find a player with a stockpile of gold from the "old days" and sell it to him or her. As time passes, fewer of these players will need or want any items, and so you will find obsidian armor literally beyond reach for everyone except the folks who have it already. With solo ability gone, players will either team up or not go down. Unless I am mistaken, the reduction of drops was because of the solo builds, correct? If you are removing them, then increase the drop rate back to what it was.

I am of the belief that this is a team-based game. Whether my team is myself and seven henchmen or myself and seven guild mates, the ability to solo monsters of the same level as yourself is not only detrimental to the game, it encourages farming and loot hoarding. With an increase in drop rates, but a block to farming, loot hoarders could still hoard, if they so chose, team players might actualy be able to find groups, and the game would become a much better thing than it is now.

-A. Banebow

Hey if you enjoy playing missions over and over again because another player gets your team killed, you're a damn sight more patient than many of us are.
A great number of PUGS even as far as Thunderhead Keep still haven't gotten to grips with calling targets yet.

It's "buggered" mesmers (they have AoE you know), possibly necro's (Wells, other skills that target multiple enemies; although I can't confirm as I just started a necro), Rangers (Ignite Arrows, and yes traps are screwed), Water ele AoE, Earth Ele AoE, and I think Air Ele might have some AoE skills as well. Can't confirm Warrior either, as most warrior AoE are shouts, etc.; don't know if this makes enemies flee either.

It screwed up alot more than you think.