Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

In an overly simplistic view, the AI makes more sense.

When one stops and looks at they why's and wherefores yes, it's buggy as all hell, actually less intelligent.
I've had several monsters flee from a single hit, to get bored and come back INTO the firestorm and take about 5 hits.

You need to put some real thought and extensive "if then else" statements befor eyou impliment a patch like this, and 6 months after the game goes public is not the time.

I too feel like a beta tester without any benifit.

Yes, that pretty much sums it up why nerfing farming is a bad idea. Since the steady influx of Ecto got cut back because of the various attempts to make soloing in UW harder, the Ecto prices are on a constant rise. They have risen for months now, without anyone knowing that the 11/10 update was coming, so it hardly has anything to do with short term effects because of some update. It plain and easy was that the supply was drying out. You can only begin to imagine what will happen if they REALLY manage to stop UW farming dead. The demand for Ectos won't change much. People still want to have their Fissure armor and the trader community still seems to use Ecto as currency, too (since the stupid money limitations still don't allow more than 1,000k gold in the bank and 100k per char). My personal guess is that if Anet doesn't now increase the drop rate of Ecto, we will see stable Ecto prices over 20k pretty soon.

But well, go ahead A-net: Nerf farming! Nerf tanking (as done with the 11/10 update), so that nobody will enjoy UW or FoW runs anymore, not even in full groups! Nobody will ever get Fissure armor again and my Mesmer will look special forever.

this will be a temporary spike and would be a problem if not for one thing. the auction house IS coming. the econemy is going to get much much worse before it gets better. there is simply too much gold in players hands for the inflation to be affected by a sudden drop in supply.

once the auction house hits and players can get things for cheaper than merchant and player prices the auction house will determine price. since the merchant's price are tweaked by anet this will not cause problems with price difference.

only thing i can suggest to anet in the future is let us know clearly in advance before you drop a bomb on the econemy. there are hints with the frog, gaile, and fansite interviews but some people just won't get it until you say it point blank. give people time to prepare for the changes. i think if we had all clearly known that on 11/10/05 the AI would change in a way that would reduce the effectiveness of aoe dmg then the community would have swallowed the pill easier.


the REAL reason ecto has seen a flux in supply is b/c of drop nerfs. now what caused these nerfs to happen? drum roll plz.........FARMING. if it wasn't for solo farming the drops in UW would have been alot better. farming doesn't help anyone in any way, shape, or form. the econemy was never built for farming and anet as has done the best they could to compensate to keep some control.

i "thought" i read that it wasnt going to happen till the next expansion pack, or at least a long time yet.

they won't give a date but they have confirmed it is coming. just hold your gold till then and use items for barter, or just quit and come back when the auction house comes.

Yea, but didnt they confirm it was coming about 2-3 months ago?

something that just occurred to me...

if Anet could make hench and monsters avoid AoEs, why do the hench still stand in poisonous water?

i mean, wouldn't that be a more sensible thing to fix in the AI?

That would be because this update isn't really about sensible. It's about stopping the evil farmers...you know..those of us who have finished this game on each possible primary profession. Those horrible and despicable folks...who have done all the missions so many times it's actually painful to think of having it to do it once more. But, yet we continue to log in each day......."After so many years of suffering"... for an hour or so..and just go and kill stuff....

By the way anet...."Take me to the vizier" <<<< I actually like this one..I say it to random strangers when they decide to speak to me...and I can't quite figure out what in the hell they are talking about.

All you're proving with your statements is that nerfing drops is the most stupid thing you can do to combat so called "unwanted farming".

A little question for you to think about..: Who, do you think is hurt more by drop nerfs? The farmers or the "regular" players?

If you are not sure about the answer, take a full group of 6 people and go kill the Griffons. After they are all dead, look at what they dropped. Laugh.

True is that A-net didn't build GW with farming in mind. It seems that they were totally surprised by the fact that in a game where there is money and where you can buy items, people would start to farm. It really makes me laugh. What the hell did they think would happen? Name me a SINGLE RPG with a monetary system where there is NO farming? There isn't any, of course. That they didn't take farming into account when they made up GW is a huge screwup by A-net, nothing else.

These "containment" measures, A-net implemented to combat farming hurt only people playing in groups, PARTICULARLY the nerfing of the drop rates did. Repeat after me 20 times: THERE IS NO WAY TO STOP FARMING EVER. Except you take the whole economy out of the game, of course. Take away the monetary system and make the monsters not drop anything. Poof, farming gone. As long as you don't do that, farming will remain. You also can't stop solo farming. You can nerf the so called "invincimonk" (which hasn't been invicible since the nerfing of prot bond, of course). People will invent other builds. You can try to boost difficulty like they did in UW. People will discover new strategies to counter that. The only thing you can do is limiting group sizes to leave towns and outposts and kicking out groups off areas when people drop from the group. It would completey destroy the game of course for many many people (way more than the solo farmers). It would be like shooting a cancer patient in the head in order to cure him.

Also, you are welcome to prove that (solo) farmers are actually bad for the economy. Nobody ever did that. Those people who state this usually have either no clue about economics in general and/or the way farming works and in which way it impacts the economy.

That the Ecto prices are now that high is NOT the fault of the farmers, it's the fault of Anet who foolishly fumbled around with the drop rates to combat things that shouldn't even be combatted. If you cut supply (=lower drop rates), prices will go up. It's as easy as that.

Oh, you'd rather they run ahead and aggro 3 groups of monsters at once? I wouldn't.

Man, a ton of posts over something that's basically trivial. There are plenty of other spells to cast and ways to kill monsters who are smart enough to step away from the AoE damage.

Suggestions for improvement include:

* add a randomizer that chooses when monsters run away from AoE and how long it takes them to do so. Perhaps this shouldn't be so random, rather, it could be based on monster health vs. attacker health or something along those lines

* evaluate monster health/damage/levels in this post-intelligent monster era, reduce if necessary to provide a little balance trade-off with the lowered effect of player AoE.

* evaluate what is truly AoE for the purposes of this update. For example, there's a big difference between the necro Mark of Pain spell and an ele's Firestorm.

Again, though, I've found this update to be minor in effect. Someone previously noted that it only adds to the time it takes to complete a quest/mission. It may also force people to evaluate what they are taking on their skill bar. So be it. There are a lot of skills that are rarely used, and perhaps we'll start using some interesting new combos as a result of this update.

Final thought: this update doesn't affect every AoE skill. Those that act fully and instantly after they are fully cast are still effective. For example, Shadow of Fear and Suffering, two staple Curses necro skill, will still have an effect on their area. There's no running away from them. So, dig through your skill bar and see what you can do!

Pete

The other day I was making my way, with my Mesmer, from Lion's Arch, to Beetletun, with henchmen. On the way you run into some Tengu and Gypsie Ettins.

The first group of Tengu I fought, right outside of the Ascalon Settlement, 2 Braves and 2 Scouts, effictively turned Alesia into a corpse within a matter of seconds, due to focus fire. And you guessed it, she stood there, not moving, nor healing herself as she died, since it happened so quickly.

It seems the enemy AI was greatly improved, to focus on the fleshies, such as monks, but our henchmen seemed not to fare well in the intelligence boost. Alesia should be healing herself or doing something besides standing there getting the stuffing beat out of her.

It is frustrating sometimes, using henchmen to fight. Sometimes there is no choice, but to take henchmen, because getting groups together can be close to impossible these days, due to those few bad players that make the multiplayer experience crappy (i.e. leaving mid-mission, not listening, or just being obnoxious).

I did not notice that the enemy AI ran out of my AoE spells, and that is pretty cool (from an AI perspective), but I haven't really noticed any significant improvements to henchmen AI.

I promised myself that I would not post in this thread, but as I slowly read through a mountain of poor spelling, bad grammar and general incoherence my resolve has steadily weakened. There is no such thing as an INVISIMONK!!! If there was – how would you be able to see him?? He would be invisible! And for crying out loud – what is a ‘pention’? It sounds like something people over 65 have *breaks down and cries*. If in doubt, write your post in an editor with a spellchecker and use cut and paste. That way what little hair I have left will not be littering the floor in clumps.

As for the game – Anet are a professional organisation, who respond amazingly fast to both problems and user feedback. Anyone who denies this, go play other MMORPG’s where an update is something that might happen every 3 months and any official word from the devs is almost unknown. I personally am hugely impressed with their responsiveness, and would hold them up as an example to other game developers. Of course, if they make a mistake, they get crucified. As the range of players on here varies wildly from 13 year-olds who think they are the most important people on the planet, to cranky crinklies like me, its not surprising. Who would be a developer

Although there has been a big response on assorted forums to this update it is as well to remember that there is a huge silent majority out there. Those who think PvP is the whole point of the game and everything else is unimportant might like to check a few figures. The same figures could be checked by inveterate Forum posters as well. I admit these are not facts, as I have little other than my own observations to back me up, but here goes.

Assuming that the hard-core PvP guilds are those ranked in the top 500…

500 guilds at an average of 50 members each = 25,000 heavy PvP players.
Total number of GW copies sold so far = 1,000,000+

Ratio of enthusiastic PvP’ers to more casual PvE gamers = 1 to 40+

Total number of posts on this thread at the moment 1771. Of these, 10% seem to be posted by Twicky (you must read Forums a lot Twicky!) and a lot more are people who have posted more than once.

Lets say total people posting here = 1,000 (an exaggeration)
Ratio of enthusiastic posters to the Silent Majority = negligible.

To sum up, that Anet read these posts at all is surprising. That they actually attempt to implement some of the suggestions is amazing. Good on you, Anet!

yea..also when attacking, your target runs back pulling you into the mob..so you end up disengaging and finding a new target, only to be pulled into the mob again...so you are continually disengaging and running away..this DRAGS out the game to where it becomes a chore.

It seems to me (Gaille's comments and my actual post update experience) that Anet is attempting to make PvE more like PvP. As a casual PvE player with minimal interest in PvP I do not like this move. My questions for Anet are:
Who do you think is your largest prospective market for chapter 2? Will there be that much new content for PvP, or is it geared primarily towards PvE players? How many copies of chapter 2 do you really expect to sell now that you have alienated a large portion of you PvE based audience?

Do you really care?

Good points. However, there is one thing I would like to add. Any suggestion or complaint or agreement that is posted here, more than likely is a view also held by "x number" of silent players as well. Think of it like (and I laugh while posting this) a beta testing group. You can't possibly utilize the entire population of a game's players to test a product, the same as you can't feasibly ask everyone their opinion in an acceptable length of time. So, while I am completely on your side when it comes to "leet speak" and grammatical incohesion making me cringe, those posters most assuredly equal the same opinion of "x number" of GW players.

Forum posters do not speak for everyone everyone, however they do give a very nice representation of the various opinions of the entire community.

Cant read pages i missed in 5 mins sorry but,

Well I would like to point out again, after some testing. This is the most simple AI I have ever seen. Its not what you actually use to do damage. THEY LIMITED THE AMOUNT OF DPS before they run and totally destroy your play time. This is even more unacceptable, This is 100% limited gameplay, and I Do not like it; no, I hate it. They tested it extensively? my ass...come on already. If they take over a week to fix this, hope is lost, forget it.

They have the skills to make good AI, but it's IMPLEMENTING when the enemy runs away that is the problem.

As I said on the poll, if the lower levels were stupid, and the higher level monsters run off and try to find more 'Allies' to gang up on you when their HP is low/critical/Near-Death] then I would accept it. But still no comment at the moment... =\

Please ANet, take my advice and find a way of utilising this post!

I have been thinking alot about the game value of guildwars the last couple of weeks, and it does not look good. I did not think i would have this feeling already, but after playing Diablo and Sacred i thought Guildwars was different... but to me it is not I stopped playing sacred because, i was always playing ither alone or with a friend in the same areas... farming items and not questing.... (why do quests when u dont get anything for doing them ???) The same problem exists with Guildwars, why would u ever want to do quests when u are level 20 ??????? You get more xp (which u really can´t use) and a crappy item.... So they introduced the new area, and everyone was happy, for a while, but people was really not doing the quests down there, no they were farming...... why do quests when........ Why play with full team when u can play with 3 and get much better drops ???????

Now Anet just nurfed the only thing they had going for them... farming ither in groups or solo...... so now what ????? Do we get gold items for questing in teams ? Do we get more green items with larger groups, when we kill bosses SF ? What more do we get out of playing together and doing quests ????

Ok i scanned thru most of the pages, and i'm not going to rant or start pointing fingers and whine and etc ..or at least try to.

First off i can understand the AI, change, giving the mobs a half a brain is ok i guess, tho in most stories and such monsters with the execption of a few smarter ones, most of them are dumb and are just expendable, like henchmen, their not really supposed to be smart i would think. Their supposed to me mindless raging attack anything i see type creatures? Most monsters are like this?

My experaince with the update acctually ins't too bad, it's just made things take a bit longer and now the way we play is slightly changed. Tho now aoe spells are mainly used to get mobs away now or off the war or whatever, now ya have to think how much energy should i use to set off an aoe and get the mobs to move? 15, 25? etc...

Basically made some of the spells so much more less effective, this could have been done with adjusting the skills also, but i guess there's been enough of that eh? lol

Did anyone in anet think to have a testing team, to see how things go before releasing them? tho im sure they do , but i dunno, shrugs.

Are the koreans making the decisions because they pay for it?

PVE shoud not be PVP, these to types are different and should be kept that way, why bother to have PVE at all if all your doing is making PVE=PVP.

I'm more of a PVE player, i'm just not into the PVP side of it that much, and it just seems to me that PVP is getting all the attention, even if a lot of changes are in PVE they still seem PVP based to me.

Get rid of the ebay'ing sweatshops, that's a big problem for the economy, yet we get the nerfs and suffer for it, and then listen to ppl blame the solo monks, some people don't play in a guild and don't pvp at all, their casual players, i didn't see anything wrong with solo'ing the uw at least in the respect that one could get a good amount of ecto for one's self, for fissure armor.

But let me stop cause its starting to turn into a rant, basically there's a lot of stuff that could have been and still could be fixed that's more important than the PVE AI, i hope that in the future the next expansion will not have as many problems, and/or will be updated/patched in a smoother manner, and/or give the public a better way to get information about what's going to be changed before hand to either give us a warning or even better to find out what we think before it's implemented.

:::End Transmission:::

It seems we are the testers now, and we dont even get penuts for it.

A strange feeling has been creeping up on me lately.

Whenever i am out hunting stuff, i feel as if i am being watched. I feel like i am doing something wrong. I feel guilty about picking up that gold unid'd shield which dropped from that "higher-than-me" monster. I feel as if i am committing a crime when i should be having fun. I feel compelled at times to hunt lower level creatures for fear that my favourite build will get nerfed.

....and it saddening because i should be enjoying myself instead of aprehensively looking over my shoulder.

ArenaNet said they have nothing against honest farmers.
Now they say we "shouldn't" be doing that.

Everyone should be having fun...not feeling like they live in nazi Germany.

One more thing...where have you been if it took you until six months after release for you to decide that AoE skills (erm, i mean AI) should take such a drastic change?

Well .... I guess they lied to us .... at least once

Meh, you get to play the game for free.

I know, I know... you bought the game (what, almost a year ago?)

That's a lot of free play, considering the cost of other MMORPGs. (and, yes, I know Guild Wars is not a true MMORPG, but let's not go there.)

I don't mind "testing" a major change, since I'm not paying anything anyway. Seeing how the creatures react to spells now is actually entertaining.

I'm going through creatures just as fast as before, I use Lava Font more than Fire Storm (for whatever reason, I find creatures don't run from Lava Font like they do from Fire Storm. Maybe because I'm not targeting them?)

My advice: just have fun with the changes. See what "works" and what "doesn't". Find new uses for spells like Fire Storm (barriers for Monks, use it to seperate groups of mobs, etc).

And if you have to be able to use Fire Storm to enjoy the game, take other spells that slow down your target. Or surround them so they CAN'T leave (spirit trap?)

Anyway, I hope nobody leaves the game because of this. It really is not that bad....

Funny, when I want something IRL, I work overtime, pick up extra hours, work the holidays for double-time and a half. I put in MUCH more hours working at a very tedious job so I can afford that weekend getaway. Sure, I don't necessarily NEED it, but isn't it nice every now and again?

(Since someone else brought IRL into the arguement).

But farming aside. I tried out a couple new builds on my ele. I used Earthquake to knock down. The ONLY AoE spell I brought along. Yep, they broke aggro off the warrior and came back at me and the monk. The henchies we brought along were so busy running around that they were basically useless. I had tried eruption also (another earth skill) and that was worse than Earthquake.
I've been working on a water build, but again, the problem is when the "Snare" hits more than one enemy. Again, aggro is broken, and though they move more slowly, they still change their target back to the "Squishies".

As for finding groups with my ele? Forget it. The only way I'm allowed in a group is if I list off the spells I'm using, and if ANY of them even come close to AoE, I'm told to change it, or kicked from the group.
Heck, my necro is actually getting to play the way I WANT to play now. I love curses, always have, and have always been told I have to either play as battery or *shudders* a minion master (which I won't even get into the issues I have with minions).
And yes, if you're a necro, mesmer or ranger, you're more often than not told how you should play YOUR character by people who've never even played that class. If you want in a group, you either create it yourself (which I did with my mesmer) or you change how you play. Which also happens in PvP. Look at all the groups looking for an "Orders Necro".

The point is that this was a horrible update. For everyone around. The PvP'rs, with the attitude that "this will make the PvE'rs think more" and the PvE'rs frustrated with the time its taking to complete missions, with the monsters now running all over the map. Heck, change the armor on the "squishies" so they can now take the brunt of the attacks, since the monsters no longer hit at the ones with decent armor. I used to be able to run a monster back to my tank, and let it re-aggro to him/her. Not now.
Oh wait, that's right, I'm now supposed to bring Firestorm for me and the monks and other squishies to stand in to protect us. Funny, I thought that's what Ward against Harm/Elements/Melee was for.

As for those who pointed out necro skills, ie Mark of Pain. Those are hexes, not outright spells, like firestorm, meteor shower, etc. There IS a difference. Hence all the "LF [fill in blank] Necro". (I'm afraid to name the skill, since it will probably be nerfed next).

that's part of the problem, live testing, by customers, not as effective as it could be, and we basically get stuck with what they do , i understand in a game such as this content changes, but too many changes so soon one after another and another and another, can get quite stifiling ( if i spelled that right ) i also when emailing anet, i am always given the "Post in one of the fourms, because we read them all...umm sure, might as well be talking to a rock.

Why doesn't anet with all it's resources have one centralized set of forums, specifically for such things, they have time to read all these forums and go from site to site and etc to hear our concerns why not just a stright up official gw site for all our concerns?

we shouldn't have to put up our own and expect to be heard, or even understood with all the people who do post. I dunno it just seems so all unorganized.

There's lots of things i agree and disagree with all the complainers and accepters, and they all have valid points, i just don't agree with the way it's all handled.

Other than that i don't have much to say other than to rehash all that's been said already lol

:::End Transmission:::

that must be a glitch or anet forgot a/b it becuse u dont target enemies w/ symbol of wrath or bahts aura but they run from that. lava front isnt really a popular farming technique its more used for eles when enemies get to close to deal dmg quick. i think lava front is better for pvp b/c enemie warriors mite run away if there health is loew enough. so it must just be a glitch if they dont run from it.

Just another bug I just happened to notice. Previous to this update, (correct me if I am wrong please) I have never had Mhenlo or Lina leave the aggro bubble to resurrect a fallen party member. They may have done the idiotic back and forth to the edge of the bubble, but they never left it. Well, Little Leroy lay dead near a patrol. I was attempting a Rebirth when Lina assuredly ran quite a long distance outside of the bubble to resurrect him, prompting creating a whole new aggro.

I do not like loss of control over the henchmen....at all.

So, do you take Fire Storm or not?

Anyway, screw anyone who tells you what build you should use.

I do mind "testing" a change like this, its a sign of incompetance that they didnt spot some of the glaring faults.

And the i get to play for free argument is soo weak, what that means that this level of buggyness is ok then???

5 minutes yes 5 minutes is all it took to find some of the major faults, they did not playtest this.

It wont make me quit, but it has seriosly made me re-think about Anets levels of competance.

They would have been forgiven if they removed it until it's ready. Instead they give us a quick fix for a total mess of a patch, which still leaves a total mess. Skills need to be adjusted, henchmen should not be a liability and mobs are not acting smarter. Anyone should be able to see that.

ArenaNet must think we're total morons to try and have us believe this thing was tested for 2 weeks. It would have been practically impossible not to notice the blatant problems just looking at this on paper, let alone in game.

It it is a glitch, it's one that can be exploited.

Get some Earth armor for your Ele, run up to a group, spam Lava Font (fast casting time and recharge than Fire Storm).

If you need to break the group, cast Fireball (which still causes enemies to run, strangely enough).

I'm not arguing that the new AI doesn't have some bugs, I'm arguing it's fun to find new glitches and exploit them. Frankly, the Fire Storm/Met Shower combo was getting old. Change is good...

lol i dont think it really matters if they do or not. but ya people shouldnt tell u what build to bring, unless u tried to get into a group w/ a specific requiremnt for yur build, ie iway they wanted order necro. so if u try to get into an iway group u better be rdy to change yur prof if u arent an order necro already. same w/ minon machines. better be a mm or a saccer. so really they shouldnt tell u what build to do but u should get into builds u know u arent.

glitches can be good but i doubt that its gonna help u solo the UW or anything but its nice to have.

I agree, there's no way this patch was extensively tested.

They should have been up front and said, "Here, test this and tell us what you think."

I think the idea behind the patch was sound: improved enemy AI.

The actual patch itself has much to be desired (enemies run from Fireball but not Lava Font?)

But, as I'm saying, don't get mad. Get even. Find new exploits. Use them to your advantage.

Think of it as getting a new game. Anytime you buy a game, there's a learning curve to find what works best. They just re-set the curve.

great sounds like school, curves on everything. but ya they are trying to make us relearn the game in certian aspects. but there still are glitchs so def expliot them as mordakai has previously stated.

Don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure they were running from Lava Font on me yesterday.

they run from almost anything now. i had guys run from a regular attack on the first patch i hit them then clicked baths aura and before it even started to cast they guys ran. o also griffons run when there health gets low sometimes w/ or w/o an aoe going.

All the diehard pvp'ers, along with everyone else who says they prefer pvp anyway, answer me a question please:

Lets assume that people now start using PvE for the purpose you would like - to learn appropriate skill set-up, use etc etc for when they cross over to PvP...what are they supposed to do then? Would you let a complete newcomer to HoH join yr group? The answer is simple - no you wouldnt, because they dont know what they're doing in PvP - regardless of how much PvE has been changed to 'prepare for the cross over to PvP'.
The arenas, team arenas and competition arenas are supposed to do that already, not making the AI in PvE act more 'human', well if the AI gets to act more human, why cant i? Sod having a set of armour made out of cloth and glittering dust and have a lvl 29 aatxe killing me in 2 hits - i want chainmail for my ele and monk same as the tank gets!!! lol

PvE and PvP are NOT the same Anet - stop trying to make it so, if you want to do something useful to make players PvP more - fix the elitist club that only allows certain people into its groups if they have rank! Or maybe you expect them to get far using PUGS that are no better than the PUGS in high end PvE areas? Heres an idea...give team arenas and competition arena winners fame points, because rank, and the emote that goes with it is no different to a PvP'er than Fissure armour is to a PvE'er

Now i'll sit back and watch all the PvP'ers flame with outrage lol

Haven't brought firestorm with me since I was able to get Phoenix at Courthouse (which I did the old-fashioned way and actually fought to get to- of course, ask anyone from Pal'drem how many places they had to take me to).

And I dropped Phoenix as soon as I had Rodgorts Invocation.

In any case, even these one-hit spells are AoE, and no, they don't make them all runaway like they first did, but they still will break aggro off the warrior.