Increased (NOT DECREASED) Monster Agro range in last patch

I posted this in one of the patch threads but I didn't see any responses (mainly because of all the complaining about AoE nerf) I am reposting as a new thread because I am wondering if anyone else noticed this:

I hope this doesn't get lost in the Flurry of posts about the AoE nerf. I believe it adds yet another glitch to AI that will serve to make the game harder for no good reason.

I've noticed some people mentioning that the Droknar's run got harder because they added more worms.

THIS IS NOT THE PROBLEM!

The problem is, the last patch was supposed to "make monsters follow you less".

It did the EXACT OPPOSITE for some monsters. Whether this was intentional or not (and I am strongly leaning towards that it was) I do not know.

The problem is not that there are more worms on the Droknar's run, it is that they DO NOT LEAVE YOU.

They follow you all the way to the second "tunnel", past the first batch of dwarves in the first part of Lornar's to Droknar.

In addition, I've noticed that avicara with 'pending spells' now follow longer distances approximately 5 times as much since this last patch (great job ANET) and they STILL follow all the way to the end of the zone.

A couple of other ancedotes:

Was I was running in the desert with my ranger to go complete the 15 point attribute quest (by myself mind you) . I agro'd a desert worm. Now most of you who have done the 15 point quest may have encountered this worm, he sometimes appears right before you have to walk over the fallen statue. Well I made it past him and he proceeded to fight the ghost that stands there. I had the worm targetted (he doesn't follow after a certain point because the statue is treated like a bridge). Long story short, I completed the 15 point quest and the worm had dropped off my target because of the range. So I start heading back and guess what I see standing there looking all pissed off?

Yep, you guessed it.. the worm was STILL AGRO'D ON ME but STUCK!.

Then last night I was down in uw with a 3 person team (spare me your opinions on soloing please) We were at the last part of the clearing the chamber quest where you have to clear the room where the Terrorweb Dryders are. After dying and getting ressed, I noticed the spawn looked a bit wierd but it was still moving around down there. We proceeded pull to kill a lone Grasping Darkness (aka squid), and the fact that it was alone is important. This squid was also moving away from me when I pulled it.

At any rate we decided that going straight on into the chamber was too risky because of the wierdness of movement in the spawn. We decided to back out, and head to the right side entrance (people familiar with uw know it's the entrance where the last aaxte sits by when clearing them out). On the way to this second entrance to the chamber, all the monsters were clearly off the radar (just want to point that out). Well guess what, as soon as we get to the other entrance, guess what makes a beeline for us, WELL outside of agro range? (I'm talking 2 agro circles worth).. the rest of the squid group that didn't for some reason get pulled when we killed the lone squid!!! Before this patch to fix "making monsters leave you easier" I have NEVER seen anything like that. Note, we were not using AoE spells affected by patch.

Another simple test that anyone can do is to check out the new and improved ice imp agro range in Lornar's. It's easy. Take a bow out there, equip 1 running skill. Now find yourself a nice patch of Imps (make sure they are "relatively" stationary kind so you can see where their point of origin is) Shoot an imp, and turn around , walk out of their freeze if you get it and then watch them return back to their spot. Get it so they are just off your radar screen when they leave and so far that you loose the imp as a target, then turn around. Wow. Imp's that would have normally forgotten about you now remember you EVEN OFF OF RADAR.

This may be an unintended result of the "Flee-Return" code put in for AoE, but then again, how can you explain the worm's and avicara? (Plus I wasn't using Fiery Arrows or anything special AoE affected in my ice Imp example, just a regular bow on a warrior with no marksmenship)

Anyway I just thought I would bring this up since no one else was mentioning.

And before you think "oh Good this really screws the runners" note, I have no problem with either of these things being a Pro runner, if you check out the prices in Beacons, they have gone up to an average of 4k now because of what I have mentioned... so this is all good for me. I just wanted to point it out because it does affect normal PvE for balanced groups and this is not a good thing.

Hope someone fixes it.

I've noticed the same things myself, in regard to the behaviour of some mobs. I find it funny that, while mobs are supposed to stop following you sooner rather than later, I had an Avicara chase me all the way from Rankor to Droks. He followed the ENTIRE map, and stayed right behind me the whole time regardless of which running skill(s) I used.

Plague Devourers, are 2x times more deadly now for farmers. Random mobs of these interrupting scorpions, will follow you indenfintly. I ran nearly all the the way from Augury Rock to Amnoon Oasis, and the same 4 Plague Devourers that spawned right outside augury were following me this whole time!!

i mean. CMOOOOnn.. Even in regular PuG groups. say if we all get wiped out, and one guy runs to rez us later, he will run clear across the whole mission map and is still beiung followed by jades... Cmoooon !!!

Here's what I've found... when you aggro a creature, you can indeed break aggro more quickly if you can get away fast enough. HOWEVER... and it's a big however.. the creatures NEW aggro range covers not only its original location but also everywhere the creatures group was in combat as well!

They retain a "memory" of where they fought, and will aggro within that memory, regardless of current position.

Try this with the smites... it's painfully obvious.

And much more challenging. :-)

It's not always true. Yes, it's broken, but over a few FoW and SF runs, there have been times when a resser came back over where the "memory" should be and was able to res us.

If the enemy is dead, they won't attack you.

Devourers are just another example of anet's hypocrisy in this update.

That, my friend, has earned itself a place in my forum sigs all over the internet

I certainly hope the joke intended came through...

I can confirm this. I though I was going crazy. It's like monsters are teritorial now. They don't like it if you're on their turf even if you are WAYYYYY outside aggro range.

Thank you, John Madden.

I've had earth elementals run away from me with on non-AoE hit and keep running till dead. This update is seriously screwed up and in completely the wrong direction.

But I've always had benny hill problems which has ended up with a dead me after 500m (I am an ele, I usually die sooner if I turn and run)

while i have seen this problem in some places in the game it does not happen in others.

so far i have only seen this in areas that are exploited. devourers following you more on grif runs. smites inside of UW. worms in forge run.

i can go to a place that is never exploited and happy walk away from them and they never follow. i go to a places that have exploitations and see them annoy the hell out of you.

its compensating for an exploit in that area. don't know if it was planned or not. forge is not such a big deal seeing as you CAN fight through it. i know i've done it as lvl 16 before. hard as hell but can be done. good drops btw seeing as no one ever farms there.

I think you might be right. It's added a new twist on UW trap runs... although the only problem really is separating the "trappers" that simply tag along and screw up pulls with the new agro from the ones with skill.

Hey Rangers! Here's something I've found out... if you have traps ahead of the bunch, it'll screw things up. Something steps into those traps, next thing you know they are running away before hitting the main body of traps. You need to trap tight in the UW now out of necessity.

Not true ... I'm sometimes farming in a place that is not overfarmed, and some things I was able to sprint past and leave them behind me now are trailing after me for a looong time.

Overall I feel really happy that 95% of my GW playing time consists of PvP now, after reading about all the crap that has been inflicted upon PvE areas.

there is no such thing as a place not overfarmed. there are no secret havens anymore.

Heh this happened to me last night. The agro thing is definitely screwed up:

Was showing trying to show a guildy how the difference between a mursaat token and ecto (someone was trying to pull a scam). Started killing them outside Grotto with me her and a bunch of henchies. Pulled too many (there's that big group of 2 sets of mursaat that roams towards Grotto) so started to run and for about 9 or 10 "bubbles of agro". Half the henchies dead, they finally stopped following. I let the henchies start rezzing and started heading back. Well of course Lina runs forward to rez another hench which re-agro's some of the trailing mursaat we had just run from. So start running again.. only notice its only 2 mursaat (elementalists) .. so with 5 henchies.. figure.. go ahead kill them, so finish them off and proceed to let lina continue to rez which she does. this is about a minute later mind you, one henchie is now left dead, and what do i notice in the upper left corner of my screen running super fast towards me? It's the rest of the mursaat group!

Man that's some INSANE agro range. I don't care what you guys say about it being only in "special exploited places" because this is clearly not such a place.... someone needs to fix this, I wasn't even using any RUNNING skills!

I was just having a general wonder about perdition rock.

I entered the area and killed the initail hydras.

Then i went to move past the flesh golems, they were running towards me as soon as they appeard on the mini map, not even close to the aggro bubble.

I've had this happen a few times in the areas around Droknars... I don't need this kind of welcoming committee! =\

Don't really think so. The Mursaat exhibited in Ring of Fire, and I've yet to hear of anyone farming that.