Is it just me or is the game harder ?

Some quests I go back to when my toon is stronger, and The Dukes Daughter at Piken Sq was one of them. My lvl 16 ele took 3 henchies lvl 6 and we still got trashed..with the new AI, mons now drag you into bands of more monsters, so instead of fighting 4, you now have to deal with 9, and they all seem to go for Alesia who dies in 3 secs flat. My ele tried to use Earth Quake when we were ganked and they all run away making the skill virtually useless..(stationery mons like Worms are only good for area spells now).not only that, my toon runs after the one I was attacking and we all get spread out..
I love the game, but it also pisses me off..you fight one type of mons and they drag to another type and then another type, and you end up with 3 totally different types of mons banging on you...argh...

If you can't control your aggro in pve, I hate to say it, but its probably you...

It's not the that. I think this person has forgot that the update to the AI indirectly "nerfed" AOE's as they no longer sit in them anymore. I use AOE's now as a defensive spell, using metero shower is my only AOE on my ele I keep unless I can successfully cast meteor shower/firestorm back to back. I keep firestorm mainly to push mobs away from me when I aggro now.

--The Shim

I can see AOE's usefulness as a defensive skill (quote..I keep firestorm mainly to push mobs away from me when I aggro now.), but this changes the skill (high energy cost with virtually no damage), from its intended purpose..I have the same problem with Ward against Elements/Foes..I and my henchies often get pulled out of the circle I have just created making it ineffective, and therefore a waste of time/energy. Magical toons should not have to rely on direct damage spells. My Necro doesn't have this problem..creating Bone Fiends distracts the mons and takes their focus off me and my henchies..2 Necros creating Bone Fiends in the Aura Glade Henge Portal Crystal mission took the heat off all other players who did their job virtually unhindered, and it was a calk walk. I'm not a game guru..just noting what happens when I play.

Of course it changes from it's primary purpose; but some people are complaining the skills are totally ineffective now. I just brought up a point I liked.

But of course, AOE's now do virtually nothing except the first three rounds until they run, unless you are using a knockdown. I got the same frustration with wards, myself. But unfortunately; I don't see them as people put it "un-nerfing" it anytime soon..so work with what you got, albeit it not alot, but I'm sure there are better builds out there =)

--Teh Shim

I effectively used wards in DNKP against the titans...just wait until your team engages the enemies in a fight and then drop one down for the casters

This is just a sneaky way of furthering the arguments against the AI changes.

YES it makes Guildwars harder! NO Arenanet wont change it. STOP complaining, we've heard it all before and there are plenty of threads about it.

It doesn't even have to be an AoE spell. I'm a henchies-only player, been doing the Ascension quests with my Ranger using 2 melee, 2 healer, and Reyna for a group (2 down, thirsty to go, got to the last fight in thirsty and found I didn't have enough spike damage to kill the dual-healing combo *sigh*).

This group doesn't have any AoE but I've many times triggered the flee code for creatures anyway. Sometimes they flee and then return before your next targetting round, in which case not a problem. But sometimes they flee further, then your character chases them a few steps and fires, which causes them to flee further, etc., etc., next thing you know you're faced with either letting them run off or aggieing another group of monsters that they are running towards, pretty much a lose-lose proposition either way.

Improving the creature AI wasn't a bad thing per se, but ANet should have realized that every single AoE spell was balanced based on creatures that didn't run away (heck, -all- GWars combat was balanced around this fact). So creating running creatures without rebalancing AoE spells guaranteed those spells would be much weaker than before, an indirect nerfing of them.

(bolded for emphasis)

I think that was the point. They were balanced for PvE, and thus in PvP they were already considerably weaker than other options. The bad PvE AI prevented them from doing any balancing for PvP (which, if anything, would probably include buffing the AOE spells). Now that the AI is more consistent with how a player plays, they've opened up that option for themselves. They can consider the power of AOE spells and if a change needs to be made to them without just balancing for one side of the game.

It's unfortunate that the nerf side of the task had to come first, but it really did need to happen in that order. Sit back. Relax, and let the game's evolution continue to unfold. This isn't the final form; your skills won't remain this way forever.

true

AOE skills (fire for example) were mostly a short term area denial skill in PVP (pretty worthless) as people took 3 steps aside and said *pretty firestorm*

in PVE the same skill was deadly as the enemy stood in the firestorm/whatever trying to shoot through a wall at you until dead.

like FACTION they will take statistics for weeks/months and do a rebalance to bring them into line as they see is needed.

I quit fora few months and playing it agian. I made a new RP char(I PVP msotly) and found it is MUCH easier.
Alot of enemies spells are doing less damage, like putrid, and the monk monsters heal less and use infuse heal(rofl)

the one beef i have with GW being harder is that you now HAVE to rely on players for some of the later missions....i'm currently stuck at RoF cause all the parties i've been with had to take hench-monks cause everyone seems to enjoy spending $50 on a IM so every group has failed cause the hench monks wont stay the f*** back and run right up to the ether seals and lose energy (hence healing) and we all die <_< so Anet didn't make AI's of hench smarter

Funny, I just went through all 3 RoF missions with the intent of getting the bonus with henchies. I finished them all, meaning I got the bonus and then went on the complete the mission. More to the point, I took Cynn, who loves firestorm. AoE's may have been changed, they and the henchies still work quite effectively if you know what to do with them.

My group in all 3 cases was me (ranger), henchie ranger, 2 warriors, 2 monks, 1 ele and 1 necro.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. GW is a work in progress. The ai WILL continue to be tweaked until they get it right, and skills that are more or less "broken" now WILL be adjusted. In the meantime, we'll just have to make do with the game as it is.

i haven't found any realy differnce in hardness accept with my ranger, its now a bit easier, cos when i use ignit arrows with double arrows, it sometimes makes the oppents run of which is kinda weird but orks for me :P

Why would I know if you were "hard" or not?

they made the enemy and hench AIs better... think its much more fun for arty, here(but tarra aint doin too good in kryta at lvl 12 :P)

Can someone lock this or move it to the update thread? This is just a complaint about the AI improvements.

It has been said on GuildWar Wikki that the spawns will always target Alesia or Orion.It took us 3 times to do Rof mission like you said we took henchie Monks.The one I tried to get wanted to be paid.I only did it once with my Monk and I didn't charge.I am srill weighing it out wether or not it is.

Agreed, bring snares and adapt or change your skillbar. Ever changing world, you have to get used to it.

It's just you. You must learn to control the aggro. You must learn to control henchmen. It's not that hard (just search for guides & threads), but it takes some practice.

The AI patch made the game a lot easier. You can make monsters run pretty easily now. So not only can you control monster aggro, but you can also protect soft allies.

May be ANet will improve the AI again in the future (AoE panic triggered only when necessary) but until then we can say that monsters are still stupid, they are just differently stupid (to make solo-farming slower and safer).

In a way it seems that henchmen became a lot more artificial stupidity applied to them. Unlike the enemy mobs they still don't scatter from AOE Spells, they are still bathing in those. And have you ever seen how those two monk henchman behaves when the whole team is dead except maybe a player with a used res signet and one of those monk henchies? Yeah, thats right... watch those stupid thing run towards an ally... run back... run towards... run back... run towards... run back. When you get close to an ally... the henchman will still run around like a chicken. Takes about 5 minutes to get the right position from which that dumb henchman starts running up to the other monkhenchman (even ignoring any playermonk there is).
So in a way the game became harder with the henchmen being more stupid than ever and the AI having got a huge buff.

I like the new AI code. It's more realistic and I have no problems with it at all. Actually makes the game more fun and exciting trying to play tactically and not run the AI mobs into another group. Ever hear of pulling back? Ever hear of long range pulling to YOU intead of you going to them? Ever hit and run pull? Some people are just too stupid to figure out other ways besides "stand there or chase". It's actually made soloing even easier for me, I love it when they run. Man that takes some of them from beating on me. Don't worry they'll come back.

And I've said it before, I'll say it again also....learn to adapt and quit your flippin whinning. My gawd do you all whine like this in RL also?

learn to control henchmen? what kind of BS is that? Sure you can sit there and call target and hopefully they will listen. Often times I'm sitting there madly calling target and their off doing their own thing and this has been after the AI update. Say for example that Orion actually casts firestorm before the battle ends. He casts it on my called target which Stefan is also attacking. Now unless you've played a warrior, you don't have a clue about what I'm about to say. So down falls firestorm and what Stefan and I were both attacking, decides to run around madly like a freshly beheaded chicken making his attacks and my arrows, or bees or own fire magic (depending on what I'm playing) miss or do less damage as well. So off heads this beheaded chicken out of my aggro circle so I call a new target. Good ol Stefan though he knows best and continues on trying to attack the previous target that won't stand still to be hit.

I'm sorry but if GW is for the casual player... wow... um yeah...

GW is hard and getting harder. Every time something is balanced for PvP, its PvE on the short end of the stick. Basicly once you get to a certain point in the game, its just depressing to continue further. For example... your lv 8 and you go post searing. Everything is tough for a while but you lv up, get better armor, soon things get easier but then you move on to yaks bend. Its tough, but you lv up, get better armor and skills, so on and so forth. And then it gets easier. Off to Kryta you go, same thing, pretty tough but you buy even better armor and lv up even more. most people are high levels if not close to 20 by the time they get to the desert... but whats after that? No better armor after droknar yet the monsters keep getting tougher and tougher, their AI smarter and smarter. I'm sorry but they spam the same spells over and over with endless energy and obviously NO recharge time. And this AI improvements to henchies? Still pretty much nonexistant as far as I can see. I've seen my henchies stand in a firestorm cast from someone else and take the punishment unlike the monsters who are suppose to share the same AI who flee the agro circle.

So for me, the game gets depressing as I find it hard to justify endless hours of the same frustrating difficulty that will NEVER get easier at all at some point even down the distant road. My character is not growing stronger, there is no better armor. Its the same tough battles in endless succession over and over that my character will NEVER rise above like they have over Ascalon, Shiver Peaks, Kyrta and the desert. I like being able to lv and grow my character. The excuse that "well you can grow by learning more skills" is bs IMO. PvE character should be allowed to progress past lv20. Cap the PvP people/nerf them for once.

I guess the key now is to just get an Ele who can spam cast firestorm on the group its in and you should be able to slowly move your way across a map without being attacked.

have you confirmed this by watching a single enemy?

or is it a group attacking one after the other in sequence so you wonder where are all these spells coming from?

Mavrik the armor is the same from Ascalon to to Lions Arch.Level 8 wouldn't have any problems with the Charr.The armor used around Kryta by the Tengu is 20 or 25 al the armor used in around Draknors Forger by same Stone Summit and Avicercer or tengu is 49 al,When picking up the armor that as dropped look at the level and players think they need Forge armor no they need their skills.It is not easy playing Warrior when you got a hex on you and are finghting say a bunch of Tengu and yes Alesia is dead and useing the healing signet is taking away 40 armor away from you.That is the amin problem playing Warriors.That is why W/Mo use healing breeze if the signet didn't take away that 40 armor you would be ok.You don't need to replace your armor through out the game.

Ya the game got harder but you must ask yourself "Is the game very hard now or was it too easy at first?"

I noticed this update inspired a Water/Fire Ele who trapped me inside a Meteor Shower AAA IT HURT. Meteor Shower-->Shard Storm--->Ice Spikes >.<. I barely excaped.

If a W/Mo would bring Shield of Regeneration and cast it before using Healing Signet it nullifies the -40 armor loss for a number of seconds, of course the more you put into Protection skills the longer you can use the Shield of Regeneration/Healing Signet Combo. In some missions it's what I use as a combo, get low on health and Alesia is doing her usual thing of not healing me and then just spam Healing Signet until the Shield of Regneration timer runs out.

LMAO!!! That was hilarious...ain't it the truth...a firestorm is always the after effect of a battle

My only real problem with the update is that the monsters all seem alot more jumpy now. I've noticed several times while I'm running around (usually with henchies) that a red dot pops up right inside my aggro circle. Must be a spined aloe (or devourer, etc. ad nauseum). So-Boom- press the attack and start whaling. Except that its not actually in my circle, its halfway across the friggen map but for some reason the game decides to wait a sec before catching up. So now I've either aggro'd a mob I didn't need to or I get to try and call back the henchies from a suicide run in a mob of 15 baddies. I don't think its my computer since I run pretty high end stuff. Anybody else had a problem with this?-Pagan

i wish they would crank up the difficulty nob about 10 full turns. this game is only hard if you try to rush through it, if your patient and take your time, this game can be completed 99% of the time with hench or with other like minded people.

I've also had this problem a few times, just to confirm

lagging monsters?
seen then, killed them, ate them

nice to see that other people noticed orion's great magic show:fireball on corpses, firestorm coming the second you killed the last monster... he sure is great!

back to op: there are only a very few things in this game i'd consider hard... with full party and brainusage it can get even too easy.... monsters running around? well, put a degen on them and watch them run into their doom..... it's not like the update made them smarter: imo they are just dumb in a diffrent way now.

I have observed this attacking a single foe and for example I will use those Centurian enemies on the trail from beacon perch to Gates of Kryta. I had my target selected on one of the longbow ones who spammed constantly (since the update that allows you to see what they are casting) Disruption shot. Took him about a second to cast it and then he cast it over and over and over and over by the time someone actually killed him, I think the only spell I had left that was any use on my skill bar was my res sig because I had not used it yet.

Also go attack that Skale lv5 boss in Pre Ascalon, he spams the same attack over and over in quick succession over and over and over.

I've also had red dots appear on my agro circle and when I go attack it, I'm quickly realising I'm headed half way across the map.

And Temptress I mean no disrespect to you but for me who has a job, a wife, many stuff I have to do during my day... I don't have the patience to take my time through this game. I've had it since May and my farthest character is Thunderhead Keep because I don't have time after that to spend hours battling through an area, dying over and over. I'm a casual gamer. I like to pick up a game and go through it at my pace and it would be a lot easier if my character wasn't limited to lv20. Or if the henchies were not so damn stupid compared to the enemies that "share" the same AI... yeah right... Their healers actually are useful.

Yes but it uses 15 energy leaving you with only 5 and recharges 45sec.I use shield of deflection in PvP to off set this Regen might be good in PvE though you just need something that is faster.I may and goa a cap it and give it a try.I already have it for my monk though.

Alot of this could have been to compansate for the green weapons and increased gold weapon drops. When we 1st did the missions and quests you could go though the whole storyline without seeing a plain max damage weapon. Now with all these rare weapons not so rare, they had to make it harder to keep things balanced.

I think this post says it all. Come on, I experienced also great success with henchies, even after the recent changes. If I can do it, if this poster can do it, then maybe it is a matter of technique and patience. Yes, its harder, and the tactics with and without henchies do need to be modified a bit due to the AI changes made by Anet. But the game is not impossible, and it is still fun.

A lot of battles require pulling back, a lot require extreme patience to wait till moving mobs are in the best positions. A lot of battles require running away, ressing the dead, and trying again. I think most people that fail or do badly nowadays don't realize the above.

I have been out with parties composed of a few warriors and 2 or 3 nuke elementalists, and it has become clear to me that a lot of players have gotten used to this kind of tactic: elementalists release multiple AOE spells while warriors tank and monks keep them alive. Time and time again. Before the recent changes, this worked extremely well, but wow for me this is an incredibly boring way to play GW! Thankfully Anet realized this and made the changes that they did. Because of the success of this tactic before the AI changes, I can understand why rangers, mesmers and necros had problems getting into parties, especially for farming: the warrior tank + nuking elementalists + healing monks was all that was necessary.

I actually find it easier now. It might be that I know more about the game than I did 6 months ago, but still. I started a new character just recently, a necro, and he's donw all the missions and bonuses up to D'Alessio Seaboard with henchies without any problems at all. What I have noticed is the drops seem different. I'm getting gold drops at least once or twice a mission. They're nothing spectacular at all but they're gold drops none the less. The one thing that I noticed just yesterday was while I was chest hunting outside Ember Light Camp and a couple of times thru RoF and Abaddon's. Out of 10 chests, not one single gold item. Not even one. The most exciting thing I got was a major absorb. Woo hoo. I remember the last time I was thru there I would get something gold out of every single chest. Anyone else notice this?

oooooooooh yes

I did several chest runs in the shiverpeaks and perdition rock (fire islands), got purple items (1 items was purple with absolutly no bonus stats, which i thought was fixed obviosly not), in all i did about 15 runs.
I then did 1 run in the desert and the first chest i get is a staff with +29hp & +5 armour :/

dont even get me started on how rubbish UW chests are.

I know... exciting init? You come across a small group, you've dispatched many groups like this already, same number, same makeup... so it's no big deal, just a walk in the park. But suddenly, something happens... another group gets aggro'ed, you're pulled into another group, or you're jumped by another you didn't expect... What was a simple fight has now become a challenge as all hell breaks loose!

Your brain kicks into overdrive, your heart starts pounding as you try to take in everything that's happening... Whose attacking, how many, what are they using, where are the henchies, what are they doing? (Ignoring Orion of course, as you know he's just hanging out somewhere, waiting for the most opportune moment to cast a Fire Storm).

To me, it's these moments which keeps me on my toes, it's what makes the journey from A to B fun. It takes the focus away from just getting to the destination and keeps the journey interesting and less like a mundane slog filled with repeated combat routines.

If I achieved an unbelievable victory, then I'm all fired up to march on to the next fight. Or I sit back and try to make sense of it all, trying to figure out exactly how I managed to come out of it alive. If I did it once, then it'll be useful to know how to do it again.

If I'm defeated, then it's a time for a rethink. What happened and what went wrong? Was it the warrior henchie that aggro'ed the other group? Did he do so because he was giving chase, following an AoE perhaps? Was the AoE Orion's Fire storm? (Possible, but highly unlikely as the battle wasn't over). I reflect on what happened and aim to learn rather than aim to blame. Yes, it's annoying if I have to go through it again, but if I make the right changes then it's not going to happen again...

I wouldn't say it's harder, just more challenging. Makes me think about what I'm doing and how I can get better, without simply relying on levelling up or getting better kit just so I can stand toe-to-toe against a mob.