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.