Curse

ectospasm · Dec 01, 2006, 08:52 AM // 08:52

I hate this game and how the pve and pvp arent separate entities and how things arent like they used to be. Why do they care so much about farming and why do they nerf the skills and AI for farming? Why not let it be a free game with freedom to do what you like ingame to better enjoy it instead of constant grind for everything you want/need? Farming as it used to be wasnt grind to me, it was enjoyable. If people botting are the cause for the farm ruin (and if they sell gwgold) then more emphasis needs to be put into stopping just that. Not ruin it for people who farm for themselves in order to better thier self & that help guildies by loaning gold and items, teaching to farm, etc... Of course there are other ways to make a little gold. But buying and selling, chest running, group farming, crafting materials just isnt fun. Its a waste of time. I loved the challenge of going into the cave and aggroing 20 trolls with my rit and watching them all go down or taking on the grawl, avicaria, warden. I took pride in being able to accomplish killing them solo.

What I did with the materials and weapons:

-Saved the crafting materials after salvaging salvageable stuff.
-Used some to craft other things to sell back for a little extra gold.
-Sold all the drops to the merchant.
-Saved vigor runes for future heros.
-Gave dyes and stuff to friends and saved some for my new armors.
-Hoarded all the gold for the nightfall release.
-Spent it all on my dervish.

I dont really need anymore gold now. I have like 40k but what if something comes up I want? Go wurm farming for 20 hours? Though I do want all the new skills, I am only 39.91% unlocked across all classes. If I calculated correctly I need another 679 skills to be fully unlocked. Ill never use them but it would be nice to have accomplished it. Yet if you pvp you can buy the unlock pack... Kinda useless to someone who pves.

So really, in this game if you want it all you need to be able to solo farm effectively. If not people will end up buying gold from people who risk botting or who can farm/make alot of gold quickly by other means. You just cant waste time away playing thru the game over and over to make money to support heros, skills, greens, armor, materials, runes, golds, trips to uw/fow, keys for chests, minipets, etc... Its just not possible or even logical. Things should be more available, drops need to be increased, golds more frequent, chests with better ratios, more gold dropped per enemy. If this ANTI Farming trend keeps up, soon it will be impossible. Otherwise we need farming, including skills and AI as it was.

xXa1 · Dec 01, 2006, 11:05 AM // 11:05

-START OF RANT- (contains unpleasant language)

after all this time, i no longer care for guild wars.

irregardless of having costed me USD170, the issue is not financial but FUN and there is no fun logging into a game with hardly anyone in your guild, hardly anyone in your alliance, and hardly anyone in town who wants to play ... play anything anywhichway.

those still ingame have their heroes ... they do missions, quests and even farm all by themselves. christ the game is boring. if i wanted things this boring i'd go meditate in a convent.

even farming is boring, its so easy, nothing has any value anymore. and besides, nothing of value really drops anymore. clear out a map of level 22s-28s and all you get are NON MAX items??? from ai that runs and runs and runs ... jesus its not just the monks that run, it's nearly everything, even the warriors.

i pve because i want things to die, not to grief me. i play for FUN not to be griefed or annoyed. real life is already full of griefing and annoyances, you log-into a game to escape it, not to face it again.

ah what the hell, i really loved guild wars but since the 27 oct 06 update, this game and ANET (and every single bastard dev in it) can go ROT. never again will i shell out anything for these numbnuts just to let them SHAFT ME with their updates every six months.

-END OF RANT-

Trvth Jvstice · Dec 01, 2006, 04:18 PM // 16:18

I'm pretty sure that posting complaints about the game isn't the same as discussing the game.

A post properly discussing the game and actually on topic would go something like this: The new ai does cause problems if you're trying to run through an area to try chest or green farm, but if you're play the game as Anet meant it to be played, you shouldn't have a problem.

With carefull pulling you should be able to pull a mob of enemies away from any near by mobs and wipe out that group with no problem. If one part of the mob starts running to another mob, quickly change and call a different target.

I'll admit the way the enemy responds to AoE is annoying, but so far it hasn't made defeating a mob more difficult imo.

I'm pretty sure Anet never intended any part of the game to be solo'd. It was intended to be played by a group of rp or with henchies or heroes. That's why I think they made the ai change.

shirosae · Dec 01, 2006, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trvth Jvstice

I'm pretty sure that posting complaints about the game isn't the same as discussing the game.

A post properly discussing the game and actually on topic would go something like this: The new ai does cause problems if you're trying to run through an area to try chest or green farm, but if you're play the game as Anet meant it to be played, you shouldn't have a problem.

If you believe that:

1: taking a party through an area, killing mobs between point A and B, and
2: when some, but not all of your party dies, you should be allowed to run out of aggro range, and return after aggro is lost to res your dead teammates

are both acceptable play, then the AI does cause a problem. Because mobs can and do re-aggro from at least radar-range. Doesn't matter how long you wait, return to the spot of death (which is always way away from the 'spawn' point of the enemy group if you pull properly), they will zerg you when you wander inside radar range.

Not every time, oddly enough, but often - which is why i consider the current AI to be bugged, and not functioning as intended. This happens; i don't care who claims that it doesn't, i have screenshots of an occurance of this in Nightfallen Gardens, although i suspect a video would demonstrate better.

Although honestly, it would be kinda nice if Anet shared exactly how the game is supposed to be played, so i can determine if it's worth continuing, whether the AI is currently bugged or not, and well, because that kind of thing is either important or not. If Anet believe that ressing dead teammates before the enemy group is dead is unintended play, then they should probably say so. If they don't believe that, then the AI is not functioning as intended, and should be worked on.

If it's bugged, i'm more than happy to give them examples of how/where it happens, and offers suggestions towards a fix. They've suggested this way of working with their community before, why not this time?

If it's working as intended, then it's an insane move on their part, but i'll accept it and move somewhere else. All i want is some sensible* clarification on this.

*Sensible != OMG U WHINE SO MUCH BECUZ U CANT FRAM BUT FRAMMING IS EAZY U SUXXOR STOP FRAMING GO PLAY WOW NOOB TEH AI IS UBAR**

**Not that you've said anything like this that i can see; i quote you purely because you seem capable of understanding my position, and that itself is somewhat rare in these kinds of discussion.

Quote:

With carefull pulling you should be able to pull a mob of enemies away from any near by mobs and wipe out that group with no problem. If one part of the mob starts running to another mob, quickly change and call a different target.

I'll admit the way the enemy responds to AoE is annoying, but so far it hasn't made defeating a mob more difficult so far imo.

I'm pretty sure Anet never intended any part of the game to be solo'd. It was intended to be played by a group of rp or with henchies or heroes. That's why I think they made the ai change.

I don't farm. Well, not seriously anyway, not for profit; i don't have the patience or time. I don't chest run. I was going through the NF campaign with Guildies/Heroes/Henchies. I did occasionally solo for fun, Ranger+Pet, just to see how much i could take on at once, in between missions/quests/helping Guildies out etc. I don't mind losing this too much, although i think it's a silly response if the goal is to combat some items ingame becoming too expensive for most players.

The AI update should be pretty transparent for me, since i don't do any of these things which the AI update was supposedly intended to fix (I haven't tried soloing yet). It's not. I'm sick of playing tag, restarting missions because ressing is often impossible, and watching insane Benny Hill circular marathons when i'm using a purely Hero/Hench team.

I WANT to help them fix it if it's broken. If they don't want people being able to res teammates, i WILL accept it and move on. It'd be nice if they clarified it for me.

Trvth Jvstice · Dec 01, 2006, 05:54 PM // 17:54

@ Shirosae -You're right. Sorry I left out the perma aggro problem that makes rezzing often impossible. I didn't say the ai didn't need some tweaking. I was mostly responding to the complaints from people that are trying to solo play.

I should have expanded my comment about the way enemys respond to AoE to also include the way they run in circles when they start getting low on health. That is also very annoying, but doesn't stop a group from killing that mob.

EDIT: My main purpose for that post was to get the thread back on topic. The last several posters were basically flaming each other and since I think this is a good thread, I didnt want it shut down by the mods.

shirosae · Dec 01, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

@ Trvth Jvstice

I think, personally, that Anet are going about this farming thing the wrong way. If a number of items are growing too expensive, then it's far easier to increase the drop rate on those items. The price is determined by supply/demand, which is something Anet have directly in their control. The side they're currently messing with - adjusting playstyle, is inherrantly determined by the variance in time and effort their playerbase spend willing to get those items. There is no way that you can just put a cap on player effort so that the lowest demoninator becomes the standard. Not without seriously breaking their game, at least.

Okay, manually adjusting the market would require a serious level of research and continual maintenance, but aren't they already doing that by watching the skillsets used in PvP? If it's worth rewriting the AI rules to deal with the inequality of the market, it might be worth letting a few people keep an eye on it using the simplest method possible - just making the expensive stuff drop more.

Despite this, though, i think Anet should address the concerns. Make a post, somewhere, stating "We know that many of you are having issues with the AI. Please make records of the issues you have in format A, B, or C, and send them here, we'll do our best to work out if/where things are going wrong, and tell you about this as we work it out".

Until that happens, i think the complaints to the AI update are only going to leave when that portion of the GW playerbase leaves GW itself. I blieve that group is significantly larger than the 'farming/chestrunning' elite, mainly because i haven't seen anyone in my guild online in a fortnight, and none of them were farmers or chestrunners either.

I do agree with you though - complaints are not discussion. I think what needs to happen now is that people who are experience problems start putting together recordings of the issues, screenshots/videos and suchlike. At the very least, that would prove the people claiming that there are no issues wrong. At the very best, it might embarrass a response from someone at Anet if a whole bunch of AI horror videos started popping up on youtube.

That itself would require the people who are having problems to avoid the flamewars which invariably result when someone replies to a OMG U WHINERS GO PLAY WOW THER IS NO AI BUG post, and stick to gathering evidence.

WLlama · Dec 01, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

I don't know how many times in UW/FoW/ToPK I saw this type of odd infini-aggro behavior well before the update. That being said, while it wasn't completely limited to these areas, it did seem to occur more often there. Then Factions came around and it got a bit worse. It seems this AI has now been applied to most mobs, but the thing to keep in mind is it has been always been there just not in the same prevalence.

With all that in mind, when I first saw it, I thought it was a very interesting approach and in fact an increased challenge. It made sense to me, and still does, that after you aggravate something, it stays aware that something might be coming for it even though you ran away for a while. Let's call it a heightened state of awareness (jumpy/trigger-happy). The best implementation of this would probably be an increased aggro bubble, though I'm not sure if this is ANets approach or by what factor it increases. That being said, it seems the factor (if that's how they do it) may be a bit large and, at least before the update, was inconsistently applied. Unfortunately, if your group lies dead inside this heightened-awareness aggro bubble, you are out of luck.

So, what could be used to reduce this effect. The one that seems most obvious is a time decay for the aggro bubble back to the typical. This seems the best implementation to make everyone happy but not necessarily very realistic. After life threatening situations, things don't necessarily become less jumpy once the adrenaline stops flowing, especially if it was a real attempt vs. a scare (a gunshot vs. a car backfiring, for example). Anyway, it definitely could use a bit of tweaking if they want it to be a group effort but it seems they may be going for more realistic behavior...if a bit inconsistently.

shirosae · Dec 01, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

I know that bosses frequently did the infini-aggro thing with me. I believe i read somewhere that bosses would lock targets onto a player, and then hold it for five minutes or so. I used to use this behaviour to pull bosses away from groups actually.

There seem to be a couple of ranges in play. I was messing with it the other day, and i noticed that the mobs would aggro from radar range. In order to make them lose interest, i'd have to run beyond radar range. I tried it several times; the boundaries seemed fixed to the map itself, rather than being bound to the mobs themselves.

Playing with it again, trying to capture it on video, i noticed that they tend to do it if i'm in aggro range when the last party member dies, but not if i run out of aggro range before. I need to test that more, though.

Just to demonstrate the behaviour, and maybe to start a bandwagon of people posting records/proof of the bugs in action, i made a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA6tOY6KZgo

The other one (which is fullscreen) is too hard to see. I may eventually upload it to filefront or somewhere just to get it out.

Alya · Dec 02, 2006, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by shirosae

Despite this, though, i think Anet should address the concerns. Make a post, somewhere, stating "We know that many of you are having issues with the AI. Please make records of the issues you have in format A, B, or C, and send them here, we'll do our best to work out if/where things are going wrong, and tell you about this as we work it out".

Until that happens, i think the complaints to the AI update are only going to leave when that portion of the GW playerbase leaves GW itself. ... I think what needs to happen now is that people who are experience problems start putting together recordings of the issues, screenshots/videos and suchlike. At the very least, that would prove the people claiming that there are no issues wrong. At the very best, it might embarrass a response from someone at Anet if a whole bunch of AI horror videos started popping up on youtube.

Actually this has already been implemented.

In a parallel thread on GW Online, in her post of November, 10th, Gaile Gray asked the players to present the evidence of the erratic AI behaviour:
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forum...&postcount=247

This is page 25 of the discussion. (Later Ms Gray re-appeared on the page 26 to inform that the developers watch this thread).

Now the discussion is 34 pages long; since then, more evidence have been presented, with the detailed descriptions of classes, areas involved, AI behaviour, and such, from various players, under various circumstances.

Sadly, that was the last time we ever heard from her on the AI issue.

From my side, I can confirm that the last AI fix of November, 30, did not resolve the perma-lock and perma-aggro problem.

shirosae · Dec 02, 2006, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alya

Actually this has already been implemented.

In a parallel thread on GW Online, in her post of November, 10th, Gaile Gray asked the players to present the evidence of the erratic AI behaviour:
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forum...&postcount=247

This is page 25 of the discussion. (Later Ms Gray re-appeared on the page 26 to inform that the developers watch this thread).

Now the discussion is 34 pages long; since then, more evidence have been presented, with the detailed descriptions of classes, areas involved, AI behaviour, and such, from various players, under various circumstances.

Sadly, that was the last time we ever heard from her on the AI issue.

From my side, I can confirm that the last AI fix of November, 30, did not resolve the perma-lock and perma-aggro problem.

Sweet, thanks for bringing that to my attention, although bleh @ forced registration. I suppose this is as good a time as any to go make one though.

Thanks again.

WasAGuest · Dec 02, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alya

From my side, I can confirm that the last AI fix of November, 30, did not resolve the perma-lock and perma-aggro problem.

Nor did it fix the seemingly wierd insta-monk aggro that happens often... which often causes the AI (allied and mob) to perma-lock chase; as seen here. - Course the video there is probably the funniest I've seen; it does show some of what many of us see while simply playing through the game. Only instead of the tree being what's run around, it's me (or the players with like problems)... happened again tonight...

So, back to waiting for a fix for me.

Matsumi · Dec 02, 2006, 04:53 AM // 04:53

From what I saw in that youtube video, that kind of thing has been going on before nightfall and factions. Party wipes, one survivor runs back to rez dead teammates, and reinitiates aggro. They sort of create a zone around the area where they killed your teammates, and if you venture into that zone again, they're back on you.

Loralai · Dec 02, 2006, 05:27 AM // 05:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matsumi

From what I saw in that youtube video, that kind of thing has been going on before nightfall and factions. Party wipes, one survivor runs back to rez dead teammates, and reinitiates aggro. They sort of create a zone around the area where they killed your teammates, and if you venture into that zone again, they're back on you.

It did occur prior to Nightfall, in both Prophecies and Factions. However, it was a rare occurence unlike now where it seems quite frequent. (At least for me, that is.)

WasAGuest · Dec 02, 2006, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matsumi

From what I saw in that youtube video, that kind of thing has been going on before nightfall and factions. Party wipes, one survivor runs back to rez dead teammates, and reinitiates aggro. They sort of create a zone around the area where they killed your teammates, and if you venture into that zone again, they're back on you.

... further proof that the current AI has made even long standing "bugs" more obvious and turn up more often. Meaning, AI is now worse than ever and rather than fix it; we are given an Elite mission where we can go in and watch the AI act like foolish little kids in an arena. Cute.

Dcom67 · Dec 02, 2006, 06:09 PM // 18:09

I have played gw off and on since the original campain. Got all pumped for Factions , and lost interest by the time i hit cavalon. Basicly lost sight of just what i was supposed to be doing. So when nightfall came out I came back at it again.
Sure a few things im not too happy with , getting chars from one campain to another sometimes .

I played a tyrian necro up as far as vabbia , seemes ok for the most part. I really like the new hero and henchie system myself.

But i have noticed some weird things the ai does.

Yesterday (dec 1) I was playing a new dervish char, was doing a quest (diamond in the rough) kill some harpies and check the nests. Well it turned sour , several of the heros went down and i ran. Lo and behold this super sized aggro zone stayed in effect, Needless to say after waiting some time i was unable to get anywhere near the heros to rez them and ended up having to zone.
I thought it was some fluke the first time i saw this a few days ago,was playing a warrior in factions starter isle , on the mothers quest from the harbor, (find her son where the horde of humans are,forget what its called).
Was really annoying trying to kill nagas there too, some would just run around in circles. Till you could slow them down with banes signet or something.

Had the hudge aggro zone problem on the nightfal mainland too but dont remember where.

Right now im playing the dervish on starter land, using 3 heros, dunkaro, koss, and the dervish one. The ai is starting to annoy me somewhat. You engage a group and everything splits or singlemindely attacks the monk.

I didnt notice it so much when i was using groups of 6 or more where I could use two monks, but in the 4 man group its getting annoying.
While it is not a new move I dont think to attack the monk. But i mean im beating on something and its totaly locked onto the monk.. and if its a group of 6 or 7 enemies , well your monk is probably going down. You kinda need him to heal in such small groups.
I know you need to protect him , but its preety hard with things runing all over and everything just about totaly focused on killing him.

Saraphim · Dec 02, 2006, 10:09 PM // 22:09

Ehm.... generally I've not had huge problems with the AI or AoE changes (despite being a fire ele). Even the 'Benny Hill Syndrome' didn't bother me too much as I could stand in the middle and wand things while they ran round like headless chickens.

But... just now, I was kicking some Skree Harpy butt, and they start to run. Ok.. no probs, we'll just trail along like a conga line and keep up the pressure. We're two compasses away from a portal and what do they do?

Run right through it.

That's definitely a new one for me.. o.O

Oh, I forgot. Also Kournan Priests seem to have a death wish. They keep charging my parties before the rest of the pack get there. Makes it easier for me, mind. But a bit odd.

thelessa · Dec 02, 2006, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Yep, everytime I have been out killing off the Skree Harpies, a number of them run from us and right thru the portal. Thought it was a fluke, but I have been thru there several times and they do it every time.

Saraphim · Dec 02, 2006, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Hah. Glad it's not just me. It happened again after I posted and we were about 4 compasses away that time. Knowing my luck one of them will have died just as they went through and dropped a lovely perfect weapon on the wrong side.

*Collapses with laughter at the thought of a perfect drop*

Drazaar · Dec 03, 2006, 03:50 AM // 03:50

That harpy thing is not new to me.

Ive had it happen everytime in Vabbi. They have those 2 Paragon bosses, Screetcher and Scratcher or some such.

I noticed if you dont want to deal with harpies in there all you have to do is kill Screetcher and/or Scratcher and then the rest of the harpies will simply flee the map zone via that portal. It seems there willing to fight me up untill the boss is down then you might as well stop and watch a throng of red dots on your radar blitz for the portal.

Ive been around since the beggining and I love a challenge hence why I went for guld wars over other games for how its not so much how much time you spend in the game(level 20 cap being one of the points) but how well you plan out your character to maximise the runes, stats, and skills.

But this new AI attitude kinda blows and is irritating at times. The perma super aggro thing would be nice if fixed.