Curse

Iuris · Mar 03, 2010, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Games should reward better play. The question is, how much? +10%? +50%? +100%? +700%?

P.S. My solution to issues like that? Make kill teams! Have players who play using the same too much tracked and thwarted by kill teams of monsters that specifically target the player's way of playing.

P.P.S. Really funny avatar, Deakon, where's it from?

qvtkc · Mar 03, 2010, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iuris

What I'm talking about is best illustrated by the first great solo farming nerf, the "loot scaling" one. Before it, Superior vigor runes and similar items cost a lot more than they do now, simply because of overabundance of gold. With the earnings of those days, it took quite a long time to gain that much money in regular play, from regular drops and quest rewards. Nowadays, they cost 20k at the trader.

Sup vigor dropped in price because

1) Golds (gold items) are excluded from loot scaling
and
2) Better drops in Hard Mode

Shuuda · Mar 03, 2010, 02:44 PM // 14:44

Quote:

He's right, the amount of chess-positions a human brain can evaluate is far less then what a computer can.

That's not intelligence. That's just doing a lot of calculation very fast.

Improvavel · Mar 03, 2010, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

No need to get nasty. He's right, the amount of chess-positions a human brain can evaluate is far less then what a computer can.

There's quite a few more positions to evaluate in chess then 'a couple of million' as you implied, not to mention that in chess there's a bit more to evaluate then in GW.

I said finite. Not thousand. Not hundreds of thousand. Not millions.

For a computer there is no difference - it is all based on their computational power.

Humans don't evaluate all the positions though - there are several positions they discard automatically. A computer can and will (given enough power) evaluate all the positions.

Quote:

GW's mob AI is limited on purpose, just as their skill bars, it would easily become to diffcult if they weren't.

Again - GW Mobs are there to be defeated and drop loot.

Still, EoTN charr and stone summit have decent team builds and they still die easily due to their static nature.

Some things could be easy adjusted - for example mobs decide to cast conditions/hexes regarding the weapon you have equipped. That is silly. Just because I've a spear I can't be a caster anymore and instead I'm a physical character relying on attacks...

Test Me · Mar 03, 2010, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deakon

Socialism has no place in a game.

Awesomely said! But few people here will get it...

Improvavel · Mar 03, 2010, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by qvtkc

Guess your brain hasn't been exposed to courses in biology. A given brain has a finite number of brain cells and each cell can either discharge or not (be "turned on" or "turned off", send an impulse through its axon or not). That a brain has a finite number of positions isn't rude at all, it's a fact.

And it even starts with too many cells that get removed to streamline with the course of life.

Still opposed to AI, we can make decisions without going through all the positions of our brains, making it prone to mistakes, but on the other hand wasting time/resources on completely wrong lines of thinking.

A powerful enough AI, without programming flaws, won't lose a chess game.
Do you want a GW AI that won't lose vs humans?

Quote:

Why would it need to take 30 minutes per area? The point of making AI more human like wouldn't be to make it harder to beat normally, since bad players can be beaten pretty easily. It's to overcome farming. Most farms are based on a one-trick gimmick and if that trick fails the entire thing fails. But there are many tricks. So have mobs adapt somewhat to whatever is being used, the trick fails, and farming turns impossible without making it much harder for a normal group.

First - I said 30 minutes per mob if they acted like humans (which is a rheorical question as AI can't act like human just yet), not area, and it was a random number. You just have to go kill some grawl priests in old ascalon and see them run all over (sure there is snares) and tell me if that is fun (a leftover of a farm nerf).

Second, why do you need to overcome farm?

Third, all those tricks are based on the inability of mobs to remove enchantments, spell immunity and/or damage reduction.

I'm not against boost to the MOBs builds. I've advocated that before. But that won't make the game harder (or substantial so) - just less stupider/stats based.

If you look, the harder areas are based on MOBs having huge stats and cheating.

qvtkc · Mar 03, 2010, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Do you want a GW AI that won't lose vs humans?

I want a GW that won't lose vs farmers, but will lose vs people playing normally (if they are good enough).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Second, why do you need to overcome farm?

Because the gimmicks involved in farming are at the absolute core of what I see as the greatest problem in GW, which is mission/dungeon running. Do I care about some guy using SF to farm ectos for 10 hours straight every day? Hell no, it just makes ectos cheaper for me.
But I do care when it comes to running, because it does nothing but devalue both content and certain more unique rewards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

Third, all those tricks are based on the inability of mobs to remove enchantments, spell immunity and/or damage reduction.

So? It could be something as easy as "it hurts when I hit this guy (because he has Holy Wrath on) so I won't hit him" or "we can't kill this guy even though 4 of us are beating on him (since he's a super buffed tank) so we'll ignore him, or spread out".

Of course skills that makes you 100% invulnerable like Shadow Form did would still need to be treated separately.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

I'm not against boost the MOBs builds. I've advocated that before. But that won't make the game harder (or substancial so).

If you look, the harder areas are based on MOBs having huge stats and cheating.

Huge stats and cheating is what makes DoA a not exactly popular place to play in.

qvtkc · Mar 03, 2010, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

That's not intelligence. That's just doing a lot of calculation very fast.

There is nothing that differs from the way your brain evaluates things except the scale of parallelism.

Tullzinski · Mar 03, 2010, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shriketalon

And that is actually it. This would make adjust the most common foes across the continents, thus providing each region with something that is a half decent challenge. Not as big a problem as one might think. And in the process, mobs get tougher, PvE gets more challenging, and the game gets more involved. Which is good, no?

TL;DR-> A lot of the SC and solo stuff that is complained about is simply an issue because the monsters can't deal with it. Give the most common monsters means of doing so, and we're quite a few steps closer to solving the problem AND making PvE more engaging at the same time.

Not Allowed you need to stop!!!

Everyone wants the nerf/buff player skills merry go round.

/signed btw

Improvavel · Mar 03, 2010, 03:47 PM // 15:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by qvtkc

I want a GW that won't lose vs farmers, but will lose vs people playing normally (if they are good enough).

Good enough is running some damage mitigation+heal+damage (and we already have sabway and derivates), so pretty much everyone will able to do that if given no alternatives (just saying this because to some people, most players shouldn't be able to finish elite areas, which is dumb since AI is stupid).

The main problem is the attacks on farmer did nothing to the people playing normally.

Skeleton of Dhuum and bazzilion spawns in UW? Harder to normal teams than farmers (and I'm still working on finish that with 2p+6h, 8 skellies spamming flurry of splinters while a dozen spiders knock everyone can be annoying).

All these years the additions for the normal players are reduced to zaishen quests and books (and some of those are still faster with farming/running builds).

Quote:

Because the gimmicks involved in farming are at the absolute core of what I see as the greatest problem in GW, which is mission/dungeon running. Do I care about some guy using SF to farm ectos for 10 hours straight every day? Hell no, it just makes ectos cheaper for me.
But I do care when it comes to running, because it does nothing but devalue both content and certain more unique rewards.

The main problem is that drops are quite random. Finishing Forgewhight HM to get 2 diamonds? Please.

In the end you get nerfs on farming but exactly no buffing on regular play.

Quote:

So? It could be something as easy as "it hurts when I hit this guy (because he has Holy Wrath on) so I won't hit him" or "we can't kill this guy even though 4 of us are beating on him (since he's a super buffed tank) so we'll ignore him, or spread out".

So basically every caster would put holy wrath on and be immune? And what if you have an imbagon and a ER E/Mo? The mobs are just going home?

Quote:

Huge stats and cheating is what makes DoA a not exactly popular place to play in.

I like one thing about DoA though - the end reward is fixed.

Improvavel · Mar 03, 2010, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by qvtkc

There is nothing that differs from the way your brain evaluates things except the scale of parallelism.

Of course if you give the human player infinite time he can go trough all the positions in chess too.

So it is processing power.

AI is good at those kind of problems.

But problems where they need to learn - nope. Not yet, at any rate.

Deakon · Mar 03, 2010, 04:25 PM // 16:25

I don't understand how people can write scripts/macros/bots (against the EULA) to mow down the stiff competition in PvP areas but the creators of the game can't write code to moderately give speed runners a hard time in PvE.

Amy Awien · Mar 03, 2010, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deakon

... Socialism has no place in a game. Games reward the players who are smarter, faster and who are well prepared for the challenge.

Socialism or any other ideologies have nothing to do with it, It's an RPG, meaning that RPG characters group up and have adventures. GW's PvE - and it's PvP - were intended to be played cooperatively, in groups, as is evidenced by the fact that groups of 4, 6 and 8 characters can be - and are expected to be - formed for missions and quests.

Farming, Speedclears, Dungeonruns and all that may have their own place, as evidenced by the fact that it was never destroyed, but they should not replace the game as it was originally intended to be played.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuuda

That's not intelligence. That's just doing a lot of calculation very fast.

And you know how to define intelligence? What makes you so sure that intelligence is something different from doing many calculations fast, or evaluating many situatiosn fast and accurately? Anyway, in chess evaluating millions of positions gets the job done better then human intelligence. What, then, makes you say it's 'just' doing many calculations?

The-Bigz · Mar 03, 2010, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deakon

I don't understand how people can write scripts/macros/bots (against the EULA) to mow down the stiff competition in PvP areas but the creators of the game can't write code to moderately give speed runners a hard time in PvE.

I usually agree with you but I dont want the game to be harder for runners. That would just further kill PvE. I always get runs because I can't find shit for people in the outpost and nobody will help me so I have to pay someone 2k to get me from point A to B. That change would personally affect my Elite Armor collection I'm working on. If your talking about elite dungeons I agree, but not for all normal runner routes like Forge -> Droks, etc.

Just my 2 cents on that point.

bilinast · Mar 03, 2010, 04:55 PM // 16:55

imo, pve mobs should be more balance, more professions spread across the mobs, pretty much what upier said. Beside, to make it even more "fun", monsters skills bar should generate random builds

everytime you enter a mission/explorable area.

Builds that are not some random skills put together. Mb a build that reflects current meta.

Morphy · Mar 03, 2010, 05:01 PM // 17:01

This is what should have been done in the first place.

Improvavel · Mar 03, 2010, 05:06 PM // 17:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

And you know how to define intelligence? What makes you so sure that intelligence is something different from doing many calculations fast, or evaluating many situatiosn fast and accurately? Anyway, in chess evaluating millions of positions gets the job done better then human intelligence. What, then, makes you say it's 'just' doing many calculations?

The point of Chess and GW is to challenge human intelligence and human skill.

Tic-tack-toe is also evaluating positions, but it isn't as challenging as chess simply because our brain can evaluate all those positions in a short period of time.

Human intelligence developed to deal with a set of problems, mostly how to interact with other humans.

Making calculations very fast is a type of intelligence but not very interestiing for GWs AI.

Most important is that AI always act in predictable ways. That makes it exploitable.

qvtkc · Mar 03, 2010, 05:27 PM // 17:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

The main problem is that drops are quite random. Finishing Forgewhight HM to get 2 diamonds? Please.

The problem isn't that you get 2 diamonds.
The problem is that diamonds are boring and almost worthless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

So basically every caster would put holy wrath on and be immune? And what if you have an imbagon and a ER E/Mo? The mobs are just going home?

They'd find the best target. If everyone is invulnerable I guess they'd try to avoid and interrupt the invulnerability skills.

Deakon · Mar 03, 2010, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Socialism or any other ideologies have nothing to do with it, It's an RPG, meaning that RPG characters group up and have adventures. GW's PvE - and it's PvP - were intended to be played cooperatively, in groups, as is evidenced by the fact that groups of 4, 6 and 8 characters can be - and are expected to be - formed for missions and quests.

Do you understand what socialism is? You just claimed socialism has nothing to do with it then, in the same paragraph, explained how socialism is the intended way to play.

If I want to solo or h/h, then I'm being anti-social but still enjoying my purchase in a way I'm happy with. Me being anti-social should not cause anyone else consternation. You still have the option of grouping with like-minded individuals in order to accomplish a goal. It has never been denied you as a player. It may be denied to your preferred character or build.

You can't just show up at a Laker's tryout and demand that you be allowed to be on the team and receive the same salary as the starting line-up. You can, however, get together with friends and hit the playground for a fun game of b-ball.

I have much better success with my h/h than I ever had in a PuG. And taking away my ability to play within the game mechanics in a way that makes me happy isn't going to make me want to join a PuG. It makes me less interested in playing GW at all.

If Anet want to promote balanced team play then great. But you don't trim the living limbs from a tree so the dying ones have a chance to survive. I believe the game is dying and from what I can tell so does the majority. Improving the opposition, nerfing skills, buffing skills etc. etc. is simply putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. All good things come to an end. Let it go with grace and dignity... or add new content.

bilinast · Mar 03, 2010, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

If Anet want to promote balanced team play then great. But you don't trim the living limbs from a tree so the dying ones have a chance to survive. I believe the game is dying and from what I can tell so does the majority. Improving the opposition, nerfing skills, buffing skills etc. etc. is simply putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. All good things come to an end. Let it go with grace and dignity... or add new content.

That is true.