Curse

Lagg · Nov 03, 2006, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Or, the cold reality of inefficiency could be hitting you. In either case, it really doesnt matter.

A player can only be "efficient" if he chooses to become so. The only prerequisite for that, is that he's having fun while playing and is willing to spend more time with the game. In the old system, I was having loads of fun. In the new system, I'm having less fun.

Now ArenaNet sells entertainment, meaning that if a lot of their customers are not being entertained, it DOES matter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IAL

In short id like ot see GW work as a good book where you write your own chapters in your own pase. That is how i think it should work and why chapter 1 was so popular.
Keep the game simple, dont increase the skin amount so extremely, make more realms instead of tweaking it to pieces and
for gods sake make it more fun again.

I couldn't agree more.

gabrial heart · Nov 03, 2006, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Yup, they did something to the ai. Last night i hardley had any skill canceling, the ai kited and followed targets well. When we ran from an ele spiking mob (sandstorm boss), the tank disengaged right away and things work rather nicely. I truly don't mind that the enemy ai targets the sqwuishies as long as the ai heals, casts effectively and follows targets. Things seem to be working better for the moment...

ectospasm · Nov 03, 2006, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kusandaa

We chased the priest boss in Dunes of Depair for 3 whole minutes. That's NOT normal. A guildie claims he also chased a priest on Elona across the WHOLE area... which is NOT normal either. It also sucks when one monsters aggroes the next mob, which is huge as heck, and drive them unto you (even worse if that mob also has a few priests...)

And it's not just henches and heroes that gets stuck - minions will randomly stay beside you, stop attacking, or go back where you stood in the middle of a fight. They don't attack a called target anymore. Rit damaging spirits stop attacking if the spammer dies.

Now where is that bug thread... lol

I had a group of 3 Charr chase me outside Nolani Academy forever until i finally died. And in turn I have chased priests and bosuuns half way across a map just to kill them. Its cool that they run now but i dont enjoy being chased as a warrior by CHARR in ascalon while making a run. thats just wrong.

Sir Kilgore · Nov 03, 2006, 10:35 PM // 22:35

The bottom line is that the AI is beatable, but that's not the issue. Some of the changes are turning average battles into lengthy "grinds."

I usually only have about 2 hours a night to play on the nights that I can afford to take the time. If it were to take a couple hours just to grind through a side quest, I probably wouldn't be interested in playing for long. Fortunately it appears to be nowhere near that bad, but the gameplay certainly has slowed some and with several AI changes in the last week, you never really know what you can count on when you head into battle. In some respects that's ok, but it can lead to frustration when the setup you used yesterday no longer works on the same monsters today.

There is a time/place for battles of epic proportion that require mistake free coordination and planning. That place is on Master's level missions, elite missions, and main storyline missions near the end of the game. Killing groups of monsters is an absolute necessity by design of this game. However, if it becomes tedious just to do side quests, then casual players like myself will probably look elsewhere for entertainment.

AI is difficult to program. I've dabbled in it a little myself in simple games that would seem like child's play compared to GW. Even there I found how difficult it is to get the heirarchy of decisions working properly and the ripple effects throughout the code caused by the simplest of changes. Throw in team coordination and the task gets exponentially harder. However, whenever I thought I had a chunk of code working properly I tested it as thoroughly as possible in real game scenarios using as many variations in possiblities as I could before I tried to use it on the final product. Then I had others use it and report back to me what they found. GW is massively more complex than anything I ever did, with far more possibilities to take into account, yet I feel that there was not an adequate job of testing done before the release of the updated AI.

Many of the threads on here would not exist if due dilligence were given to the testing of these new codes before the release to the general public. If the AI performed generally as advertised in the update then the "adapt and overcome" people would have a valid point. Unfortunately, it has not.

On the other hand, Anet does appear to have a team of people who are willing and able to respond fairly quickly to solve some of these issues and I do appreciate that.

I just hope they will let us know when they consider the AI for both the monsters and the heroes/henchies to be working as they intended so that we can finally adjust what we do to compensate for the changes. I have the ability, but not the time to figure out new setups on a daily basis to compensate for the latest tweak.

Phades · Nov 04, 2006, 02:26 AM // 02:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lagg

In the old system, I was having loads of fun. In the new system, I'm having less fun.

At the expense of others' fun, such as myself. Like i stated before, it doesnt matter.

Sir Kilgore · Nov 04, 2006, 04:15 AM // 04:15

Ok, I'll bite.

How in the world can you claim he was having fun at the expense of your fun? Nothing was taken from you. It could not possibly have been at your expense because that's all there was -- either you were having fun or not, but his having fun had nothing to do with your fun. Unless, of course, other people having fun makes you miserable, while seeing them have less fun or suffer provides entertainment for you.

He, on the other hand, can argue that something was taken from him. It won't change anything, but at least he does have a valid argument.

Blackest Rose · Nov 04, 2006, 05:22 AM // 05:22

You can't please all the people all the time.... but you should be able to please most of the people most of the time.
That way you sell a game to most of the people and they're happy with it.

I agree with Kilgore.

Your fun doesn't cancel out his lack of fun - it doesn't make sense.

Anet's goal is to maximise profits -> maximise sales -> maximise people buying -> people buy if they like the game -> people buy game for fun experience.

So in order to maximise profits they need to make a fun game for as many people as possible.

Remember the episode when Homer Simpson designed his brothers car and bankrupted him.... Anet need to avoid this scenario and cater to the masses and not the few.

2 people having fun > 1 person having fun

arcanemacabre · Nov 04, 2006, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackest Rose

2 people having fun > 1 person having fun

That's entirely based on the assumption of which side has more supporters. In fact, reading through this thread, it seems almost like a 50/50 split, to me. Personally, I'm all for the AI update, but I can understand the other point of view as well.

I've long supported a good middle ground, though. In other words, different types of mobs have different types of AI. Humans, Margonites, Djinn, Demons, etc. get the improved AI, or maybe even something better depending on level. Whereas Insects, Drakes, Skales, Heket, etc. get a more dumbed-down AI, and perhaps plain idiotic (or more reflex/instinct based where they aggro the first thing wailing on them) for lower level.

Otherwise, how it is now is perfectly fine to me. It could be a bit more difficult, IMO, but it's pretty fun as it is. There has to be a balance. If it's too difficult, then people who want an easy time will ragequit, or get frustrated after repeated attempts, or just otherwise burn out from thinking too much on how to beat something. If it's too easy, people will just get bored of the game before getting even halfway, or abuse farming ventures, sending the market into a free-fall.

Balance is a delicate thing, and whether or not Anet has accomplished that balance has yet to be determined. If there are bugs (like the heroes cancelling skills), they need to be fixed, obviously. I just don't see how anyone can't agree that the AI needed tweaking, though. "Change it!" I get, "Change it back!" I don't.

Blackest Rose · Nov 04, 2006, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

That's entirely based on the assumption of which side has more supporters.

Not really but I agree that it's about 50-50 judging by the posts.
Let's say we have a sample size of 100 people.

Some scenarios -
90 people were having fun previously doing whatever they were doing -> 100 sales of software with 10 people thinking that it was too easy after buying the game but still playing the game. Those 10 people may or may not buy the next chapters.

Now with the AI changes say only 50 people are having fun and that means that roughly 50 people are not having fun - playing less and not likely to buy NF or further chapters.

So which scenario makes more sense from a sales perspective?

The likelyhood of a person who will quit/not buy because the game stays the same is far far less that the likelyhood of a person who will quit/not buy because the game changed in a way that they didn't like (and had no way to foresee).

As far as I can see NF is a huge success but the AI update has marred it significantly for a sizable chunk of people.

GW needs to grow player base and not shrink it.
Anet should be concerned about pissing off a significant portion of current and future customers.

arcanemacabre · Nov 04, 2006, 06:55 AM // 06:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackest Rose

Now with the AI changes say only 50 people are having fun and that means that roughly 50 people are not having fun - playing less and not likely to buy NF or further chapters.

So which scenario makes more sense from a sales perspective?

You're completely forgetting about a huge factor: New Players.

If the changes they made end up making half the players leave (though I seriously doubt a small tweak in AI could have that significant of an effect), but overall make the game better, there will be more players in the long run, and thus more money for Anet. You can't just assume that these 100 players, as good of a representation of the players overall, also represent everyone remotely interested in GW.

Point is, the better the game is, the more people it will draw in, despite any changes that make veteran players nerous or ragequit.

Blackest Rose · Nov 04, 2006, 07:10 AM // 07:10

It all depends on the view of a good game then.

The problem I see is that NF is being reviewed now and to be honest I expect reviewers to subtract a few plus points because of the shaky AI update - which paradoxically has nothing to do with NF content!

This would be sad but fair - this game was for everyone, from the father of three who has 2 hours a week to play to the person who plays everyday and continually on the weekends.
With the AI update its more difficult/frustrating/time consuming - take your pick

Unfortunately GW is a game where you don't have an easy, moderate, hard, nightmare level set - it's the same for everyone which means that those people who normally would play a game on easy/moderate may no longer like this game because the AI has gotten smarter (well once they finish writing the AI that is....). Remember everyone plays a game to enjoy and win, not to be frustrated and lose.
PVP can be frustrating as there's always a human winner/loser and many people don't play PVP because they just don't want to lose all the time and have no interest in going through the long learning curve to get good.

Let's say you saw a game and the difficultly was permanently set on hard/nightmare - how many people would buy that game - get to a difficult bit on level 4 and just give up out of pure frustration. My guess is quite a few.
The best content of the game could be later on but they'll never get there and won't buy the expansion pack.

Now if the game was set on moderate (which should be aimed at the largest base of players) then you have a much larger percentage of players actually complete/enjoy the full game and in the case of GW the end high level areas could cater to the hard/nightmare people (which was the aim of the elite missions/SF/titan I believe)

Statistics for how many people completed Factions and Prophecies with at least one toon would be very interesting compared to how many bought the game. But we'll never know those....

Blackest Rose · Nov 04, 2006, 07:35 AM // 07:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

You're completely forgetting about a huge factor: New Players.

Point is, the better the game is, the more people it will draw in, despite any changes that make veteran players nerous or ragequit.

Repeat business for any business is huge!

Say you buy a car from a dealer and something you didn't expect to go wrong does go wrong.
But what if the dealer doesn't care coz he got his one sale.
Next time around are you even going to look at any cars from that dealer?

The volume of new players is nowhere near the volume of current players.
Yes it's important to grow the business but more important to retain what you have and keep them coming back for more.
When you grab a customer you have to keep hold of them...

Now just when I should be really excited about NF I find myself playing other games and not GW due to the state of AI. If it's just me who finds the content better but frustration/less fun factor growing then I'm only one voice.
If there's more then .... Anet may have made an oops.

To many the content of NF may outweight the AI change but to those people who only have prophecies/factions right now and if they don't like the AI change on those chapters - well they'll be less inclined to buy nightfall.

lunksunkunk · Nov 04, 2006, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Well, NF is obviously a great game, I finished it in about 3 days, and decided to explore and mess around. 3 things i noticed.

1. Yes, the new AI targets my monks first, ALWAYS, not exceptions to the rule. If i'm facing margonites, shadows, or pass the gates, my monks die within 20 seconds or less. Leaving my eles and rangers to be led to the slaughter next, then my paragorn and then koss. Now, targeting my monks is somewhat workable, but not when EVERY single monster in the entire mob targets him, i dont even get a scratch on me. I can literally sit there and dance the night away watching my monk kite around cancelling repeatedly till his nrg goes to 0 along w/ my boon protector, or 2nd healer. While, i try my best to kill whatever is atking my monks, if there running around chasing my kiting companion, how can i even manage to hit him? And no, its not one chasing Dunkoro, its more like 4-5 of them reapers, chaos, w/e else chasing him, so my eles AoE, plus other skills dont land perfectly. Call it fun if u will. But if thats the case, then realize that some ppl dont have hours to spend chasing and kiting for 90% of the time.

2. When i even swipe at a target, does NOT matter the profession, they start running around, playing "Ring around the rosey" I wish i had gamecam to recorded this, because i was helping a guildie get masters in Arborstone and in the last part where u a ton of those stone guys, i swipe at the executioner, and what happens? He starts running around frantically not allowing me to hit him at all. So i change to a stationary target, the casters, what happens after that? He starts playing the game. I literaly had a whole screen of stone casters and executioners running around chaotically bumping into each other. Thats fine, we nuked them eventually. But Danika, she decided to stay in range of the stone casters and sit there getting hit even tho we were trying to take out the rest of the stone guys that were chasing after my monks. What happened? well, u can guess the outcome. Definitely fun.

3. So heres the last argument, "If the casters and monks run away, thats a good thing, so u can then target the dmg dealers." Right. See if that works when actually playing. I went to the realm of fear/torment/w/e, Targetted the casters (monks, ele, etc), they run like hell, so i begin to target the dmg dealers, only to realize that they chasing my monks around in circles while my ranger is missing half the shots, my ele's AoE is rendered useless, and i get a single shot in cuz those guys had a hard-on for sexy dunkoro. So my monks immediately die. I go after mister chaos w/e his name is, with hundred blades strike that does 70-80 dmg on a warrior and he immediately wipes out my eles without even breaking a sweat. whats left? Myself and good ol' Koss. Now keep in mind that after my monks died, those enemy monks and casters came back w/ a revenge, so heres koss getting mind freezed, deep freezed, blurred, ice spiked, gusted, hundred blades, maelstromed, arrowed to death. Poor Koss, he had no idea, so i run like hell to the nearest res. shrine only to die right next to Koss, because i cant out-hex mind-freeze, deep-freeze, and ice-spikes all at the same time. So yea, thats was real fun. Poor heroes and henchies had no idea what hit em. Just one encounter w/ those guys, within 50 seconds, koss and I were the only ones left. And dont tell me that our builds were not set right. What can i do? Neglect my axes altogether to bring hamstring or hammer knockdowns? Not to mention that i cant hamstring 3 casters at the same time nor does koss even know what hamstring does. Pure chaos, Pure fun.

This is just a simple explanation of what i have experienced so far. I know this is not what was intended. And if this is, well, i guess well be farming charr from now on.

arcanemacabre · Nov 04, 2006, 07:45 AM // 07:45

Blackest Rose: I see what you're saying, and I agree with you for the most part. It all really depends on what would be considered 'moderate difficulty'. Essentially, that's what I was getting at with the 'balance' thing. This is a very subjective thing, and because of that, it's hard to pin down.

I, personally, have only just now reached Vabbi. Up to this point in the game, I haven't really felt it was all that hard. The Consulate Docks mission is a bit tough, and it may need tweaking being such an early mission, but otherwise everything has been slowly growing in diffuclty, as I would expect. I don't think I will start having trouble till the later-to-end missions and quests, and by then, I'll be ready for them.

That said, I feel that the difficulty is decent and moderate. The AI update hasn't been an issue for me, at least not yet. If it gets a lot harder, well that's what I would expect to see in the later 'levels' of any game. I don't see that you could say that the difficulty is permanantly set on hard/nightmare, since there is obviously a progression, just look at Istan, or heck Shing Jea, or Pre-Sear/Ascalon/Northern Shiverpeaks.

One more thing, I disagree with what you said about the reason people play a game. Enjoy, yes, but not win. It is nice to win, but if you played with no possibility of losing, where would the fun be?

The Prince · Nov 04, 2006, 08:40 AM // 08:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

Blackest Rose: I see what you're saying, and I agree with you for the most part. It all really depends on what would be considered 'moderate difficulty'. Essentially, that's what I was getting at with the 'balance' thing. This is a very subjective thing, and because of that, it's hard to pin down.

I, personally, have only just now reached Vabbi. Up to this point in the game, I haven't really felt it was all that hard. The Consulate Docks mission is a bit tough, and it may need tweaking being such an early mission, but otherwise everything has been slowly growing in diffuclty, as I would expect. I don't think I will start having trouble till the later-to-end missions and quests, and by then, I'll be ready for them.

That said, I feel that the difficulty is decent and moderate. The AI update hasn't been an issue for me, at least not yet. If it gets a lot harder, well that's what I would expect to see in the later 'levels' of any game. I don't see that you could say that the difficulty is permanantly set on hard/nightmare, since there is obviously a progression, just look at Istan, or heck Shing Jea, or Pre-Sear/Ascalon/Northern Shiverpeaks.

One more thing, I disagree with what you said about the reason people play a game. Enjoy, yes, but not win. It is nice to win, but if you played with no possibility of losing, where would the fun be?

theres a pretty severe "noob filter" at the mirror of lyss mission, which if i remember correctly is the last or next to the last mission in vabbi(and also one of the hardest in the game imo). when you get past the vortex, its a pain to hench, bc of the ridiculous kiting as stated above, but something i found problematic was aggro control. once the roller rink style kiting starts, expect to get 2-3 other groups to be aggroed by your henchs/heroes.

i disagree with your statement, people play games to win. its not like you buy a game and expect to plug away at it and lose. its fun to play yes, but its not fun to be stifled in your efforts at victory. the journey to winning is fun, tripping and falling on your face...well, not so fun.

arcanemacabre · Nov 04, 2006, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Prince

the journey to winning is fun, tripping and falling on your face...well, not so fun.

Exactly. The Journey is fun. Obviously there are people who have already beaten the game, so it's not impossible. Flip that around and you've got: winning in this game is possible. That means you can win. Nothing is stopping you but yourself and what you can do. It's that way with any game.

What's that phrase about what you do when you fall? Oh yeah, pick yourself back up and keep going. When you finally do win, it will be worth it.

Blackest Rose · Nov 04, 2006, 09:04 AM // 09:04

What if the jounery was fun but isn't any more?
Lets be honest only relatively hardcore players have the game finished by now.

I don't think anyone is making out that the game is impossible to finish - but contesting that the fun in going through it has gone down and frustration increased for the average player.
If frustration > fun then people stop playing.

There's only so many times you're willing to fall on your face before it becomes so sore that you say "to hell with this!"

How many people give something up because it's frustrating - a sport they're no good at, a musical instrument they can't play... not getting anywhere is frustrating.

Again all this is very subjective ...

explodemyheart · Nov 04, 2006, 09:11 AM // 09:11

I can hardly believe that the henchmen AI is now working as was intended? It's even worse today than yesterday!

Today I was helping a guildie further himself in the game. We came across a chest that he wanted to open, but we didn't feel like fighting all of the mobs in the way, so he decided to run to it. I told him to flag his heros, and I flagged mine so I was there with both his heros and mine. He runs off, gets to the chest just fine as he was able to avoid aggro. Then for absolutely no reason at all, his Master of Whispers charged out of his flagged area, straight through 3 groups of plants and right to him thus pissing everything off. I told him that he needed to set his heros to guard, or something, and he said they were all already on passive. There was absolutely, positively no reason at all that he should have left the flagged area.

In the next 3 missions, there were further problems with the Master of Whispers. He would charge out of the flagged area and aggro monsters in groups that were at least 2 or 3 aggro bubbles away for no apparent reason at all. Then later, one of my healer heros, set to passive, decided to run out of the flagged area to start wanding a Herald of Nightmares. I've had problems with Jin, set to passive, running out of the flagged area straight into a group of enemies to do nothing more than drop down a spirit of favorable winds.

I've also noticed a very, very large problem with the monk heros in that if you have, say, 2 real people in the group and 6 heros, the monk heros don't seem to like to heal the other person and their heros. Many, many times it came down to my guildie's 2 monk heros healing him and themselves, and my monk taking care of me and mine. The only way I could get Tahlkora to heal them, sometimes, was to physically force her to myself.

Sid Soggybottom · Nov 04, 2006, 09:21 AM // 09:21

And in the meantime while you're all complaining about how hard the Monster A.I. is, I'm getting my second character through the game. I'm already at Vabbi now with the second one. Yes I play too much but I really can't see why some of you think it's so difficult. There's some issues with henchie/hero A.I. that needs to be fixed but nothing that can't be worked around.

The Prince · Nov 04, 2006, 09:23 AM // 09:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

Exactly. The Journey is fun. Obviously there are people who have already beaten the game, so it's not impossible. Flip that around and you've got: winning in this game is possible. That means you can win. Nothing is stopping you but yourself and what you can do. It's that way with any game.

What's that phrase about what you do when you fall? Oh yeah, pick yourself back up and keep going. When you finally do win, it will be worth it.

i never said it was impossible. its not obviously, but it is in parts EXTREMELY frustrating

. i expect a lot of players will have a lot of difficulty in beating the game without help from players who have and are going back for protector title (I know I will be going for protector). Personally Id rather play with a PUG than hench/hero, more potential for teamwork, and it lessens the monotony that ive found to be a large and unenjoyable part of the game (namely having to advance sunspear pts to continue primary

.

Ill be around in game going for protectors, unless its a mission i already have masters for ill be happy to PUG it, IGN Angelic Salvation (P/W)