Dear Anet, why mob-cheating in hardmode?

Anet have taken the easy way out. They said they'd put some thought into monster skillbars... improve AI... Like hell they did. They just upped levels a bit, upped stats, gave lower levels an elite or skill to spam. Gave higher levels a second elite or maybe 1 extra skill. Then gave all enemies a stupid power boost. Well i'm yet to see improved AI. How can you show improved AI when they're busy chain spiking your entire team by been able to spam spells and attacks?

From a casual PvErs point of view. I tried hard mode last night with my heroes, and found the new challange great, especially when doing early missions in Prophecies. it gets kind of old just to walk through with a couple of blasts and swishes and mobs are gone. Even when getting to the finish line of the campaigns after a while it doesnt seem as hard as it did the first time you did it. This will be a refreshing change to actually have to work a little to go through the areas again. Especially if ya do hard mode while trying to finish some mapping in Ranik and the Eastern Frontier. Cant outrun the mobs anymore. just MO

I did not say it's too hard. It's just a lame way to buff monsters and could be done better. I don't play hardmode cause I'm a noob. I don't play hardmode because it's not fitting the concept of a balanced game like guildwars was supposed to be.


edit: completely agree Evilsod

Same exact problem when finding those pesky Devourers in Old Ascalon.

I don't see any big deal with the Hard Mode if all it entails in faster Attacks, faster Casting and faster Moving. Apart from that all mobs have got elites now.

When ANet said that originally they thought they would be ready with Hard Mode quickly after NF's release but instead decided to include more and more changes and release it this late, I thought it must be making some sweeping AI changes to make mobs play better.

I think hardmode need a little more tweak those double stuff will make people think counter only.And some boss that do 1 hit kill in hardmode just too much.
And making interupt harder is not really a good thing.Since Ai already got some advantage over human.
Thinking about the Critical Rule which a creature gain when having a higher lv which should give monster some edge over human already.

And also hench and heroes AI are still not well.Like the way they engauge in combat hey still pakced in one spot whcih make them prone to AoE spells.And some skill arnt used properly.Which make them not a good companoin in hardmode.

I have an idae that will make things easier for PvE player to set up team build is to improve the party search feature that allow player to replace them with heroes and take thier build which will save time for a lot of people setting up team.

Hey man you go try to take on a group of two grawl warriors and 2 grawl monks, 4 times.

Anyone that's not having a hard time, go do that with hero's and bring screenshots of that grawl area cleared, then I'll believe it's possible.

What they need to do is up the party limit just slightly, because it's way too hard for me (normal not that great player) to get past Frontier at all and no one really wants to do anything but the Surmia mission there and quests leaving from the other place.

They aren't called MONSTERS for no reason. YOU ARE A HUMAN WITH HUMAN ABILITIES. They are monsters with monster abilities. In real life you can't wrestle a bear because it is much stronger than you and hits harder and is bigger and and and...!!! A black widow spider can even kill you in one bite. You can't expect MONSTERS to fight with the same limitations than humans. Enough said. HM is good as it is.

You mis-understand. Its hard for sure. I was getting wiped out with Heroes + Henchies against Searing Flames Ruby Djinns in Mirror of Lyss who can use it 3-4 times in a row and the hench AI still freaking sucks.

What I meant is, the hard mode update is nothing of a big deal as Anet hardly did anything new. They just gave everybody mobs elites, increased levels and increased other attributes. Before that, people were talking as if Hard Mode was going bring a AI revolution and that is clearly not the case.

If they made the AI smarter it would just be like PvP. Since we already have that, I enjoy figuring out how to cheat the big buggers.

Off-topic:
Well, actually he volenteered to be there and hold the charr while we ran because he said he could do it and that his other groups all died trying to run it, so he wanted to try it that way.. >>; And tanks are...well tanks. Of course they would be the option to stall when needed? In a team of Monk/Tank/Mesmer/Ranger, the most useful staller would be a tank. And skill and effective tactics are completly different, effective tactics would be knowing the best plan of action in a specific frame of time. Did it matter who died at that point? Not really, We all mostly were used to stall for time because if one person made it to the end, then we all won the mission quickly. Considering there was a time limit, it would not have been best for us to wait around, and all of us trying to run would have been plain suicide. We made it to the end, because the tank was able to stall the charr for long enough.

And on another note, I made that post while I was in a bad mood, due to the game exiting out with an illegal operation when I almost vanquished a map and didn't want to go through that agian.. "D I apologize for the rude comment I may have made... >>; Frankly, the 'retarted' AI doesn't do too much more, especially not "Huge Damage Boosts".

And allow me to rephrase my previous post... >>;

The ai is a bit harder, but not to the point at which it is really cheating. It is easily countered with basic cooperation and some tactics. The buffs don't do too much in reality, as long as you know how to counter them. For the skills casting faster, use a mesmer and slow them down. The speed buffs are not too much of a problem, unless you are in the mission: The Great Nothern Wall, at which point it is much easier if you use people to stall the rampaging charr heading towards you rather then try a mad suicide charge like before. And the recharge time isn't really much of a problem, as long as you kill them quickly enough for it not to matter.

Sorry for my flaming post earlier, once again.. >>; I didn't really mean it, I was just in a bad mood.. >>;

And what is a QQer? "D
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Anyway...back on topic.. >>;

You don't need to up the party limit slightly, its fine as it is. 8 people is more then enough, infact you could actually use 4. You just need enough protection and healing to last mini-skirmishes and long boss battles, while enough attack-power to kill off the enemy. A team you could use is: Mesmer/Elementalist/Monk/Dervish. The elementalists could use a light AoE to keep enemies off the itself, the mesmer and monk by cheating through the AoE AI and use heavy-damage spells on the main threats. The mesmer could use illusion or domination to stop them from doing much, while the dervish could tank while doing enough damage to be efficient. The elementalist could be replaced by a FC Nuker of some sort. Hench/Hero AIs may not be perfect, but you can use them efficiently with some builds.

I think most people are missing it is all. I've had the AI do pretty smart things, while I'm attacking run me into a MS, the way they kite, far from my monks so they die or into other enemies so I have to hold off. How when you attacked one monk that was attacking, it would stop and run and then the other would take it's place, then stop and run when you tried to kill it but couldn't.

So for me it's very challenging, every area is. Because unlike most of you guys, I'm a warrior, with access to hero's only. Hero's fail verse Grawl. Plus I can't do 500 dps, so I can't kill the monks on my own. I do maybe 180 every two of their heal areas.

Also Deleet is right, it seems everyone want's the monsters AI to be just like people's AI..I don't want that, I can't stand PvP.

if you aint good enough to play hard mode without breaking down in tears and crying about how hard it is then dont play it. Leave it for the rest of us that relish the challenge.

The AI was improved a bit, I see kiting, and they seem to choose there targets better.

This is the cheap way to make the game "challenging" in PvE. It is just like mini DoA all over Guild Wars (it is not like I cant do it but it is not creative design IMO).

It seems every time Anet tries to make things challenging in PvE, they throw away the game concept and mechanic even more (monster skills, double damage on monsters, shorter condition/hex duration on monsters, environment effect, knockdown immune creatures (giants), fast cast/recharge/movement on monsters).

Nobody here says it's too hard The Legg. Please read the posts carefully.

The problem is: For cheating level 2X mobs you don't need any tactics. You just need as many damage, knockdowns and healing as possible. that's all.

Not true, American Mcgee's Cheshire Cat face. "D Using tactics, such as pulling, and take them on a few at a time, no tactics = Aggro super mob = Death. Another tactic that still stands is party placement.
Example of effective Party Placement:

1-(Warrior) - (Dervish)
2-(Assassins)
3-(Damage Casters) - (Rangers) - (Attack paragons)
4-(Mesmers)
5-(Monks)
6-(Ritualists)
7-(Support Paragons)

Thus providing an efficient cushion. If surrounded, use the damage caster's aoe to keep off the enemy from a monk or some squishy.

Also a 20 attribute in their skills. 45 damage Spiteful Spirits are not fun, especially when Alesia doesn't have hex removal. I wish my Olias knew how to use Verrata's Aura properly so I could steal some level 20 bone fiends.

I think that's my biggest gripe; the henchmen. Why bother buffing them to their level 20 counterparts (minus their elite skills, I never once saw Herta use Sandstorm when vanquishing Mehtani Keys) if they still don't have decent skill bars and ball into buffed AoEs? I could only imagine the frustration Canthan and Tyrian only players are going through without heroes that have 8 skills on their bars.

Vanquished Ice Dome with 6 heroes and 2 players respectively clear of DP, degened groups of 6 Stoneflesh Mandragors to death while they sat there under their 20 specced Stoneflesh Aura firing 20 specced Stoning and Ebon Hawks with hench/heroes. Enchantment removal helps, but waiting around for one skill to recharge so I kill something faster just isn't hard; it's frustrating. I don't even want to think about Rain of Terror in the Realm of Torment missions.

Hmm. there's a lot of anger here.

I've not played a mission/quest in hard mode, only done solo farming. I explored a little of Ascalon and I found the monsters mostly walkovers. I soloed hard mode Ascalon on my ele without any special build (just my normal one). I can't honestly see much difference in difficulty.

Actualy, I also did some RoT and that was easy too.

I do think if all A-net did was change overall things (recharge/speed) then it's not a very worthwhile update. I though they would look individualy at every monster skill bar to balance them and add a secondary prof. It's a shame really.

You know you're actually a real nasty person for stereotyping anyone that complains like that. Maybe you were just extraordinarily lucky if you got through them all first/second time. A lot of people are getting murdered because of poor NPC AI and/or mobs spawning in places that just murder them.

I know people that are very experienced, but keep dying on some missions because of problems I've outlined on the other thread. Hard mode shouldn't be about luck, but it often seems to be.