Guild Wars 2 - new Demo: AI improvements: see NPCs kiting the player etc.

[Durzlla]

ever since i started playing MMOs i have had very little inclination to play SP games unless they have a good co-op. the new Tomb Raider might make me play it if it lives up to it's trailer.

as far as ANet are concerned i think since there are not actual "quests" outside the Personal Story, they will just tell those who want more of a challenge to go after higher level mobs, i just hope that a difference of 1 level actually has significant meaning in the game otherwise things could carebear out again at level cap.

another thing they could have are enraged mobs that go berserk in their last throws of life or maybe having mobs res each other if they are in groups of 3+. i am looking forward to seeing what else ANet can cook up.

You can actually play it with 3 other people( you summon them to your world or vice versa)

And gw1 had mobs that would Rez their group, so I see no reason why gw2 wouldnt!! I also hope that we see some npcs that use pers of the appropriate level, unlike in gw1 where they were all significantly weaker then their owners.

[Scrabblet]

Yay! Finally an MMORPG that enemy NPCs don't just stand there and take the hits. I seriously cannot wait until Beta.

[Bodygrinder]

I completely agree with you on that. While yes, it makes more sense, it's just stupid. And really makes me not want to play a melee class.

I feel the need to correct this even though people already have.

All "melee" have a ranged weapon(s) that can be swapped out to effectively deal damage from afar. This is not WoW, this is a game that has amazing developers that care about fun.

[Lucky_]

Friendly reminder from veteran GW1 player:

In GW1, mobs were fairly smart - they kited players, got out of AoE effects and so on. Result: A lot of skills because utterly useless, melee classes were quite gimp in PvE and in the end anet admitted that mechanism being bad for gameplay and nerfing mob kiting a lot.

Do we really want to go through the same "smart mobs" stuff again? We've already stepped on that rake once, and no one liked the results.

[Odeezee]

as many people have already said, this is not GW1 you have more tools available and the mechanics are different so you can close the gap more effectively in GW2, snare the mobs or switch to a ranged weapon. just because GW1 failed in this respect does not mean that GW2 will as well given that outside of lore they are completely different games.

[Bodygrinder]

Friendly reminder from veteran GW1 player:

In GW1, mobs were fairly smart - they kited players, got out of AoE effects and so on. Result: A lot of skills because utterly useless, melee classes were quite gimp in PvE and in the end anet admitted that mechanism being bad for gameplay and nerfing mob kiting a lot.

Do we really want to go through the same "smart mobs" stuff again? We've already stepped on that rake once, and no one liked the results.

I feel the need to correct another post.

This time, just read the other posts on this page.

[Pachycrocuta]

I feel the need to correct this even though people already have.

All "melee" have a ranged weapon(s) that can be swapped out to effectively deal damage from afar. This is not WoW, this is a game that has amazing developers that care about fun.

I will admit, I came into this thread extremely ignorant on GW2, basing my experience off of other games and my extremely limited play of GW1 (got to level 5 before I decided I hated that game). Knowing that you can just switch to a ranged weapon, or execute a gap closer, it shouldn't be too bad. Just brought back horrible memories of starting my paladin for the first time in wow, having to chase mobs around with only a 10yd range Judgement that used up my seal. So, when taking it from that perspective, it's a horrible idea. But I don't really see a problem with it now that I know what all comes around with GW2.

[Rowen]

Friendly reminder from veteran GW1 player:

In GW1, mobs were fairly smart - they kited players, got out of AoE effects and so on. Result: A lot of skills because utterly useless, melee classes were quite gimp in PvE and in the end anet admitted that mechanism being bad for gameplay and nerfing mob kiting a lot.

Do we really want to go through the same "smart mobs" stuff again? We've already stepped on that rake once, and no one liked the results.

I'm curious in a, I swear, completely non-sarcastic way. I've not played GW1, but really were there skills that required the opponent to not move? Didn't make them unusable in PvP (the thing I heard GW praised for most often)?

If anything, with mobs that behave comparably to human players, skills should have a similar effect on both which means it'd theoretically be easier to balance PvE and PvP.

[Balfire]

It only made some kills useless because you couldn't AoE farm content and steamroll it anymore. GW1 wasn't orginally designed with those kinds of mobs they were put in later. GW2 is designed around that kind of content so you won't find a class useless. All the skill sets should have relatively balanced skill sets with AoE, single target and so on. If you AoE mobs and they scatter switch to a different skill or weapon.

And unlike GW1 and other MMO's melees wont be gimped because they are being kited if you encounter a mob that kites switch to a ranged weapon or use a gap closer. People need to get tradional archetypes out of their head. In this MMO you will see melee casters and ranged warriors, get used to it. If you don't you will be left behind those players that learn to adapt and take use weapon swapping to its fullest.

[Blufossa]

I'm excited to see these changes added in. Makes PvE a lot more challenging, which is what we need in more MMORPGs these days. Tired of the WoW's "round'em up and AoE'em to death" kind of bits. Occasionally it's fun, but not in every dungeon. They did this in Wrath and I found it more annoying than individually killing mobs in Catalcysm.

Also, people choosing "mostly melee" Professions should keep a bow or gun around to knock off those pesky running adds. Thieves also get a Caltrops utility move, Warriors get Bull's Charge, etc and so forth. Most professions have utility skills to help with such random fights. Or you can just grin and bear it.

I'll be having a grand ol'time with my Rifle/Flamethrower and turrets while fighting these fun kiting/dodging mobs.

[Lucky_]

First of all, nothing of my previous post has been properly addressed so far. We see mostly "herp derp, everyone is ranged". Which means that everyone will be forced to play ranged, regardless of class, for a large amount of time, as well as massively hamstring melee gameplay for those who like it. This also in no way addresses the classic reason why GW1 axed mob kiting: the situation where mob (or in many cases multiple mobs at once) break off and run for nearest pile of more mobs to call for help. It caused a lot of wipes, and when you are playing for a while, deep into the level and just get wiped because you miss one runner, and this happens a lot, you will get pissed at the game. It's just a bad design to have a frustrating element like this.

Specifically, it's fun for a first few times. Annoying but tolerable for a while after. And after a while, it just starts to piss people off royally.

Please note: this is not some hypothetical bullshit. This is what actually happened to the company making this game, and they took note and mostly nerfed/removed this mechanic from the game back then.

I'm curious in a, I swear, completely non-sarcastic way. I've not played GW1, but really were there skills that required the opponent to not move? Didn't make them unusable in PvP (the thing I heard GW praised for most often)?

If anything, with mobs that behave comparably to human players, skills should have a similar effect on both which means it'd theoretically be easier to balance PvE and PvP.

This was actually done by making a very clear distinction between PvP and PvE for melee: in PvE, you were mostly unmolested and allowed to do damage. In PvP you spent majority of time blinded (90% miss chance with all attacks) or shut down in other ways. In fact, most of the balanced build GvG games were a war between a two pairs of blindbot elementalist blinding warriors, mesmer on warrior's side trying to divert blinding flash (surge). Other pair was monk/midliner drawing/removing conditions from warrior and mesmer on opponents side trying to divert his draw/remove conditions skill.

Note how warrior was in no way part in this metamatch. That's how warrior played in GW1 - you were basically a melee pusher tank carried by your condition remover. Without him, you were worthless. This was one of the most frustrating aspects of playing a physical damage class in GW1 in organised PvP, and why most of the balanced vs balanced games with 2 good guilds you wouldn't see a single kill until victory or death on either side in spite of both trying to spike every 20-30 seconds.

For the record, the PvE mobs with blinding skills like blinding flash were regarded as some of the most annoying in the game by players at large, especially when backed by mobs with heals. They had computer reflexes when it came to spamming flash the moment blind was removed, and generally took ages to kill with physical attacks. It wasn't HARD - it was just time consuming. And of course there was always "blind and run into next pile of mobs" moment to really piss the player already getting pissed by seeing "miss miss" above his head from blindness.

To generalise: PvE was fairly (shutdown)condition-free environment, and PvP generally a condition-heavy environment, people didn't bring a lot of condition removal skills along (remember, 8 skill limit per character). For a basic sword warrior for example, you're have a res signet (1), a damage stance (2), a run speed stance (3), attack skills (4,5,6,7) and self heal skill (8). There isn't much room there without sacrificing either damage or utility in a major way. This was similar for most other character classes as well.

All in all, it was a really, really shitty mechanic and it was scrapped because of it. While it's possible that arenanet folks have either forgotten this experience, or have something else in store for us that they haven't shown to negate it, having mobs kite players will very likely end up feeling like stepping on that same old annoying rake yet again for veteran players. Not a hard mechanic, just one that causes a lot of annoying and meaningless wipes.

[Valeron]

Different games Lucky. GW2 is made as a much more mobile game. Therefore the frustration of fleeing or kiting enemies will be a lot less. I like it. I really don't want to play another game where we are just siting there, slapping each other, until one of us is dead. Now that is what I call bad game design.

[Durzlla]

First of all, nothing of my previous post has been properly addressed so far. We see mostly "herp derp, everyone is ranged". Which means that everyone will be forced to play ranged, regardless of class, for a large amount of time, as well as massively hamstring melee gameplay for those who like it. This also in no way addresses the classic reason why GW1 axed mob kiting: the situation where mob (or in many cases multiple mobs at once) break off and run for nearest pile of more mobs to call for help. It caused a lot of wipes, and when you are playing for a while, deep into the level and just get wiped because you miss one runner, and this happens a lot, you will get pissed at the game. It's just a bad design to have a frustrating element like this.

Specifically, it's fun for a first few times. Annoying but tolerable for a while after. And after a while, it just starts to piss people off royally.

Please note: this is not some hypothetical bullshit. This is what actually happened to the company making this game, and they took note and mostly nerfed/removed this mechanic from the game back then.




This was actually done by making a very clear distinction between PvP and PvE for melee: in PvE, you were mostly unmolested and allowed to do damage. In PvP you spent majority of time blinded (90% miss chance with all attacks) or shut down in other ways. In fact, most of the balanced build GvG games were a war between a two pairs of blindbot elementalist blinding warriors, mesmer on warrior's side trying to divert blinding flash (surge). Other pair was monk/midliner drawing/removing conditions from warrior and mesmer on opponents side trying to divert his draw/remove conditions skill.

Note how warrior was in no way part in this metamatch. That's how warrior played in GW1 - you were basically a melee pusher tank carried by your condition remover. Without him, you were worthless. This was one of the most frustrating aspects of playing a physical damage class in GW1 in organised PvP, and why most of the balanced vs balanced games with 2 good guilds you wouldn't see a single kill until victory or death on either side in spite of both trying to spike every 20-30 seconds.

For the record, the PvE mobs with blinding skills like blinding flash were regarded as some of the most annoying in the game by players at large, especially when backed by mobs with heals. They had computer reflexes when it came to spamming flash the moment blind was removed, and generally took ages to kill with physical attacks. It wasn't HARD - it was just time consuming. And of course there was always "blind and run into next pile of mobs" moment to really piss the player already getting pissed by seeing "miss miss" above his head from blindness.

To generalise: PvE was fairly (shutdown)condition-free environment, and PvP generally a condition-heavy environment, people didn't bring a lot of condition removal skills along (remember, 8 skill limit per character). For a basic sword warrior for example, you're have a res signet (1), a damage stance (2), a run speed stance (3), attack skills (4,5,6,7) and self heal skill (8). There isn't much room there without sacrificing either damage or utility in a major way. This was similar for most other character classes as well.

All in all, it was a really, really shitty mechanic and it was scrapped because of it. While it's possible that arenanet folks have either forgotten this experience, or have something else in store for us that they haven't shown to negate it, having mobs kite players will very likely end up feeling like stepping on that same old annoying rake yet again for veteran players. Not a hard mechanic, just one that causes a lot of annoying and meaningless wipes.

Do you not READ the other posts? Melee have GAP CLOSERS, that means you don't -need- a ranged it means you can lung forward and begin to destroy them, or pull them to you, or run faster so you can catch them. Point is, you wont need to be ranged, you can close the gap and get to them.

And have you ever been a non warrior against a warrior in PVP? they get in close to you and you're essentially dead cause they can knock you down until your health bar is gone, which is why they're often blinded endlessly... and if you're going to bitch about being blinded you could've just brought a condition remover, who cares that you lose say 1 attack or your damage stance? If you're blinded it's not like those would be doing any good for you anyway..

[Fernling306]

The running around in circles is kind of annoying, but I am looking forward to more improvements.

[Lucky_]

Do you not READ the other posts? Melee have GAP CLOSERS, that means you don't -need- a ranged it means you can lung forward and begin to destroy them, or pull them to you, or run faster so you can catch them. Point is, you wont need to be ranged, you can close the gap and get to them.

And have you ever been a non warrior against a warrior in PVP? they get in close to you and you're essentially dead cause they can knock you down until your health bar is gone, which is why they're often blinded endlessly... and if you're going to bitch about being blinded you could've just brought a condition remover, who cares that you lose say 1 attack or your damage stance? If you're blinded it's not like those would be doing any good for you anyway..

You sound like melee didn't have gap closers in GW1. Hint: that's ALL they had. From various speed stances on warriors to shadow stepping on assassins, we had a myriad of gap closers.

Problem: still doesn't address extra pulls.

On your other point in my times, hammer warriors were spike magnets. It had its uses, and it was fragile as hell due to lack of shield and FAR more susceptible to blind as it utterly destroyed your adrenaline gain, which was significantly slower as a hammer warrior already. Everyone else KD'd with shocks and gales, which ignored blind anyway being spells and all, but were pretty useless if you were blinded immediately after it missing your eviscerate/etc.

Finally, "who cares if you lose one attack or damage stance"? Damage stance brought a 50% attack speed increase. Attacks brought longer burst chains and/or sustained damage chains. Which when being faced with many close calls in PvP meant a difference between dead enemy and living enemy in PvP, and doing a whole lot less damage in PvE.

And finally, if you were "dead when warrior is in melee", it was time to call a decent team or L2P yourself. Most classes could live for a while with unmolested warrior on them - it just burned down your monks' energy and fast. It most certainly wasn't instant death, and hell, most midline players brought skills like distortion specifically for those moments (as well as spikes). You might have noted that my post addresses your claim of "bring a condition remover", yet in high end play your condition remover was basically locked in eternal combat against enemy blind bot and enemy mesmer, and physical damage players being cleansed were basically helpless observers. At the same time, the classic me/mo draw conditions mesmer of the classic mesmer pair was so undesired as a gameplay character, you ended up taking turns of doing draws on who had to play him, and who could play the other, more offensive mesmer. Because it was a whole lot less fun when your most important function was to draw conditions while dodging enemy diversions, when the other mesmer had a whole lot more fun with its more offensive setup.

[Milanor]

There are ways of handling the "extra pulls" problem that seems to be one of the major complaints about smarter NPC AI out in the PvE environments, and I'm sure Arena Net has been trying a few out, especially if it was a big issue in Guild Wars 1. Just off the top of my head, I can think of two:

I. Dynamic Scaling - Say you've fought long and hard with a hostile NPC and they take off running when they get close to the end of their health bar. Unfortunately for you, this enemy charges straight towards one or more other enemies, causing a newly-formed group to come and attack you while you're already weak/damaged/etc from your initial encounter. These new foe(s) could just be identical to the one you started out with while they're on their own, but the game could recognize your current situation and cause the new NPCs that join the fray to be weaker such that you actually have a chance against them, especially if you've been playing well.

II. Smarter Fleeing AI - You challenge an enemy, they get low on health and start to run away, same deal. However, the AI for running away could simply stay the hell away from other enemies (or groups of them, or the tough ones, etc, etc) appearing to flee "randomly" in safer directions.

[Maarius]

There are ways of handling the "extra pulls" problem that seems to be one of the major complaints about smarter NPC AI out in the PvE environments

I wonder where those complaints come from, are they guesses?

I don't really see the fleeing NPCs as a problem: in most of the videos I saw the enemies seemed extremly weak while running away, so that one or two hits finished them of. Furthermore nearly every fleeing NPC stopped after a short distance. Please show me one clip where enemies run miles and miles to find a group of their own... ?! would be nice to see why people are complaining

[Durzlla]

You sound like melee didn't have gap closers in GW1. Hint: that's ALL they had. From various speed stances on warriors to shadow stepping on assassins, we had a myriad of gap closers.

Problem: still doesn't address extra pulls.

On your other point in my times, hammer warriors were spike magnets. It had its uses, and it was fragile as hell due to lack of shield and FAR more susceptible to blind as it utterly destroyed your adrenaline gain, which was significantly slower as a hammer warrior already. Everyone else KD'd with shocks and gales, which ignored blind anyway being spells and all, but were pretty useless if you were blinded immediately after it missing your eviscerate/etc.

Finally, "who cares if you lose one attack or damage stance"? Damage stance brought a 50% attack speed increase. Attacks brought longer burst chains and/or sustained damage chains. Which when being faced with many close calls in PvP meant a difference between dead enemy and living enemy in PvP, and doing a whole lot less damage in PvE.

And finally, if you were "dead when warrior is in melee", it was time to call a decent team or L2P yourself. Most classes could live for a while with unmolested warrior on them - it just burned down your monks' energy and fast. It most certainly wasn't instant death, and hell, most midline players brought skills like distortion specifically for those moments (as well as spikes). You might have noted that my post addresses your claim of "bring a condition remover", yet in high end play your condition remover was basically locked in eternal combat against enemy blind bot and enemy mesmer, and physical damage players being cleansed were basically helpless observers. At the same time, the classic me/mo draw conditions mesmer of the classic mesmer pair was so undesired as a gameplay character, you ended up taking turns of doing draws on who had to play him, and who could play the other, more offensive mesmer. Because it was a whole lot less fun when your most important function was to draw conditions while dodging enemy diversions, when the other mesmer had a whole lot more fun with its more offensive setup.

I play a mesmer... we don't have much to stop the big burly warrior from slaughtering us once he does close the gap... however on my ranger i can usually survive it if i have whirling defense up..

And the only reason i said "who cares if you lose one attack or damage stance" was because if you're blind, it's not helping you. And from my experiences of leading warriors around en entire match on a leash with my ranger by using cripple and a bleed/poison to cover it, it seemed to me that no warrior ever TOOK a gap closer...

[Lucky_]

I play a mesmer... we don't have much to stop the big burly warrior from slaughtering us once he does close the gap... however on my ranger i can usually survive it if i have whirling defense up..

And the only reason i said "who cares if you lose one attack or damage stance" was because if you're blind, it's not helping you. And from my experiences of leading warriors around en entire match on a leash with my ranger by using cripple and a bleed/poison to cover it, it seemed to me that no warrior ever TOOK a gap closer...

Warriors no longer spike with shadow step mechanics from W/A and/or carry sprint-like stances to cancel frenzy? They also don't force you to pop WD, wait out about 20 secs and then pressure you out using you for easy adrenaline build up for next 40?

Man the game must have changed a lot.

---------- Post added 2011-11-17 at 06:11 PM ----------

I wonder where those complaints come from, are they guesses?

I don't really see the fleeing NPCs as a problem: in most of the videos I saw the enemies seemed extremly weak while running away, so that one or two hits finished them of. Furthermore nearly every fleeing NPC stopped after a short distance. Please show me one clip where enemies run miles and miles to find a group of their own... ?! would be nice to see why people are complaining

I can help you here. Complaints came from a large number of issues associated with the NPCs running away rather then any single issue. You would have moments like two or more mobs disengaging and running away at once which were annoying even for ranged classes, you had moments when one would run and you got body blocked, snared, knocked down or just plain had a long run through the level and didn't notice it. Problem is, it was very wipetastic in most of the later game when it happened.

Any of these issues alone is fine. When all of them summed together, and then you had to die like that repeatedly for over a year... it got old. Very old.

The issue is essentially the same why MMOs don't make every single monster extremely challenging. It's just not fun after a short while. You can google for the answer to this issue, as there are several very good articles by game makers who spell out the reasons much better then I ever could.

[Eorayn]

I'm glad the game will require some serious skills, getting rid of the noobs who don't even want to try hard.