Might be an unpopular opinion on mechanist

[Depths.4051]

But can we get rid of the AI and have a trait line for mechanist that turns it into a really powerful multipurpose, permanent, yet movable turret? I honestly love mechanist but the whole reliance on an AI doesn’t sit well with me. It would also give us access to the turret related traits, which would be pretty sweet.

 

What are people ideas on how to possibly improve on mechanist?

[Aravind.9610]

How would a turret not be AI?

[Depths.4051]

14 minutes ago, Aravind.9610 said:

How would a turret not be AI?

Well you would place it, you would command it where to rest, command it to use certain skills. Much more hands on I’d say. If there was any AI it’d be very basic like auto targeting like with the gun turret maybe if there was even a skill like that and wasn’t more like an aoe spam like thumper turret.

[Aravind.9610]

6 minutes ago, Depths.4051 said:

Well you would place it, you would command it where to rest, command it to use certain skills. Much more hands on I’d say. If there was any AI it’d be very basic like auto targeting like with the gun turret maybe if there was even a skill like that and wasn’t more like an aoe spam like thumper turret.

How is this any different from mech right now? You summon it at a location, tell it to attack, command it use skills AND you have the ability to recall it or reposition it using shift signet.

[Depths.4051]

Having to keep tabs on the mech all the time and being able to reliably make strategic moves because it does it’s own thing when you’re not riding it’s butt all the time is tiresome. Would much rather have a turret that stayed put.

[Depths.4051]

I have also been an avid player of eso in the past and the there are classes based around permanent pets like the mechanist is. I usually avoid those classes just based on my experience with the warden pet bear. AI that moves on its own and needs commanding is more tiresome than a stationary turret.

[Aravind.9610]

Lucky for you then that 24/27 elite specs don't rely on pets.

[Depths.4051]

Just now, Aravind.9610 said:

Lucky for you then that 24/27 elite specs don't rely on pets.

Would be great if the one I invested all my hours into didn’t as well. Just a thought and a preference.

[Aravind.9610]

Yay, you still have holosmith and scrapper.

[Depths.4051]

Yup and I have specs and sets invested in all 3 of them. Just a preference that on the final spec it didn’t involve an annoying AI. It’d be nice to have all 3 😄

[Depths.4051]

Or at least a trait to toggle the AI off really.

[Aravind.9610]

Well, a lot of us like the new pet spec for engineer.

[Depths.4051]

I’m not saying they take it away. I’m asking they make a trait to turn it off. Idk how many is a lot of us. I just know there’s you so far. I made the thread to kinda feel out the consensus on it.

[Depths.4051]

Why can’t we all have cake?

[Puck.3697]

u will have people very for it and very against it. AI is marmite of the MMORPG industry. some adore its existance others feel its Anti-fun, Anet tend to be terrible at keeping them relevant, i imagine they'll hold off for a while due to its popularity but long term i imagine it'll get nerfed to hell once the Uproar against it gets loud enough.

quite alot of people are vocalizing their unhappyness with the existance of AI among competitive modes being as strong as it is, i'm waiting to see the Next nerf realistically done to it.

But yeah effectively this was a win for them this time round I'd just avoid the specc if it's not something your into.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Kontrolle.3514]

4 hours ago, Aravind.9610 said:

Well, a lot of us like the new pet spec for engineer.

 

Maybe the bandwagon engineers. Not the ones that love the class since beta. All this AI, Mech, turrets etc. need to go.

[Aravind.9610]

3 minutes ago, Kontrolle.3514 said:

 

Maybe the bandwagon engineers. Not the ones that love the class since beta. All this AI, Mech, turrets etc. need to go.

People on snowcrows discord who have played since launch disagree with you. And how is the opinion of people "who have played since beta" more valid than those who played the game for the last few years or even the last few months?

The goal was to get more people to play engineer and if the "bandwagon engineers" as you call them are playing it now, then it succeeded.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Aravind.9610

[Depths.4051]

4 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

u will have people very for it and very against it. AI is marmite of the MMORPG industry. some adore its existance others feel its Anti-fun, Anet tend to be terrible at keeping them relevant, i imagine they'll hold off for a while due to its popularity but long term i imagine it'll get nerfed to hell once the Uproar against it gets loud enough.

quite alot of people are vocalizing their unhappyness with the existance of AI among competitive modes being as strong as it is, i'm waiting to see the Next nerf realistically done to it.

But yeah effectively this was a win for them this time round I'd just avoid the specc if it's not something your into.

Ya, kinda a shame. I was just hoping to get others opinions on it. I've been seeing mechs everywhere lately, I kinda wondered if it was just because people follow the meta on what is strong, or whether it was because people love the idea of the AI mech following them around.

Personally I love everything about the new spec if not for the mech. If they could completely detach the mech from it and not get neutered I'd be happy honestly. I kinda thought a turret would allow the engineer to make use of the turret trait line more, and be a good middle ground, but I realize this would also mean theyd need to make new models and animations, which is likely not gonna happen. 

I personally love to support, so having a formidable support spec for engineer that isn't scrapper is a breath of fresh air. I like having  an actual weapon for one thing, cause pistol is really just a place holder, when you have no other real options for your shield combo. I've tried supporting with scrapper in fracs and it feels like more effort for less effect. In wvw ik scrapper is a god... err... is it still after they handed out a list of nerfs to us today?

Anyways, I enjoy support, I enjoy the spec, I just don't enjoy the mech. So I appreciate the "maybe you should play something else", but I do, I have, but the newest spec kinda encompasses what I like to play. So I plead that they take out the sore spot that bothers me, and thought perhaps bothered others.

[ThrakathNar.4537]

6 hours ago, Aravind.9610 said:

How is this any different from mech right now? You summon it at a location, tell it to attack, command it use skills AND you have the ability to recall it or reposition it using shift signet.

I don't want to put words into the OP's mouth, but what I imagine they're advocating for (and what I personally advocate for) is a Ventari Tablet-like thing, where the mech doesn't move independently, but has a very low cooldown reposition ability so you can move it around rapidly.

 

At present, the control skills over the mech are very lacking. "Return to Me" is ok, but it's not very helpful if you want the mech to move out of an AoE, or if you want it to go stand next to an ally to give them boons. And saying you can reposition the mech with shift signet misses the point. It has a cooldown of 50 seconds and is a very valuable stunbreak/condi-cleanse for you. You can't use it to make the small, controlled movements on your mech that a player can achieve by literally pressing the WASD keys. It shouldn't take such an important resource to get the mech to stand in a position, that should be a given.

[Puck.3697]

14 minutes ago, Depths.4051 said:

Ya, kinda a shame. I was just hoping to get others opinions on it. I've been seeing mechs everywhere lately, I kinda wondered if it was just because people follow the meta on what is strong, or whether it was because people love the idea of the AI mech following them around.

Personally I love everything about the new spec if not for the mech. If they could completely detach the mech from it and not get neutered I'd be happy honestly. I kinda thought a turret would allow the engineer to make use of the turret trait line more, and be a good middle ground, but I realize this would also mean theyd need to make new models and animations, which is likely not gonna happen. 

I personally love to support, so having a formidable support spec for engineer that isn't scrapper is a breath of fresh air. I like having  an actual weapon for one thing, cause pistol is really just a place holder, when you have no other real options for your shield combo. I've tried supporting with scrapper in fracs and it feels like more effort for less effect. In wvw ik scrapper is a god... err... is it still after they handed out a list of nerfs to us today?

Anyways, I enjoy support, I enjoy the spec, I just don't enjoy the mech. So I appreciate the "maybe you should play something else", but I do, I have, but the newest spec kinda encompasses what I like to play. So I plead that they take out the sore spot that bothers me, and thought perhaps bothered others.

Tbh I was going to be a engi main during PoF as I joined nearing the time to EoD. 

Deleted my engineer and moved characters as soon as mech got revealed 😂

 

[LilBiM.3581]

From before the launch of this spec I'd recommended that the AI be a toolbelt gimmick and not necessarily core to the class's effectiveness since I'm acutely aware of the fact that even half decent AI won't be tolerated to exist by the player community over any period of time. It hasn't worked with turrets since the launch of the game, it hasn't worked for ranger pets, it hasn't worked for Scrapper bots and as a result my main concern is that over the entire existence of this game no lessons seem to have been learnt about AI and every single iteration or format that it takes. People like to play it, people never want to play against it.

 

I suspect that over a few years there will be multiple attempts to adjust it before finally accepting that no format of a bot running around ending humans is acceptable to the community. Hopefully we end up with some Jo-Jo inspired Mechanist where the bot becomes a toolbelt activated gimmick and spawns avatars and animations from the Engineer each time a toolbelt skill is used... as well as J-Drive inspired weaksauce mech AA that supports your sub-par core AA damage, in an effort to maintain some semblance of pressure/presence on your opponent from your 'Mech'.

 

Of course someone's hard work of animating a Mech will be going into the barn to be parked behind some cows forever and they won't be too plussed about that. To me, it is far more disappointing that every other expansion, Anet seems to be eager to demonstrate that no lessons have been learnt from their previous attempts at doing the exact same thing but with a different skin on it.

[Aravind.9610]

27 minutes ago, LilBiM.3581 said:

From before the launch of this spec I'd recommended that the AI be a toolbelt gimmick and not necessarily core to the class's effectiveness since I'm acutely aware of the fact that even half decent AI won't be tolerated to exist by the player community over any period of time. It hasn't worked with turrets since the launch of the game, it hasn't worked for ranger pets, it hasn't worked for Scrapper bots and as a result my main concern is that over the entire existence of this game no lessons seem to have been learnt about AI and every single iteration or format that it takes. People like to play it, people never want to play against it.

 

I suspect that over a few years there will be multiple attempts to adjust it before finally accepting that no format of a bot running around ending humans is acceptable to the community. Hopefully we end up with some Jo-Jo inspired Mechanist where the bot becomes a toolbelt activated gimmick and spawns avatars and animations from the Engineer each time a toolbelt skill is used... as well as J-Drive inspired weaksauce mech AA that supports your sub-par core AA damage, in an effort to maintain some semblance of pressure/presence on your opponent from your 'Mech'.

 

Of course someone's hard work of animating a Mech will be going into the barn to be parked behind some cows forever and they won't be too plussed about that. To me, it is far more disappointing that every other expansion, Anet seems to be eager to demonstrate that no lessons have been learnt from their previous attempts at doing the exact same thing but with a different skin on it.

It was never going to be popular in PvP and everyone knew it. BUT its very very good in PvE and that is where majority of players are, so mechanist will be fine there.

[Aravind.9610]

2 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

I don't want to put words into the OP's mouth, but what I imagine they're advocating for (and what I personally advocate for) is a Ventari Tablet-like thing, where the mech doesn't move independently, but has a very low cooldown reposition ability so you can move it around rapidly.

 

At present, the control skills over the mech are very lacking. "Return to Me" is ok, but it's not very helpful if you want the mech to move out of an AoE, or if you want it to go stand next to an ally to give them boons. And saying you can reposition the mech with shift signet misses the point. It has a cooldown of 50 seconds and is a very valuable stunbreak/condi-cleanse for you. You can't use it to make the small, controlled movements on your mech that a player can achieve by literally pressing the WASD keys. It shouldn't take such an important resource to get the mech to stand in a position, that should be a given.

Again a PvP issue. In PvE the cooldown of shift signet is only 25 seconds (19 with elite signet slotted). Please don't assume mechanist will be good in PvP ever. PvE is what really matters in this game.

[Depths.4051]

3 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

I don't want to put words into the OP's mouth, but what I imagine they're advocating for (and what I personally advocate for) is a Ventari Tablet-like thing, where the mech doesn't move independently, but has a very low cooldown reposition ability so you can move it around rapidly.

 

At present, the control skills over the mech are very lacking. "Return to Me" is ok, but it's not very helpful if you want the mech to move out of an AoE, or if you want it to go stand next to an ally to give them boons. And saying you can reposition the mech with shift signet misses the point. It has a cooldown of 50 seconds and is a very valuable stunbreak/condi-cleanse for you. You can't use it to make the small, controlled movements on your mech that a player can achieve by literally pressing the WASD keys. It shouldn't take such an important resource to get the mech to stand in a position, that should be a given.

Yes thats exactly what I was trying to imply with what I said. Thanks your description was much clearer 🙂

1 hour ago, Aravind.9610 said:

Again a PvP issue. In PvE the cooldown of shift signet is only 25 seconds (19 with elite signet slotted). Please don't assume mechanist will be good in PvP ever. PvE is what really matters in this game.

It’s not even just a pvp issue. As someone in another thread said. Your mech will follow a mob off to narnia, and it’s very true. You need to keep tabs on it at all times. Strategic moves that are reliable are much more preferable. He never mentioned pvp in his post and I didn’t either. This is more than a pvp issue.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Depths.4051

[Xenash.1245]

4 hours ago, Depths.4051 said:

Yes thats exactly what I was trying to imply with what I said. Thanks your description was much clearer 🙂

It’s not even just a pvp issue. As someone in another thread said. Your mech will follow a mob off to narnia, and it’s very true. You need to keep tabs on it at all times. Strategic moves that are reliable are much more preferable. He never mentioned pvp in his post and I didn’t either. This is more than a pvp issue.

I'm not trying to discount this, but while I very much so get the mech wandering off to do it's own things which should be worked on. Can't you just hit the return command to get the mech back to you in PvE? And like the other person said shift signet does work well at repositioning the mech in PvE.