Make enemies smarter (and other PvE combat improvements).

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, knives.6345 said:

At least make Elite/Champion better than a damage sponge. You can leave normal to veteran mobs the way it is.

While we are at it, please update boss AI. Seeing people bypass mechanics on Claw of Jormag.. O_O We just stand on one spot and cheese the thing. Dragon looks straight while we are on it's feet. Needs to learn the claw smash from Soo-Won lol.

Oh and don't get me started on Teq and Drakkar..

I think attack patterns should be random. 

If elites and champions seem like damage sponges, you're probably using a low damage build.  If you run a higher damage build you give up some sustain and these enemies may be more of a threat.

Randomized attacks are a bad idea.  It's less predictable, gives the player less control, but also makes for stupid AI.  For instance, you're fighting an arrowhead from range and it just rolls back and forth uselessly.

[knives.6345]

36 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If elites and champions seem like damage sponges, you're probably using a low damage build.  If you run a higher damage build you give up some sustain and these enemies may be more of a threat.

Randomized attacks are a bad idea.  It's less predictable, gives the player less control, but also makes for stupid AI.  For instance, you're fighting an arrowhead from range and it just rolls back and forth uselessly.

Sorry, I was not clear. I meant damage sponge in a way that they have tons of health, almost zero strategy. 

And when I say randomized attacks - it's not just "random BS, go meme". Should not be predictable, but in your example, if people are doing range, it will either unleash ranged too, or go it's best to close gap or heck, both.. Not roll while the PC is far lol.

An example is Claw of Jormag. If it senses people are stacking on one place, do slam on that place. Not just stand there, stare on one direction.

World Boss do not feel boss now. When Teq was new, PUGs have almost 0 chance on it. It took organized guilds (notably TTS guilds) to make runs successful. I miss that feeling.

Soo-Won is probably the closest, where if there are mistakes, you can lose the fight.

[Derktarlms.6213]

hace 24 minutos, knifes.6345 dijo:

 

Soo-Won es probablemente el más cercano, donde si hay errores, puedes perder la pelea.

He thinks it's satisfying to spend too much time preparing, if you like difficult things so much, there is dedicated content for it, for my sake you can continue launching that difficult content in the open world, but I hope you don't make that mistake of leaving it for elite players.

[Nephalem.8921]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Funny enough OP back at release mobs used to walk out of your aoes but it was to hard for people to grasp so Anet had to dumb the mobs down.

Wrong take. It was annoying af and easily exploitable. You could basically permastun npc with laying fields below them. It also heavily nerfs professions relying on those fields for damage because you can not guarantee hits with a stun in pve unless you allow the player to apply cc to bosses which would result in perma stun rotations which existed in vanilla with icebow and headshot.

Evading npc are not hard just annoying. You can not do mindgames with npc because they have perfect dodge reactions. Feinting a cc 2 times to do it for real the 3rd time does not work. I played an action combat pvp game called for honor which brought a pve mode which had to get severely nerfed because it was impossible to hit npc. They had perfect parry and dodge. Npc with evade like mechanics and dodges are not fun but tedious. No mindgame involved at all. Just pure rng if your skills hit or not. Everything is reactable for ai. Computers do not have 200-400ms reaction times like humans.

Evading and dodging npc is usually just extremely tedious unless it follows a predictable pattern.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Nephalem.8921

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, knives.6345 said:

Sorry, I was not clear. I meant damage sponge in a way that they have tons of health, almost zero strategy. 

And when I say randomized attacks - it's not just "random BS, go meme". Should not be predictable, but in your example, if people are doing range, it will either unleash ranged too, or go it's best to close gap or heck, both.. Not roll while the PC is far lol.

An example is Claw of Jormag. If it senses people are stacking on one place, do slam on that place. Not just stand there, stare on one direction.

World Boss do not feel boss now. When Teq was new, PUGs have almost 0 chance on it. It took organized guilds (notably TTS guilds) to make runs successful. I miss that feeling.

Soo-Won is probably the closest, where if there are mistakes, you can lose the fight.

To put some context on it so we aren't just talking at each other in subjective terms, the elites in Echovald map have about 250k health, which is 1/2 to 1/3 the health of HoT HP champions.  For me those elites might take around 15 seconds to kill and those champions typically require 30-45 seconds. 

So, either we have very different ideas on what the term "health sponge" describes or you're taking significantly longer to kill these enemies.  That you say they require no strategy suggests that whatever build you're using is able to facetank champions.  So, I naturally concluded that you're using a very tanky build with low damage.  

If that assumption is correct, then the issue is with your build and not so much the enemy design.  In other words, they'd be more of a threat and require less time to kill if you weren't playing so defensively.  But again, these are assumptions based upon the information provided.  Feel free to provide context of your own if you feel it would be productive.

On randomized attacks, what you say you want is exactly the way it works currently.  To use the arrowhead example again, they don't just randomly utilize attacks.  Instead, they will only roll if they have a target flanking them, only bite if they have a target at melee range, and either chase or use their ranged stomp wave if the target is at range.  This makes them "smarter", but it also makes their behavior predictable and allows players to manipulate that behavior via strategy.

[knives.6345]

22 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

To put some context on it so we aren't just talking at each other in subjective terms, the elites in Echovald map have about 250k health, which is 1/2 to 1/3 the health of HoT HP champions.  For me those elites might take around 15 seconds to kill and those champions typically require 30-45 seconds. 

So, either we have very different ideas on what the term "health sponge" describes or you're taking significantly longer to kill these enemies.  That you say they require no strategy suggests that whatever build you're using is able to facetank champions.  So, I naturally concluded that you're using a very tanky build with low damage.  

If that assumption is correct, then the issue is with your build and not so much the enemy design.  In other words, they'd be more of a threat and require less time to kill if you weren't playing so defensively.  But again, these are assumptions based upon the information provided.  Feel free to provide context of your own if you feel it would be productive.

On randomized attacks, what you say you want is exactly the way it works currently.  To use the arrowhead example again, they don't just randomly utilize attacks.  Instead, they will only roll if they have a target flanking them, only bite if they have a target at melee range, and either chase or use their ranged stomp wave if the target is at range.  This makes them "smarter", but it also makes their behavior predictable and allows players to manipulate that behavior via strategy.

No, I have several toons, both having condi or dps, never a tank.

What I am saying is, let's say the Claw of Jormag. Dragon lands, spawns wall, spawns random spikes on ground.

PCs break wall, gives the dragon some pedicure. After certain percentage of life was taken, Dragon takes off, cannons cut off wings, Dragon crashes. (by the way, no consequences of not guarding cannons...)

PCs stand and stack on one spot, cheeses Dragon, who, by the way, DOES NOT LOOK AT THE STACKED PLAYERS. Spams "AOE" (which by the way, is aimed on the front, NOT where people are).

That is a "world boss". Why couldn't it smack players that are stacked on the 2nd phase? Why don't it move from its spot? 

During the 1st phase's pedicure, why does it let players do that? Why can't it fly and do a frost breath on players? (kinda like what small dragons do on Mouth of Mordremoth fight).

This is what I am saying. Teq suffers the same. Shatterer too.  Drakkar moves, but on a pattern known to player. Why can't it randomize? The room is a circle, only appears on north, south, west and east parts lol.

Technically this applies to Soo-Won too. And don't talk about Gyala Delve. 

They have "fixed" spots. Map is huuuuuge. I am not saying they roam around the map, but at least move and do other stuff. Chase a few players. Find stacked players, do large aoe.

 

To sum it up, when players are fighting boss, even on best builds - they should not be able to stand on one ground and cheese the boss to death. People should be moving around. Players should never be complacent on a world boss, or meta battle.

 

Not sure if you know Star Wars. Imagine Yoda vs Palpatine. Palpatine stares on 1 direction, casts random force lightnings and other force moves. Since Palpatine does not move, Yoda simply positions himself on 1 side, smacking Palpatine's foot. Yoda shocked by force lightning sometimes, but does not take direct hits, because Palpatine is soooo hypnotized on 1 direction.

[AliamRationem.5172]

36 minutes ago, knives.6345 said:

No, I have several toons, both having condi or dps, never a tank.

What I am saying is, let's say the Claw of Jormag. Dragon lands, spawns wall, spawns random spikes on ground.

PCs break wall, gives the dragon some pedicure. After certain percentage of life was taken, Dragon takes off, cannons cut off wings, Dragon crashes. (by the way, no consequences of not guarding cannons...)

PCs stand and stack on one spot, cheeses Dragon, who, by the way, DOES NOT LOOK AT THE STACKED PLAYERS. Spams "AOE" (which by the way, is aimed on the front, NOT where people are).

That is a "world boss". Why couldn't it smack players that are stacked on the 2nd phase? Why don't it move from its spot? 

During the 1st phase's pedicure, why does it let players do that? Why can't it fly and do a frost breath on players? (kinda like what small dragons do on Mouth of Mordremoth fight).

This is what I am saying. Teq suffers the same. Shatterer too.  Drakkar moves, but on a pattern known to player. Why can't it randomize? The room is a circle, only appears on north, south, west and east parts lol.

Technically this applies to Soo-Won too. And don't talk about Gyala Delve. 

They have "fixed" spots. Map is huuuuuge. I am not saying they roam around the map, but at least move and do other stuff. Chase a few players. Find stacked players, do large aoe.

 

To sum it up, when players are fighting boss, even on best builds - they should not be able to stand on one ground and cheese the boss to death. People should be moving around. Players should never be complacent on a world boss, or meta battle.

 

Not sure if you know Star Wars. Imagine Yoda vs Palpatine. Palpatine stares on 1 direction, casts random force lightnings and other force moves. Since Palpatine does not move, Yoda simply positions himself on 1 side, smacking Palpatine's foot. Yoda shocked by force lightning sometimes, but does not take direct hits, because Palpatine is soooo hypnotized on 1 direction.

Alright, I guess I was just confused by your statement beginning with: "At least make Elite/Champion better than a damage sponge. You can leave normal to veteran mobs the way it is."  

I don't see how any of this would make world bosses more interesting or challenging.  More annoying perhaps?  I don't really see how randomizing spawn points and making gigantic bosses move all over the place would improve anything about the experience.

[Khisanth.2948]

6 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Didnt mobs, at least some of them, do things like evade, move out of player aoe, and so on during the final betas back in 2012? That behavior, if I am not mistaken, was largely culled due to player complaints. 

Not evade but just run out of the AoEs. The moment you casted an AoE everything would scatter.

There would have been other problems if they left it it. You could keep casting AoEs to make the mobs do nothing but move. The rest of the team can fight without any threat. Every boss would become trivial.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

That sounds like a great way to get 70% of the playerbase quitting because they can't kill anything.

[kharmin.7683]

If the OP wants enemies smarter than the current game's AI, why don't they play PvP or WvW?

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

14 hours ago, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

And then you got casuals with mixed gear going to hot complaining about geting killed by bunsh of pocket raptors

Those little things that die in two hits and an aoe give everyone trouble because they have a melee attack that reaches out to 1500 range I swear.

16 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

If the OP wants enemies smarter than the current game's AI, why don't they play PvP or WvW?

Smart PvE enemies won't DM salt or BM you.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Epsilon Indi.2031

[Khisanth.2948]

54 minutes ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

That sounds like a great way to get 70% of the playerbase quitting because they can't kill anything.

which is very amusing because all the bearbows would still be fine

[Darkspyro.4028]

Why you want to tournament me they already hard as is 

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

Yday, i had to fight my spellbreaker doppelganger in Elon riverlands... I did notice the enemy using full counter often and evading attacks but it didn't survive much longer as the players ganged up on the enemy with tons of CC and DMG . I believe even if the ai of enemy boss is made challenging to deal with, the players will mow down in a minute if not seconds... Smart enemy can only be challenging for a 1v1 solo instance content.... Story content i guess

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Epsilon Indi.2031 said:

Smart PvE enemies won't DM salt or BM you.

Yeah, I kinda figured that was the more likely reason for this thread.

[knives.6345]

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Alright, I guess I was just confused by your statement beginning with: "At least make Elite/Champion better than a damage sponge. You can leave normal to veteran mobs the way it is."  

I don't see how any of this would make world bosses more interesting or challenging.  More annoying perhaps?  I don't really see how randomizing spawn points and making gigantic bosses move all over the place would improve anything about the experience.

Annoying if implemented poorly, but for me, Boss should at least provide challenge to the area. Challenging because you cannot just sit in 1 place and kill it. The community needs to work together. If their initial plan fails, they need to be able to adapt and improvise strategy on the fly.

Then for Elites, Champions - maybe they could "cast" their skills faster than their regular/veteran counterpart. A Champion Mordrem sniper should not wait long to "aim" at a player. They are champions, a bit of peak for their kind. Act like it.

But ok. Seems like players are satisfied with just always winning with little to no effort and just getting loots. 🙂 Let's leave it like that and continue the trend Fashion Wars lol.

 

 

[Inubis.1376]

Players will not adapt, they will just leave. Thats how you make dead content. This is just a game, you can get down from your high horse, your achievments are meaningless. This topic screams "i want to feel special because im good at the game".

[Gehenna.3625]

On 5/5/2023 at 10:58 AM, Dib.4612 said:

Make enemies smart enough to dodge heavy attacks and dodge or walk out of area damage.

Make enemies smart enough to set up combos on you and punish your for mistakes.

Make enemies smart enough to work together.

This will make the OW very tedious for most players, so that's a really bad idea. 

On 5/5/2023 at 10:58 AM, Dib.4612 said:

This will make the game more interactive, immersive and thus fun.

For you perhaps, but I suspect that even you will get frustrated with this in the end.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:58 AM, Dib.4612 said:

And will possibly make it easier to design for all gamemodes at the same time.

No it won't because a lot of people will leave if Anet will do this, so there won't be any new content at all. That aside, there is an issue with OW/Story content but that has more to do with the incredible gap that Anet allows between people who don't care about the combat system and those who do. That gap can be closed by reducing the output difference but Anet doesn't do it. And as such OW/Story content will always be too easy for some and if Anet ups the difficulty just a little bit it will be too hard for many players.

The gap can only be closed by rewarding mastery of the combat system by less than it does now and also by simplifying it. Right now that mastery makes such a big difference that it actually creates the issue of content creation. I'm for rewardind those who master the combat system but I feel that the rewards in output are way too much. Boonballs in WvW prove that point.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:58 AM, Dib.4612 said:

And maybe get people more engaged with things PvP and WvW, as they will be familiar with its mechanics.

You make a false assumption here. You assume that others want to be engaged in combat, but you are sorely mistaken. Most casual players don't care about learning the combat system. They just like to immerse themselves into the world. 

There's a reason why most people avoid raids, pvp and wvw altogether and it's not because they haven't been forced to become engaged in the combat system.

On 5/5/2023 at 10:58 AM, Dib.4612 said:

This, in my opinion, should be paired with a simplified scaling system that should go either of two ways.

1. ONLY increase NPC rank based on the amount of players, make them larger too with each rank to make them more visible. This will have the benefit of having less clutter and thus being more readable and reactable for players.

or

2. ONLY spawn standard mobs, but in the same amount as there are players. And make them smart enough to work like a WvW blob. This will have the benefit of making people familiar with WvW in a PvE setting, although of course the game will be less readable. 

 

If the latter (2) is not deemed desirable, then perhaps WvW itself ought to be reconsidered on a deep level.

Scaling is already terribad in this game. I feel that this is wishful thinking at best and as the above will only make sure that people will leave this game rather than become engaged. Again, a lot of casuals don't WANT to be engaged in the combat side of things.

 

 

[Hotride.2187]

Play competitive modes if you want opponents to not be NPCs. It has always been like this in MMOs. Though you'll need some ranks in conquest for that, or to find the good ones in wvw.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Hotride.2187

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 hours ago, knives.6345 said:

Annoying if implemented poorly, but for me, Boss should at least provide challenge to the area. Challenging because you cannot just sit in 1 place and kill it. The community needs to work together. If their initial plan fails, they need to be able to adapt and improvise strategy on the fly.

Then for Elites, Champions - maybe they could "cast" their skills faster than their regular/veteran counterpart. A Champion Mordrem sniper should not wait long to "aim" at a player. They are champions, a bit of peak for their kind. Act like it.

But ok. Seems like players are satisfied with just always winning with little to no effort and just getting loots. 🙂 Let's leave it like that and continue the trend Fashion Wars lol.

 

 

No need to be salty just because your idea isn't met with the appreciation you think it deserves.  The fact is you haven't laid out a compelling argument for why this would be an improvement.  Simply insisting that it would be more challenging if world bosses like Tequatl returned to different spawn points doesn't make it so.  Frankly, I think this would needlessly extend the time required to complete the encounter while impacting the challenge not at all.  

That it should provide a challenge?  Sure.  Why not?  But one could also argue that we have challenging world bosses, easy world bosses, and everything in between.  Do they all need to have higher failure rates and require inordinate amounts of time like say DE meta?  I don't see why.  In fact, I think a lot of people would hate it if every meta were like that.  Feel free to look down your nose at me for saying so.

As for champions and elites, apparently it isn't enough that they hit harder and have more health, they also need to attack faster?  And this would improve them how?  I gather the premise is that you don't feel you (or other players) die enough during big group events and that this is one way the death/failure right might be increased?  I guess I have to wonder why you don't just find your own challenge.  Go solo some champions.  And once you've gotten to the point where it's no longer a challenge to survive, work on improving your times.  You can do the same by improving your performance in more organized group content like CM fractals, raids, and strikes as well.

[knives.6345]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

No need to be salty just because your idea isn't met with the appreciation you think it deserves.  The fact is you haven't laid out a compelling argument for why this would be an improvement.  Simply insisting that it would be more challenging if world bosses like Tequatl returned to different spawn points doesn't make it so.  Frankly, I think this would needlessly extend the time required to complete the encounter while impacting the challenge not at all.  

That it should provide a challenge?  Sure.  Why not?  But one could also argue that we have challenging world bosses, easy world bosses, and everything in between.  Do they all need to have higher failure rates and require inordinate amounts of time like say DE meta?  I don't see why.  In fact, I think a lot of people would hate it if every meta were like that.  Feel free to look down your nose at me for saying so.

As for champions and elites, apparently it isn't enough that they hit harder and have more health, they also need to attack faster?  And this would improve them how?  I gather the premise is that you don't feel you (or other players) die enough during big group events and that this is one way the death/failure right might be increased?  I guess I have to wonder why you don't just find your own challenge.  Go solo some champions.  And once you've gotten to the point where it's no longer a challenge to survive, work on improving your times.  You can do the same by improving your performance in more organized group content like CM fractals, raids, and strikes as well.

Salty? Dude I literally told everyone to just discard my ideas if they are already satisfied with the challenge as it is. If you got the impression that I was salty because of the way I said it, it's on you. But it's the truth. 

People like to win easy. Little effort. If people can do boss semi-AFK, they will. And yes, we can. I did the world boss rotation while watching Netflix. They don't need focus. Does not feel like a boss fight, but again, ok.

Majority of people does not want to change it. It's fine then.

 

[loregnum.3619]

Sounds like a good way to kill the game when you alienate the majority of players. 

 

As for me, I probably wouldn't mind more difficult mobs/non champs in open world assuming they aren't too boosted (I find HoT mobs/non champs to be fine) though I am fine with how it is now. If I want more difficult content then I'll go play those modes that have it. Or another game that is designed on that.

 

I'm 44 and I long grew out of the period of where I felt like I needed to prove something by how I do in a video game that nobody but me and some other gamers care about. Now I simply play games for fun and to relax. If boosted enemies ended up making the game not fun then I'd quit playing. This is how most players would  be as well, rather than this weird belief they'll just "git gud" and start to play all the other more challenging modes.

 

If I want to prove how apparently awesome I think I am as a person then I'll go do something or learn a new skill that has actual importance or use in the world, not by playing a video game....or I'll go play a sport competitively and no, video games are not a sport.

 

[Raffrey.5271]

On 5/6/2023 at 4:35 AM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Evading npc are not hard just annoying. You can not do mindgames with npc because they have perfect dodge reactions. Feinting a cc 2 times to do it for real the 3rd time does not work. I played an action combat pvp game called for honor which brought a pve mode which had to get severely nerfed because it was impossible to hit npc. They had perfect parry and dodge. Npc with evade like mechanics and dodges are not fun but tedious. No mindgame involved at all. Just pure rng if your skills hit or not. Everything is reactable for ai. Computers do not have 200-400ms reaction times like humans.

Evading and dodging npc is usually just extremely tedious unless it follows a predictable pattern.

This right here. Make them too smart and they will be able to react to everything perfectly. 
Imagine this, you alone fight three hyleks, one stomper and two shooters. At some point in the middle of the fight you dodged, the stomper sees this and react by timing it’s CC to flawlessly land the exact moment your dodge roll ends, and two shooters seamlessly coordinate their poison dart volleys, one before and the other after, a total 10 shots of poison darts in a span of like 3 seconds - not impossible but highly unlikely to avoid getting hit by all the shots. Or they can also execute it together for a burst, depending on their calculation if you even have that 1 dodge left. 
Yes, if you can somehow know what they’re gonna do you can act on it, but do you sense the headache? This is just an example. Real smart AI can do much better. Now you’re gonna tell me you expect everyone to be capable of dealing with this kind of… stuff, all the time? In open world?

[voltaicbore.8012]

A lot of folks in here have already said most of the important points, but I'd like to throw in my two coppers here.

I think the old dungeon trash mob design, with some tweaks, might be pretty close to what OP is looking for. It feels like back when they were making dungeons, Anet's trash mob design was to make a lot of them individually fairly weak, but put them together in good mixed teams (or have them work together dangerously with environmental hazards). The OW does feature some "mixed teams" of a sort, but they're usually too small in number, can be easily divided and conquered, and just generally die too fast to provide any real combat challenge.

The important thing to note is that even the better mixed teams inside dungeons do not exhibit either the move-out-of-aoe or counter-react-to-player-reactions behaviors. These two things (along with the other suggested difficulty boosts) would significantly add to the challenge of dungeon trash. As dungeons are right now, the good old "tap mobs, hide behind line of sight, and murder them rapidly in a nice tight group" gameplay works just about everywhere in them.

Even with the huge advantage of LoS tactics and without the added challenges, I've seen people of all levels and "played this game for X years" absolutely struggle to make kills in dungeons. I can only imagine that adding several such challenges and mixed teams to the OW would do little outside of alienate an enormous proportion of the player base. 

One might argue that such casual players might not be the whales that keep this game running financially, but that's for Anet to know internally. Outside of that, I think it's just a bad look for a game to suddenly alienate a lot of its players, regardless of how it impacts the bottom line in the short term.

[Hashberry.4510]

Well jeez, if such a large portion of our player base is so averse to combat lets just turn it all off, Anet will surely be swimming in new customers, where’s the down side? 🤪