Make enemies smarter (and other PvE combat improvements).

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think that for the levelling process and the Personal Story the difficulty is kind of okay. However, the fact that so many players can't even handle the jump in difficulty to LWS1-LWS2 and then the jump again to Heart of Thorns, shows that the game isn't doing nearly enough to teach players the combat mechanics while levelling.

 

If you look at Fractals, raids, and strike missions, they all do one thing very differently to open-world, story and dungeons: They introduce mechanics before they're used. The skill level of the player base would likely be radically higher if this was even remotely sprinkled around in the aformentioned "tutorial-less" content, especially since something as simple as the training grounds in End of Dragons resulted in a massive shift in players who knew about crowd control.

 

Its not that ArenaNet  can't do it, they have proven that they can. Its just that they don't want to do it, they don't want to touch old content and fix it up to teach players how to actually play the game, and as long as that remains true they'll never be able to increase the difficulty level of those areas.

 

It doesn't end there, either. Thanks to power creep, soon we'll need a tier 5 in Fractals.

Edited May 13, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[SnackParty.3178]

Numbers plus all of the CC and interrupts, is enough for open world. Heck, there might even be an imbalance, in the CC. For example, a couple of Ettins, can pretty much keep you down, forever, until you die. Condi, is also op. Several mobs can drop poison and especially confusion, and quickly, melt a player.  (And before anyone says anything, I personally have ways, of countering those interactions).

Edited May 13, 2023 by SnackParty.3178

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

2 hours ago, SnackParty.3178 said:

Numbers plus all of the CC and interrupts, is enough for open world. Heck, there might even be an imbalance, in the CC. For example, a couple of Ettins, can pretty much keep you down, forever, until you die. Condi, is also op. Several mobs can drop poison and especially confusion, and quickly, melt a player.  (And before anyone says anything, I personally have ways, of countering those interactions).

I think this would only affect a newer, still-leveling player. An experienced player could pop Stability and probably kill 50 Ettins at a time since they'd mostly die in in a few autoattacks.

 

On max-level maps with no downscaling, most classes are up to about 15-20k DPS at this point with a decent compliment of self-buffs. The only thing keeping it from being similar damage as in groups is needing to trade some stats and damage bonuses for boons, and the fact that you can't bring Alacrity and Quickness at the same time for yourself as an intentional game design decision.

 

Its expected that inexperienced players will die, this thread has nothing to do with that. The point was that the game presents no challenge outside of high-level instanced content, for any player who even remotely knows what they're doing.

 

Players who regularly play end-game PvE could probably take on all of Queensdale at once just by hiding behind an object so they don't get ranged down.

Edited May 13, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[SnackParty.3178]

Well, I used Ettins, since they are the earliest, I've remember getting CC locked, when first starting. But, there is sometimes still, without stun breaks, possible to get stuck in that situation, with other mobs. Let me go back, don't think I misunderstood, I was the one, who got misunderstood :P, but it's better not trying to explain, especially when we're taking an example and building directly around that, and missed the whole point.

Edited May 14, 2023 by SnackParty.3178

[Knighthonor.4061]

I would like the NPC in WvW to be made more advanced in the AI and tactics

[FiveBunnies.5730]

On 5/13/2023 at 9:09 AM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

It doesn't end there, either. Thanks to power creep, soon we'll need a tier 5 in Fractals.

I'd like more levels in fractals.  5 tir is great! More agony, more damage on my ele with 12k health. More fun! 😼

[Barabbas.8715]

Anet isn't going to make the AI smarter. They're just going to give enemies even more iframes, stun locks, and other annoying mechanics because they don't understand the difference between annoying and fun. Like they'll give those branded griffins an extra 10 seconds of iframes, because Anet.

[SlayerXX.7138]

People are a little to fixated on "harder" and stronger Opponents, when "easy" but engaging mobs would bring more joy to players. Veteran Stoneheads is one of the more fun and engaging mobs to fight in the HoT Maps in spite of being really easy to kill. Snipers are kind of "hard" with their 1 pixel wide deathzone, but not in an engaging way. Pocket Raptors are mostly a loadout check if you pack Aoe in your kit.

I and many other player have loadouts on characters to solo Hero Points and Bounties no Trash mob will really challenge veteran players in any way. Dump mobs are fine.

The real question is not what can enemies do it is what will be the counter play to the enemies in question. Enemies don't have to be smart to force smart counter play. One the other hand just look at WvW where the answers to really smart enemies(actual human beings) is just bring many people and many boons and many aoe. Like many people pointed out the counterplay to really smart AI is often times either getting unfairly beaten and moving on or leveraging the smarts of the npc against it. Both cases don't lead to enjoyable gameplay.

 

 

[Axelteas.7192]

Making enemies smarter would be great if you find them in groups of 1 or 2. 

But since Hot enemies go in packs of snipers, healers, warriors.... NO!  fighting forged groups of enemies is enough hassle to make them even more intelligent. And the white mantle packs are just too hard. I want to walk open world without the stress and feeling that every being conspires to assassinate me.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Axelteas.7192

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

People are a little to fixated on "harder" and stronger Opponents, when "easy" but engaging mobs would bring more joy to players. Veteran Stoneheads is one of the more fun and engaging mobs to fight in the HoT Maps in spite of being really easy to kill. Snipers are kind of "hard" with their 1 pixel wide deathzone, but not in an engaging way. Pocket Raptors are mostly a loadout check if you pack Aoe in your kit.

I and many other player have loadouts on characters to solo Hero Points and Bounties no Trash mob will really challenge veteran players in any way. Dump mobs are fine.

The real question is not what can enemies do it is what will be the counter play to the enemies in question. Enemies don't have to be smart to force smart counter play. One the other hand just look at WvW where the answers to really smart enemies(actual human beings) is just bring many people and many boons and many aoe. Like many people pointed out the counterplay to really smart AI is often times either getting unfairly beaten and moving on or leveraging the smarts of the npc against it. Both cases don't lead to enjoyable gameplay.

 

 

I'd like veteran stoneheads more if they always used their tailwhip first when engaged at melee range.  That would make it so if you deal enough damage you can prevent them from charging off into the distance on their next attack.  But as it stands they can use the charge upon engaging them, which is pretty annoying if you're playing a melee build because now you're stuck in combat with an enemy that is a mile away and there's no guarantee if you waste time chasing after it that it won't just do the same thing again.

I like the snipers better, especially when facing larger groups of mordrem of multiple types.  Those sniper lines become a much greater threat when you're dealing with several of them at once along with other types of mordrem.  But they aren't too punishing because they have so little health, you can just prioritize them and take them down quickly - or risk getting into a bad situation with kill zones all over the battlefield!

In any event, I agree that enemies don't have to be smart to force players to play smart or suffer the consequences.  Chak are a great example of this with their mix of heavy melee attacks, ranged projectile/ground effects, and non-projectile ranged attacks.  Alone they're no big deal, but when there are many of them they can deal a lot of damage very quickly with no need to coordinate.  They just do what they do.

 

[leila.7962]

On 5/5/2023 at 6:38 AM, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

And then you got casuals going to hot and complaining about geting killed by bunch of pocket raptors

Then they can leave the raptors as it is 😄

[SlayerXX.7138]

9 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

But as it stands they can use the charge upon engaging them, which is pretty annoying if you're playing a melee build because now you're stuck in combat with an enemy that is a mile away and there's no guarantee if you waste time chasing after it that it won't just do the same thing again.

I get that, but that has multiple option of counter play. Like you said range. High mobility, they are not that fast. CC, the defiance bar isn't too big. And if all fails you can still angle yourself to the nearest obstacle so they run headfirst into it. Bonus point for the stonehead: non of the counter play is gear dependent.

9 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

But they aren't too punishing because they have so little health, you can just prioritize them and take them down quickly - or risk getting into a bad situation with kill zones all over the battlefield!

True! Only the max scaled ones are annoying because their tells vanish in the animation puke and after a second in death zone halve your life is gone. But that's more a problem of  soloing the 20-man-scaled sniper alone because the rest of the squad is in autopilot. That is another problem with smarter/stronger enemies. The counter play in big metas with strong enemies becomes "bring better teammates" and not what the individual does in combat.

[The Boz.2038]

14 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

But they aren't too punishing

Until an event decides one of them gets to be elite, and it's line pulses entire healthbars each second.

...jfc, some of the stuff in HoT was such stupid design, it beggars belief.

[AliamRationem.5172]

15 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Until an event decides one of them gets to be elite, and it's line pulses entire healthbars each second.

...jfc, some of the stuff in HoT was such stupid design, it beggars belief.

Best design the game has ever seen by a mile, imo.  But you do you.

[Hashberry.4510]

Scaled up content gets really bad, its a shame how zerging became the thing when the scaling creates absurd fights. Two to five person open world bosses are a lot of fun but rarely encountered in the popular fights.

This experience, even, is mostly gone now, 2 peeps are power creeped enough to trivialize any normally scaled fight. Things are mushy.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Hashberry.4510

[Gravitron.7982]

Well the smartest enemies in the game are other players.

[Dib.4612]

On 5/5/2023 at 10:35 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

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.

I actually really liked the PvE in For Honor BECAUSE it was the same as the PvP.

Can one not program a delay or some such? Is that not what they have done in the end?

[Dib.4612]

On 5/6/2023 at 11:29 AM, Inubis.1376 said:

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".

That's very prejudiced of you, and it's totally wrong. I just want the game to be fun, that is all.

[Dib.4612]

On 5/7/2023 at 5:30 PM, Aelin.9317 said:

Elden ring is there if you want it. 

I don't really like the clear disdain a lot of people are showing for casual players. In my experience the most hardcore spend very little and the casuals throw money a lot more. Makes no sense to cater to a small handful of people who want an experience they can get elsewhere. Go and clear the harvest temple challenge mode. Barely anyone has. Open world is accessible, instanced content is where you can seek more of a challenge. I am glad they will be adding more strikes to provide such content 🙂 

I would like Anet to fix the huge gap between an average player and the tippy top 1%. The dmg disparity is huge. I think they should fix that and a lot of content would be a lot more consistent and also save quite some friction between players. If they are pressing the important things on cd that should be the majority of the damage imo. And you can sweat to squeeze a bit of extra damage but not suddenly double it ykno? You can still top the dps meter and feel good but you are not dwarfing the damage of other players.

 

I don't have any disdain for casual players at all.

I think better interaction with NPCs will be more fun for everyone.
A lot of you assume that interactive NPCs means challenging NPCs, that doesn't have to be the case whatsoever. They can be interactive but bad at the game. As I have written before.

[DreamyAbaddon.3265]

1 hour ago, Dib.4612 said:

I don't have any disdain for casual players at all.

I think better interaction with NPCs will be more fun for everyone.
A lot of you assume that interactive NPCs means challenging NPCs, that doesn't have to be the case whatsoever. They can be interactive but bad at the game. As I have written before.

I played GW2 since 2012 beta and I must say, I agree with you. I agree with the entire OP regarding making the NPCs more challenging. If NPCs can move and dodge, heal themselves and use CC but do less damage and have less of them in map, that might be actually more fun. Less trash mobs and more decent and fun enemies to engage with in PvE without being too overwhelming would be ideal.

Part of the problem with new players playing from lvl1-80 is they learn nothing about their class. They have no idea what their skills do or how they can use it when they need it. They just spam skills and that's it. Then they go to HoT and complain it's too hard when it's not. They just never learned. But if they can redo and make the npcs actually more intractive and have them move away from attacks, that will give new players a better idea that they DO need to move and dodge too while fighting. That this is something they can do as well and must do in order to survive.

I know some people quit this game because they thought this was a boring tab target game and they prefer action games. THIS GAME IS ACTION TOO. Well, it's Hybrid but it's more action and skill based than anything I played and those newbies who quit for the reason they think it's not, will never know that.

That dodging tutorial is so dumb and a lazy way to teach people how to dodge. I helped out a new player once who got to lvl30 without ever really using a dodge key. Only time he admit using it was for that chest. Idk if he still plays anymore.

[Tiviana.2650]

OP you would rage when the npc's are smarter than you lol

[blp.3489]

It seems there is a near consensus that it would be a bad idea to just blanket upgrade all the mobs in the game so lets put that aside and talk about adding some more complex adversaries in a few places where they can be avoided if wanted and aren't crucial to advancing the game or getting important unique loot.  Add some bonus hero points, or add some bounties, or add them as a bonus option in the fight arenas like the one by the Vigil keep, or use something like that mechanic where if you have a bandit death mark (or something like that) in your inventory they appear after you kill some lower level target.  Or just have a low level NPC that warns you it has a mean big brother so you better leave it alone, you choose whether you clobber the little brother.  Or have a training ground like in EOD but with more sophisticated combat.

One of the first things I would like to see tried is adversary NPCs that basically have the functionality of player characters and the same constraints, but are controlled with AI.  Bonus points if you can optionally configure their build and equipment yourself.  I thought Drizzlewood was going in this direction but the NPCs there mostly only have a single attack with a very generously long period between attacks compared to player attack rates.  Actually, even if they just did auto attacks at the same rate as players it would be a start, some of the player classes have fairly powerful auto attacks.

In way of adversaries that aren't more powerful but are more interesting just place them in some interesting terrain which they either use to their advantage or force you to use to your advantage.  Have them try to escape when they are being overwhelmed in a fight.  Have a small group that includes a healer that makes it difficult to kill the others and which the others will try to protect.  Even if they are lower level than the character, pick their profession or elite spec semi-randomly, or at least include some random specs in the mob so that if you return to the same place the fight will be different.  Heck if you include several such npcs in a mob the possible combinations could be huge and each fight would be almost unique.  Etc. etc. etc.