Guild Wars 2

So i’ve played most the dungeons several times. And after several testing etc i’ve come to the conlusion that the AI is not so dynamic.

This becomes more clear when you run the same dungeon over and over. In SE the golem who has the 5 buff destructables ALWAYS attacks the engineer first if one is present, if not the elementalist and so on. There is nothing that effects his AI outside of this. I have even gone so far to test it that if you stand behind the wall on this fight “as an engineer or whatever profession is the highest threat” that he will not do anything but simply spin every 30 seconds in a hopeless attempt to attack that player. The same rules apply to the frost giant that rush’s at you later, only i beleive he might go after hunters 2nd priority.

ON the collossus fight in the mists we noticed that "no matter what warrior we had’ he woudl always cage the warrior first. I beleive 2nd in priority was whatever gaurdian or engineer we had.

To conclude, while not every fight is this simple many of the fights are priority on “who attacked it first”, or “what profession it hates the most”, etc. I was under the impression from previous interviews pre-launch that the ai would go after the squishies or healers or whoever was causing the most trouble first. That may have been a dropped idea as there is no trinity but right now the AI seems to be…well stupid with monsters having a one track mind.

So its not just pets that suffer in AI, its monsters and bosses as well “many bosses being exploited due to this like i mentioned with the golem”. Yet it goes on.

SO i ask, is this intentionally where you wanted AI? are pets supposed to randomly not attack anything? are bosses supposed to have one track reasoning on their targetting? or was AI just a low priority under developed part of the game that was being put off for later? I’m just curious cause as it stands right now if this IS intentional, i worry about the health of this game going into the future.

I always thought ai programming would be somewhat difficult..

There was a post a month or so a go where a dev posted a brief explanation of how the threat mechanics functioned. (Which was similar to how you describe it, they will have a target priority based on class/armour/ranged/melee etc.)

Unfortunately, with the barrage of over-zealous Ascended gear haters, the amount of usage of the word “threat” has buried the post. (when searching)

I imagine its incredible diffidulct as there are a lot of variables to account for. In sense you give a list of triggers with set priority.
if X happens do Y.
If Z happens do R unless performing Y
do A if X happens during C.

Right now a lot of it is simply if A. B. C are present attack A. Players and even pets are given a priority irrigardless of any other variables. Not all monsters fight entirely on whatever highest priority profession or pet is present but will merely go off one other rule like. Closest target, furthest target, first to attack, or a basic rotation. When i have more time i’ll start logging what most of their ai patterns are. But i do beleive the game was advertised to have better ai than most MMOs. Where the ai is attack whatever came in their proximity first and then a threat check is used. But even then on many of those encounters ai will notice a spell being cast by a player and use an interrupt etc. And i cant think of any other game that pets simply randomly decide to stare at their target or not respond at all.

Pants.8315:

There was a post a month or so a go where a dev posted a brief explanation of how the threat mechanics functioned. (Which was similar to how you describe it, they will have a target priority based on class/armour/ranged/melee etc.)

Unfortunately, with the barrage of over-zealous Ascended gear haters, the amount of usage of the word “threat” has buried the post. (when searching)

Ya, the gear hate threads really have taken over. Aside from that, i suppose what erks me is the fact that they only follow one of those rules. They dont lay out several rules to go by. I dont know why a set of triggers shouldnt be present instead of just one trigger for monster behavior as it makes it VERY easy to adjust and even exploit.

EDIT: using my golem example. Instead of the monster saying “engineer is present attack him first” it should say “attack him first unless he is out of range of his attacks and my own, then attack next highest threat target”. Or something to that effect.

Yeah the AI in this game is pretty appalling, especially when it comes to threat mechanisms. Last night, I did Lt. Kohler on my Guardian with a group including another Guardian. Kohler would just focus on our Guardians before even looking at the other party members. There was no way for us to stay alive even after blowing all our cool downs, so we corpse ran the entire encounter. As soon as we came into range, Kohler would turn straight on us until we were dead again. The result was that we both had high repairs while the rest of the party never was in any real danger (bar missing a dodge).

This kind of stuff is highly demotivating and honestly I think its the most lazy way to program the Artificial “Intelligence”. Groups need ways to control damage and threat, so they are able to survive. Basing threat solely on a profession is completely kitten as this is something that cannot be changed or controlled during a fight.

Zinwrath.2049:

Pants.8315:

There was a post a month or so a go where a dev posted a brief explanation of how the threat mechanics functioned. (Which was similar to how you describe it, they will have a target priority based on class/armour/ranged/melee etc.)

Unfortunately, with the barrage of over-zealous Ascended gear haters, the amount of usage of the word “threat” has buried the post. (when searching)

Ya, the gear hate threads really have taken over. Aside from that, i suppose what erks me is the fact that they only follow one of those rules. They dont lay out several rules to go by. I dont know why a set of triggers shouldnt be present instead of just one trigger for monster behavior as it makes it VERY easy to adjust and even exploit.

EDIT: using my golem example. Instead of the monster saying “engineer is present attack him first” it should say “attack him first unless he is out of range of his attacks and my own, then attack next highest threat target”. Or something to that effect.

Yeah, it would be nice to have a bit more of a dynamic system to the threat generation.

“Hitting priority target ‘X light armour user’.
Taking X amount of damage in X amount of time. If ratio is higher/lower than X. Or, if target is taking < X amount of damage.
Change target based on, damage done/range/healing done/conditions cleared etc.”

Would be nice if the mob could identify the target that is most dangerous to them.

There seems to be nearly no AI in this game and I am very disappointed with Arenanet regarding this.