Guild Wars 2

This has been called into question before, but there must be a better solution in this game when enemies are “improved” to be more “fun and challenging”. Every time I see this phrase pop up in patch notes, a slight shiver runs up my spine. As evidence of Orr battles, as well as the new krait and graveling designs, for some reason knockbacks and stuns are what constitutes as fun and challenging…

Not to be overly rude, but some part of me can’t help but call into question what intentions are placed into monster design. Now I’m not pointing out every single enemy in the game, but just using this as a blanket term, especially in light of battles that are supposed to be “fun and challenging”

As in every thread that brings this up, some one is bound to say, “yeah, well, L2P”, or “they’re not that hard, I don’t see the problem here”. Well, the problem is, there can be a lot more fun ways to improve monsters without reverting to the old one-trick-pony. I mean, anti-CC should be situational, not a universal requirement. If utilities are meant to enforce options, then why should these skills be needed more than others.

But bare with me here, I do have a point.

Conditions on monsters should be added into their fighting style and that is what will make combat interesting. A monster with stun and poison doesn’t need tactics to over come, basically, it just need anti-CC. The same goes for a monster with cripple and fire. The two may seem different, but really they are almost interchangeable and not really distinct.

To be continued below

Let me continue by giving some examples:
Rogue – This guy can throw daggers that ricochet off allies. When a ricochet hits a person, poison is applied. He can also shadow step away if your in melee to long.
In essence, when you fight these guys, clumping together can hurt, and if you get in his face, kill him fast.
Archer – The archer will have rapid shots. Each successive shot that hits you while your still in the same spot does extra damage. Upon the third shot where a player hasn’t moved, you will be crippled as well.
Basically, the CC effect is a soft punishment for not dealing with the enemy as it’s supposed to be dealt with. It’s obvious you should keep moving while battling the archer.

To make it even more interesting, throw two rogues and two archers into the same battle. You’ll need to keep moving, while observing where your allies are, so as not to rake up more too much poison. Only with two enemies with such simple yet interesting mechanics, a bit of tactical play comes forward.

Let me give another example of a fully fleshed out group of gravelings:
Hivemind – Grants other gravelings protection and might, range and aoe attacks cause only glancing blows.
Stinger – Caming within melee range of a stinger will cause stacks of bleed to apply each second. Can charge up to do a leap attack, which stuns the target.
Spiter – Long range attack, and when someone comes within melee range, the spiter will shadowstep to the nearest graveling. The further away a spiter is from its target, the better chance it has to cause poison.
Breeder – When killed, the breeder will spawn hatchlings.

This fight can be done in different ways, but some coordination is needed. The hivemind is by far the worst to keep alive during the fight. Melee should focus on him. Range can also pound away at him, to get him down faster, but should perhaps rather focus on either the stingers or spiters. It’s up to the group, as spiter poison can hurt, although staying near might held, but players need to stay observant of his leap, or the stun can cause his bleeds to stack really fast. The breeder should be dealt with last, or else killing him first might cause his hatchlings to hurt, especially if the hivemind is still alive.

The idea behind my examples is, if enemies each have a mechanic, then players will need to actually use tactics, and if two enemies with different mechanics are in combat, then combat will involve some thought and precision.

Best guess, ANet is overly committed to dodge as a primary defensive mechanic.

Considering “battle tactics” in this game so far consisted of everyone spamming their damage moves, actually having to think and watch what you and your target are doing is refreshing.

So yeah, L2P. Every class has plenty of evasive and anti-CC abilities, and for a reason. Use them. Also, if you spot your buddies are in trouble, try stopping for a second to help them out, instead of just continuing with the damage spam. Teamwork ftw.

Well said, OP, but I don’t think the game needs more mechanics.

In my opinion, fun and challenge is being able to use the tools at your disposal to solve problems presented by the game (i.e. monsters) in interesting ways. Where GW2 fails is that the problems posed by monsters present checks rather than choice. For instance, you need condition removal or you’ll spend most of your encounters or you’ll spend most of your fight against certain enemies crippled, chilled, poisoned etc. You need stability or else gravelings will play ping pong with you all day long. It certainly doesn’t help that whoever designed the monsters made them spam attacks faster than the player can react and that the attacks themselves are so poorly telegraphed.

I strongly urge whoever designed the monsters in GW2 to play games like Monster Hunter and Dragons Nest if they want to implement interesting monsters that present fair challenges. Those accomplish it will very few mechanics. In fact, they do it mostly with attack telegraphing (execution/twitch challenge).

That said actual difficulty is the window of opportunity completing the challenge or the punishment for failing the execution. ANet needs to work on this as well, but that’s a different topic altogether.

The enemy AI is just plain stupid, thats why they fall back on giving enemies CC abilities.

There are only very few exceptions, like the bandits in Queensdale which are actually capable of DODGING. Yes, monsters which are dodging your attacks.

What the AI of most enemies lack is:
- Dodging AoE attacks, this INCLUDES whirlwind and alike
- Keeping optimal distance
- Ability to JUMP! (There are enough instances where it would be SAFE for enemies to jump, because there isn’t even a gap they could fall in, just a edge they need to cross. Or just delay application of CC on enemies until they are back on the ground. Also allow them to be pushed of edges they can jump back on!)
- Kiting when low on HP (Very few enemies already do this, but usually one those with low survivability)
- Organization, one enemy calls a target and all enemies of the same race attack the same target. This requires a reduction of damage, though!
- “Call for help” on CERTAIN enemies

Also some abilities which make things more interesting:
- Skills which are activated when low on HP to increase survivability
— Split-ability for slimes
— Reflection / block for melee
— Outbreak (mass knockback) for hammer carriers
- LOW damage instant cast AoE-attacks without AoE-circles (instant cast)

If the AI was smarter, then enemies would require MUCH LESS CC abilities and the damage could be reduced without reducing the difficulty.

There is also yet another thing which lacks for enemies, I’m talking about the equivalent of the downed state. Most enemies are right now in a situation where they either beat you up, or where they rarely even land a single attack. Especially the lather one is not a desired behavior. What would help? Give them a final attack they can use while dieing. It doesn’t need to be the ever same boring explosion, be more creative when designing the behavior.

Just a few examples for possible death actions:
- Pull in the person who killed you
- Spawn a necro well / trap at your position
- Spawn additional creepers at your position, but spawn them from a shared spawn pool, so they are allowed to give loot!!!
- Explode with condition (blindness, confusion, weakness) / CC (knockback)
- “Last Will”-shout
— Mass invulnerability 3 seconds, 600 range
— Mass retaliation 5 seconds, 600 range
— Mass Aegis 5 seconds, 600 range

Note: All the effects listed are meant to PROLONG the fight when fighting against large groups with zergs. However, they have little effect when approaching single targets or sniping certain targets without the use of AoE attacks.

Just an example: Give orian chickens slightly delayed explosion on death and throw in a few enemies which also pull you on death. Result? It becomes dangerous to farm them with AoE, but it doesn’t increase the difficulty when encountering single exemplars or engaging large groups, but going explicit 1on1.

Making enemies “harder” by ramping up HP and damage and giving them knockback isn’t the way to go. That ONLY encourages vertical item progression and zerging, but not skillful play. Whereby “skillful” means, that you KNOW your enemies and you approach them with sense. There is nothing wrong, if zerging and mindless AoE-spam is actually punished with lower survivability rather than being rewarded.

^ When bandits dodge, they do so randomly though.

It’s incredibly difficult to make AI that’s actually intelligent. What many games fall back on is to give specific patterns to enemies and mix and match those enemies to make fights more interesting. Of course good games actually let you see what enemies are doing as well…

TwoBit.5903:

Well said, OP, but I don’t think the game needs more mechanics.

In my opinion, fun and challenge is being able to use the tools at your disposal to solve problems presented by the game (i.e. monsters) in interesting ways. Where GW2 fails is that the problems posed by monsters present checks rather than choice. For instance, you need condition removal or you’ll spend most of your encounters or you’ll spend most of your fight against certain enemies crippled, chilled, poisoned etc. You need stability or else gravelings will play ping pong with you all day long. It certainly doesn’t help that whoever designed the monsters made them spam attacks faster than the player can react and that the attacks themselves are so poorly advertised.

And that recharge their skills at less than half the time our shortest such counters do (never mind said counters having very narrow windows of effectiveness). Leading to the thinking that there is no point at being fancy, just spike the mob down asap.

Gaudrath.6725:

So yeah, L2P. Every class has plenty of evasive and anti-CC abilities, and for a reason. Use them. Also, if you spot your buddies are in trouble, try stopping for a second to help them out, instead of just continuing with the damage spam. Teamwork ftw.

I’m glad at least someone brought up the old L2P, followed by tips on how to play. Actually, I do pack CC removal, and I’m also the first person to aid a downed ally.

But that’s not the point of my discussion. What irks me is that CC is heedlessly tossed onto enemies, it’s the ANet cure for making battle “interesting” and “fun”. But the L2P gesture, unconsciously, also advocates the huge problem with battles that makes it so “interesting”. Like you said, dodge here and there, and time your CC, and battle becomes a mindless affair without any variation or actual challenge.

I know my examples were crude, but basically I just wanted to illustrate that there can be ways to actually make you think while playing. Just throwing more CCs onto mobs will just permeate more of the same. Nothing will be interesting and enemies are just indistinct, with little variety from one mob to another. What I’d like to see is different forms of enemies not only look different, but also feel different when you fight them. So far this is kinda lacking.

TwoBit.5903:

^ When bandits dodge, they do so randomly though.

It’s incredibly difficult to make AI that’s actually intelligent. What many games fall back on is to give specific patterns to enemies and mix and match those enemies to make fights more interesting. Of course good games actually let you see what enemies are doing as well…

But heres the problem, GW2 has only very little variation in patterns, in Orr it even feels like EVERY enemy use using the same AI.

Also most AIs are much more complex than the GW2 ones, it is common for AIs to only activate defensive abilities when attacked with a certain type of attack, to have a simple crowd intelligence and to aim properly with AoE effects.

The GW2 AI fails in all this disciples, it has not awareness of the situation, the crowd intelligence is not existent, and aiming with AoE or any type of intelligent target selection? Forget about it. Even the bosses will rather spam AoE on EVERY target simultaneously than to aim.

There is also very little variation between the individual enemies, you have some rare exceptions like the eagles, skelks, and some of the enemies with characteristic AoE / stun effects, but most enemies use the same “humanoid” AI and only differ in having ONE SINGLE special CC attack. With a few exceptions, they can all be killed in indefinite masses with the use of mindless AoE spam.

Exterminans.9723:

TwoBit.5903:

^ When bandits dodge, they do so randomly though.

It’s incredibly difficult to make AI that’s actually intelligent. What many games fall back on is to give specific patterns to enemies and mix and match those enemies to make fights more interesting. Of course good games actually let you see what enemies are doing as well…

But heres the problem, GW2 has only very little variation in patterns, in Orr it even feels like EVERY enemy use using the same AI.

Also most AIs are much more complex than the GW2 ones, it is common for AIs to only activate defensive abilities when attacked with a certain type of attack, to have a simple crowd intelligence and to aim properly with AoE effects.

The GW2 AI fails in all this disciples, it has not awareness of the situation, the crowd intelligence is not existent, and aiming with AoE or any type of intelligent target selection? Forget about it. Even the bosses will rather spam AoE on EVERY target simultaneously than to aim.

There is also very little variation between the individual enemies, you have some rare exceptions like the eagles, skelks, and some of the enemies with characteristic AoE / stun effects, but most enemies use the same “humanoid” AI and only differ in having ONE SINGLE special CC attack. With a few exceptions, they can all be killed in indefinite masses with the use of mindless AoE spam.

I agree, more variation on enemy AI and behavior would help greatly. The game’s definitely lacking in this area.

However, I think the problem goes deeper than that. I think problem is that the game’s mechanics lack depth. Games like Monster Hunter have variations built upon one or two mechanics and these variations are interesting and fun to play with. In monster hunter’s case, the game uses hitstun with meaningful variations on hitbox and speed. This makes the hitstun mechanic deep and interesting. Enemies in MH actually follow very simple and predictable AI but they’re fun and challenging to fight nonetheless due to deep mechanics.

In GW2’s case, you have variation in damage and cc, but in the end those variations have little impact because they simply dictate how fast you need to use your heal or cleanse. Variations in attack hitbox and speed don’t matter much at all because the game’s engine allows enemies to lock onto players and spam attacks, and the excess of which promotes abnegation of player reaction. They also zerg players and that makes it difficult to see their attacks in the first place. As someone said earlier, the mechanics lead players to just zerg and dps enemies down, and unsurprisingly that’s what you see happening all the time in this game.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that variety in AI won’t matter too much if the variety in attack types is meaningless.

A related issue is that ANet seems to love using launches as the mob CC of choice. Except this blows up in our faces because while we can’t launch a mob off a platform, they can very much do so to us. On recent example, tho in the patch queue, is a personal story mission in Timberline Falls.

At the top of a towering platform waits a krait priestess, who summons 4-5 other krait. Krait that happens to love spamming a highly potent launch at every opportunity.

The platform is also barely big enough to contain a dodge, if you happen to stand at one edge and dodge towards the other.

End result is that no matter what you do you sooner or later end up being launched off that platform and plummet to your death on the wreckage below.

Similar issues can be found with dredge regarding a underground vista, and harpies in a fractal, iirc.

In essence, ANet has made dodge a very big focus of defense (with vigor you can dodge once every 5 seconds, 6 times more often than most of the CC and blocks can be employed) but at the same time keep putting us in situations where dodge is either ineffective (AOE spamming mobs in narrow spaces) or downright dangerous (platforms and bridges with no railings).

Never mind that defeats are expensive (broken armor) and leads to battles resetting everything but dead mobs. And that last bit leads to a focus on DPS because it is the one thing that can lead to a measurable advance if you manage to take out a mob between resets.

digiowl.9620:

At the top of a towering platform waits a krait priestess, who summons 4-5 other krait. Krait that happens to love spamming a highly potent launch at every opportunity.

The platform is also barely big enough to contain a dodge, if you happen to stand at one edge and dodge towards the other.

End result is that no matter what you do you sooner or later end up being launched off that platform and plummet to your death on the wreckage below.

Exactly. I’d just like to know how this makes for entertaining combat, and it’s supposed to be a fun challenge.

I enjoy dodging as a part of combat, it is great to roll out of the way when a deadly attack comes your way. But there should be more to combat than this, and enemies should have more intelligent fighting than merely spamming CC. A fight can only be as smart and interesting as your opponent allows it to be.

One of the major steps backwards in my mind from GW1 is the lack of mixed enemy groups. Very rarely were enemy spawns solo in GW1. You would have a mob of mixed professions who had differing abilities from those professions. Later on in the game cycle you even had enemy groups with dual professions based on meta builds. It was interesting to have a group with a healer, melee, ranged, defensive, interrupter, etc. This was used not only to provide variation between enemy types but also to ramp up difficulty in different areas of the game.

Much of this is lacking in GW2. A melee Flame Legion Charr feels the same as an Ascalonian warrior feels the same as a moose. There seems to be very little interaction going on with enemy groups but most times the enemies are solo anyway.

JK Arrow.7102:

Much of this is lacking in GW2. A melee Flame Legion Charr feels the same as an Ascalonian warrior feels the same as a moose. There seems to be very little interaction going on with enemy groups but most times the enemies are solo anyway.

This is something I really miss. Fighting a group of krait felt very different fighting a charr warband or a bunch of minotaurs. Different types of enemies really need something that’s their own, a sense of personality, so that if you fight flame legion they’ll feel very different than fighting frostbrood.

Honestly, I think I smell design by metrics at work. GW2 combat feels great compared to other mmos and it’s likely that’s what ANet were measuring for. Compared GW2, the actual GW1’s feeling of the player character attacking enemies wasn’t that great. What made GW1’s combat so great was the depth in strategy.

If there’s one thing about metrics it’s that they’re only good for measuring individual or local maximum and I don’t believe that depth has a local maximum to measure. Because the combat was likely designed mostly with feeling in mind, you start to see elements that contributed to the combat’s feel conflict with elements that would have added depth.The overall pace of combat makes it difficult for average or even hardcore players to react to everything the game throws at them. Even if the player reacts and dodges a snare or cc, the fact that enemies throw these attacks around means they’ll be cc/snared again anyway. And then there are those used antiquated MMO combat mechanics like tab targeted and lock-ons that subvert the elements of movement and positioning that the game tries to incorporate into combat.

I love the improved enemies, you don’t want a bag of hp that is no threat.

emikochan.8504:

I love the improved enemies, you don’t want a bag of hp that is no threat.

At the same time, you want the threat to be reasonable and to also be able to react to it. Before you had enemies that were punching bags with variations on the same 2-3 attacks. Now you have enemies that hit back but snare, cc, and attack so fast and frequently that it’s still better simply to spike them down same as before.

emikochan.8504:

I love the improved enemies, you don’t want a bag of hp that is no threat.

It’s more about the depth of combat as TwoBit said. There were quite a few areas in GW1 were if you took a group of all DPS players, you would last about 10 seconds. It wasn’t because the contents was insanely hard, rather it was balanced around multiple professions and interactive mechanics. Enemies healed each other, they protted each other, they cast AoE on players standing too close to one another. They would interrupt your important skills. You needed varying professions and builds to counter this.

This is what is missing currently. If we are able to take a bunch of zerker wars and faceroll most everything than there is something lacking in the depth of combat. At no point should maxing DPS > anything else. While the action may be faster paced and more similar to FPS games, the depth is also similar…dodge, shoot, and move on.