Guild Wars 2

Hostile NPCs react and attack very slow, while players can do stuff so fast that I have problems seeing use for crowd control in PvP, since they cannot hit most of the devastating abilities that are cast very fast…
NPCs cast slow and present better targets for CC on other hand…

What if hostile NPCs in PvE were given same speed as players?

What’s your opinion?

As someone who played PvE mostly for most of the game, but who ventured into WvW for a while…

1. Defeating players in WvW can be much more engaging and demanding. Players are moving constantly to try to make you miss. Few mobs do this.
2. I doubt that every PvE-only player wants to work that hard to down mobs.
3. However, there’s a lot of room between, “Mobs act like they do now.” and “Mobs act as fast as players.” One good example is the profession-based practice dummies in the Mists lobby. More like players, but not full on like players.

Do you seriously think that a computer program is slower than a human unintentionally?

PVE is built for the player to succeed, PVP is build for players to succeed and fail. It’s different.

They could add in some just fast auto attacks meant to be absorbed rather than avoided for PVE, but personally I’d find that pretty lame. I like the way PVE is designed in general here. I would like some tougher stuff but to me dealing with an attrition mechanic isn’t the answer.

I was thinking about that but the game is set up for solo players with a mixture of levels who are fighting mobs. If the mobs attacked faster and harder and the player managed to agro several of them it might make areas too difficult, especially for those still leveling and with below level gear and not a full selection of skills and traits. Maybe the new level 80 only maps can be made a little harder as it won’t have any low levels in there.

Mourningcry.9428:

Do you seriously think that a computer program is slower than a human unintentionally?

It doesn’t, the OP doesn’t, and why you thought he said that is completely left field.

That said, the mob AI was dumbed down for a multitude of reasons, and was never scaled back up with the expected player skill levels. There are tons of arguments over this (including this insane idea that reactive AI would be just as pointless as Rock AI)… but what it boils down to is the current AI behavior was to make AOE skills direct combat rather then function as area denial. Considering AOE skills tend to be the heavy hitters on most classes, and almost all melee attacks cleave, the decision was in response to beta tests where feed back indicated that Mobs reacting and moving made for frustrating combat.

This manages to highlight another disparity between PvE/PvP balance, and the almost polarizing view points where PvE players want to dictate their engagements (which would normally favor CCs), and PvP players want stronger counter play and disengagement options (which oppose CCs). Having big engagements (like Tera’s BAMs) on a constant basis tends to annoy PvE players, as they regularly wish to skip foes while in transit to their intended target. So in order to populate the map, they fill it with relatively easy targets that can be plowed through enmass by the player; who then complains about the lack of challenge in combat.

Whats ultimately ironic about this, is how players are not good at dealing with targets at their own performance levels. In PvE they are used to the idea of being the most powerful thing on the map outside of a boss fight. The moment Mobs even slightly begin to operate on a level to rival the player, they instantly call foul for shattering the power fantasy. The initial encounter with the mordem of drytop is a nice example of what happens when players have their cheese tactics flipped against them.

Individually the Mordrem aren’t difficult to fight (though the Teragrifs has every cheesey mob CC in a single attack)…. but most builds, and even some classes, aren’t capable of the kind of sustained defense needed to intelligently combat a mixed group of Mordrem. This amplified the DPS race inherent to most Dungeons (hence the zerker meta), as the Mordrem become exponentially more dangerous the longer they are in play. Since PvE mobs scale almost exclusively on Power and HP, but have slow hugely projected attacks, most Class skills are focused and balanced toward burst mitigation. But the Mordrem incorporate high frequency, high damage, and often lingering AOE attacks, which can chew through every type of defense in the game other then dodge.

The solution is to improve the mob AI behavior to incorporate some task oriented tactics, but not succumb to the flaws of purely reactive behavior (which I think was the issue with the Beta AI). Not an easy solution, but one that has to happen eventually given the failures of the current method. HoT seeks to diversify the Mob abilities (as seen in the existing Mordrem)… but on its own I don’t see it being enough to address the problem.

FrostSpectre.4198:

What if hostile NPCs in PvE were given same speed as players?

Decided to give a mace/shield guardian a try not too long back. Using the mace block skill (and of course there’s other classes have blocks and counters too and it’s just as relevant) would certainly feel a bit more useful, since it’s literally possible to enter a block and for the NPC to take so long to hit that the block is over by the time it does. Yes I know better timing on my part is needed, but still 4-5 seconds between attacks is pretty slow.

starlinvf.1358:

Mourningcry.9428:

Do you seriously think that a computer program is slower than a human unintentionally?

It doesn’t, the OP doesn’t, and why you thought he said that is completely left field.

Perhaps because OP is talking about NPC reaction and action timings vs players? Not about the the complexity or behavior of their AI which you seem to have headed out to right field to focus on.

Human reaction time is about a quarter of a second – which is a factor in why most player skill activation times are longer then 1/2 second; the more powerful skills, taking much longer – which is why players are able to react to other player skills.

Regardless to say, an NPC requires much less reaction time, restricting through delay or lack of AI is the only way a human could ever land a successful skill.

Further, allowing NPCs to cast or have skills with less then quarter second activation would result in most players being unable to respond. Lupi’s kick is one of the fastest, least telegraphed NPC attacks in the game, and can easily catch uninitiated players.

The AI has imposed restrictions to make the game playable and enjoyable for most people (and even as it is, some players find it more than challenging enough due to mental, physical, or technological hindrances).