Guild Wars 2

I am getting tired of the bad coding of the minion AI of GW2. Why don’t they just reuse the Hero AI algorithm of GW1? They work much better than the AI algorithm being used now by the minions. Why do they stop in the middle of the map when somebody attacked you? What’s happening is that when somebody attacks you, they go on “search mode”, ie. they will look for your attackers in their vicinity. The problem is when you are far away from your minions and they haven’t caught up. When somebody attacks you, they pause, their dumb idiotic programming will make them look around immediately, instead of looking for enemies that their master sees.

Because it isn’t that easy or they’d already have done it. I know it might be hard to believe but these are actually professionals.

Not that anyone will want to hear this, but at least the minions are an optional choice, you really don’t want them to try to make them more important to the profession that is a path to bandaid fixes as behavioral programing will never be a low enough fruit for them to tackle with any seriousness.

The thing with minions is…they used to kinda sorta work. Long ago you used to be able to use them and they’d actually do stuff. Then one day their AI was completely shattered, and it was never fixed. All they have to do is revert back to the kinda-working AI.

Boysenberry.1869:

The thing with minions is…they used to kinda sorta work. Long ago you used to be able to use them and they’d actually do stuff. Then one day their AI was completely shattered, and it was never fixed. All they have to do is revert back to the kinda-working AI.

The problem is that their AI has always had issues. It has had two specific times where it could be considered reliable.

Once was at launch when minions were so insanely aggressive that they were basically unusable in PvE not because they wouldn’t attack, but because they would never STOP attacking.

Then was a short time afterwards where the minion AI was “fixed” to be not aggressive, and also could be made to attack. However people complained incessantly back then that it didn’t work (although it did) because the steps that you had to go through to make them aggro was absolutely insane. In addition, it was heavily reliant on hitting your enemy, meaning you could not aggro from very far away, in addition heavily stealth characters would make your minions much worse.

If they “revert” it, we’re just trading one problem (not reliably keeping aggro over terrain changes) for others (over aggression, over complicated aggro, etc.). I’d say wait for HoT, where it is much more likely that they can do something. They’ve already shown that they are addressing AI, let’s hope it also applies to minions.

In GW1, the AI could move while they attacked in melee, as long as they were chasing an enemy. In fact, skills like Bull’s Strike in GW1 specifically had bonus effects that punished foes if they moved.

In GW2, for some reason, minions (and pets in general) must stop and stand in place for their entire attack animation, before an attack be executed.

I think if they changed minions to attack while moving, it would solve a lot of issues. But keep in mind GW1 was a different game.

Methinks the reason Minion AI is b0rked is because of the Z-Axis making it difficult to calculate actions for a minion.

Not to mention that pathing for AI in GW1 was 1000% easier. No jumping barely any teleports, clear movement and attacking while moving.

Personally I’d like a trait that teleports minions to an enemy and makes them attack. Maybe on cripple or chill with a 10-20 sec ICD and 900 range?

The Wizland.8435:

Personally I’d like a trait that teleports minions to an enemy and makes them attack. Maybe on cripple or chill with a 10-20 sec ICD and 900 range?

You might enjoy a mesmer, then. That’s pretty close to how their illusions work.

Making sure your minions stick to the enemy is one of the biggest points of play/counterplay of MM, especially considering Flesh Golem and Bone Minions are really strong if you can keep them in range.

Gulesave.5073:

You might enjoy a mesmer, then. That’s pretty close to how their illusions work.

Eh, I played mesmer a bit and didn’t really like its style. Fair enough though.

Kain Francois.4328:

In GW1, the AI could move while they attacked in melee, as long as they were chasing an enemy. In fact, skills like Bull’s Strike in GW1 specifically had bonus effects that punished foes if they moved.

In GW2, for some reason, minions (and pets in general) must stop and stand in place for their entire attack animation, before an attack be executed.

I think if they changed minions to attack while moving, it would solve a lot of issues. But keep in mind GW1 was a different game.

Methinks the reason Minion AI is b0rked is because of the Z-Axis making it difficult to calculate actions for a minion.

Also important was that once an attack in melee was attempted in GW1, it would always hit unless there was some outstanding factor like block or blind. Pets and AI worked so well because once they caught up to an opponent, they were essentially guaranteed a hit.

Obviously this game functions a lot differently and, because of such mechanics like evasion and moving while attacking, doesn’t really favor having pets and AI in the first place.