Guild Wars 2

Nate.3927:

my view on this is slightly different. Minions are meant to be stupid brainless things, in my opinion they should be stronger, but remain stupid.

I agree, but there are still some issues that may need to be addressed. I have not encountered half the issues with subordinates (for want of a better universal term) that some seem to be complaining about as game breaking but there are still issues. The main points of concern as I see it are:-

1. AI Target auto-selection on death of current target (or triggering of self defence) – does not seem to be prioritised by proximity properly in all cases.
2. Player auto-targeting seems to have the same issue (probably the same code)
3. AI Pathing and Obstacle avoidance – the AI sometimes does not negotiate some simple obstacles that perhaps they should be able to (could be at least partially down to mismatches between the visual terrain models and the terrain collision models – i.e. invisible wall syndrome).

On the whole, personally I have not found the above issues a major problem but I can see how others might depending on the regions they play in.

Kecal.3964:

Actually you can no longer get the refund for accounts bought since 23ed January that had a deadline of 31st July. You can still get the extra character slot for pre-announcment account.

Thanks for the clarification, I had forgotten about that.

See this thread (amongst others) for existing discussions of this topic.

@Rauderi: WRT pet toughness, it depends on the pet and the Ranger build – my Fern Hound for example perhaps has more health and toughness than the average Ranger with Exotic armour. Depending on the enemy, a melee pet may not be the best idea which is why I tend to use a Devourer as my alternate pet in PvE. Pet death penalty can be avoided in the main with tactical swapping of pets, as with all builds/professions there are strengths and weaknesses. Eliminate the differences and the game becomes so dumbed down it would be hardly worth playing IMO.

AR of subordinates is one area that possibly needs to be addressed. Perhaps they should share the AR of their owner?

Would be interesting to know exactly what you mean by “the slightest bump” an example location in game might help to clarify that point.

This has been discussed quite heavily here.

The long and the short of it though is that if you have an existing account, pre-purchase HoT, and then register it to that account you should receive either an extra character slot or refund for your original purchase of GW2 depending on the circumstances (I believe the refund applies to direct sales since 23rd January 2015).

If you have pre-purchased and tied it to an existing account, you should receive the extra character slot prior to release of HoT (i.e. sooner rather than later).

After release of HoT I personally think A-Net would be hard-pressed not to award the additional character slot to existing accounts if they continue to market HoT as they are currently doing since the same legal precedents in some regions would still be in play (at least AFAIK).

WRT automatically levelling a char to L80, IMO you are missing out on an awful lot of perhaps important content. Working a char up to L80 can be considered a kind of training for the player as it gives them the opportunity to work out what is the best way for them to play the given profession. With help, you can get up to L80 quite quickly that is not to say it would take hours to do so but more likely days.

The insta-L20 books/scrolls, the experience gain writs, and Tomes of Knowledge/Mentoring are all Account Bound AFAIK. A sufficient number of Tomes of Knowledge to advance a character from L1 to L80 can probably be acquired for an account over the period of 2-3 months/8-12 weeks by my reckoning and since the original release of GW2 the L20 books/scrolls have been awarded to each char on their birthday (the annual anniversary of their creation as opposed to the annual anniversary of the account).

dkspins.4670:

Zero Day.2594:

Hi guys,
I see you’re generously feeding a troll. Can I get some food too? I’m just passing by.

Yes, they are either military or police issue, judging the way the person refers to summons (, i.e. pets, minions) as subordinates.

WRT me being from the military/police/similar-government-or-civilian-organisation, nope… you know what they say about assumptions. I think there are some that need a lesson in the definition of a troll though…

In Internet slang, a troll (/?tro?l/, /?tr?l/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,¹ extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response² or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.³

That is NOT what I am doing while those referring to me as a troll or my posts as trolling could be considered doing exactly that. My posts to date have been intended to actually try get at the truth behind the matter and perhaps help find ways to workaround the issues. That is the last I will say on those points as it is off-topic and irrelevant to the matter at hand.

dkspins.4670:

Just for funsies, I dusted off my lvl 80 necro as a MM, and yes, the working of a minion perhaps 50-60% of the time is still an issue, the biggest issue why I stopped playing MM as I did early on. At the least Anet could give Necro MM’s an F1 skill which would command the Elite Minion to attack the PC’s target, rather than stand there and look stupid. Tbh, I’ve only about 800 hrs. on Necro in the past 2 years.

Interesting, how do you command your minions to attack or expect them behave exactly? As I have pointed out earlier, there appears to be a minimum alpha damage level that needs to be dealt to a target before they are considered a valid target for subordinates in general if you are primarily relying on the alpha-damage method. The pseudo-F2 special skill of the Flesh Golem should result in both the golem and any other minions attacking (and continuing to attack afterwards) the enemy targeted by the player at the time of using the skill (at least as I understand it).

dkspins.4670:

As a side a note (I’ve 3.5K hrs.) as a Ranger, and whilst gathering lumber in Mt. Maelstrom last week (pet set on guard), my idiot Stalker just stood there while a host of Risen attacked, this happened subsequently at the next node, so I killed him <g>. I survived, of course. still it was rather disconcerting. Would love to be able to make my pets dodge, move or do something at times, considering that 40% of my damage depends on them.

I use a Fern Hound as my primary Ranger Pet and the only time I have had occasion to swear at them for doing nothing (in defence of me) is when I have set them to Passive (Avoid Combat) mode and forgot about it (I normally have it set to Guard mode). Have them in Aggressive (Guard) mode and they defend perfectly well (at least IME).

The only thing I have noted that I think is wrong with pet behaviour appears down to auto-targeting behaviours (which they seem to use when completing an attack) because they seem to not always select the most appropriate targets (sometimes ignoring near by targets in favour of ones further away). If minions/summons are falling foul of this issue too then there could be cases where they are targeting enemies they can not reach by a direct path and so may appear to be ignoring attack-orders.

There is also the related potential issue that even if given a direct order a subordinate may not actually attack the desired target due to path finding problems. This would only be evident in certain sections of various maps though, in open areas without obstacles of any significance then there may well be no apparent issues at all.

As another thought, if the AI for subordinates is actually being run on the server (or relies on some kind of handshaking with the server before commencing an attack) then there could be an unpredictable degree of command-to-action lag simply due to the nature of network communication on the internet (not 100% reliable/predictable). If that is the case, then it is very possible that some people may never witness the problem while others (perhaps only in specific areas – internet service and perhaps local networking conditions could be part of the reason) may witness it on a regular and perhaps repeatable basis. This is just a hypothesis and I am not sure how we could prove or disprove the premise, but it is a possible explanation for why some may experience the issues more than others.

redcomyn.4651:

Apolo.5942:

redcomyn.4651:

No, that is not what we said. I don’t know anyone that has said that it never works. What we have said, repeated ad nauseum, is that it often doesn’t work.

Dont bother, he doesnt play necro and is trolling, he does not acknowledge they are bugged even when its explicitly stated on Arena nets own wiki.

Yeah, I think you are right. He is saying that he is right and everybody else is wrong. Can’t argue with someone like that.

Try again… it is not just my personal experience being considered in this case and I have not said there is not an issue at all just that I believe that based on the experience of myself and others the actual bug may be being blown out of proportion.

The fact the wiki states “Some minions” would seem to point at a degree of randomness and it is possible that some players may never encounter the issue while others may not encounter it.

It is probably worth mentioning that A-Net only seem to manage/audit the wiki and the majority of it seems to be written by members of the community. Given this, the information with-in it can probably be considered incomplete or inaccurate in some cases. Just because an issue is listed as a bug does not mean everyone or even most people would necessarily encounter it.

Have I disputed there may be a bug? No, I have only said myself and others have not seen it (or at least not noticed it if it did occur).

Have I asked for a better description of the issue? Yes.

Have you and others done anything to elaborate on a better description of the issue? No, instead you just moan and gripe and claim I do not know anything.

If you do not describe the issue properly how do you expect A-Net to fix it (assuming it is an actual bug – which I am not 100% convinced of on that score… there are MANY potential secondary causes that could cause similar symptoms based on the description I have seen to date).

Apolo.5942:

redcomyn.4651:

No, that is not what we said. I don’t know anyone that has said that it never works. What we have said, repeated ad nauseum, is that it often doesn’t work.

Dont bother, he doesnt play necro and is trolling, he does not acknowledge they are bugged even when its explicitly stated on Arena nets own wiki.

As I understand it, the wiki is not strictly speaking written by A-Net but rather the community thus the information in it can be considered not necessarily 100% accurate. Even the bug description in the wiki is lacking in precise details and is too vague to even be considered a true bug description, and I do not believe myself or the others that I have discussed the problem with outside of these forums have come across it in any case.

As for trolling, I can only see one person really trolling in this thread and it is not me.

redcomyn.4651:

WSG Delen.9203:

…

No, that is not what we said. I don’t know anyone that has said that it never works. What we have said, repeated ad nauseum, is that it often doesn’t work.

And as I have pointed out ad nauseum that does not tally with the experience of myself and others. Hence the request for specifics, as far as I can tell thus far this is just a general B&M thread full of hot air and no substance.

I am not the only person to point out that the necessary details to describe the problems being encountered are severely lacking. Whether A-Net actually act on the information is one thing, but if the details are not spelled out then A-Net have no information to act on. From the information posted to date and the apparent reluctance to actually define the problem being encountered could be any of the following: Hardware/Network/System related issues, faulty user expectations, actual bugs in the software, or a combination of two of more of them.

The details are the important part here, without them spelled out any presumptions/assumptions about the root cause (inc. user error) is fair game. Just because you may have tried some potential solutions or work-arounds does not necessarily mean you have covered all the bases. There could be something that has been overlooked for example.

Druitt.7629:

@WSG: I am not claiming what you think I am claiming.

First, the burden that ANet will do something in light of feedback rests upon you. Others of us have spent hours gathering feedback and experience and ANet has done nothing about it. We have made our case, and it hasn’t been acted upon or even acknowledged, beyond a “keep up the good work” remark we once got.

We’ve done the work. You’re just talking.

And your talking is the issue here. You’re blaming people’s expectations from WoW, you’re blaming ridiculous stretches like “select nearest target”. You’re blaming play style — which is of course blaming the person who doesn’t play as you do. You’re blaming people who have done hard work for not repeating it again, or linking to it in a way that you expect, or whatever.

There are two sets of extremists here: those that just say “minions are unusable!” and you who says, “minions work fine and it’s up to you to prove it for the fifth or sixth or hundredth time or I won’t believe you.” Been there. Done that. Said the silly thing you’re saying, then actually dug into the matter.

You and others are saying (or at least implying) they are unusable under ALL circumstances which is complete and utter BS. Not only that, but there is the general extrapolation that if there is an issue with minion AI then there would notionally be fallout for other forms of subordinates as well since I suspect they all share a large portion of the base behaviours.

If there is a major game breaking issue as some seem to make out, then there are at least some of us that have not witnessed it despite having put in collectively at least 1000’s (if not 10000’s) of hours with our characters. If that is not “doing the work” then I don’t know what is.

I am pretty certain that if I were to dig deep into one area or another of this game I could find an argument to say that some Feature X is broken, that it is game breaking and should be fixed and then proceed to B&M about it till the cows come home (without giving any solid details) and also find that the very same feature is not seen as broken nor game breaking by another section of the community.

At this point in time, there have been little or no specific details about how the AI is supposed to be broken so if anyone is “just talking” it is those that are complaining that it is broken. At the very least provide links to the threads that offer details to support your premise rather than simply dismissing the personal experiences of players who have not put an insignificant amount of time into playing the game and have been playing it since before release.

Whether A-Net are likely to act on such evidence is moot at this point in the discussion, since it has been mostly just hot air so far.

@Druitt: I would argue that while it may be prolific amongst a certain group it is not prolific unilaterally. As I have stated several times in this thread, the AI is not perfect but it is not totally broken either from a more general and wider perspective.

As highlighted by Dahkeus, the devil is in the details. If people think the AI is broken, say explicitly how or summarise the problem cases and link to historic threads that describe the problem(s) in detail. It does not help your case to just cry it is broken and has been discussed elsewhere.

From some recent game play time and messing with some of the player settings the main issue highlighted in this thread (i.e. minions doing nothing) may be more to do with generic things like “select nearest target” which may have a detrimental effect to subordinate AI under specific circumstances. Whether you encounter the reported issues or not probably mostly depends on how you play the game, this is not to say there is some kind of secret handshake or such, but the vast majority of builds require the player to play a specific way to get the most out of them and some builds may not work well at all.

It may help to spell out our individual expectations of how we each expect minions to behave (c/f as I have tried to do earlier in this thread) and then let A-Net clear up the matter of how they expect minions to behave.

@starlinvf: I have played Ranger in both GW1 and GW2 and found the AI and behaviours more than adequate in both. I would not claim that subordinate AI is perfect but it does the job I expect it to. I could find several points where GW1 is possibly better than GW2, but the inverse is probably true too – it is not something I generally worry about. I have learned it is better to treat every game as different from any previous game I may have played (including earlier games in the same series) and learn how it works and it’s limitations then work with-in those parameters.

I would not be surprised if half the problem is caused by WoW convert fallout… i.e. WoW players expecting GW2 professions to map directly to WoW equivalents. If this is the case, then I think the individuals in question need to take a reality check.

Assuming the issues being highlighted in this thread are truly down to situational bugs then A-Net will almost certainly need more information (and possibly co-operation from the affected parties) in order to track down the root cause of the issues. Even then, there are no guarantees that they would be able to fix the underlying issues quickly.

Pandaman.4758:

Druitt.7629:

My latest theory is that it has to do with the horsepower of the machine you play on. My guess is that minion AI runs on your local machine, and only sends action updates to the server — just as your character runs on your local machine — so some people may experience situations where the AI always gets the short end of the stick.

That’s definitely not the case, both because it’s just a horrible idea in any MMO to let the client handle minion AI (which exposes it to cheats) and also because in practice minions continue to attack even if their master DC (and will continue to attack until their character times out).

There are ways and means by which the client can handle minion AI from the perspective of the user but there be some form of handshaking with the server to prevent cheating. In most distributed environments, the client does at least some of the processing and that processing may be replicated on other clients. The discussion is reasonably academic though. The theory that there could be resource (be it CPU, GPU, RAM, or Network Bandwidth) availability issues at play is as good a theory as any without any evidence to prove otherwise.

redcomyn.4651:

And I already told you that I have already tried the special attack skill. It doesn’t work! Also, there is no such thing as passive mode for necromancer minions, and there are no commands that can be passed on except the special attack (read the first sentence about that, here).

I don’t understand how you keep missing this. You keep repeating yourself, and I and others keep telling you they don’t work.

Well they do work for at least some people, so either there is some kind of random circumstantial or machine dependent bug OR there is some kind of user error in play. All I can say is that based on the experience of myself and the people I know the issues in play are not anywhere near as severe as some are making out.

In my work, I have been at the developer end of perhaps comparable issues (user reported faults which are not replicable on even apparently identical hardware sometimes) and they are typically an absolute devil to track down (assuming of course the reported issue is not user error – which is not always obvious). In such cases, it helps if the developer and the user can walk through the problem together but I doubt if that is likely to happen in this case.

There are many potential causes for such issues in a heterogeneous networked gaming environment such as GW2 (or any other MMO) and not all of the potential technical causes fall into the realms of software bugs (nor potentially issues with the user’s system or facilities).

I still stand by my initial observation though – subordinate AI may be flawed but it is far from universally broken. Claims that subordinate AI has been broken since day 1 is just hot air IMO/IME, flawed perhaps (I have not witnessed any major issues) but not broken by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the Passive mode, personally I see no need for it where minions/summons are concerned.

My point was that I agree that OpenWorld/PvP/Fractals/WvW should have their own unique rewards but when it comes to evaluating them they should be equal.

Perhaps, open world rewards should involve more materials perhaps or require the completion of a selection of certain events but ultimately the required Level of Effort is perhaps what should be the deciding factor in how given rewards are acquired.

Maybe Legendries in general should be Account Bound and treated like a personal reward for hitting some kind of goal.

serenke.4806:

Open world should not always be an option… Open world is something you can do while semi afk. It should never be as rewarding as something like a high-end place.

I disagree, some of us do not like the elitist attitudes that are all too common in Dungeon/Fractals groups and perhaps do not care for PvP/WvW for one reason or another.

Starting your own Dungeon/Fractals group does not completely mitigate the problem of having to deal with the elitists when recruiting for the group.

Open world PvE at least gives a way for those looking for a purely co-operative MMO experience to play the game with pretty much absolute freedom. They can play the game the way they want to rather than having certain build opinions rammed down their throats. Saying that, even Open world PvE is not totally free of the elitist attitude, but it is easier for players to ignore.

redcomyn.4651:

I tried that, also. You have offered no new strategies whatsoever. These have all been talked about before and they don’t work. Period! I have tried every single thing that you have suggested. I tried doing all of them in the same fight. They don’t help. When I tell the flesh golem to charge, it will do its charge then sometimes it will continue to fight, but it often will stop and gather dust with its back to the enemy.

It could be due to alpha-damage you are dealing to multiple targets causing the Golem to get confused as to which target they should be attacking. I have seen a similar thing happen with my pet but not often as I have learned to focus my fire and work with my pet rather than just let them attack one target while I attack another.

redcomyn.4651:

Regardless, even if one of these tactics guaranteed them fighting, the fact is that they should be unnecessary. How could you possibly consider that everything is okay if you have to go through undocumented hoops to get the minions to attack. Bottom line, if you attack someone, or if you are attacked by someone, the minions should immediately attack that someone, without having to do some kind of secret handshake to get them going.

In general subordinates do attack what you attack and defend you when not attacking anything else IME, but sometimes (not that often IME) it is necessary to give subordinates a bit more direction. Actually using a special attack skill to get a subordinate to attack the target you want attacked is hardly a secret handshake.

If anyone expects our subordinates to basically work as a totally independent and automated attack/defence force then IMO they have completely wrong expectations.

I would expect minions/summons/pets to defend me if I got attacked when resource gathering for instance and in general they do IME. Pets generally will not though if you have them in Passive rather than Attack mode. When in combat I would expect them to follow my direction (albeit perhaps with some latitude to allow for self-defence) and that may mean I have to use certain specific skills (and perhaps avoid certain other skills) to get them to do what I expect and to keep them doing it. IME that applies to the current state of play.

There may be cases where the AI glitches but I have yet to encounter such incidents as even a semi-common occurrence.

Druitt.7629:

@WSG Delen: I sounded a lot like you until I started experimenting on my lvl 80 Necro. It’s pretty bad and none of my theories worked out. It really boils down to the kinds of pets, the local terrain, and how events happen. I can literally end up with a pet standing there with their back to a mob and do nothing, even if I drag the mob in front of them.

It doesn’t mean I don’t use minions. It doesn’t mean that they don’t work most of the time. It does mean that I can never count on them doing what they should, though.

So far, on my mid-level Ranger, the pet has responded correctly 100% of the time. But I have no doubt that once I hit lvl 80 areas I’ll see some problems, as happened with my Necro.

So it depends on what you mean by “broken”. Does it mean it never works? Or that it is frustratingly bad in some zones? Or that it is inconsistent and hence you can’t count on it as you do your other skills. (And can’t do anything to fix it in situations where it doesn’t work.)

My Ranger is L80 and the pets work fine on the whole (even in L80 areas), they are not totally automated attack machines though and if that is what you expect from a pet/minion/summon then personally I think you have the wrong expectations. Where summons/minions are concerned there are the “special” skills which replace the summon/minion skill while the summon/minion is active and my impression is that these skills are meant to be used more often than perhaps they are normally.

I do not claim that subordinate behaviour is flawless, only that it does work to a much larger degree than some seem to make out… presuming you learn the ways in which they actually work rather than just assuming they are meant to work a specific way.

WRT what I have said regarding Necros specifically it is more than just theory, it is essentially the findings of people I know that play L80 Necro on (at least) a semi-regular basis.

You can experiment with builds and find they do not work in a way that suits the way you may personally want to play but that does not make the builds in question necessarily faulty or broken. Some builds require you to play them in a specific way in order to fully capitalise on the given builds capability.

Druitt.7629:

My latest theory is that it has to do with the horsepower of the machine you play on. My guess is that minion AI runs on your local machine, and only sends action updates to the server — just as your character runs on your local machine — so some people may experience situations where the AI always gets the short end of the stick.

Client machine CPU/GPU capability may be a factor as could be network/server latency and general bandwidth usage/availability. The potential technical issues with MMO gaming are very similar (if not identical) to the kinds of issues with distributed simulation projects. There are lots of potential things that could go wrong (in perhaps unpredictable and sporadic ways) and a lot of those issues are not completely mitigatable. The potential issues can be made worse if the front end hardware (i.e. what the gamers/users interface with) is not of a consistent configuration (even when the front end systems are consistent there are no guarantees). Without knowing the precise details of the technical architecture(s) and implementation that A-Net are using such speculation is pointless really and on the whole is probably better left to A-Net to investigate.

However, if client hardware/facilities is a significant factor then I may be one of the better off users on that score with an i7-4790K, GTX 770 4GB, and a mid-high end UK cable connection (60Mbaud down and 3Mbaud up).

I have already said there MAY be bugs that some are experiencing and others are not. If that is not acknowledging the concern then I don’t know what is.

I do not acknowledge the alleged bugs are as unilateral as you and perhaps others are making out. I do make use of subordinates quite regularly in game and their control is far from broken IME.

In my post before the last one, I have explained how the minion system can be made to work based on the experience of someone I know who does not participate in these forums for the reason that they would not put up with even half the BS back-biting I have received in this thread.

If anything is broken it is the overall sense of community in this game.

At least I am trying to be constructive and helpful rather than constantly whining (and swearing – since kitten seems to be the forum code word to cover expletives) about how the game does not work the way perhaps I think it should… unlike some I could mention.

The system does and can work if you are prepared to work with-in it’s limitations. It seems to me there are at least some who are not prepared to do so, or are not aware of the ways around some of the alleged issues.

Whether we are talking pets, minions, or summons they are all essentially the same thing at the end of the day.

I have discussed the non-responsive aspect with a friend of mine who has played more MM recently than I have and they have pointed out that there is more to getting minions to attack than simply using an alpha-damage skill (although that is a factor). What they indicated was that the player may have to use a given creature’s own special ability to get it to attack targets under at least some circumstances.

In the example they gave me, with a Flesh Golem and a bunch of other minions if you use the Flesh Golem’s special ability on a given target the rest of the minion mob will follow it and attack that target. Apparently they will continue to do so even if you attack other targets. In this context, a minion/summoned creature’s special ability in general can be considered the same as a Ranger Pet’s special ability.

In addition, apparently there is a minimum player alpha-skill-damage level before a minion/summon/pet would consider a given enemy a target they are meant to attack. As they put it, one of the biggest barriers to minion effectiveness is probably their movement speed rather than anything else (such as the ability to control them which is actually working as it currently stands).

The disparity between new and existing account holders has been addressed by A-Net but is not clearly explained in the Store… as it currently stands (at least for pre-order) existing account holders get a free character slot (valued at 800 gems) if they are not entitled to a direct refund from A-Net for purchasing the base game. This is also being discussed elsewhere already.

As for raised items 1-5:-

1. Errm – not really an issue IMO and potentially useful at times (especially when belonging to multiple guilds)
2. As raised by someone else, this is supported by Guild Hall Arenas and from off-forums discussions I gather we can currently “rent” personal PvP arenas
3. I am sure more dungeons will come in time – don’t really see a problem in this area (there are effectively infinite dungeons via Fractals if that is you thing, or so I gather)
4. Covered by HoT changes AFAIK
5. Specialisations, Elite Specialisations and Masteries seems to cover it quite well.

WRT what you consider missing features, perhaps you should be more specific in what you are after and why. At the moment, it sounds more like a general rant than a genuine request for real change as I can see nothing of substance for us fellow members of the community to really discuss.

Not sure about as a specialisation, the non-specialist Revenant still is not really complete at this point (no-underwater skills yet AFAIK), but perhaps something along those lines one of the Standard Forms (as opposed to Elite Specialisation – unless it came with one of the Elite Specialisations).

IF it were part of an Elite Specialisation for the Revenant, not sure what you would call the specialisation.

In general, keep them unless you are desperate for in-game credits to do something specific.

You can always collect the materials again or acquire gold via other in-game means and my personal rule of thumb is store stuff until I run out of space or need to raise more credits to do something quickly.

Personally, I think all the talk of Meta-builds is at least half the problem when critiquing the game in general… I do not subscribe to the meta-or-bust mentality and believe it is something A-Net need to deal with – the focus on Meta-builds from some quarters is killing the game for others IMO.

The problem with rebalancing and A-Net seems to be that they tend to overdo the rebalancing to ensure they appease those that are complaining about balancing in a given area.

Apolo.5942:

Dont bother, his point of view is essentially that he does not play necro, refuses everybody elses reality and substitutes it for his own.

I play every profession in actual fact, I currently mainly play Ranger and Elementalist but I do play the others. That has no actual bearing on this discussion though, and the constant raising of it is tantamount to running out of legitimate on-topic arguments.

As for the rest, I have not denied that there may be bugs that some may be encountering and perhaps others are not for some reason but the situation is far from as unilaterally broken as some like yourself seem to be making out.

I still believe there are some that may have greater expectations out of subordinate (pet/minion/summon) behaviour and/or reaction times than perhaps is realistic (it would not be the first game I have encountered that has players who hold comparably unrealistic views) and perhaps some of the more extreme critique of subordinate behaviour is a result of this.

I only really reject the “totally broken” stance and the assertions that go with it, most of which is total BS.

Pandaman.4758:

WSG Delen.9203:

If anyone does not know what they are talking about it is those that are complaining it is completely broken.

Except it is completely broken for some of us, you’re just plugging your ears and insisting we’re the ones doing something wrong while completely disregarding our experiences.

The simple fact is there is a bug in the AI that makes pets unresponsive, it’s likely the same bug that makes mesmer illusions not die when their target dies, but will remain idle until the target respawns and comes back within aggro range (you can find this happening in PvP dueling maps). Another example of the bug is the ranger pet bug from a year ago, where we had to constantly toggle Passive/Hostile in order to get them to attack new targets.

ANet has patched the AI several times and it’s much better than before, but the problem with necromancer minions is that – unlike rangers and mesmers – we don’t have the ability to command minions and force them to switch targets if this bug triggers; and unlike guardians and elementalists, our summons last long enough for us to notice the bug triggering.

To be fair, it’s not very constructive to say “pet AI is broken, fix it” without providing any feedback on what build we were using and the situations we were in when the AI broke, but neither is your insistence it’s not the AI’s fault that it breaks because we aren’t playing exactly as you assume we’re not playing.

Eles do not have the ability to directly instruct their summons (outside of inflicting direct skill based alpha damage – auto-attack does not count unless the user presses 1 for each attack) either, that is not a bug and nor is it an AI issue technically.

Going back to GW1, the current situation in GW2 is pretty much mirrored from a subordinate direct control perspective (at least for Eles/Necros/Rangers).

I can’t comment on Rangers in PvP/WvW, but in PvE they have generally worked fine IME. I may have missed some of the issues that were introduced then fixed due primarily to having an enforced hiatus from the game for a certain period of time (details are unimportant now) but based on what I saw before the hiatus and after it the Ranger Pet control has always worked really (at least from an attack rather than do nothing perspective – when set to peace mode they are expected to do nothing).

Ok, so there is no F1 (subordinate target) skill like with the Ranger for the Necro, but I have rarely had a need to use it in combat (my alpha damage skills have been enough in the main). I have not missed the ability either for my Ele.

From what my friend who has played more experimental Necro than myself told me, there are certain equipment load outs that will not work well with a MM Necro build. They play a non-Meta-Build Necro and I discovered for myself a MM Necro setup that worked the way I expected and stuck with it in the main.

If a large portion of this fuss is over just not having a non-skill based way to order subordinates around for ALL professions then why not just say so? But the skill-based way does work in the main, assuming the alpha damage is low enough to not kill the target out right before the subordinate(s) get there. If the latter applies then perhaps the build is at fault and the usage of Minions/Subordinates should perhaps be re-assessed.

As for intermittent attack bugs with pet/subordinate AI, I have yet to encounter such an issue in PvE where I heavily rely on my pet in Combat when playing my Ranger. I am not saying there is not a bug, but it is far from as prolific and unilateral as some would seem to make out.

In addition, if the main of the gaming time for the players in question cover peak load times on the servers at A-Net (or peak local network load times) there could be other more complex issues in play that may or may not be directly related to subordinate control. Personally, most of my gaming time is probably non-peak load times which could be a significant factor (it could also be a red herring but only A-Net could really comment on that score).

@Apolo: I am sorry, I have admitted no such thing you don’t need to play necro 24/7/52 to know how something does or does not work. I would argue it is you who do not understand how the mechanics current does work and are claiming it does not work as a consequence.

There are lots of issues with this game, but Minion behaviour is far from the most serious of them.

Your opening post claims that minion behaviour has not worked since day 1 which is blatantly wrong. It does work just not as you might want it to… there is a canyon of a difference between what you are claiming as a sweeping generalisation (c/f your OP) and reality.

Apolo.5942:

WSG Delen.9203:

@Apolo: I know ppl who play MM necro so it does work and as for me not playing necro, I suggest you read again… I have a necro char just do not play it often (and it is MM) – that is hardly not playing necro.

Will you please stop acknowledging you dont know what you are talking about and just stop posting here?.

The day I stop posting how much rubbish is being said will be the day that the rubbish is not posted.

I do know what I am talking about so stop saying I don’t… There is a difference between broken mechanics and broken expectations, the latter applies in this case.

This is not WoW and perhaps some should stop expect it to play like it.

@Apolo: I know ppl who play MM necro so it does work and as for me not playing necro, I suggest you read again… I have a necro char just do not play it often (and it is MM) – that is hardly not playing necro.

Yes, I do prefer my ranger and ele and with both I use subordinates (pets and elementals). The latter is closer to a MM necro than the former.

As for not knowing what I am talking about, that is BS. Both my own experience and the experience of friends and friends of friends shows that Minion behaviour does and can work – it is NOT totally broken as your OP states, it just does not work as some seem to expect.

If those complaining actually learned how MM Necro does work rather than complain how MM Necro does not behave as they THINK it should perhaps they would become better at it. If anyone does not know what they are talking about it is those that are complaining it is completely broken.

There may be certain bugs in the behaviours of subordinates but they are not totally unavoidable as some would seem to imply.

redcomyn.4651:

The “direct alpha/hit-based damage skill” that you talk about still usually doesn’t work. I have heard that before so I started to start all my fights with an auto attack. It didn’t improve the situation.

There is more to it than just start the fight with an alpha damage skill, you need to be continually attacking the target in question (that means user interaction not just hit 1 and leave it to work). There is a similar issue with Pets, and can be complications with the Ranger when using skills such as barrage which hit more than one target (the last target to take alpha damage is typically treated as the primary target).

Subordinate target control tend to work best with single hit target skills. That is not to say they do not work with multi-hit/multi-target-alpha skills nor that they will never attack other targets on their own volition (c/f target one member of a mob and they may start attacking the rest of the mob if agro’d to do so). Control of sub-ordinates is not always an easy thing but I reinforce the point that the situation is far from broken, it just has limitations.

Tristan.5678:

I think Necro pets work worse now In PvE some time they just stand and wath mobs
Same in PVP…
a year ago I used to have fun with Mmancer and it was ok wtf happened recently tried pets didn’t hit once…

Going back to original release, MM necro Minions would basically waltz in and attack everything and in at least some cases agro too much. As I understand it, the agro issue resulted in the agro circles of pets/minions/summons being drastically reduced in order to avoid excessive agro which means that they need more direction wrt what they attack. As I understand it, this generally means only direct alpha/hit-based damage skills will typically trigger the command for minions to attack and if you do not use any alpha/hit damage skills then I suspect minions will just sit around and do nothing.

There are cases when I have observed momentary stationary behaviour from my own subordinates but in general this has been only during times of high server/network load – the root cause of such incidents may be moot where this discussion is concerned though.

My point is that if you expect subordinates in general to be a fully automated attack force then I doubt you will ever get this given the agro issues that some may have complained about. In addition, you may need to reconsider how your build works if you barely use any alpha/hit-damage skills in conjunction with minions.

Tristan.5678:

I think Necro pets work worse now In PvE some time they just stand and wath mobs
Same in PVP…
a year ago I used to have fun with Mmancer and it was ok wtf happened recently tried pets didn’t hit once…

Going back a while to when I first played MM necro, Minions would basically waltz in and attack everything and in at least some cases agro too much (not something I ever complained about personally). As I understand it, the agro issue resulted in the agro circles of pets/minions/summons being drastically reduced in order to avoid excessive agro which means that they need more direction wrt what they attack. As I understand it, this generally means only direct alpha/hit-based damage skills will typically trigger the command for minions to attack and if you do not use any alpha/hit-based damage skills then I suspect minions will just sit around and do nothing.

There are cases when I have observed momentary stationary behaviour from my own subordinates but in general this has been only during times of high server/network load – the root cause of such incidents may be moot where this discussion is concerned though.

My point is that if you expect subordinates in general to be a fully automated attack force then I doubt you will ever get this given the agro issues that some may have complained about.

I do actually play a Necro, and a MM one, just not played it in a while. Stop the “You don’t know what you are talking about” BS please.

Subordinates in general tend to attack what the player targets and sometimes attack things that attack the player. They may be ineffective in PvP for some reason but at least recently I have seen enough PvE minion behaviour to say with a decent degree of certainty that they do behave well enough in GW2 (at least for PvE).

After speaking with a friend who plays Necro alot more than me, they have confirmed my observations. The only thing of note wrt PvP is that Minions generally do not attack beyond a certain range and work better against larger groups. They also have a pal who plays PvP MM Necro and they do not have any issues.

There should be no minimum guild membership requirement for getting a guild hall, there should perhaps be a minimum guild membership for some upgrades that are perhaps meant for larger guilds (or perhaps a pro-rata influence cost for maintaining them).

Either way, I see no reason for anyone to object to even solo/tiny-guilds owning their own halls and gaining some perhaps arbitrary benefit from them. Campaigning for imposing a minimum membership count on their ownership is just another form of elitism and showing unreasonable prejudice against smaller guilds in general.

They did say in the early days that Guild Halls would be part of the game in the future, but they did not explicitly indicate they would be conditional on an expansion thus the natural assumption is that they would be delivered either for free (i.e. as part of an update but acquired via in-game gold – c/f GW1) or perhaps sold via the Gem store (I do remember some of the speculation about this at the time).

Either way it is moot now, A-Net are unlikely to change their stance on it.

GW1 supported Guild Halls for Solo guilds, it was not necessarily an easy task to accomplish but those of us that bought into GW2 from the beginning were expecting Guild Halls as part of the course and were not expecting them to be conditional on buying an expansion.

It is a shame that HoT became a pre-requisite to get them since A-Net seemed to indicate at the time that they would be part of the core game. Nothing we can do about it now though <shrug>

PvP balance and PvE/WvW balance are completely different animals.

The vast majority of my play has been PvE with some WvW, in both cases minions seem to be behaving themselves appropriately.

Server load could still be an issue in PvP since I doubt every 5v5 session is running on independent hardware on the server side.

Whether we are talking small or solo guilds the basic mechanics to support them should essentially be the same. A solo/tiny guild could just be a fledgling guild that is trying to build itself up to (at least) official small guild status.

However, there are most likely cases were multiple solo/tiny-guilds want to band together for mutual benefit on occasion but not be officially members of each other’s guild for one reason or another (The reasons are irrelevant).

It boils down to balancing across the board… which A-Net have been notoriously bad at with GW2.

For specific in-game events it may be that certain professions or builds are not viable but does that not indicate that the event may be balanced incorrectly as well as the professions themselves?

Min-maxing DPS and Utility should not be the sole driving force behind builds as this just leads us to Meta-build hell and general prejudice against players when they don’t fit into one specific pigeon hole or another.

Mega-Server is probably as much to blame for some of the balancing issues as anything else since the scaling of events seems to be a bit squirrelly at times.

I have seen minions behave appropriately in PvE thus the current situation is not as broken as some people try to make out… ever consider the problem might actually be network/server bandwidth related rather than specifically behaviour related? With heavily populated maps it may be the case that minions would stand around doing nothing (or perhaps doing no apparent damage) purely because the server can not respond fast enough.

It was occasionally a problem in GW1 and the situation is most likely alot worse in GW2.

I STRONGLY disagree that Guild Halls should be big guild exclusive, it may be that some of the features will require a larger number of players to acquire and perhaps maintain them but smaller guilds should be able to work co-operatively to achieve the same rewards.

GW2 does not have any influence decay now, it may have done at release though and IMO it is right that they canned that feature (if it was present in the first place).

You only don’t need survivability if all you do is play with blobs and zergs all the time… one of my biggest complaints about GW2 is the prolific nature of such groups across the board… they can cause as many problems as they solve from an individual player perspective.

It has been a while since I have played a necro, but I do have a necro… however, that is generally irrelevant to the point I have been making.

The problem in general is player expectations IMO, I know players who do play a Necro and find it in general good enough for them.

Players may have dreams of leading an unstoppable hoard of undead minions but then that would be OP and unbalanced. The player is not GW2 Zaitan or even the GW1 Liche however they may want to be.

As I have stated in another thread, A-Net really need to use a rebalance scalpel across the board rather than keep using the rebalance chainsaw they seem to be fond of. And the impact on current Meta-builds should be thrown out of the window as a consideration, if it stops any given build from being OP then they are finally doing something right.

If the 8k dps is replaced with some other factor such as increased survivability or non-damage based controlling conditions, then there is not a problem.

Of course, if all a given player cares about is min-maxing their damage and the like then some of the classes may not suit their particular aims.

If there is an 8k damage disparity without a notional trade off then perhaps the overall problem is balance with one or more of the professions.

Generally speaking, I think A-Net need to take a hard look at ALL the skills and professions and rebalance them appropriately with a suitable sized scalpel rather than with the more clumsy bull-dozer/chainsaw they have a bit of a rep using.

@ Zalavaaris: I think MattyP has pointed out that a Necro can deal alot of damage with a Hybrid-Build. Whether some professions deal an unbalanced degree of damage is a point of discussion for another thread perhaps though.

Ok, so the Necro can not be played the way you want to play it… so what? I can understand the desire to be able to play specific professions a specific way but I disagree with the general principle that all professions should be equal in all ways.

Playing any given build of any given profession should be a matter of compromise and trade off. The choice of profession should perhaps be as significant as the choice of build, it would be even better if the choice of race had a significant impact too (more than just the personal story, looks, emotes, and racial skills that is). For example: A Norn might get a bonus to physical damage but a reduction to stealth capability and perhaps magic damage, a Silvari may gain an inherent bonus to nature based skills but a reduction to more abstract or physical skills, an Asura may gain an inherent bonus to magic based attacks but be weaker where physical skills and health are concerned, a Chaar might be more stealthy and have greater critical chance but could have a toughness penalty, and humans would be middle of the road overall.

I know the latter part drifts off-topic but hopefully it serves to demonstrate the point I have been trying to get at.

I agree that even solo guilds should be able to own a guild hall, but in the case where a guild hall may require a larger number of members to capture it there should be a mechanism where by a cross-guild party can capture a hall for a given guild.

If all of the guilds participating want the same hall then perhaps they have to do multiple runs on the same “dungeon” for want of a better term OR there is something like a “chest” that allows them all to claim an instance of it from a single run.

It is a matter of what would generally be considered acceptable behaviour in the real world, the anonymity of the internet should not be used as a shield or an excuse to behave any differently. Unacceptable behaviour should be recognised and treated as such even if it is prolific, if no one draws the line things will not improve. This is moot in the context of GW/GW2 if A-Net do not have the iron to support it though. But we have drifted off-topic…

We will have to wait and see wrt the Necro elite specialisation, things may not be as bad as they are purported to be by some.