140 réponses à ce sujet

[Smkswazi]

Hmm i don't use this tactics or exploit often but when i do i tend to pull half of a group rather than one by one. But still hmm for those that think its stupid or unrealistic for one enemy to wander of and check what was that noise. Perhaps that is so because darkspawn are not scared little babies and can go alone to check something out and that is their mentality. And it would be kinda stupid and funny to call whole room of 12 guys to check some noise a squirrel could have made. It's unrealistic to go look for enemies alone yes but is also unrealistic to bring whole battalion to check what could have been a wind noise. So if a fight is too hard and you find yourself short of win by one or two enemies you can lure them imitating a wind noise and it will not be strange if only one comes. Bit i agree with AiyanaLindari they need to implement this kind of game style better.

[SheffSteel]

I have seen twin rows of genlock archers positioned in such a way to make it clear that they are supposed to be guarding the approach to an Ogre. My rogue has picked them off, one at a time, and at no point did any of them notice what was happening to their fellows.  I suppose that's what the designers intended, because there's no way they wouldn't have expected me to sneak up and snipe at the guards. But why call them guards, even? They're completely useless. More like speed bumps.

[Chadoe]

Starmartyr wrote...

Here's an idea. don't like it? Don't use it.

Let other people play the game the way they want to. Don't try and force BioWare to "fix" something just because you don't like it.

Agree!

[MGeezer]

wonko33 wrote...

Eurypterid wrote...

I personally feel it's an exploit. As noted above, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that someone would take an arrow in the rear and not alert his buddies that there just may be a problem out there.
.

Well the way the AI is programmed you either do an exploit or play like an idiot.

I use stealth to scout ahead, I see an ambush, it would be stupid to rush in there no? So I set up my own ambush, attack from a distance to draw them away from their setup, but only one of them comes at a time, now i'm exploiting the game.

If the AI was set up to react better, they would either mass an organized attact agaisnt me or (if the ennemies are smart enough) take cover and force me to walk into their prepared ambush.

That's why I don't see it as an exploit, because i'm not going to play like an idiot just because the AI is lacking. But IMO the game would be a lot more fun if the AI was tweaked like I mentioned previously. But as I have read in many devs posts, those change are not always as easy as we think, so I dont know.

Personally, I think this kind of luring, scouting ahead with rogues, setting up ambushes and traps and trying to lure crowds into the ambush makes a lot of sense as play style.

The stretch part is luring them one at a time.

However, it is improtant to remember we are in an utterly artifical world.  All sorts of real world tactics are impossible.  Other conventions no one questions, e.g. if you had 150 soliders, would you place 10 of them at the main gate and scatter the rest in random rooms throughyour whole, cave, fort, building?  Why should people not join those in the next room.?  Why have the toughest foes at the bottom of dungeons, heart of buldings?  How come no one comes to get the biggest toughest guys and bring them up to the intruders? 

As I said, the conventions of these games are utterly artificial, desinged to be interesting to play.  What people find interesting to play is up to them it seems to me.

Personally I suspect that the devs intended to allow luring, given there are several places it is purposely made impossible, or where there are mass surprize attacks.  And when they really don't want luring they use the cheesy dev trick of walking your whole party into the center of a group of enemies (stripping off stealth in the process).  

Modifié par MGeezer, 15 décembre 2009 - 05:37 .

[ranger dave]

I have on occassion been in the middle of the fight and all of a sudden more enemies appear on the scene...this is certainly a nasty surprise when I've expended most of my mana usage and special attacks on the original monster group. The second group was not visible on the map at all when the game paused encountering the first group. That seems to be a nice touch and offsets maybe some of the "luring" tactics discussed. My vote is to have more of these type of encounters to add surprise and realism.

[Denhvide]

Skellimancer wrote...

Its a bug that needs to be fixed.

qft

[deathwing200]

Pulling isn't an exploit. Bio could have easily leashed mobs to each other like Blizzard does, making them unpullable no matter what. They chose not to. Don't tell me that "Oh they didn't expect players would do that" either. Pulling is a tactic that is well known to any gamer who played any MMO for more than 5 minutes.

[Bibdy]

deathwing200 wrote...

Pulling isn't an exploit. Bio could have easily leashed mobs to each other like Blizzard does, making them unpullable no matter what. They chose not to. Don't tell me that "Oh they didn't expect players would do that" either. Pulling is a tactic that is well known to any gamer who played any MMO for more than 5 minutes.

Just because its well known, used in other places or whether or not they CHOSE to implement it, doesn't mean its a good mechanic...

It makes next to no logical sense that you'd be 'storming the keep' and guards just stand there like idiots when their friend gets an arrow pierced through his neck. Its also a very poor mechanic to put into a tactical RPG, a game where you want the player to think tactically. If the player finds an encounter too difficult, he should find another approach (e.g. not storm the front gate, but try to flank, or use traps, or stealth the rogue in, or whatever), not resort to pulling a few creatures out of the room because they're too stupid to fight together, then take on the rest of the pack once you've gained the numbers advantage.

I can't even see why the developers would want it to happen. They go out of their way to create a challenging fight, positioning the creatures, giving them skills to use, setting up the AI to fight the player as a whole and be a tough battle...oh, but the player just pulls a couple out of the pack and trivialises it...boy, that was sure worth the effort.

Modifié par Bibdy, 15 décembre 2009 - 05:43 .

[Jordi B]

Chadoe wrote...

Starmartyr wrote...

Here's an idea. don't like it? Don't use it.

Let other people play the game the way they want to. Don't try and force BioWare to "fix" something just because you don't like it.

Agree!

Disagree!

...but I'll explain: The problem is that it is very possible the meet the prerequisites of this exploit/glitch without the intent to trigger it. I think it makes a lot of sense to try and shoot the first guy you see before he sees you. At the very least it saves some time. Or maybe you want to lure a group into an ambush. Right now, you can't do this and get realistic enemy behavior, so it is entirely appropriate to ask for a fix. If this would only work as an exploit, I wouldn't care and I would agree with you. In fact, I think it's not so bad to have some cheap tactics in the game that players can use as a last resort. It just gets bad when employing could, sane tactics trigger them.

I purposely used this technique once in the game, because I was forced to solo a room full of enemies and I didn't really know what to do. They did come in groups of three or four though, which I consider to be slightly more realistic.

[deathwing200]

Bibdy wrote...


Just because its well known, used in other places or whether or not they CHOSE to implement it, doesn't mean its a good mechanic...

It makes next to no logical sense that you'd be 'storming the keep' and guards just stand there like idiots when their friend gets an arrow pierced through his neck. Its also a very poor mechanic to put into a tactical RPG, a game where you want the player to think tactically. If the player finds an encounter too difficult, he should find another approach (e.g. not storm the front gate, but try to flank, or use traps, or stealth the rogue in, or whatever), not resort to pulling a few creatures out of the room because they're too stupid to fight together, then take on the rest of the pack once you've gained the numbers advantage.

I can't even see why the developers would want it to happen. They go out of their way to create a challenging fight, positioning the creatures, giving them skills to use, setting up the AI to fight the player as a whole and be a tough battle...oh, but the player just pulls a couple out of the pack and trivialises it...boy, that was sure worth the effort.

You're also forgetting one thing. It's very hard to create an AI that can fight effectively in every situation. For example, in DA archers and mages hate moving unless being meleed, which is probably how Bio programmed them in order to avoid them getting pulled into choke points, corridors and areas with lots of line of sight. Unfortunately this also means they can be separated from melee support and blasted with AoE. Now let's say they follow your logic and aggro all at once, following the player into a tight corridor with corners. They will die just as easily to traps and AoE, not to mention forced into melee easier.

[Bibdy]

The ranged-types don't have to follow, just be in combat and attack. If you aggro the pack and pull them out of the room, at the very least ALL of the melee should march their way over and you can enjoy a self-made cluster**** in that choke-point. That I don't have a problem with because its laying an ambush for your opponent and rewards tactical thinking.

There are ways around that AI, too, like doing an event and locking the player in the room with the entire pack of creatures. Getting out of line of sight of the ranged while you beat up the melee = smart. Pulling the melee out 1 or 2 at a time and the rest of them just stand there = boring

What I don't like is watching a tough challenge get utterly trivialised because you slowly whittle it down.

The art of 'pulling' in MMOs is pretty much essential because even 1 creature is capable of kicking your ass. Pull an extra group, or even single creature accidentally and its probably a trip to the graveyard. The creatures in DA:O aren't capable of that. Only when you face them all together does a fight become interesting.

In MMOs the whole pulling thing is intentional because they want each and every pack to be a challenge to a large group of players, but they also want to populate the place enough so it doesn't feel like an empty landmass (and make the most out of the time put into the dungeon art and size).

If DA:O had a room full of enemies perfectly capable of decimating your party single-handed, or as a small group, I could see a need for pulling as an intentional game mechanic and tactical model. But, with opponents that are already subject to an asymmetrical rule system, on top of being substationally weaker than you at the same level, I can't see the purpose or need for it.

Modifié par Bibdy, 15 décembre 2009 - 06:09 .

[SheffSteel]

Any design will have flaws and allow exploitation. The question is what sort of exploitation do you want the player to do? Picking off enemies one and two at a time, or luring a whole group into a carefully planned ambush and defeating them in an epic battle?

I know which one is more fun to play.

[Eurypterid]

wonko33 wrote...

Eurypterid wrote...

I personally feel it's an exploit. As noted above, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that someone would take an arrow in the rear and not alert his buddies that there just may be a problem out there.
.

Well the way the AI is programmed you either do an exploit or play like an idiot.

Really? Thanks for pointing out that since I choose not to do an exploit that I'm playing like an idiot.

I use stealth to scout ahead, I see an ambush, it would be stupid to rush in there no? So I set up my own ambush, attack from a distance to draw them away from their setup, but only one of them comes at a time, now i'm exploiting the game.

If the AI was set up to react better, they would either mass an organized attact agaisnt me or (if the ennemies are smart enough) take cover and force me to walk into their prepared ambush.

That's why I don't see it as an exploit, because i'm not going to play like an idiot just because the AI is lacking. But IMO the game would be a lot more fun if the AI was tweaked like I mentioned previously. But as I have read in many devs posts, those change are not always as easy as we think, so I dont know.

Your tactics of setting up an ambush and pulling the group into your killing zone is sound. There's nothing wrong with that. But, as someone noted earlier, it's possible to pull the group and not just
one or two at a time (one method is to just shoot at the farthest one
from you).

[Greenphrog]

If you don't like dont use it?



This is a single player game right?

[booke63]

Tactics vs exploiting AI. There is no real issue here. Computer AI is not human thinking. AI is just BARELY less fixed than are the hallways of a dungeon.



Roleplay yourself out of it!



I know if I was in charge of 10 guys guarding a treasure and one of my guys took an arrow, I wouldn't instantly send my whole troop in the direction of that arrow and leave my treasure unguarded. I'm just asking for more arrows at least, possibly a trap or ambush, or maybe I wouldn't find the archer and return to find my treasure looted. My troop would dive for cover and access the situation as much as possible before doing anything rash.



As a player, I set up an ambush and send an arrow into one of the 10 bad guys guarding the treasure, and when only that one guy charges me, I would think "what a ******" and kill him. When the next guy did the same thing after taking my arrow, that would seem weird. Once I took out the entire troop in this way, I (the player) would be really puzzled.



Likewise if I hit one of a group of bad guys with an arrow and every time the entire group would rush pell mell toward the arrow and encountered my traps and AoE and CC spells..."dumbasses!" After repeat performances like this I (the player) would also be puzzled.



I (the player) would then recognize that AI is not thinking and cannot outsmart me. But I can roleplay and do all I can to vary my encounters, so I don't have to either avoid tactics too often or exploit the AI over much. Roleplaying is the only real variable here.



Thanks

[Sylixe]

Bibdy wrote...

The ranged-types don't have to follow, just be in combat and attack. If you aggro the pack and pull them out of the room, at the very least ALL of the melee should march their way over and you can enjoy a self-made cluster**** in that choke-point. That I don't have a problem with because its laying an ambush for your opponent and rewards tactical thinking.

There are ways around that AI, too, like doing an event and locking the player in the room with the entire pack of creatures. Getting out of line of sight of the ranged while you beat up the melee = smart. Pulling the melee out 1 or 2 at a time and the rest of them just stand there = boring

What I don't like is watching a tough challenge get utterly trivialised because you slowly whittle it down.

The art of 'pulling' in MMOs is pretty much essential because even 1 creature is capable of kicking your ass. Pull an extra group, or even single creature accidentally and its probably a trip to the graveyard. The creatures in DA:O aren't capable of that. Only when you face them all together does a fight become interesting.

In MMOs the whole pulling thing is intentional because they want each and every pack to be a challenge to a large group of players, but they also want to populate the place enough so it doesn't feel like an empty landmass (and make the most out of the time put into the dungeon art and size).

If DA:O had a room full of enemies perfectly capable of decimating your party single-handed, or as a small group, I could see a need for pulling as an intentional game mechanic and tactical model. But, with opponents that are already subject to an asymmetrical rule system, on top of being substationally weaker than you at the same level, I can't see the purpose or need for it.

Who pulls single in MMO's anymore?  Ever since blizzard showed that you can make encounters retardedly easy and still get people to pay subscription fees.   There hasn't been an MMO released that you cannot just walk up and AoE down all the trash with ease.  You have to pretty much go all the way back to Ultima Online, Everquest and DAoC to still be afraid to pull more than a few mobs at once.

[Bibdy]

Sylixe wrote...

Who pulls single in MMO's anymore?  Ever since blizzard showed that you can make encounters retardedly easy and still get people to pay subscription fees.   There hasn't been an MMO released that you cannot just walk up and AoE down all the trash with ease.  You have to pretty much go all the way back to Ultima Online, Everquest and DAoC to still be afraid to pull more than a few mobs at once.

Well that's their own problem. Old-school WoW was like that, and top-end raiding in WotLK today still follows that formula. The lower-level stuff like 5 man instances and general quests, yeah, they just made them easy AOEfests recently. But, you couldn't afford to pull 2 trash packs at once in Ulduar, and I doubt you can in Icecrown at the moment.

[Voidvoice]

pulling isnt an exploit. how about we call it divide and conquer? when you are outnumbered, you need to use any tactic to win the battle... trap, poison, buff, ... if pulling is an exploit. perhaps using potion is too.

[Sylixe]

Bibdy wrote...

Sylixe wrote...

Who pulls single in MMO's anymore?  Ever since blizzard showed that you can make encounters retardedly easy and still get people to pay subscription fees.   There hasn't been an MMO released that you cannot just walk up and AoE down all the trash with ease.  You have to pretty much go all the way back to Ultima Online, Everquest and DAoC to still be afraid to pull more than a few mobs at once.

Well that's their own problem. Old-school WoW was like that, and top-end raiding in WotLK today still follows that formula. The lower-level stuff like 5 man instances and general quests, yeah, they just made them easy AOEfests recently. But, you couldn't afford to pull 2 trash packs at once in Ulduar, and I doubt you can in Icecrown at the moment.

Trial and Ice Crown have minimal to no trash at all.  The new philosophy for their design team is to just throw bosses at you one after another.  Aoe grinding through Ulduar is quite easy and yes i agree old school Wow was much more difficult in that respect.  You cannot really compare the trash in Wrath to say the trash in SSC, BT or Sunwell.  However even going back to old 40 man Naxx, which had some of the most unbelievable trash doesn't hold a light to EQ raiding.  But then you wouldn't have 11 Million subscribers with an EQ formula.

Modifié par Sylixe, 15 décembre 2009 - 09:19 .

[Naked Fury]

booke63 wrote...

Likewise if I hit one of a group of bad guys with an arrow and every time the entire group would rush pell mell toward the arrow and encountered my traps and AoE and CC spells..."dumbasses!" After repeat performances like this I (the player) would also be puzzled.

I (the player) would then recognize that AI is not thinking and cannot outsmart me. But I can roleplay and do all I can to vary my encounters, so I don't have to either avoid tactics too often or exploit the AI over much. Roleplaying is the only real variable here.

When your car starts making a clanking sound, you could "roleplay" the situation by imagining that you are being pelted with rocks thrown by disheveled norsemen wearing bras on their head who follow you everywhere you go. Or you could take the car to a mechanic.

The star of this thread is Emmental, who has written a mod which proposes to fix the problem: Bring a Friend. Thanks Emmental, the effort is appreciated. I'll try it out soon.

Modifié par Naked Fury, 15 décembre 2009 - 11:56 .

[wonko33]

Naked Fury wrote...

The star of this thread is Emmental, who has written a mod which proposes to fix the problem: Bring a Friend. Thanks Emmental, the effort is appreciated. I'll try it out soon.

Holy crap, you gotta love playing this game on the PC, Thx Emmental. I'll subscribe to that and watch the mod mature for a bit though, no offense

[themaxzero]

I think the 'pulling exploit' is a little overstated. Most fights, as of now, already do come as packs and can't be single pulled. The vast majority of the packs are located in the Wilds and Lothering. I suppose there is no harm in linking them up assuming that can be limited to higher difficulty levels only.



Its probably since the Wilds and Lothering are some of the earliest combat areas that they tend to stand out in the memory more. Further into the game I can't think of too many areas that operate the same way.

[Dark83]

Much like pulling, this is pretty much accurately described as "exploiting a flaw/shortcoming in the AI". Ideally, with perfect AI, pulling would be impossible. (I'm talking about MMORPGs here as well.)

PvE MMORPG tactics are essentially mental chess against the AI. You have to know what they're going to do, or are likely to do, and counter it. PvP and PvE tactics are different because of that. In a sense, it's practically a puzzle game. You have to be aware of adds, aggro management, and stuff like that - that's player vs AI.

So essentially, all PvE tactics are "exploiting the flaws in the AI". At the same time, that's pretty much what tactics is - PvP, real battles, you're trying to gain the advantage. Throw your enemy off balance (you've exploited his failure to compensate), exploit his weaknesses.

Tactics really is about exploiting the weakness of your enemies to bring about the most favourable results to you.
Even in a game like Left4Dead, you're predicting and reacting to AI behavour.

I'm not sure what my point is, actually.

[Darpaek]

I don't know about it being a bug. I think it's WAD. That's just how they make games nowadays - I think that's how they earn the title "strategic RPG" I guess! LOL



Too many people are used to and like these tactics. So they make shouts dumb or they don't program them at all.



Worse, devs design their encounters now around these silly tactics instead of scripting better mob AI. So, instead of having a quality 4-5 monster encounter, they expect people to exploit and make a 9-10 monster encounter instead.



MMOs are making all games dumber. =(

[NetBeansAndJava]

After reading this thread, I tried to not pull and I must say, I was quite surprised how doable most encounters are w/o any pulling. Simply utilizing everyone's cc, including shield bash, pummel, etc, I was able to keep things manageable.



Some encounters, however, seem to be designed for pulling, as Darpaek says. Often these are when the odds more than 2 to 1 and there are clearly "sub groups" situated amongst the larger whole.