Feedback talk:User/Edgestate/Live Direction of Mob Armies

I hear your complaints:
1) poor AI
2) repeating patterns
3) other things we cant discuss because they are smart enough to never talk about it

I would just point something that maybe might contribute to beef up the suggestion, it's that even if they provide inputs to some 'selected' users for controling these events, they would still need to provide a standard implementation for when no willing user is there, which means extra work. Yseron - 109.213.30.174 13:47, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

There would also have to be some kind of limiter in place to prevent someone in control of a mob army from abusing the mechanic or otherwise using it in a spirit it wasn't meant to be used. A few scenarios:

1) Tom takes control of the mob army and orders it to sit there and do nothing while his friends/guildies massacre it for free experience and/or loot.

2) Dick takes control of the mob army and orders it to travel to and attack players or an NPC town in an area of much lower level than the mob army, devastating that area and making the game all but unplayable for the lower level characters in that area.

3) Harry takes control of the mob army and orders it to run in circles or otherwise remove itself from interaction with the other players in the game, denying them the opportunity to fight this mob and advance the story line or complete a dynamic event chain.

The moment you put that kind of power in the hands of players, someone WILL abuse it; guaranteed. By the time you think up a whole laundry list of limiters to prevent these kinds of abuses, the mob army is so limited in its actions that having a player control it will be no different than letting the AI control it.

I, too, understand your frustrations with poor AI implementation and repeating, predictable AI enemy behavior. However, I don't think the solution is to put that control in the hands of players (some number of which will abuse it). No doubt it's a major challenge, but the solution is to create better AI. I mean, heck, what we're really discussing is getting a computer to think and react like a human player. Not even the world's best supercomputers have reached that point yet (and, no, chess-playing super computers do not count because it has been revealed the programmers "cheated" by programmimg them to beat a specific human chess champion rather than become intuitive at the game of chess). But it's still a goal worth working towards. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 23:19, 12 July 2011 (UTC)