Custom Henchies FTW or FTL?

And you missed my point that people will play in whatever playstyle they want. They certainly dont need encouragement. Bad PUGs are horrible enough. Your worry that enhanced henchies will drive more people to avoid PUGs is pretty slim.

People who just dont feel like interacting with people will choose henchies anyway. And people who want to be social will choose to play with a PUG, guildies or friends. It will hardly put a dent in the style people are playing now. I highly doubt that someone who likes playing with friends will dump them for henchies. I'm talking in general terms, I know, but I'm telling you not to worry.

And instances ARE relevant. I never said this was a single player game but the way GW is set up, it most definately can be played that way. With instances, you dont need to interact with anyone outside of outposts.

"Guild Wars Nightfall introduces new customizable Heroes who level up, follow player instructions in combat, and use skills and equipment of the player's choosing."

It will be interesting to see what kind of instructions you can give to these heroes. Can you for example tell one particular hero/henchman to target certain enemy while the rest of the party is attacking someone else? Create an interrupt-mesmer hero and tell him to "attack" the monk first. Equip him/her with Cry of Frustration and an interrupt signet for interrupting skills also and he/she will be interrupting skills with a 1/2 second activation time

These Custom Henchies scare me. I fear they will encourage all PVE players to go solo when doing missions/quests rather than teamming up with other players. This will really hurt the concept if the game if it is implemented in this manner.

Yes, it could very well be that henchparties will beat the average pug...
Still I think the community will get bored with playing with NPC's, and have a social need to fill: play with humans...

For me however, these NPC's could be quite a blessing since pugging is so disappoiting for me that I prefer henchman company often anyway. I used to lead PUG's and make decent pug teams, but I just don't want to be troubled with that anymore since I shifted from PvE to PvP months ago...

People these days dont think before they post or no all the facts.


On the guild wars site it basicaly implies that you have mercenary type character that follows you around similar to that of the ones in diablo 2.(If you are familar) Following from what anet ussually does copy things from diablo this is obviously how it would work and from simple understanding from what has been said. No where does it state that you can have a FULL party of Henchman you customize like picking orions fire skills. Alex on gwonline already stated that these things called "Heros" are a tottally differnt system not henchman. The only place you would pick a larger team of things similar to henchmans skills and such would probably be in the new Hero vs Hero battles.

This is how I would forsee it to work.. I doubt we will see teams of full customizable henchies just your own personal henchman who may or may not take a spot in the party and act like a pet. The way to think of these are like pets but as actual human chars you customize.

~They will not be used in Gvg or ha or any other pvp besides HvH

Come on serioulsy people weve even seen the screens of the reguler henchmen on certain sites

Logically it would be the party leader; I don’t see why that would change. Currently the Party leader selects the Henchman. With a default build option this should solve any real concerns pick up players might have. That puts more pressure on him of course to have a steady hench. This means every LEEERRROYYY JEEEKINNS out there will have to account for their actions. This is a good thing... very good thing...

I have to disagree on many posters on the negative tone of the word PUG. I would rather people use Pick Up Players and I have had some great PUP groups. Besides puppies are cool and fun!

The killing blow for many online games for me has always been the "lfg" or "glf X" situation. I log in to play a game, not sit around for 10 minutes to an hour looking for people to group with. Anyone coming from EQ knows how bad that could get.
Too make that whole situation worse is the behavior of many players now and the selfishness that comes with them; I just wont be bothered with PuGs.
If I can't henchie a mission with the masters or bonus, I wait for guildies and people I know to get on.
From my side of the table, henchies come before PuGs and people I do not know simply because of my luck in PuGs has been so bad.
Yes, I have met some really good players in PuGs, but unfortunatly due to the "idiots", I'll likely not meet many more.
PvE content pending, if I'm still around come chapter 5 and want to take some "new" characters through Factions, I imagine it'll be henchies or nothing... as I know none of my guildies will want to go back there again.
Anyone worried about henchies replacing real players shouldn't worry about that. For me, it's already happened and the "idiots" in PuGs that go afk, run off to unlock map areas then map out, or simply get the "needed cap" then drop can be thanked for that.
Anet's design isn't to blame for that, the players are. So I'm hoping Anet can design a better AI to help me enjoy the game away from that kind of player.

Interesting Glad you cleared this up. Thank you Alex now we are more baffled then ever.

Definately ftw, i will continue to use henchies as long as they remain better than the average pug.

Gah! That's much, much worse! Customisable henchies are bad enough for immersion as it is, but Neverwinter Nights style sidekicks?

...Ah well. We'll see how much of the game is playable without them. Not much, I suspect, given that it'll be one of the game's major "selling" points.

You hit the nail on the head.I dont play so I can wait 20 -50 minutes for a pug to make the "leet" group.Also too many afk's.Or bail outs in the mission or quest.Why start a mission if your going to leave?
I use hench mostly anyways.Even done FI with just hench.If you do get a good pug it is alot of fun but it is just so hard to find.
Hopefully new style hench/heroes will be a improvement over old.I would really like to make some choices on their skills.I wont preorder the game because I want to see how it comes out.

Ftw Sick Of Newb Firestorm Henchie N Stupid Newb Necro Henchies N The Degen Mess Henchie Using Crap Skills Time For A Crip Angusih Distort Mes And A Mm Henchie And A War Henchie That Can Actually Tank And Monks With Divine Boon and nice if we could get to have em with a 2nd profesion and armor choices

I want to make a team of 7 hero mesmers running ineptitude... *drool* (plus me, of course as the monk...)

Here is the way I see it, decent players with the skills and the sense to put together a good hench team will never pug again, the only people that will pug are the newbs that lack the skills and the stupid people that can't make a good hench team. This leads to one thing, pugs are going to be completely pathetic cause they just lost the good players that carry them through missions.

I would sya it depends.

Is it just mostly cosmetic - pick thier weapon and armor? Just sort of neutral. It would be OK for a mission or two, but other than that I do not see it being much use. I would still use it - expecially to give them my own "unique" look, but it's just a feature to dork around with. Not really useful, but something I would use anyway.

If you can do more than that but not fiddle with thier AI - FTL. Unless you just happen to luck up on a build that was not intended the one Anet uses to write thier AI will rule all others. It will make henchies *worse* than what we have now. Even if you choose "Interrupt ranger" the way that class is played can be VERY different with just a single skill changed. We already have several choices within a profession so choosing Namor (an ele) and picking Earth or Air from a drop down is no different than what we have now.

If you can add a user supplied AI - FTW big time. It's something I have wanted since the start (even should it be downgraded to a single customisable "hero" instead of the henchies in general). AI directories in places like GuildWiki and here will offer some nice combinations and allow a single player to tailor the hero(s) to thier play style. I think we will see some decent henchies - something this player would love (given that I *hate* grouping with other people when I really care about winning). I do not know how many of "me" there is, but I view this as an online single player game that I can use the multi-player feature from time to time- I suspect on the PvE side of things there are quite a few of me's. Anet has pushed it as a game I can play as such and I rather expect it to stay as such, those of you that focus in the multi-player aspect can do so as well - I don't want to screw any side.

I don't think it would kill PUGS (and still, the game is more based around guilds anyway). How many use true PUG's for serious game play anyway (you may have 6/8 and fill the last two with people - that will change)? There will always be missions that are difficult to script and in my experience PUG's are more about the human interaction or a gamble to have a *really* great team than an expectation of winning (or even a memorable horrid team).

If you want a winning great team focus on the guild, henchies next, and PUG's lastly. It doesn't matter if this update makes it or not, the game is structured around this last peice of advice, adding customisable henchies will not change it much at all. Those of us that will use it alot already suffer through the horrid henchie AI so a better solution only enhances our gameplay. Those of us that insist on PUGs still will and those of us with good guilds will still rely on them.

I really like the idea of choosing and changing your henchmen.
What do you guys think is gonna happen if you make one or two come along as beast masters?
Will they have a pre-made pets like the wolf or will you have to help them capture one i wonder, either way, i would just love to have a team of four or five beast masters with all different pets with team wide pet buffs and maybe a pagan support character seen there buffs work on pets. This feature, if it's what i'm hoping it to be, will make guild wars a new more fun game for me

What would be pretty cool is if, when it says "Choose their weapons" etc, it means they can use ones that your character has found. Instead of selling them to the merch, you could give them to your heroes instead.

I'm going to give my Warrior hench a presearing wand just for the heck of it.

...Are you kidding?

Holy gold sink of ridiculous proportions, Batman!

If we have to fully equip them ourselves, and your 'Hero' can join PuGs with you (or otherwise be visible to other players, which seems likely) I can see the price tags for gold items and even mods quadrupling*. We could go back to the "good old days" where 100K +20 ecto was the starting price for anything maxed.


*Working on the assumption that people will want to show off skins as well as use maxed collector gear... Which in turn will also need mods!

I doubt this will happen but if it does we have weaponsmiths that make nice weapons for a good price of 5k plus materials.

I am very curious if there will be a custom HERO assassin or ritualist, I hope so.

I would guess "No", since Heros will probably be a Nightfall Only feature, and Nightfall will not have the ability to create Assassins or Ritualists.

But, it does lead to some interesting questions: If Heroes can be given secondaries, can we take them to Cantha and make a Ra/A or E/Rt?

LOL for the same reason you gave me on my thread (and I do agree to some extent) I give you the same reply. I would guess "No", since Heros will probably be a Nightfall Only feature, and Nightfall will not have the ability to create Assassins or Ritualists. Even if they do have secondaries.