How Heroes Work---from guildwars.com

Not sure if this has been posted or not

How Heroes Work
(copied from)
http://www.guildwars.com/support/gam...all/heros1.php

As you advance through the game's storyline, you'll have opportunities to recruit adventurers (controlled by other players) and henchmen (computer-controlled allies). These alliances are temporary, usually long enough for you to finish a few quests or missions. The story also includes opportunities to recruit long-term allies: heroic non-player characters who play an ongoing role in the story. Completing specific quests allows you to unlock these unique heroic NPCs, commonly known as Heroes.

Heroes typically join your party as part of a quest. Sometimes the rewards for a quest include a chance to ally with that Hero: the NPC is unlocked for your current character. (Some Heroes are exclusive; completing the quest to gain one makes you ineligible for the quest required to gain another.) Your character can be allied with multiple Heroes. You can add a Hero to your party whenever you're in a town or outpost. When you do, the Hero's level does not depend on the location you use to add that NPC.

A Hero in your party gains experience and levels, just as a character does. A Hero can never have a higher level than the character working with that Hero. If a Hero is lower level than the player who controls it, the Hero gains XP from kills at a vastly accelerated rate. Heroes in your party receive XP for quests and missions when you complete them.

Once you leave town, your Hero's actions are guided by the actions of the character who controls it. (When multiple players work together in a group, each player's character controls the Heroes working with that character.) Heroes gain experience points for finishing quests, completing missions, and defeating enemies. Like henchmen, they take their share of gold and loot when defeating enemies. Players can improve a Heroes' weapon, shield, and focus item as that NPC gains levels; the Hero's armor improves automatically each time that Hero levels up.

Each Hero has a default set of skills, but you can change those skills while in a town or outpost. You can also change the Hero's secondary profession.

Heroes have a few elements that cannot change. During character creation, you must choose a name and primary profession for your character, but you cannot change the name or primary profession of a Hero.



Hero Commands

Nightfall includes commands you can use for controlling and directing your Heroes. Once you leave town with a Hero in your party, you can direct where that Hero travels using your Compass.

Under your Compass, you'll see a set of four flags. With the first flag, you can set a common destination for all of your Heroes and henchmen. To set a destination for them, click once on the first flag, and then click on the mini-map in the center of your Compass. All of your Heroes and henchmen will then walk to that destination. The same button can remove the destination flag from your compass. When you remove a destination flag for a Hero or henchman, that NPC no longer walks to that location; instead, the NPC returns to your location.

When you look at your Party panel, you'll see a list of Heroes in your party. (You can open or close the Party panel by pressing "P.") Each Hero has a number in front of his or her name; each number corresponds to one of three numbered flags below your compass. You can set a destination for a Hero by clicking on the flag button with that Hero's number, and then clicking the Compass mini-map. The same button can remove the destination flag from your compass.

If you like, you can set a destination flag by clicking on the terrain in front of your character instead of using the Compass; when you do, a corresponding destination flag appears on your Compass.



Combat Modes

Each Hero can have one of three combat modes. Each one corresponds to a different icon.


Aggressive The Hero attacks a called target or a target in combat with the party. If necessary, the Hero will charge forward, away from the rest of the party, to attack.

Defensive The Hero stands guard over the flagged area if you have placed a destination flag, or toward the back lines of the party if you have not. The Hero will attack called targets and any target in combat with the party, but only if doing so does not force that Hero to leave the guarded area.

Passive The Hero never attacks and attempts to avoid enemies when attacked.



Recruiting a Hero

After you've unlocked a Hero for your storyline (usually as a reward for a quest), you have the option of adding that Hero to your party whenever you're in a town or outpost. If you have room in your party, you can recruit up to three Heroes you've unlocked. (Your Party panel shows the current list of characters, Heroes, and henchmen in your party; open or close that panel by pressing "P.") Look for the words "Add a Hero" on a drop-down menu in the Party panel, and then scroll down to the name of the Hero you want to add. You can use the same panel to kick one of your Heroes from your party.



Skills and Attribute Panel

Press "K" to open (or close) your Skills and Attributes panel. You can use this panel to adjust the skills and attributes of your character or any of your Heroes. Before making these adjustments, you can select the character or Hero you want to adjust on the top of the panel.

Attributes are listed on the top half of the panel, along with a display of unspent attribute points. (When you add a Hero to your party for the first time, you may want to check to see how that Hero's attribute points have been spent.) Next to each attribute, there are arrows for increasing and decreasing the number of points spent on that attribute. While you're in a town or outpost, you can increase or decrease the number of attribute points spent one each one. Outside a town or outpost, you can increase attributes by allocating unspent attribute points, but you cannot decrease them.

The bottom half of the panel shows a skill list. In previous campaigns, you chose skills for your character by dragging them from a Skill List panel to the Skill Bar at the bottom of your screen. In Nightfall, you choose skills by dragging them from the skill list to a small skill bar at the bottom of the Skills and Attributes panel. As in previous games, you can only alter your build of skills while in a town or outpost.

Each Hero begins play with a build of skills. By using the Skills and Attribute panel, you can alter that build whenever you're in a town or outpost. A drop-down menu near the top of the panel also allows you to change the secondary profession of that Hero. When you do, that Hero's attributes change, and you can adjust attribute points as described above.

When you choose a secondary profession for a Hero, you may want to change that Hero's build to include skills from the profession you've chosen. In the retail version of the game, you can save that additional build of skills by creating a template.



Templates

During the Nightfall Preview Event, you won't be able to use this feature of the Skills and Attributes panel. After you start playing the retail version of Nightfall, however, you'll be able to save builds for your character and any Heroes you've unlocked.

The Template button is a blue floppy-disk icon in the upper-right corner of the Skills and Attributes panel. After you click on it, you'll see three choices on a drop-down menu: Save to Template, Load from Template, and Manage Templates.

With Save to Template, you can save a build of skills and attributes to your computer. Outside the game, you can decide whether (and how) you want to send of these files from your computer to another computer.
After you have a saved file, you can use Load from Template to upload a build from your computer to the game.
With Manage Templates, you can rename, delete, and move files.


Hero Control Panel

Outside a town or outpost, you can see more information about a Hero in your party by using a Hero Control panel; you can also use it to change that Hero's combat mode. A button to the left of the Hero's name in your Party panel opens (or closes) a Hero Control panel. Click and drag on a panel to change its location on your screen.

How much you use Hero Control panels is entirely up to you. You do not need to open Hero Control panels every time you play the game; instead, each panel gives you more information about and control over a Hero. Each Hero Control panel contains these elements:

The upper-left corner of the panel shows the Hero's name and picture.
The upper-middle of the panel shows the Hero's Health and Energy.
The upper-right corner has icons for selecting from your three choices of combat modes, as described in Part One.
The bottom of the panel shows a small skill bar for this character. You can see when the Hero's skills are activated and watch to see how long they take to recharge.
Your Hero's AI determines when skills are used, but you can interrupt that routine by clicking on a skill on the Hero's small skill bar. By clicking on a skill, you prioritize that skill. The Hero will not use any other skills until successfully using that skill. The Hero will attempt to use your target.
Directly under the panel to the left, you can see the Hero's Morale Boost (or Death Penalty), if there is one. Next to that icon, you'll see a list of Conditions and Hexes affecting that character.
When you call a target (that is, hold down "Crtl" and double-click on it), all of your aggressive Heroes attack it. Defensive Heroes attack it if they're in range. Passive Heroes do not attack it. The same condition applies if you assist with another character's attack (After a character in your party calls out an attack, you can assist with that attack by clicking on the target symbol next to that character's name.)


Hero Inventory

The bottom half of the Inventory panel shows your inventory items; your character and all your Heroes share that same inventory. The top half of the Inventory panel includes an inventory interface (a "paper doll") showing your character or a Hero, along with the weapon, armor, and shield or focus item that character or Hero is carrying.

A menu at the top of the Inventory panel can change the character or Hero shown on that inventory interface. After you've selected your character or a Hero, you can move a weapon, shield, or focus item from your shared inventory to that character or Hero (or move them back).



Hero Armor

You cannot replace a Hero's armor through the Inventory panel. A Hero's armor level improves as the character gains levels. Certain quests may change the appearance of a Hero's armor. In the retail version of the game, you can use Runes to alter a Hero's armor, but you cannot use Dyes to alter its appearance.



Duplicates

In the retail version of the game, more than one player with a character in a party can control a copy of a Hero. One character is the "authentic" version of that character; the other one is called a "duplicate." The duplicate uses a generic name instead of the hero's normal name.

Ah; so the armor automatically upgrades itself. But you have to find their weapons and off-hands. And they don't have individual inventories so they're aren't your little pack mules


It mentions that you get to pick the heroes' secondary profession. It sounds like they might automatically have access to all skills?

All I can say is HOLY RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOING SHIT!

HEROES ARE KEWL!

The only thing not mentioned is how heroes acquire skills? Do they have them all? Do you have to unlock them? Do they get a predetermined set? Being able to see their energy/conditions/hexes and being able to select a target and tell them exactly what spell to use is gonna be UBER! Of course controlling you + 3 heroes skills during combat will be rather hectic.

I believe they'll have access to all the skills your account has unlocked. (Plus, probably some default skills in case you haven't unlocked a particular profession).

Also, now the PC Gamer article makes sense: it says you can give heroes your customized weapons. Basically, it sounds like anything customized to you, can also be used by your Hero. We'll see for sure later, of course.

And based on the new update to hench AI it looks like they will dance with you. Too bad they won't follow you around in town so you can bring them along as your own dance partners lol.

If they can use stuff customized for you then I'm giving them all the bonus weapons from the GOTY edition. lol

I love this

And, so far, PC Gamer hasn't been wrong yet.

Honestly, this is the only thing that bugs me: (Some Heroes are exclusive; completing the quest to gain one makes you ineligible for the quest required to gain another.)

Hopefully, there will be hints that let us know. There are some Heroes I already want to have, and I'd hate to lose out on them because I chose the wrong Hero earlier!

That's good cause I unlocked all the skills for prophecies and factions.

OMG Have you watched the new gameplay video? It shows off the new hero bars and they are AMAZING! It's like controlling 4 chars if you want! And it even shows examples of using the flags to position them. One scene showed it place the ranged heroes on the top of a cliff and the melee hero and the player went down below to fight while the ranged guys stayed on top and shot their spells/arrows.

Freakin awesome!

HvH looks very very micro intensive, which is actually pretty cool. heres hoping you can 'unlock' the heroes account-side and be able to customize them alongside a pvp character for HvH. *crosses fingers*

this all sounds awesome, tomorrow we can try it out

don't know about u guys dosen't the screen now seem more crouded with the hero's health bar and such?

all i can say is 2 Elites in 1 skill bar=Ownage if u dont beleave me look at the new vid

I don't believe it's saying that by doing a quest and getting the hero makes you ineligible to get another, different hero. It's saying that if you do the particular quest and attain the reward hero (call him Jim Bob), you can't do the same quest again with that same character and get a second Jim Bob. Think of it as any unrepeatable quest.

Hopefully this isn't possible: "Dangit! I just accidentally sold my Hero to the merchant for 10g!"

Is English your first language? It clearly states that some quests for heros will keep you from getting other heros, however I think that they would all be at the same point, for example...

You've got the chance to get your first hero, you can choose heros 1-4, getting one keeps you from getting the others. Quest for the second hero you want, you can choose whether you want 5-8, third quest choose from 9-12...

I'm guessing this is being done to prevent you and a buddy from running your own Pet Barrage builds and the like. Completing a quest to get a ranger hero makes you ineligible for anymore quests to get other ranger heros.

Yeah I don't know if it's going to be pick one of 4, but picking one at the end of a mission will mean you do not get the other. *nods* That's been said more than once.

For once the Prima guide might be useful in this fashion. Lettng you know the choices before hand and which YOU might like to pick.

Granted that same information will be posted online and stuff a few weeks after the release, but from the start... it might be easier.

http://www.guildwars.com/support/gam...all/heros1.php

im glad all characters dont have access to all heros, myself.

itll give me more of a reason to quest out nightfall with ALL my characters, as opposed to Factions which is quite tedious.


kinda like in Factions with the Am Fah- I had no idea the first time I played through it why other people were 'friendly' towards them.

I am hoping it will be more like, in the mission area you'll have the choice to talk to and bring one of the heros into the mission, do his side quest or something, and attain him as a hero. If not have them in outposts, and their quests in between the outpost in the explorable before the mission areas? We'll have to wait and see but I don't think that Anet will be forcing us to either pick the one in front of us blindly.

I love that the templates are stored to your computer, that allows you to save an unlimited number of builds. Even better, we can attach those build files here on the forum and share them with others.

I wonder if you will be able to dismiss a hero and go back to get a different one?

Yes, it is my first language. Thank you for asking.
I tend to like definitive statements. Is this what we're basing it on:

The further explained interpretation by yourself and others does work for me. However, upon my first read it isn't written "clearly." As interpreted here it should say "(Some Heroes are exclusive; completing the quest to gain your choice of '4' heroes available makes you ineligible for the quest required to gain another of those '4' heroes)"

So this is why my compass pinging hasn't been working exactly right the past few weeks or so. I used to be able to single ping on the compass, now I have to at least double click.

someone said something about being able to pass along customized weapons...if they do that its retarded, you can even pass along custimized weapons to other chars on your account. other than that im siked(however you spell that) now playing solo could actually be tons of fun. controlling 4 chars at once is gonna be hard and actually make battles take thinking woo hoo

so they sound kinda like the 'mercenaries' from Diablo 2... which is pretty cool imo

PC Gamer mentioned giving customized weapons to your heroes, I'm assuming it would have to be that specific character's hero, however!

I've heard nothing of being able to trade customized weapons to other characters on your account, although that would be awesome! (Let Koss borrow that Dragoncrest axe from another character, for example).

OMG best thing ever!

Firstly - as Peter Griffin would say "Freakin' Sweet!!"

This looks way cool.

Secondly - anyone know if heroes will be toon or account based.
It makes sense that they're toon based but I haven't really seen it confirmed.

I was very worried about the AI - I mean how can you code heroes to be intelligent when using hundreds of skills (how long did it take Anet to get henchies to be half decent), but Anet seems to have come up with a very nice solution - allowing the user to trigger any actions on any hero'es.
How well it will work - we'll soon see.
If your heroes have bad AI then blame yourself

One thing is for sure - we'll all need to be ambidextrious and have lightening reflexes to stay on top of controlling heroes - I mean selecting flags, setting passive, agressive, defensive, triggering skills?
I'm really doubting that it's actually humanly possible to EFFECTIVELY control 3 hero's and yourself and do a decent job of it.

Only time will tell - One things for certain - I'll be really happy with templates!!! but bummed that there's no update on trading improvements

May i be the first to say.


WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Right. Nightfall is surpasses my expectations, and then kicked factions in the groin, and slept with prophecies' mother. No more noob PUGs! Lvl 16 atts in your warriors weapons! Choose which heal you want! Choose the hero to firestorm NOW and not when they die! Think about it, youre a monk, youve got 3 warriors and a dervish pounding you. You make the hero firestorm at your location, hey presto, aggro broken, for a while. Also, the CE is the best so far.. Christ this is gunna be great!!! Also, they might make pve harder, if the dervish enemies arent nerfed.

wow I will need to practice on my fast clicking/thinking skills, controlling 4 skill bars will be darn hard.

sounds awesome

looks like they will have to add a new page on guildwiki entitled

download skill templates

might be cool... might make everyone a clone... all in what you do with it.

Id like to see a buch of Horseman clones running around smashing things.

until one person is dumb enough to be fooled into downloading something that ISNT a build file... say a keylogger or something

hopefully people will be smart about this to avoid any kind of mass account stealing. please dont everyone just start downloading any kind of template file until you are sure of how it will work.

dont ever trust a downloadable exe file that wil "install itself into you guildwars" because then you are seriously just asking for it.


So- proceed with caution, my friends. remember 3rd party software will get you banned, whether you actually know you have one or not.

Hmm one thing is not clear to me: at one point they mentioned heroes and henchmen will follow the "flag" command. but they say nothing about them using the hero behavior settings. ie. What if I want to quickly pull out of a battle, can I click "flight mode" for henchmen and get them to immediately disengage? Can I set them to defensive and do a pull by myself knowing they won't rush blindly into battle? If so, does it (and I sure hope it does) apply retroactively to henchies in Prophs and Facts?


I think they'll probably just work like henchmen if you don't mess with the settings. Which means, they can still be rather effective even without the extra control. as for passive/aggressive/defensive, you'd probably only need to set that once for each hero (ie. warriors aggressive, casters defensive), and only ever need to change it in specific situations, (ie. a pull), not all the time during battles. As for triggering skills, it'd mostly be in order to prioritize healing a certain hex or condition, for example; you probably won't be activating (and targetting) split-second interrupts from 4 characters manually.

So basically, if you just do nothing they'll be OK, but you can make them perform better by giving them input every once in a while.

Lovely!

Me: "Oh Gawd heal me! This is the END!!! THIS IS THE END!!!"

*click*

Me: Phew! Ownage time!

I'm hoping 'exclusive' means that you can only have one or the other at any given time, but that a quest will be repeatable so you can switch later if you don't like how it's working out.

All Hail A.net!

question...will saving build "templates" on your computer lead to cheating? from my understanding...its easier to hack when u actually have game info on your comp.

What makes you think the templates will be stored locally?