I would just like to remind you about Hero's

It's still early. Lots of people, like myself, are taking our heroes as much as possible because they need to be levelled up.

There aren't many PUGs in the endgame because the people who wanted to finish the game quickly are not willing to wait around for PUGs to form and take heroes, henchies, and guildies on their own accelerated pace. People who take their time and are willing to take the extra time to form PUGs simply haven't had enough time to get to the end yet. In time, more people will be in the endgame outposts to form more PUGs. The people who enjoy PUGs will continue to enjoy PUGs, even after heroes. Heroes are better than henches, but they can still be just as boring if you enjoy that human interaction aspect of the game.

Personally, I enjoy playing with others, whether it be guildies or PUGs. But, more important to me right now is levelling my heroes and getting the endgame greens to sell so I can afford to buy skills and signets of capture. I suspect soon, when i no longer need to build up my heroes and don't feel rushed by the high value of endgame greens, I will likely return to PUGs for going back through for any bonuses or helping guildies or whatever. Heroes will be used like henches - to fill in a specific when a decent human player can't be found.

Thank you ANet for the heroes. To those predicting the demise of PUGs - have faith - people will continue to play in PUGs. Once enough people get through enough of the game to provide a pool of people to group from.

I also feel the hero henchies are going to make pugs a less desirable group, I have
only completed five missions so far, and am very glad they are not "timed" missions,
a reason I did not bother getting protector of Cantha title, had two more to go and
after a dozen failures with pugs, I gave up and farmed the last month before the
NF release.

That's as may be, but why does it matter if Guild Wars moves toward single player? Wouldn't that be what players want? No one is FORCED to use Heroes, so I fail to see how ANet is encouraging Single player. Ok, so they have added features to make Solo play easier, so what?

The fact still stands that with the addition of Heroes, the status of Guild Wars is defined by the players, and the availible tools. Guild Wars didn't have to have guilds (an obvious group-making feature), but they did. Guild Wars didn't have to be instanced, but it is. The fact of the matter is that if people want the game to be multi-player, it will be. If they don't, it won't.

I think it's a bit pompous to say that, because it's online it MUST be multi-player. That severly limits ANet's marketing ability. Adding features that allow more players to decide how they have fun is a good thing. Without those options the same players would have less fun (why else implement the Heroes?). It all boils down to choice, you don't want players to have a choice between PuGs and better henchmen. I argue that most players want that choice, think it is a good thing, and GW would come to an end sooner if Heroes had not been implemented.

lol

To OP:

In my opinion: Guildies > heroes > henchies > pugs.

Granted there are good pugs out there, however with my luck I seem to get about 80% of them being: brb food, just plain afk, people that agree on a strategy (not neccessarily my strategy, I've learned a few things from pugs) and then switching strategies in mission. My all time favorite, cappers leaving after getting their skills when specifically asked if they were doing mission/bonus. I don't have to deal with this while using heroes/henchies.

QFT!!!! Heroes never rage quit either. They also don't have a bed time or have to take out the trash or get grounded from the comp mid mission because their parents caught them playing instead of doing homwwork. They always bring the skills that are needed and they don't whine or lag out.

I thought of thinking something up myself, but since your post said everything i could've written myself, i simply quoted it and "agree". The only good PUG i've ever been to was Thunderhead Keep where the PUG acted very similarily to a fully organised guild PvE team. And that's saying very much. Most of the other times, in Factions especially, i have experienced much more intelligence on henches than on player characters. Well...i suppose i just have bad luck.
And well...if henches before the AI upgrade were already good, i best not even talk about heroes, on whom one is able to change the skills.

I successfully completed the THK mission with my ranger and henchies even before NF and heroes. I haven't tried it with heroes but can only imagine that it would be a piece of cake. The one time I did that mish with a PUG I was monking and it also went fairly easy and enjoyable aside from one Leeroy wammo.

Fwiw, I love heroes and find PUGs to be quite frustrating in general. But when PUGs are good, the experience is better than doing it with heroes and/or henchies, imo. You get to experience fun and new stuff, like lucking into a very successful Nahpui Quarter mission with a team of almost all assassins. And even the occasional disaster that turns out to be quite amusing. But my overall preference is to play with guildies and ventrilo.

I agree with you, my girlfriend and I played through the Nightfall campaign with just heroes to see how well they work. Now it may be possible but its not even close to playing with real people. Guild >Pugs > Heroes > henchies anytime.

Heros might also work to quell disruptive players. Players who demand they get the Green or they will quit, or who spam out 'leet-speak', or demand this or that...

You no longer need to put up with them, even in a PUG.

Player acts up, kick them at an outpost as add a Hero to fill the gap.

The position for Monks now flips. Before Monks could dictate terms, now a monk, like every other character, must justify being added to a PUG. Why should I let in your monk when I could go with a Hero monk who has my unlocked elite skill and a build I know will be run the way I need it run?

A well run player monk is now in the same position as any other well run character of a given profession - what they can contribute is no longer assumed merely by their profession, PUGs no longer need to make excuses for them.

Heroes could have the long term effect of either killing off PUGs or improving them. At the least, they will result in more polite PUGs. Most players will take a mediocre Hero Monk over a rude but well run player Monk - and the same is true of any other profession.

Actually for some missions you are...

Ironically, that's part of the problem. It has always been easy enough to hench pretty much everything in the game, but learning how to effectively use the henchies has always taken a bit of time, patience, and effort. Time, patience, and effort most players never bothered with, easier to just assume henchies suck -- which, let's face it, is true enough -- and leave it at that. But now not only are there better henchies, but you have to use them for some missions.

A lot of people who wouldn't have otherwise bothered with henchies are going to discover the joys of henching it

It's simply a matter of incentives. If you make one thing easy to do while another thing remains difficult to do, most people will chose the easy path -- especially when the easy path offers a higher overall success rate.

The guild recruiting system -- if there can even be said to be one -- is even more inane than the grouping system.

Two problems there... First, as a single-player game GW bites, a list of better single-player RPGs would fill pages. Second, the more it becomes single-player the more people are going to be wondering why they have to put up with updates and skill changes they don't want -- already a sore spot with many PVEers.

Frankly I'd love it if they released a standalone version of GW that could connect with 1 - 8 friends via some form of CTCP or other, but I just can't see Anet going that route. Short of that, I see no way that GW could or would survive as a single-player game.

I don't? Hmmm... I don't recall saying that.

What I do think is that introducing heroes without concurrently making it easier and/or better to group with humans will turn out to have been a bad move in the long run.

Just my opinion:

Friends > Good PUG > Heroes > Average PUG > Henchies > Bad PUG

Personally, the #1 reason I tend to avoid PUGs on missions is that people get too annoyed when I watch the cutscenes (even if it's my first time through the game). I started playing Prophecies well after the game had been out, and most groups got extremely impatient with me for wanting to actually (gasp) see the story. I wasn't able to beat all the missions with just henchies (I'm not an uber player apparently). This culiminated with me skipping the cutscene in which Rurick died because I felt bad for making other people wait for me (7/8 users want to skip). Doh!

The same thing happened in Factions (I'm still not all the way through the game, since I don't play very many hours a week). In the first mission, I watched the cutscene, and everyone complained after. A lvl 20 said "I didn't help you guys out just to sit around and watch a cutscene!" Seriously, I don't need that kind of grief when I'm just trying to follow the story. Maybe with NF people won't complain so much (the cutscenes are so much better), but I'm not sure I want to even find out.

There's another reason as well: If I'm playing a mission a month after most others have already finished the game, it tends to ruin the joy of discovery to have an experienced player lead you through the mission. While it's very efficient to play the game this way, it's not very entertaining to me. Essentially, it's the difference between taking a guided tour of a new city versus walking around and discovering new places on your own. Different things will appeal to different people, and even at different times. I'm more apt to use PUGs after I've already played through missions once, because I don't mind helping someone else then, and I enjoy the dynamics of human players. But frankly, when you trying to enjoy a story and an immersive roleplaying experience - other human players are the absolute worst.

Now, with NF's heroes, I have a viable choice for playing the game my own way, at my own pace. And I have a choice as to whether I want to play with others or not. To me, that's the best of both worlds in an online game.

BTW, it wouldn't surprise me if ArenaNet releases better group-finding tools in the future, because people are correct that the population will become a bit more spread out as the world expands. At the moment, I've never really had too much of an issue finding groups when I need/want them (sometimes finding a monk is tough though). But I can see this being more of a problem later. For those that are worried about heroes making the game unviable for PUGs, I wouldn't worry. Most people are social by nature, and when the novelty of the heroes wears off, and they're all leveled up and decked out, you'll probably see more PUGs again. At the moment, the heroes are the shiny new toys, and everyone wants to play with them.

The point of Guild Wars is to enjoy playing Guild Wars. If some people find playing with heroes more enjoyable, cool beans. If some people find playing with PUGs more enjoyable, all the power to them.

What's not to understand here?

I edited your post to make it crystal clear what's to understand.

True

Training Hench is IMO is easier than dealing with PuGs.

You assume that everyone is taking the path of least resistance, which goes counter to the whole 'I like PuGs for the challenge' argument. Again, this is a game where I come to have fun. I believe the overall frustration level will be less with Heroes than without them. Unless you like frustration, this translates to more fun.

Agreed.

First point, opinion. Second point, good. Skill changes indicate that this is intended to be a multiplayer game. But my point is so what if people want to play it as single player?

I agree with the first part, but dissagree on the second point.

Stating that Heroes are bad or should not have been added implies that you feel that way.

I disagree. While I would love to see a better grouping system, Heroes will not be a bad long-term feature. It's just my opinion and the impression I have gotten from Guildies and Friends, but everyone seems to love them and our Guild is more active than ever. As our experience differs, so will our points of view on this issue.

Hmm... Let me think....

Deal with all the bickering and name calling with a sub-par PuG (in hopes that this group might actually be able to beat the mission without your monks raging at the beginning)

Or...

Assemble your perfect team that obeys your every command and takes less than 5 minutes to put together. (And succeeds more than 90% of the time on missions and quests)

Tough decision.

PuG's arent friends and/or guildies.

Anyway, I pugged a few times, I was in the Realm of Torment pretty quick after release and when your there so fast after release, the other people there *should* also be experienced, else they wouldnt be there. Damn, that was the best PuG ever <3.

Have you tried starting your own group? Take the initiative and spam LFM instead of LFG?

I've never had a problem with starting a pug group, even in the ring of fire islands, where there are only a few guys standing around.

Umm....

Deep wound does work on the last mission.

Once more we see Zinger314 arogance.

I PuGed from Gayla Hatchery through the end of Factions with a PuG in about 2 hours. Of course it was within the first week of Factions release. Ah, if only they all could be that way.

What players say they want, and what are good for the game are two separate things. Players love to have overpowered skills that turn the game into a boring snoozefest -- remember back last year when mobs didn't move out of aoes, at all? There was so much outrage when that change went in, but it was good for the game. The game was just stupid when mobs would sit in fire storms.

Players just don't think ahead about the longevity of the game, and instead think only about their immediate and personal wants. Yes your 1 man firestorm farming operation got nerfed, but it just wasn't good for the health of the game. People get bored and move on.

Luckily ArenaNet *does* think about the overall health about the game when making these sorts of changes, even knowing in advance the sheer amount of crying that is going to come from certain player groups.

I feel comfortable that they already completely thought through the implications of heroes and its effect on the player community, in the earliest design stages of Nightfall. Now it's well known that for mmorpgs (whether you consider GW to be one is another question), a community makes it "sticky" (that is, it's harder to leave if you have a lot of friends you like to play with in the game). So when introducing heroes, that has to be traded off against attracting the people who don't have a big group of friends/guildies to play with. Presumably their research concluded that the people with a group of in-game friends are at the very least not negatively affected by heroes, and those who aren't in that situation are positively affected.

I feel GW still needs some more work to give it more of a sense of community in game, hopefully ArenaNet feels the same way. Players in GW feel fairly anonymous, due in part to the entire playerbase being in a single world (rather than subdivided into lots of smaller server-communities) so you are less likely to recognize names, people having multiple characters they switch between (as it's quick to level), and so many guilds that it's hard to get a feel which have a low or high quality membership.

The reason that heros exist is we on this board and others asked for customization of Henchmen.I don't think they got our true idea is to be able to change the skills on the henchies bar.Heros/Henchies are ok for Questing but for Missions it is better to use real ppl to get along some how.I like playing with real ppl in missions it make it a team effort if you all remember the times before just in Chapter 1 alone.I had a great time no matter how bad the group was it make it more challenging.

It took me 13 times to beat THK with my Ranger but it was fun I knew I would get thru it and I did the Rof 5 times with my 2nd Monk just to cap the skill I wanted but I kept most alive and like someone said at Elona that I was a KickA$$ Monk anyway I would say that most good Monks will still demand things and btw they could still beat hero anytime.I would say the reason you see ppl playing badly is there to over confident and have a big ego and then there are those who play poorly because they are nervous I bet you we can all remember those days on our fisrt mission.Then you have those who have been waiting 30 to 45 min. to get into a group no wonder they are impaient.

Think of it this way would you rather work with robot at work or at school or with real pll?I am more social so I choose ppl I don't want to talk and work with robots.I haven't even done any missions in NF as I am still trying to get my points for Gen. so that I can and it has becomeing a pain.when thinking on it I liked the way Factions was done.I think over all for a online game NF will be a disappointment to some out there.

To Age (OP):

For missions I try to PUG as much as possible.
Trying to PUG the protectors title is much more challenging than henching the missions. The fun for me is that all players have the same goal, masters on a particular mission. That's more motivating than the hench/heroes who have no goal at all.
I currently use heroes, but I just got all my Tyrian and Elona characters to this Sunspear Sanctuary place and have to quest a lot to get the required Sunspear points to continue. Elona characters are not that much of a problem, but my Tyrian characters are about 2000 points behind them.
So that means finding all res shrines, get blessing and empty the area while having 2-4 quests active to get as much points as possible.
I will PUG some primary quests, but the rest is just heroes and hench, I think.

I think I will also try some Tyrian and Cathan missions with heroes.
I remember that Luxon mission where you have to save the turtles ( Boreas Seabed, if I can remember it right).
I have had some real trouble just getting a group there.
My Mo and Ne had not much problem (everyone wants a monk and SS was also no problem). Ranger (barrage) also no big problem. But specially my Mesmer had real trouble finding a group.
Even my Sin got in easier.
That was, when there were people there. I have seen the mission deserted several times.

I think the problem with PUG's is that you cannot control what you get.
You may get a Mo/E that is full with exhausting fire skills.
Or a Frenzy (I like those bugs near Sanctuary... ) W with additional protection skills.

With Heroes, you have total control over the characters.
I run my healers both with condition removal and the protector with hex removal. I put my ranger hench on full interrupt with broad head.
And recurve bow.
Warrior is full sword/axe with strength (and some tactics for 'watch yourself').

That means that I know my W has no frenzy, my monks won't heal-touch or breeze me and will not run out of energy soon (since they have mostly 5e spells). I know my ranger dazes and interrupts and does not run a trapper build (that is, unless I change the skills).

As mentioned in an other post, I don't play during day time that much.
So I can avoid a lot of kids(?) that (experienced myself) :
- need to eat
- sister wants the computer
- have to go to bed
- go afk on start of mission, only to skip the final movie
- don't have any knowledge of words except 'noob' and some words that appear like ---- in chat.
- run into mobs like crazy, out of monk range and start screaming that the monk should heal them (seen the son of a friend do that, so his mother, who also plays had a good real-life talk after that).
- take useless builds (like the full exhausting fire-ele Mo/E)

I do understand that when you encounter this too often, you will start henching or 'hero-ing'.
When you fail, it's your mistake.

With the 'Control/Shift+click' (don't remember exactly) to tell team your skillbar, the skills problem should be solved mostly. That leaves only experience and respect (also to finish what you start) that can vary.
But that is what makes the PUG so much different from Hench or Guild.
You never know how the other(s) are going to react when they play.

I play GW because of the RPG aspect. There are no current single player RPG's in the same make and model of GW. Oblivion is too close to Morrowind, and while pretty, it doesn't meet my needs.

It took a while for me to find people worth playing with. I play with henchies and heros during the week because I'm on late and most of my guild is in bed. On the weekends, I'll play with anyone in our alliance for any mission or quest, whether to help a noob guildie, a recruit, or to join with vets on harder missions.

Ultimately, people should be able to play the game any way they see fit. I just wish there were an easier way to filter people when entering towns so I could ignore the spammers and actually interact with people who might actually be interesting.

Ok people, deep breaths please.

The game hasn't even been out two weeks. Of course alot of people are playing with their heroes. They want to level them up, and the novelty of them is still quite new.

Give it a month and there will be *plenty* of people (ie people who are not good at making good hero builds, etc) who will be LFG. And there will always be true human groups in elite missions and so forth.

Just relax. This is worse than chicken little. Chill pill FTW.

the only missions i havent done with heroes were the consulate docks and ventra cemetary. 4/6 missions successfully completed with heroes.

Amen to that. I've never grouped at all in Guild Wars (played through Prophecies, a bit of Factions and not very far in Nightfall yet), and I do play regular single player RPGs as well - currently NWN2, Oblivion and the "ultra light RPG" Marvel Ultimate Alliance.
All great games, but also vastly different in structure and design from Guild Wars - and the other "real" MMORPGs I've played over the years as well, almost always soloing.

I happen to like developing a character in a persistent world (Guild Wars is obviously a bit different in this aspect), I like the game mechanics, the graphics and other aspects (sometimes not enough though, so I quit after a few weeks or months, just like I would any other game) - and I even like the feeling of having other people around me in game world, even if I don't go adventuring with them, much in the same way I enjoy taking a stroll down town without necessarily uttering a word to a single person.

Yea, it really was. I seem to remember this mission being challenging, but I think most people who PUG there are just terrible at the game. I guess a PUG is kinda like a vicious cycle - If they aren't henching it's because they suck and need to play with real players, who suck equally as them, which just produces a team that's terrible and is why you see people complain it takes 10 tries to beat a mission.

I was surprised to know heros come pre-infused too. o.O

Guildies > Heroes > Henches > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >PuGs.

I rarely, RARELY come across a good pug. 99.99999% of them are pure crap ALWAYS.

Meh, I love my heroes. I am right now playing the eintre game through with my little brother. We both take 3 heroes and are flying through the game and having tons of fun as well. No more mending wammos!

Thats a huge overstatement. Honestly if you're getting pugs that bad you must be either really unlucky or just trying to find the worst players the game has to offer.

It's not the heroes/henchies, that are the problem. Not at all. It's the playerbase. I'm playing gw since the betas and with every day the ingame playerbase degenerates. In early days it was real fun to play with strangers and I've met many nice people. Unfortunately those encountered got more and more scarce. The lack of ingame moderation by gamemasters, the lack of a monthly fee and the pretty low difficulty of the game strengthened crappy play and rude behavior even more.
This forced me to stick with guildies to play the game and if not enough are online, teams get filled up with henchman.
I'd love to play with strangers again, but currently it is a far inferior playing experience.

Instead of complaining about not finding a PuG, what about searching for a guild to play with? The game is called "Guild Wars" and not "PuG Wars" after all. Maybe enforcing a minimum size for guilds and requiring them to play the game might be a way to be considered to patch the broken ingame community.

Hehehe, this goes out to all the people who think all PUG's suck monkey balls. I finished the game yesterday thanks to a very good team. We pwned shiro and mr lich and we totally owned abbadon on top of that. People actually had a plan and were working together. I love that function that allows ppl to show their skillbar with ctrl-click. The harder the stuff gets, the more likely ppl are to coöperate IMO, no-one wants to get mauled after 30mins of trouble over and over again. More extremely hard content please

I agree with Mirkwid on the player base. When I started (about a month after release) I henched all the way through to THK and after getting my butt kicked decided I would try PuGs. (Btw, THK was much harder back then. Mirkwid, you remember the nerf? I went back to help guildies later and was shocked to find it was made easier. After which I grabbed all my other toons and henched each of them through it.) The PuGs back then were great! I met so many cool people I started my own Guild. It grew in size and only came apart later as people either moved back to MMO's they used to play (citing lack of character customization) or moved on to themed guilds (farming only, pvp only, etc.) As time went on, more and more people just turned out to be arrogant, rude, and skilless. So I henched the rest of my toons through and interacted with a small core of friends that I kept in contact with. Now my list of friends is never on, and my incentive to sift through piles of rude people is very small. Instead, my newly created guild is more able to just pick up some heros and enjoy a few levels whe we are not just doing our own thing. I personally thing the heros are great this way. My freinds and I can still travel with each other, but have complete freedom to do it on our own terms, without the need to bring arrogant punks into the same missions as ourselves. I do wish I could stop and search out new friends, but with working 40 hours a week and going to college full time as well, I just don't have the time to waste on maybes. Later, yes, but now, thank god for heroes.

To bring up something that has not been mentioned yet... Prophesies set up the game, Factions was themed for PvP, and Nightfall is themed for PvE. When Factions came out, these same boards were full of people proclaiming the end of guild wars, and wow, again, not even a month into the game and people are predicting the end of guild wars over the lack of PuGs during the experimental part of the game. Give it some time. Not only will people return to PuGs for the interaction, but prices will settle on mods and greens, inscriptions will find a baseline, and we'll all be speculating on chapter 4.

Heh, to give myself an uncharacteristic pat on the back, I actually suggested, on these very forums somewhere, that I wanted to play in an arabic themed land with a spear wielding soildier class that worked well in a group and that I wanted to see a whirling dervish as well. Sure, they didn't take up my big fat eunuch idea, but we can't always get what we want, eh? ;P I still want to see a more barbaric themed area, maybe mop up the charr, and how's about some vikings and rune casters? But nah, I think they gave themselves a thread to work with, given that guy that was left marooned on the Jade Sea that obviously came from a Victorian England, world exploring, style land. Maybe they'll work in sailors and adventurers, but I'm hoping for inquisitors and artifacers.

It really depends.....you could always see a players experience level in the game by their title. I still like heroes.

well ive only read thru the 1st page... apparently MMO dosnt mean anything anymore... every1s become so... anti-social... i like playing with other players, i always try to pug at every place i can, i dont mind if ppl mess up, it happens. the pugs i think suck r the 1s with defective/offensive ppl who ruin the entire grps fun...

I played Nightfall trough with my fire ele, using henchies & heroes. That was very rewarding! That is... first time in my Guild Wars history. With other chars, I must remain friendly free and have real people helping with the missions. Now I'm stuck, but hopely not forever
And yes I'm anti-social in real life also, not very proud of it, but my wife and my son are happy.

Well you know, there's a third option...

Take your basic average PUG, what is it that 90% of the time turns it into a really bad PUG?

Yeah, that one guy, the socially inept looser that can't play with other people.

For those guys all PUGs are bad ones.

I saw people make that mispelling in-game and I wanted to pull all of my hair out.

And I witnessed my boyfriend also complete every mission with masters with heroes. Strangely, he tried teaming up with a Dervish player and his/her heroes, and it was a fail. Now he only uses heroes and henchmen.

If you like to PUG, then go ahead and PUG. It's your right. But don't go around telling people who like to use heroes/henchies to stop using them. Heroes or not, these are the people who already avoided PUG since Prophecies, anyways. Personally, if I was forced to play with PUG throughout the entire game, I wouldn't be playing GW. Heck, if half the missions in GW were like Vizunah or Unwaking where I had no control over fully henching the mission, I wouldn't be playing GW.

I remember once trying to help an ally get through Unwaking. We tried so hard to get a full hench group from the other side. For 4 games straight, we kept getting PUG people on the other side. It was frustrating. We tried for nearly an hour becase we kept getting PUG and repeatedly failed Unwaking. It wasn't until we finally got a full hench group that we were relieved so that we can actually pass the mission (which we easily did).

I love playing games with people, but playing with PUG is just pure frustration majority of the time. Heroes and henchies allow me to play the game and enjoy the game, while making it even more fun to play with my guildies and allies.

PUGing should be an option but never a forced choice. I do both and to be perfectly honest i havnt met a mission yet i couldnt hench, there reliable and do as told and never argue for no reason and dont screw up a mission for u but they are also sometimes stupid and lacking in good builds. PUGS are fun, more effecient and generally superior BUT thats only when u get a good group which im sad to say is very rare.