I would just like to remind you about Hero's

I tried for 30 minutes the other night to get in a pug for Consulate Docks. Ranger at level 20. No takers. Did it again later in the night with the same result.

The reason is simple if you stop to think about it. They are new.Period

I hope that once the novelty of them wears off those that pugged will pug more. Those that find them "better" than a pug won't and they can stay using them.

I think that alot of the people using heroes are Tyrian and Canthan players that enjoy the new options that heroes give. You have to admit, it is nice to be able to control an npc at the level you can with heroes.

Most likely, once the novelty wears off, people will go back to the way things were -e.g. hench (or hero) the easy quests and missions and use pugs or guildies for the harder ones.

Not period, but i think you've got a point, and i hope you're right.

It actually matters less to me because i don't intend to complete the game with many characters, so while i only plan on playing elite areas i probably/hopefully wont ever encounter the henching-elite.

I hope they introduce things to actually make cooperative gameplay most desirable, more XP and higher drops for example.

right, another elite area *player*

note that after only a few months of the first GW people were already saying they were sick of pug jerks spoiling the fun.

factions tried to force cooperative play and failed in my opinion.

note that heroes are not being accepted grudgingly as in i have to have one but ............

heroes are being welcomed with open arms as in i can finally get rid of the penis on the minimap rage quit spoil it if you all dont give me 5k now croud.

ecpect ENHANCEMENTS to heroes in updates as their (Anet) logs seem to be shouting this is what most of the players want.

@Nemon:

People hero-hench instead of normal henching because heroes are better than henchmen. I'm surprised you even have to ask this question, because the answer is painfully obvious.

The fact of the matter is that anybody who *wanted* to PuG would still be doing it. The people who used to PuG and now switched to hero-henching are the people who never wanted to PuG in the first place, but didn't feel that henchmen were adequate for the job. The game helps these people by allowing them more options.

Heroes and henchmen *shouldn't* be better than PuGs, but they *are*, and that is the sad part about this entire story. People wouldn't have any reason to hench if they thought a PuG could do better. But experience has shown that henchmen will get a job done much faster and with much less drama than a PuG.

You talk about people screwing up like it's no big deal, but if it happens enough there's just no reason to stay in the party.

You state it like it were the *only* reason ppl hero hench, there are a few good reasons to hero-hench, _and_ there is the detrimental reason, because they feel they need to. Like i've already explained, i'm an avid PuGer, i enjoy the joking around and cooperative play, but even i when faced with all the mass of henching players thought "hey, do they know something about heros i dont??? I guess i _must_ level them", sucks for me because i hate bots. So i reluctantly spent time leveling bots when i didnt want to. I feel this mindset had snowballed and because of it everyone is henching. I dont think everyone who is henching now *wants* to hench atall, i think a large percentage dont want to hench but feel they have no choice, atleast on the first half of the game.

You realise ofcourse that a CPU controled player be written with almost perfect game logic, and the bots would be better than any living gamer. A bot being better than a real player is not sad atall, what _is_ sad is people would rather play with a bot than a real flesh and blood player who you could experiance and enjoy the game with.

I would just like to remind you about Heroes...

Mondays on NBC!
Hehehehe

But seriously, Heroes in NF are great, they give a whole new level of flexibility to the game.

Yes this is supposed to be a psuedo MMO, but everyone knew going in that in an instanced world the experience will be different than any other MMO!

I bought this game because of that difference!

I enjoy Guild play, PUG Play, Hench play, and now Hero play! I have my choice of playmates! Two classes of real people and two classes of AIs...and what could be better than freedom of choice?!

If you dont like Heroes, dont use them.
If you dont like PUGs dont play with em!
Personally, I do a little of each depending on mood! Imagine, a game so flexible it can accomodate my most introverted antisocial mood, as well as allowing me to be an extroverted social butterfly when the mood strikes me!

We have a generally great community here, you only have to read the scribe to understand that!

you just dont get what most hero lovers are saying or you have skipped over the thousands (?) of anti pug posts (those not deleted) saying that they hate/dispise/etc the having to try 20 times to find a decent group .

Anet has the logs of how people PLAY the game and not how loud a few can complain on a forum.

notice how few anti hero posts there are and even less anti hero threads?

regardless of what you want heroes are a very welcome addition and not the community disaster you think it is.

people are CHOOSING a hero (happily) because they have been burned so many times by the jerks in pugs

pugs are a disappearing breed

i've explored almost 50% of elona now, lots of little towns and such, and mostly it's just areas where people stand around w/ the number 4 or 8 above their heads. Occasionally trying to spam their greens, golds or whatever. And the sad pitiful cry of someone else going "lfg mission" to the echoes of silence. I have yet to reach the end game, but I was unable to find a single pug for any of the missions so far. Much less questing... I don't think I saw more than 2 or 3 times thru the entire game so far someone looking to group up for quests..

It's sad, me being a pug monk and all. I pugged thru prophecies (although I used henches a lot more for my first character, not knowing what all the lfg/etc acronyms meant), and I pugged thru factions.

And now NF seems to be a single player game. Set up your heroes, grab your henchies, and off you go. There's no more jerks in town.. but then there isn't much of anything anymore in town either.

As more and more players go thru the game w/ the mindset that there's no one looking for pugs or that it's virtually impossible to find one (ever try waiting to find one? it takes 5 to 10 times longer almost now), there will be fewer and fewer people who will even bother.

I used to pug all the time, but it's not even worth the trouble and wait anymore.

But what's worse teaming up w/ a bad pug? a player whose monk hero is 10x worse than mhenlo.. wow, there's a lot of them out there.

That made me laugh IRL. Probably because it's so true.

Shortly after NF was released, I actually tried to PUG a few times in Prophecies from Iron Mines on. The outcome was always the same. Either I couldn't find a group (I'm online when all of the monks are sleeping) or we would wipe on stupid stuff and people would just leave.

What did I do? Hero-henched to Hell's Precipice, capped my skills and haven't been back since.

I've read every single reply since i started contributing to this topic, i've considered everyones POV, _and_ respected it no matter how it had been shoved in my face.

I know there are _many_ gamers who are now henching because they want that, but what you're not understanding is there is a sizable percentage of players who are now henching instead of PuGing for reasons other than because they _want_ to.

If a player hated PuGs so much they would've been henching in all chapters of the game(as suggested by someone else), and there would be little to no different between Factions, Prophecies and Nightfall, but clearly there is, and i dont think all that can be attributed to the absolute awesomeness of heroes.

There have been more than a few players here saying how they've gone looking for a PuG and not been able to get one even when they would otherwise be a very desirable party member being lvl20 in a low level mission area. The first half of the game is now single player, and only when everyone has their hench leveled do they start PuGing again. This to me indicatates that not all players are henching just because they love it. If they all loved henching then you would see the same problems getting a PuG in later missions as you do early, but you dont.

I hope like someone else said; Heroes are just something new and ppl are all playing them because of this. Perhaps in a couple of month the novelty will have worn off and they will start playing like they used to. I still however feel there is in game encouragement to hench and this is a bad thing for any multiplayer game. Chapter 4, if there is enough players to support it should be offline if the trend continues.

If that's true, all you need to do is yell LFG in town and that large percentage of reluctant players should drop their heroes and join you. Heck, they would be yelling LFG themselves.

Since that doesn't seem to be happening (or this thread wouldn't exist)... might it be possible that a large percentage of people take heroes because they actually want to?

(Heroes) Oooh! Look! Nifty! Shiny! New! Gimme gimme gimme!

(Month passes) I is bored now.

I go play with old toys now(pugs).

I believe Nemon was saying he thinks there are a lot of people who don't want to play heroes even now, not a month later.

Yes, lots want to and the few that dont feel compelled to level their henchies too. The fact that this is a new game and players dont know how much or little henchies play in later missions is also going to contribute to them taking the safe route and leveling henchies. This is how i approached the problem of heroes myself, i assume other PuG players would think like me and level their hench.

Anyone who tries to get a PuG in any of the early mission areas is going to be 100% convinced the only way they're ever going to be able to play is to hench it, and thus perpetuating the hero-hench cycle of single player loneliness.

I actually got into a party on noob island with a couple of lvl6 only to be kicked from the party so the lvl6 could add his hench. How can you not see a problem with that? I had to hench all 4 missions on noob island as a lvl20 monk, seriously. You're telling me a lvl6 wants to take his lvl6 whatever hero-hench more than a lvl20 monk because the lvl6 hench is better? or he is scared i'm some rage-quitter?

3. Spending 30 minutes trying to get into a group and not being accepted because you play an ritualist, mesmer, assassin, dervish, etc. any profession not in demand or in over-supply. Not entering the mission at all.

4. Completing a mission with 5/8 because of leechers and rage quitters.

Don't get me wrong, I've been in great PUGs. But over 18 months of play I can think of 3 or 4 truely excellent ones, and far more than that pathologically crappy or abusive ones.

Yes there are good PUGs and yes it is fun to play with others. The problem is forming a group can sometimes take forever. Heroes mean freedom to play whatever char I want to, knowing I can find the right mix of support. If I want to play with others I'll check my guild and alliance first.

Heroes didn't kill multiplayer - PUG attitudes towards professions did.

Did you happen to notice the profession mix? Sorry, but what you are describing is the way some people have lived in this game for MONTHS, far before the advent of Heroes. So it is hard to feel sympathetic. Maybe it is just the masses now are noticing their Warrior can't find a group and this shocks and confuses them. You think the mesmer or assassins ever had it easy?

Simply put, Heroes are a GODSEND for professions that are constantly passed over. ANET can't fix PUG attitudes but they sure as heck can implement better hench (i.e. Heroes).

since i was playing since early beta i can actually answer this.

the hench AI has been improved drastically over what it used to be.

back during chapter 1 if an expert managed certain missions with henchies they would brag on a site *i beat xxxx with henchies* and people would consider it a monumental achievement.

also several missions/quests have been made easier so henching is now possible to more people.

Altheas Ashes (3000 exp i think) quest is a easy solo walk now where it actually used to be a full group fail 5 times and finally beat it worth 3000 exp quest.

does anybody remember our little healer running (always) into a crowd of enimies to help and YOU had to rez HER?

or my favorite next to bouncing between 2 points forever was the rez when 6 axe warriors were standing on me?

the simple answer is that back then it was only the expert/very good players who were ABLE to hench.

now people have a choice on which to take and the hero is the clear winner after being burned so many times by the random community at large (PUG)

So explain then why in later missions more and more ppl drop their "superior" heroes and turn to real player PuGs?

Could it be that Heroes aren't as great as they're being made out to be and you still need to rely on better players to complete hard areas? Is it that once players have their henchies leveled to 20 they relax and mix it up playing PuGs for a laugh? Could it be they just get bored of their henchies and crave some real interaction? Perhaps all three. In anycase hero-hench elitism isn't a problem later in the game it just makes half the game single player and suck for anyone who wants to PuG.

i have a completely other idea on this to toss out for inspection.

is it possible that the late mission people willing to group with other late mission people are in a completely (superior) class as opposed to the early pug jerks?

just a thought having nothing to do with heroes but simply that the game has sorted out the loser/jerks and you have a decent chance now of a good group to actually have fun with before the jerks catch up to you later

Another point about Heroes...

Heroes are no replacement for humans in the endgame areas or the elite areas...

The biggest loss will be in the early areas of the game where pugging becomes less common because "if you can Hero, why Pug?"...

This means that the hardest hit areas will be N00bland. So later when you have to PUG in theory there should be less N00bs because they will have had to have made it that far...without runners...

Ah yes there is the hidden silver liner...

Heroes might just be the death of runners...

No PUGs = No Runners yes?