Why not let us use 7 Heroes; the reasons?

On this note, I am a similarly boosted sale. I started with GuildWars two months ago: bought Nightfall (and Prophecies too, for good measure) specifically because it introduced Heroes.
I've loved the game (gameplay, visuals) since the very first preview weekend, but I also almost immediately made the determination that it wasn't for me. I can't commit to being available to other people for doing missions. Stuff comes up, and I have to go afk for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 4 hours, who can say?
By myself I can do that (assuming it's not a timed mission or something with new waves of enemies rushing in) - just head back to a safe area and wait there until I can pay attention to the game again. But I'd never expect any human to put up with it. Since the game looked impossible to play by yourself early on, that meant it wasn't for me. (And even when I am available, I want to spend as much time sightseeing as doing the mission; again, what human would put up with that?)

Heroes changed it all. But there's still DoA and FoW/UW that are inaccessible to me. If you could do those with seven heroes, I suspect there'd be quite a few other people just like me who'd start playing.
And at the very least, it'd make existing customers very very happy.

I think it should be added that you can have atleast more then 3 heros. Maybe they won't let you have 7, but what about 4 or 5?

There really is nothing bad, it'd let people who use henchman to get through the game at the pace of a pug, without having to do all of the waiting and having people quit because of their survivor titles and what not.

The bad thing would be, if you had hero builds who needed micromanagement, you wouldn't be able to manage all 7 heros. So it wouldn't be terribly overpowered because heros will still need builds they can use themselves.

All in all, it's an improvement and theres nothing bad with it. Heros are still ai and make mistakes, so a pug with GOOD players will still be better then 7 heros. But it still gives you the same chance at completing the hard quests as you would with a regular pug.

I want 7 heroes. Period.

I always flesh out all my heroes as I get them and make sure they are leveled etc, so it's really a shame that only 3 can come along at any one time. I would truly love the ability to bring 7 along. And frankly I wouldn't care if only the first three got flags or if you could only micromanage 3 heroes at a time so I don't even care if they change the ui.

A giant plea for 7 heroes!

Exactly !!! Heroes saved GW for me and I would pony up for Chapt 4 imediately if I could get 7 heroes.

Those who belong to big guilds or have close friends playing may not see the value, but since Nightfall I've gone back and done missions and quests in areas that sometime only have two or three players in a town.

Also, as much as their are good PUGs, most suck, people have to leave in the middle of mission, didn't bring rez, aggro everything, list goes on.

exactly, then their shouldnt be a problem

Only play with people you find in the area; if you can't find any, don't invite guild mates; if you don't find enough, don't invite guild mates, play with what you have.

I always find it hilarious that it is people in big, happy guilds saying they love playing with other people. I'm sure they do because they don't involve themselves in the general population at all.

This is one biased thread on a topic which looks blatantly obvious why Heroes are MUCH MUCH more than henchies or an average PUG player.

One largest advantage which I can think of besides the numourous others that others have stated (I didn't go through all the posts) are that you can play a "Themed team structure" when playing with the Heroes. You can assign each Hero to do exactly the thing you wanted. Not like a henchie where their skills are limited!

The reply of, "since we get 3 heroes, there is no different of having another 4" more got me laughing so hard! So you mean, if people don't have NF we can just milk more and more advantages from them? ggkthxbai. You are so biased that a it is getting ridiculously sad.

If I read this right your saying that its unfair to those that don't have NF? I can't see how. If people choose not to buy the latest game then they shouldn't expect any benefits which come with it.

They're an excellent choice for those of us who play monks most of the time. We don't get mending-frenzy-healsig-breeze-hands-frenzy wamos, monks that are played by wamos and need more healing than that pig roasting in Yak's Bend anymore. Not to mention firestorm-flare-spamming necros and the like.

Some reasons why heroes/henchies far more better than any pug

- they have the right skills for the area
- they follow calls (mostly)
- they don't afk
- they don't leave the party
- they are always ready to smash some mobs
- they don't complain if something goes wrong
- they don't insult each other
- they don't rush
- they don't aggro the whole map or if that happens than it's my fault

Filling the party with heroes would be awesome, they would steamroll the storyline. Anyway all missions can be done with 3 heroes and 4 henchies.

The main reason why heroes are better than PUGs is that they have builds and equipment designed for your team, you know how it works and what they'll do, and even their limited AI is better than your average player.

True, I already steamroll through the entire story with 3 heroes on my side, even realm of torment. But I really don't need any more heroes when eve has blood ritual
7 heroes would make the game so woefully imbalanced it's not funny anymore, they would have to change all the content to buff up difficulty, bu tthen people without nightfal would severely get the shaft.

This isnt aimed at you Cygnus, but yours was the best one to quote.

The main issues everyone has raised so far, are;

Discouraging PUGS,
Removing the human interaction,
Hard micromanagement,
Overpowerment.
Not fair on none-NF owners,

If I missed one sorry.

Discouraging PUGS and removing human interaction;

There would always be those in the game who choose to PUG. This means that you could still, always be able to find a human team if you chose to.

And there will always be missions which you simply need a human team to complete, due to it needing thinking power. And if you wish to do an entire game using PUGs, then people will always be there to do that.

And since we have the option anyway to use 7 henches for 95% of the each game, then how will being able to use 7 Heroes be any different? Its still AI.

But its not fair either to force us to ALWAYS use a human team in certain areas when Heroes can do it, especially in areas where the provided henches are not a high enough level.

Examples being;

The henches provided in Beacons perch which are far too low level to explore the area south of there. I realise this is to stop runners, but some of us need to explore that area, and finding a human team to explore it is near impossible. And the Henches there are NOT strong enough to help.

The Titan quests which you do from Kyrta and Ascalon. Virtually NO one does Titan quest anymore, and finding a human team is near impossible. We have no other alternative but to use low level henches in 6-8 party areas.

Look at masters quests in NF which NO one does. Which you cant find a human team to help you with. Trying to do those with henches can be hard or impossible. If we had a full set of Heroes to set skills on, it would greatly help.

The fact is that Anet adds these elite, master quests at the end of Prophercies, and Nightfall, but NO ONE does them. They all suffer the same fate. They dry up and no one bothers to do them, and tend to get ignored.

The Titan Quests are virtually dead, and finding people to do the the master quests in NF is just as hard.

So how are we expected to do these when we cant find a PUG and the henches provided are simply not strong enough or intelligent enough?

And to those who say all quests are henchable. You obviously havent tried the later Titan quests. Which you have to do in low level areas. Even if you go from Yanks Bend to complete The Last Day Dawns, your still restricted to lvl 6 or 8 henches. Which is useless.

The same could be said for Protect North Kyrta going from TOA which provides level 15 I think.

The other fact is that we dont all, have hours on end to wait trying to create a party. Some of us want to get in, do a quest, and get out. We have other stuff to do with our time aswell as GWs.

The elite areas I can understand not wanting to Hero or hench it. But in none elite areas we need the choice to be able to form a strong party fast to get in and out if we dont have the time. Henches dont always provide that option as Ive shown above.

Removing human interaction

That will never happen. The game is dependant on trading. We will always have human interaction and a need for the game to be online in order to do that. The game wont fall apart.

Hard micromanagement

I admit that the idea of having 7 Heroe skill bars on screen is darnting.

But if you consider that at the moment we can only view 3 Heroe bars and we're quite happy not knowing our 4 hench's informations, then would we need to see all 7 heroe skill bars at once?

I would have enough faith in them to do a good job, without needing to watch all 7 at once. Maybe 2 or 4 at most. I know I never usually open my Hero skill bars during battle.

Overpowerment

The agruement here, tends to be "the Heroes can use runes, and 15^50 weapons and other mods, so they have advantages in power and health and stats."

They dont have any more advantage of henches, then real humans do. We would be no more overpowered then we would be with a full human team. And since Anet wants us to use human teams, then whats difference does it make?

But just because a real human can set their own skills, and stats and health, doesnt mean they can create a magically perfect build.

The other arguement was that we can set ALL the hero skills, so we can custom build a certain kind of party for a certain situation, giving us an advantage.

Forgive me if im wrong, but isnt that what we tend to do in parties anyway?

I know most PUGS I get in, are arrogant enough to ask "so have you got this skill? if not your getting kicked, so use it". We're forced to use set skills or builds when we enter PUGs. Elitism being the reason.

We advertise for MMs, and Protection monks and healing monks and tanks and other particular builds when we enter cities.

How is that any different to me choosing to use an MM heroe or a bip hero or what ever else?

Its no different to what we do anyway.

Not fair on non-NF owners.

The simple response to that is "sales technique" and tough. Anet is a company, a business and they need revenue. Each game which has been released has its own unique selling point and thats how they make their money. They need to offer something "better" or "unique" in the next campaign to make you go "wowww, i want that".

Look at the storage updates which you could originally only get if you owned factions. It may have been added to them all now, but it started out on just one campaign.

Anet adding Olias and the Assasin Heroes to the previous campaigns wasnt them being nice. That was a sales technique to make people go "cool, where did you get him? whos that in your party?".

It works because I had someone ask me who my Heroes were when they saw them in my party list. That person probably then went and looked at NF and thought "cool".

Giving us the ability to use 7 Heroes if you owned a certain campaign would be one hell of a selling point.

My conclusion..

I may be wrong here, but my conclusion is that to use 7 Heroes would be no different to forming a PUG in a town;

When you form a PUG, you make other people use certain skills and builds anyway, as you do Heroes.

A heroe has no advantage over a Human and vice versa.

You can tell a Hero where to move, just as your told where to move in a PUG.

The benefit is that you wont get back-chat and arguements with Heroes. You wont get people disagreeing about technique and if anything goes wrong, then its on your head and no one elses.

So if its not giving us anything different to what we can create with a PUG, why not let us use 7 Heroes?

Heroes arent perfect. They dont have intuition and intelligence like Humans. They cant work independantly and work out puzzles and solve problems. They still need to have their strings pulled.

They will never push PUGs away because we will always need them for that 5-10% of the game where more intelligence is needed.

We need the freedom to choose between PUG or effective heroe team.

We need a full Heroe team to overcome Anet's less popular elite missions such as Titan Quests and some Master quests in NF which are impossible to form a human team for.

I dont like this idea one bit, and it wont boost sales, since the players asking for this are ol' pvers(noobs) quite the contrary, new people to the game will feel lonely and eventually leave gw

No, it's already very difficult to find PUGs for anything outside Elona, save for a select few places in Cantha and such. Even in Nightfall, many of the smaller outposts are empty and some missions require you to sit around for a while to gather a group. The only places where I haven't had any trouble at all finding a PUG for a mission are the more difficult obstacles such as Consulate Docks and Jennur's Horde. If people are allowed to use 7 heroes, even less people will attempt to PUG, leaving those who wish to do so at an even bigger disadvantage. Noone really needs to use 7 heroes, but some people want to play with other players instead of AI, and if we have to pick between single- and multi-player, I think we should cater to the latter. There are already plenty of options for those who don't wish to interact.

Not really, the entirety of each campaign has been completed with 3 heroes and 4 henchmen. Actually it can be done with 7 henchmen if you know how. This game can be completed in single-player mode if you want to. And again, finding a PUG is not as easy as you make it sound, and I don't think we should make it harder.

You seem unable to comprehend the fact that heroes are vastly superior to henchmen. They're so good that they are, in most circumstances, better than the random player you pick up in an outpost. Better than a coordinated team who works together and knows what to do? No. But that's usually not how I'd describe a PUG either.

I really, really dislike having to resort to such comment, but... I'm sorry... learn to play. Plenty of people have beaten the hardest missions at master's level with heroes and henchmen, and if you're having trouble with single-player mode so early in the game that the henchmen provided aren't even level 20, I think your problem is entirely different.

You mention some areas that you consider too difficult to beat without a PUG or 7 heroes. Should they change and jeopardize the entire game to "balance out" those select few areas? Do you realize how big an effect it will have on practically all of the three campaigns? You propose the option to use a full party of heroes as the alternative to playing with other people. Single-player mode should not be preferable in all circumstances. This is a multi-player game. Being able to take a team of heroes and henchmen is a luxury to avoid wasted time when you're unable to find a group, it is not meant to be the best option.

That's just dumb. I won't even attempt to elaborate.

This is not an argument that makes your point any better.

What difference does it make? It would make single-player even more appealing and advantageous than it already is, and further eliminate multi-player, especially in areas where it's already severely lacking. See above.

Except much easier, thus the option most people would probably pick. Further reducing the group incentive is not something I consider a good idea. I think I'm repeating myself...

Do you think reducing multi-play to 5-10% of the game is a good idea? I think ANet should look into making multi-playing more appealing. This idea does not accomplish that.

Like in Kali's thread I'm all for the 7 heroes, or at least more than 3. I had henched Factions on my assassin BEFORE the heroes were implemented. Then I made a monk in factions and got the heroes necessary (Olias in Tyria, the basic 4 or 5 from Elona you get if you travel there). The three heroes I use when soloing is Zhed/Sosuke, Dunkoro, and Olias. Then I pull in a tank, maybe another monk depending on how I feel, and some other random henches.

Heroes made it sooo much easier for my assassin to hero/hench Nightfall. It was also nice to have them for my monk because I could set Dunk or Tahl, depending if I wanted another healer or a prot. Tai just sucked. A lot. My ritualist also did like the first fourth of the game with heroes and henches before my boyfriend decided to make a ranger to play with her.

The only times I PUG'ed was for missions because I was lazy to go through it by myself (though in Factions I could easily do it since I knew the way) and it was also nice to be with people. Also I find it easier to get Masters with PUGs

However, it would still take a while to find a group. Partly it's Nightfall's fault since there are more people playing it at the moment, but also I usually came on at times when there aren't a lot of players available. Monk of course had no problems >_> My rit, however, kinna did. Groups would prefer real monks over a restoration rit and I specialized more in damage/heal/support spirit spamming. Usually if i had to PUG I either had to wait for someone to ask or just start a group.

For quests, well there are hardly anyone looking for groups just to do quests. You can really only PUG missions. Only quests I usually see that form groups are some of the primaries and the ones where you travel over to the other campaigns cos usually it's a low level person trying to kill those wraith storms in Kaineng Center.

So for me, where I'm soloing it already, I don't really see much of a difference. Like what many other people said, there are already tons of people who solo the game, even before the heroes were implemented. This would just make it easier for them.

Also, the whole having 6 heroes in your teams is COMPLETELY optional. Missions are already resorting to heroes if a person has them over the hench if they can't get a monk or something. Like the Eternal Grove mission. Good luck in trying to find a real monk or minion master there >_> It's not that people are not looking for parties, it's that there is hardly anyone there to even form a group so you have to hero/hench it anyway. Or wait for the next day and hope for a flux of people come in. Eternal Grove is a mission that works best with people so you can effectively split in two groups (unless you kill the siege turtle before it even walks down the path and then sprint over to the other side..it's doable but kinna..uh..not as fun? o_o)

There is also the whole "no leaving party" deal that's nice. If a person gets disconnected, at least they have a chance to reconnect, but still if something happened like their comp froze or something, then they have to leave. And if they are the leader the henches won't leave their side. Period. Learn this the hard way >_< The same thing for heroes, too though. AFK would also not be an issue.

As for management, I only keep open the monk's bars cos they are more important. I only open Zhed/Sousuke's once in a while to make them use a skill or just to check on what their doing, same with Olias. I don't have all of them open to begin. Of course I have a giant ass monitor so it could probably handle all 7 just fine, but i still only keep 2 open. The flagging might be a bit more difficult, but I don't usually use the individual flags. I usually just use the group flag.

Flagging was another issue I had with henches. You can't individually flag them and the tank hench like Devona or Talon will automatically run to a mob and aggro them.

Anyway, here are alternatives to the 7 hero team:

1) keep 3 heroes, but make the henches "customizable"
- In this sense, I mean you can see their skill bars and maybe have 5 extra skills you could exchange some out.

2) Make 7 heroes available, but limit to the use.
- This could be done in several ways. Like what someone else said, you could use the title rank system, or you could make them unlockable so you had to like do a quest or exchange balth faction or something. I had another idea but I blanked out, had to do something with the missions...

3) Make missions where playing with other people would benefit more than heroes/hench
- A perfect example is Factions Raisu Palace mission. yeah it's henchable, but it's easier when you have people who can use the Celestial skills. Heroes can't use the skill and the Hench will use it for the first mob they see.

Bleh it's late and I had more ideas but I can't remember them right now. But basically I think the 7, or at least more than 3, heroes is not a bad idea. yeah I can see how PUG might be less, but it's becoming less anyway and people can choose whether or not to PUG or not. Everyone has the option of choosing on how they play.

Also, you have to consider that not everyone plays when the majority of people play (like me). So even if someone wanted to PUG, they can't due to lack of people. And if they're not in a guild, well that's just a double whammy. If you're gonna hench it, might as well do it right.

If you just make people PUG you will for sure make people very very frustrated. Everyone has had an experience when they were in reeeaally bad PUGs and though miracles happen and you can find yourself in a pretty good one...it's still pretty tough. People might not notice the pings or lines on the compass (especially if they have sound off or music in the background so they don't hear it) or they might have the team chat checked off so they don't see what you're seeing. And they could just randomly leave or go afk.

Sure, people can be better than heroes, but sometimes the AI can be better than people. As a player, you can for sure trust your heroes. If you're in a mood and want something done, then most likely you'll want to either stay for like an hour and try to find the right team or just pop in the team build you know will work and go and play.

I prefer playing rather than sitting in the mission outpost waiting for people and try to form a group if you ask me. If you really wanna play with people, get a friend to play the game. I play with my boyfriend o.O

Edit:

..Dang this is one long ramble of a post..

Anyway one other point I forgot to mention was what someone else had mentioned earlier: The Master Quests.

It's hard to find people who want to do it, especially if you're an assassin. But it's still just hard in trying to FIND people doing it. 7 heroes or better henchmen or something would make this so much easier.

You talk over Heros being Overpowered compared to Henchies, true they are better than henchies in all aspects but you also forgot that henchies are completely underpowered and the majority of enemys in the game, especially the high end are competly overpowered.

Come on lvl 28s and 30s enemys and u claim a lvl 20 hero is overpowered lol, its not over powered it makes builds more effectives, makes the team work better together.

Tryia is no easier than factions or Nightfall, its simply larger and more spaced so mobs arent as close as in the other campaigns which removes the faster paced action which in turn makes it seem simplier since theres less chance of over luring.

The vast majority of people dont PUG anyways with or without a limit on Heros, it would make little change, I Henched all Tryia and Cantha because it was easier than PUGing. I still PUG on occassion if im feeling adventurious, but PUGing is a Gamble, 75% of PUGs fail. Heros/Hench work as a team and dont do all the silly things PUGS do.

Humans are smarter than the ai, and so are supperior so PUGs are the best way but when u consider the afking, the ignoring others, the arguing, the rage quitting, and the ability not to follow a plan.

I think the answer will be the next campaign, i believe Anet will increase it to 7 heros then, probally because they will add more Heros in. Eg. Another Mes, Another Rit etc. I still think 7 would be nice, but id rather have 3 than none. As the chapter number increase Anet will have to increase the hero limit as Desserted mission towns (some were pretty that why even when the chapter was new way ie Eternal Grove) get progressivly worse. Its an incentive for people to buy the next campaign from Anets point of view.

Way to make a completely unsubstanciated comment, considering the post was made by KOABD... so yes I must be new to the game and have no experience.

Ive completed all 3 games with protector and 100%. I've only two Titan quests, one master quest in FOT and the DOA quest's left. Most of which I did with henches and/or heroes.

I've had no issues playing the game until now. The main reason I suggest allowing us to use more Heroes, is to have access to a full team of level 20 players in situations such as Titan Quests.

Its all well and good saying 7 heroes will kill PUGs (which I dont agree with), but there are times when we need a lvl20 team and you CANT get one.

Titan quests being my constant example;

Protect North Shiverpeaks (think): needs 8 players but you can hench it as you have lvl20 henchs.

Protect the jungle (cant remember the name): needs 6 players.
Protect North Kryta: needs 6 players or 8 from TOA.
Last day dawns: Either 4 man team from FR or 6 man team from Yanks bend.

Titan source I havent got to yet.

Finding a team for any of those other then the one in shiverpeaks is virtually impossible. North Kryta people still do occassionally because its easy from TOA and you can get a lvl20 team from TOA.

Unfortuntely after that people seem to loose interest and give up. Last day dawns the jungle one are a nightmare to form a team.

Heroes were a god send to finally attempt Last Day Dawns as I could form a 4 man lvl20 team. But its still impossible to fight and protect an NPC with just 4 people.

Going from Yanks bend is the alternative for LDD. But you cant find another 2 lvl20s who want it. The trying to find another 2 for the jungle quest is even worse because that place is dead. No one goes there at all.

Your talking about either abaddoning a 110k experience set of quests or standing around a town or location 24/7 for the vast majority of your life. I dont have the time to do that. I have other priorities. As much as I love GWs, I want to get in, do the quest and get on with my life. Not sit in a town an entire day loosing faith in the game.

But then you have to consider those who dont have NF and Heroes. They are just stuffed.

This is Anet's fault and they need to find a way to do these quests. Giving us the option to create a full lvl20 AI team if we need it, is the only solution I see. I realise they try to "incourage PUGs" and "playing with humans", but what do we do when there are no humans?

Thats a huge example as to why I feel we need that choice, and I feel its a good one. Otherwise we have quests going to waste which give huge rewards and play a major part in a storyline.

Then they should fix those particular quests, not compromise the balance of the rest of the game. Possibly even do a survey on which areas are abandoned due to people's inability to find a group (as opposed to the content simply being undesirable) and make a different system there. I personally doubt that ANet will do anything at all in this case, neither fix anything nor add the ability to use more heroes (although that's a possibility in the next chapter). If I had a choice though, I'd have the small amount of unbalanced content fixed rather than patch it up with something that would have a negative affect on the rest of the game.