Replace Leavers/disconnected players with Heroes of same profession if you have one..

Simple; (i always start my threads saying that)

Scenario:

Lets say someone is disconnected and they dont re-connect after the 10 minute window of opportunity.

Lets also say that in your party a member has a spare hero slot (if they have heroes) and a hero of the same profession as the disconnected player.

Suggestion:

I suggest the disconnected players is automatically replaced by a hero of the same profession and placed under the control a user with a free hero slot.

Conditions:

If the party has several free hero slots and several heroes to use of the same profession, it will pick the highest leveled one.

If they are all the same level then its random. It only judges the hero on lvl.

Small issue:

The only issue I see is if someone has a low level hero, and it uses them. But thats a risk worth taking and better then nothing.

Reason:

An example.

Myself and an 8 man team had left TOA in Tyria to walk alll the way to FR in Ascalon to do the Titan Quest Last Day Dawns with an 8 man team. It should have been easy.

We got half way there being run by a ranger in the team, only to have the ranger tell us they had to leave. That left us with 7 players.

Not long after a warrior left before we even arrived, leaving us with 6 players. That same warrior had used a hero, who left when we entered a new instance.

Now it had took about 30 minutes just to get the team together and it had took 15 minutes just to get run as far as we had been.

Its bad enough that two players started such a quest when they didnt have enough time. But why should we suffer for it?

There was little chance of completing that quest with only 4 or 5 players (some might disagree, but you loose faith when people leave). Had they been replaced with Heroes (if we had the same profession and free slots), then we could have continued and not lost faith in our ability.

The same would aid with missions and quests when people leave or get disconnected.

It wouldnt necessarily over-power the team because the hero might be a lower level and ill-equipped. But its better then nothing.

Bonus:

People complain Heroes serve no purpose and dont bother leveling them as they see no point.

If this was implemented as a good way to handle disconnections and leavers, they might re-consider. People would want lvl20, reasonably equipped heroes just incase they need them.

It might even incourage people to ask for players with full lvl20 heroes, as backup.

Heroes would find a new use and purpose.