Why the use of henches and Heroes puts us miles ahead of PUG dependant MMOs (eg WoW)

Lots of people make threads basically calling Henches and Heroes and blaming them for the downfall of GWs and PUGs and basically blame the end of the world on AI.

But the truth (from my experience) is that the use AI is what makes GWs miles ahead of alternative MMO/RPG games like WoW.

WoW and other MMOs are PUG dependant and dont have AI to help. You have to team up with humans come a certain point or you cant do quests and move on.

Yes this obviously incourages PUGing and interaction, but it doesnt aid in the gameplay at all. I've been playing WoW for about a month now and im at lvl24, and 90% of my time has been soloing.

Not from lack of trying to form PUGs or join others.

I've seen groups or individuals killing the same creatures or bosses I need and ive invited them to join me, nicely wisped them to ask or stood right infront of them and posted "can I join please?"....

....and 90% of the time you get ignored. You can spend hours if not days wondering around, unable to do quests because you quite simple cannot form a PUG to do them.

And its also due to a lack of other players being in the area to help. This has made a relatively amazing game, no fun to play. I actually miss having AI to just pick up and use and take with me.

And this is what alot of you want GWs to be like? This would be the result if we removed AI from the game!

Henches and Heroes are a god send in GWs and an amazing asset to players who cant find PUGs, or dont have Guilds to join. AI in WoW (although unfeasable because its all one instance) would fix alot of problems in my view.

(NOTE: I know thats unrealistic to have AI in WoW, im purely speculating)

So can we not be greatfull for having heroes and Henches?

I am personally greatfull about them yes, if i want to go do a mission or capture a skill i don't need to be dependent on other people to do so, i can spend 20 seconds grabbing hench and I'm off to capture my skill. I cant even imagine how long it would take to get around guild wars without henchmen, doesn't even sound realistic.

I, personally, believe you're making a bad comparison. The reason henchies and heroes are so important in GW is because it's a completely instanced game. In some other games (like WoW), there are actually helpful people (as there are in GW) that will come by and help out if they see you are in trouble. I've seen it and I've done it. This isn't possible in an instanced game as you are out there by yourself. There have been times in other games where I've come across someone getting their ass smashed by some monster or what-not and I just stop and help them out until its over, then move on. You're comparing apples and oranges. Since you mentioned WoW, you really only have that problem in the dungeons that are instanced. Yeah sure there's assholes sometimes that'll gank you or just sit there and watch, but I've noticed more times than not that people will help you if you really need it, even if you don't ask for it. In fact, you don't even have to join a PUG to help or get helped. Help can be providing without even being in the same team (if someone's really helping you then they are doing it to help, not to get the loot or XP).

With an instanced game, yeah you really do need henchies because nobody is going to come along and help you. The game isn't made that way. It's just a different kind of game than the others, including the henchies and heroes.

without hencies and hero gw will be death

try to find a group on faction ...

You've posted many threads on this same subject, but in short...

IMO, Heroes were originally intended to help players "fill in gaps" in PuGs or other multiplayer groups, like you've said above. Much of what you are seeing in the game is people using Heroes to completely supplant other players, however. You can see that attitude in many of the "I wouldn't PuG if you paid me" threads on this site.

Heroes are a "godsend" for players who simply don't want to play with other players. Unfortunately, there are many people who would rather play a multiplayer game, and heroes have hurt their ability to do so.

You are right I cant deny it. When ive been in a PUG in WoW its fun and people do come along and help you most times.

But its times when you see a pre-made group doing the boss you need and you can ask about 10 times and they just seem to ignore you.

I just seem to experience that more then the positive sides. Admittadly im in a low end area and im sure high-end ones are alot more full, but still.

How can you make that claim when I quite clearly said in my OP that I try to form PUGs and it doesnt work.

I want to play with others, but unfortunately from my experience in both games, its never easy to do or it ends up frustrating.

This is why im so pro-AI all the time.

It's a self-aggravating problem, that's why. In short...

1. With the expanding GW universe, the player base is getting more spread out, making it harder to find other players to play with.

2. Because heroes are available, players that normally would group with other simply take the heroes instead.

3. Because of that, even fewer players are available to group with.

4. Because there are even fewer players, players are almost forced to take heroes.

5. Rinse, lather, repeat.

That's the problem that the multi-player is facing today. That is why it is really hard to compare WoW to GW, as WoW has stuck to its multiplayer roots (for better or worse), while GW is gravitating towards a single player PvE game.

Halle-freakin-lujah, it's nice to see somebody that gets it. As much as anything, the presence of heroes and henchies is what keeps me playing Guild Wars. It lets me play with a few friends and fill out the party readily to do anything we'd want to do. If that couldn't be done, I'd just go back to non-MMO RPG's.

Let me make this clear to the "we must force people to PUG" crowd. Implementing some method that punishes play with henchies/heroes or otherwise encourages/forces us to play with you won't cause us to play with you, it'll cause us to leave the game. Get it? Frankly I think all the people whining about the lack of good PUGs should just form a guild and play with each other, there certainly seem to be enough of them.

You and a handful of others do not make 'lots of people.'
The last time I saw a thread that had anything to do with heroes it was started by the OP. Your beating a dead horse that you seem to 'really' like to beat on, my only question is why?
Guess once you get the KOABD title there is little left to do but pontificate on the various aspects of the game. How about picking a new topic tho. Something a little more thought provoking than the lame old heroes debate.
Just a thought.

Pretty much. Ive not been ingame for about a month. FYI though I actually started that thread because of something I read in another thread.

It wasnt just me starting it randomly.

Aye, this topic has been done many times and doesnt need another thread about it. Could a mod close this topic please?

[QUOTE]hi JET

sorry to keep being the sour disagreeable note but *i disagree*

there was an interview (if someone can find link please post it) that stated that *GW could also be considered a single player RPG played online with the OPTION of playing with friends if you want to*.

to confirm that early statement is this straight from the box i got on April 26 2005

heroes are only improved henchies and fixing the henchies so everybody could use them was asked for from day one.

if you could have *FUN* with the average PUG most people would PUG.

the people who have grabbed heroes like lifesavers are mostly people who would PUG if it were fun.

the people who grab heroes the hardest are the ones who WANTED to pug but kept getting burned by the jerks.

those people are not *antisocial* they simply have been driven out by the *so called community*

They're also a godsend for every class that is not a Warrior, Monk, Ele or MM. PuGers have killed PuGs. I want to play as my mesmer. No luck. Assassin? Nada. Smiter? Not a chance. Non-MM Necro. Get lost! Rit? Take a hike!

I don't want to spend an hour waiting for a PuG to take pity on my mesmer. I could finish a couple missions in that time. If PuGs were a lot more flexible in who they PuGed with, PuGers wouldn't be able to complain about others going out with henchies/heroes.

Well, heroes (and not hench) ARE directly responsible for the downfall of the PUG. Whether or not this is a good thing is subjective.

In the old days, the average player was more likely to succeed with a PUG than with hench, so everyone pugged.

Now, heroes are so good that the average player is more likely to succeed by staying away from PUG's.

I prefered the old way. If you wanted to be antisocial you could, but the price was you had to tolerate a tougher challenge.

I've henched/solo'd most of Prophecies, Factions and as of now the early stages of Nightfall. I'm one of those rare breed of players who actually takes time to complete things, I actually still haven't completed any of the three installments even though I've hit end-game Prophecies with the only "help" in form of PUGS or "guildies" coming in Aurora Glades bonus and one or two of the Desert missions.

I like Henchmen even if the monks are stupid enough to heal you when you're already dead, I LOVE heroes, they make the whole experience easier. Thing is, I play slowly I explore, I like to complete certain areas before moving on (My re-started W/R in Prophecies, and thus the reason I haven't finished it yet, is still over in the Wilds because I want to map out the area with him) the problem with PUGS and I've noticed now with certain guilds is they're all focused on speed playing, rushing around and completing the game within two minutes.

These people take away enjoyment from the game, in the same way a random warrior runs off aggroing everything and anything during a critical part of a mission. To further the point, henchmen are more reliable, you only have yourself or shoddy AI to blame (yes it's crap AI but you can learn how to use it to your advantage, PUGS are a quick gank through and only friends happen to be around long enough to "learn" each other's playing styles) if you mess up and lose a mission/bonus/quest/die.

Perhaps it's just my bad experiences, I have been more offput on teaming with "humans" ever since I took my 55hp monk into a PVP practice match to fight these two w/mo's, I won, one of the guys switches to his Necro and I still won (work it out) and other experiences such as having people take my quest goals and ending up getting them killed in the next able bodied mob.

In short I guess I'm saying henchies/heros > humans, they're predictable, methodical, tangiable, they don't demand rez's, heals or rush through the game in two hours nor do they whine (as I've just probably done! =D)

-2 cents

^_^

Heroes may or may not be the downfall of pugs. But, for some people who are fed up with bad pugs (immaturity, obsceneties, name calling, lack of social skills, etc..), heroes are a godsend, and we want more of them.

I would like to add that I pugged through all of Prophecies. Some great pugs are found towards the later part of the game. But, after awhile, your patience and tolerance metter go down to zilch and now I resort mostly to heroes and henches.

Well spoken...

Please not another Hero/Henchies vs. PUG thread.
The horse is glue now.

Loviatar's post is spot on. The Guild Wars Retail Box states very clearly that playing solo in Guild Wars is supposed to be every individual player's choice. If 99% of players happen to be making that choice to play solo, then that's great, they are supposed to be allowed to.

Forced-PUG advocates' arguments pretty much don't have a leg to stand on for that reason.

The Nice thing about HERO's and AI henchmen is that I can cast MENDING on my whammo and no one cares!

Fact is I test all kinds of builds during quests and no one cares.

THANK GOD! for HERO's..

I love to PUG. I find the game much more enjoyable when I'm questing with humans than all alone with my heroes and henchies. I've gotten my share of bad PUGs just like everyone else here, but I think on average I've gotten more good PUGs than bad. And like I've stated before, even the bad ones are good for some entertaining stories later.

Despite this, I don't think I'll ever advocate getting rid of the henchies. While that might make it easier for me to find a PUG, it would also ruin the game for many folks that don't feel the same way I do. Also I don't especially want to team up with someone who really doesn't want to team with me.

The only advice I would give is this. If you are someone who really doesn't care whether you complete this quest with a PUG or henchies, then take a few minutes looking for a PUG in town before heading straight to the henchies.

Well, if you look at the argument one sided, such as you have, you are right.
Just figure, of the "99%" of players choosing to play solo, what percentage are casual players, who have only a limited time to play.
They are forced to solo, whether they want to or not, because of the time it takes to find a PUG now. They really don't have the 35-45 minutes to fill a group and then the other 20 minutes to get the build right.
In orevious chapters (save certain missions) it took all of 5 minutes to get grouped and 10-15 minutes to set the build.

Loviatar your point is well taken. (A little reading comprehension is all I needed.)

For speed I use heroes and hench. For fun I pug or go with guildys

i dont feel you can compare an open world (wow) to an instanced game (gw) fairly.

not what i said.

i said that a lot of people who grabbed the heroes and ran did so after being burned by jerk pugs many times.

these people would rather go out with a good group than the hero/hench but have mostly given up on finding that good group.

NOTE

by good group i mean we had a good time even if the mission flopped

not that the group was expert and we aced it.

again all i can do is throw you on the mercy of the present search engine to confirm what i have seen on several sites since early BWE

1 begging to make the henchies useable

2 bad pug experiences.

the ability to flag the henchies alone would have been enough on its own to let people use them instead of a pug.

the guilds are most to blame as they take all those people who would otherwise pug out of circulation

I don't pug much anymore... reason? It's hard to find a pug doing exactly what I want when I want to. Sometimes I'll go out with the intent on doing two or three quests at once while mapping a certain area etc.

It's as simple as that. Heroes don't complain or go off and do thier own thing.

Read the hero quotes! They complain all the time!

They also do their own thing, I've watched in amazement as Koss/Devona run out and aggro additional mobs and bring them back to me.

The one thing they DONT do is go AFK!

Ah, good point... well, at least they don't clutter the chat window with their complaints.

And the aggro thing... that's just Koss being Koss.

I'm a social person, I like interacting with others, and I'm very easy-going. I make these statements so as to better contrast the fact that I only play PvE with heroes or friends now. Every single pick-up group I've ever been in has resulted in a bad experience. This is not hyperbole. After the last one I did a couple weeks ago I shut off local chat altogether.

Some people love the presence of heroes, some don't. As someone who's sick of random groups, I'm ecstatic.

Holy crap, has anyone in this topic played World of Warcraft? AT ALL?! Because the amount of uninformed speculation in this thread is staggering. I suggest you go to the official website and actually read about the instances.

Anyways, the OP's complaint is incorrect and just an attack on a game he has never played.

You cannot compare a standard GW Mission to a WoW instance. WoW instances are much longer (1-3 hours), and only require 5 people, and are optional. It would be more proper to compare a WoW instance to FoW/UW, due to the time investment and the potential rewards generated. And you know how PuGs there are...and you can't solo it, since you need two people. Thus, it invalidates your whole argument.

Also, bad PuG players in WoW are generally less bad than bad PuG players in GW, since WoW is more streamlined than GW (much less possibilities for talents than skillbars...)

You can compare a GW mission to an Elite Quest. But you only need 1-2 other people at your level, or just one person at a much higher level to solo it easily for you. Or, with enough skill, you can do an Elite quest yourself. Again, similar to Guild Wars.

And, of course, in the open world, you can solo anything that wasn't mentioned above. And I can assure you that there are a lot more quests in WoW than GW.

So go read the website and comeback once you've actually played the game. If you level quickly, you can play an instance during the 10-day free trial.

^ Hit the nail.

In Guild Wars, you *need* a party. You can't solo anything (easily, at least). In WoW, if you don't want to do an instance, then explore and farm and level up. That's the whole point of World of Warcraft.

Alot of sour people posting here, feel sorry for you all that you couldn't experience GW the way many of us have.

Wouldn't want to run into such negativety ingame though, and luckily I won't as you all will be playing with heros.

Quoting for both irony and hypocracy.

MMO - Massive Multiplayer Online... really, going on about how great bots are is anathema to the whole "multiplayer" part of it. What you're describing is a single player game, no different from playing NWN or Baldur's Gate etc. in single player offline mode.

Edit: and quite frankly, if the majority of players are now essentially playing it in "single player" mindset, then in terms of it being an online multiplayer game, it is starting to/has already failed miserably by that definition (talking about PvE). May as well have released it as an offline game such as Diablo/NWN/BG etc so you wouldn't even need to go online, except to download patches and updates... just like most single player games.

I've played WoW and I found the OP's comments pretty much exactly as I've experienced it. I couldn't get in a group no matter how I tried and when I did (and that was extremely rare), they buggered off as soon as they got what they needed, leaving me to try and finish what I thought we were trying to finish on my own. The way the two games play is totally different. Anyway, needless to say I cancelled my WoW account and it's now gathering dust on the shelf.

Back on the main point though. The reason PUGs have died is because of arseholes. If I could guarentee getting a good PUG then I'd rather join that anyday. As is it, I know by taking Heroes I can get the group I want. No "This way noob" "Why do you have that skill lol" ... and leaving when they feel like.

Basically, an "instance" in WoW is a dungeon a party can access privately, similar to Guild Wars. You may not have gotten far enough in WoW to fully understand it.

....And that's why there's henchmen and heros. It's obvious that a game like Guild Wars - that focuses on party gameplay - would do horrible if you could only play with people, and not have any AI backup. The reasons are obvious.

this game was never an mmo it's an online game with a multiplayer feature and option, talking about PvE.

and read the box, it clearly states that players always have the option to solo! quit looking down on those players for wanting to play with henchies and heroes.

Well I don't post much here (have too many other forums as main ones), but I do tend to read the occasional thread. This one caught my eye.

Henchies used to be bad. By bad I mean Alesia tried to tank everything in the map, whether I was a Tank Warrior or a squishy. She just had to tank tank tank. She was the first on a scene after a target call and, obviously, the first to die. Then came the mass AI updates. Anet fixed the henchies so that they would do their proper jobs (Alesia didn't tank anymore..woot).

There was still something missing. If you were getting wiped, you couldn't just hightail it and run. The henchies would keep on fighting and die, leaving you to either rebirth, die and start over, or map back to the outpost/mission town. They just weren't strong enough or good enough as regular players. Enter Nightfall.

Updates to the henchie system were well past due. The flag system was great. If you were dying, you could flag the henchies to run so at least half the party survived. You have a much better chance of surviving long enough to res, plus you could kill the couple of mobs that stayed aggroed. Now for the heroes.

You can change hero skills, equip them with whatever weapons and runes. Basically, they were an AI version of the player. They would allow you to create controllable "humans." You could flag them and tell them to go somewhere specific or even have them pull for you. The choice of skills allowed for total customization. No longer did the Elementalist henchie use Firestorm but now used Meteor Shower or Searing Flames, much better skills.

Now for the PUG's. I hero/henchied my way through the entire of nightfall and most of end game factions. I had already mission/bonused Prophecies since I have had the game since beta. Let me tell you, hero/henchies are soooooooo much easier than PUG's. Here are just a couple of reasons why they're better:

• You have FULL CONTROL over them
• Customize them to fill the slots that you would spend hours looking for (monk, MM)
• Don't have to deal with idiots (lets face it, the average GW player doesn't know what to do or how to play their build they pulled off of wiki that morning)

You can tell them exactly what to do and they will do it. This makes the game much more fun because you don't have to spend months on Gates of Madness finding a competent group. Just get your heroes/henchies and go to town.

They can either fill that one slot you would otherwise not get, or let you complete a mission. I don't know of a mission that isn't hero/henchieable. A-net specifically designed this game on skill and not the grind. This means that the average player will be able to beat the game without spending years doing it. Heroes are just a way to add to this. They're a good alternative to PUG groups or replacers for classes that just aren't there.

A good human player always will outmatch the heroes, but finding those good players is hard. If you're in a small guild, finding enough guildies to help you is tough. You may not have access to a large guild. Enter the heroes. I belong to a guild that is an offshoot from a brotherhood type clan (ie plays every game...a clan for all games). There are only about 7 full time players not counting myself. Most of the time, they're not on when I'm on which means I need other alternatives. It seems like every PUG I get into always has the one screw off or the newb (notice the spelling) which means that it fails....especially if they're playing a needed character (monk). Usually, I look for people on my FL and Guild List. If I see no one, I grab my heroes/henchies and go to town because I have more success with things I can control.

Just my rant for the day.

You're more encouraged to join a guild in WoW. WoW also has a much more entertaining boss format, instead of a shiny creature that's a few levels higher than the monsters you fight.

Those 2 points aside, I agree with you. I love MMOs where there's no AI help, because it actually forces you to be social past a certain point. For me personally, I love both worlds. I'm on the fence and no side is greener than the other. I generally play GW and enjoy being by myself. When I'm feeling like being very social in my gaming, I usually log in to other MMOs to have fun with my network there. Not to say I'm mute or friendless in GW, but GW I play out of boredom and the result is I do stuff with friends. I play MMOs out of desire to play with friends, and the end result is boredom sometimes.

But yes, I do love the option of having henchies. I always have and it's one of the things I really like about the game.

Why do I LOVE heroes, and probably wouldn't play GW without 'em any longer?

Heroes and Henchmen don't say "A Mesmer? ololllolroflrfololl *click on reject*".

That is what Henchies were for to fill in a spot but that is not the way it is now.what happened to the Human componet in the game.I would really like to see for 1 week no henchies or heros how fast a group would get together and play nice.This would be for quests and missions.I wouldn't say Heros are godsend for players.