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

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.