No Option For 7 Heroes: Gaile Grey

What's wrong with playing alone? I see nothing wrong with someone wanting to do so. If someone wants to play Guild Wars as a "single-player game", then it's quite possible.

Instanced world renders GW into a single player game, not 7 heroes.

And ever since the introduction of Heroes in Nightfall,PvE in general is no longer multiplayer.

I dunno, I find the game far more enjoyable with people than heroes. If you're really interested in doing hard mode, find a guild that does it, or an alliance guild, or make friends with people who are hard mode fanatics.

It's not that *hard* to find people to play HM with. Start a thread for people to work on hard mode missions together. Start a guild. Enrich the community.

Complain less.

(I never have problems finding people to HM with. It's far from impossible.)

With GW2 it's going be single-person parties with the option of larger parties, from what I've read. So yeah, they're going to totally rework it. One of the biggest flaws (depends on how you look at it) is the 8-person party requirement through most of the games. That's a lot of people to be asking for.

I love how anyone who doesn't adhere to the ANET party line is automatically labeled a complainer by a fair number of posters on these forums. Look if you don't the topic an issue either don't post or post a valid counter point. Telling people to quit complaining is not helpful nor a valid criticism.

It's pretty obvious we are unlikely to ever get the ability to party with 7 hero's and ANET desire to encourage actual humans to play together is admirable but runs up against the reality of online gaming. Which is when you require groups of people to play together then there actually have to be people available to fill that need. Failing that the player should have the ability to get whatever they are attempting to accomplish done without having to stand around for hours looking for groups that then proceed to fail once the missions starts.

To the comments that there are plenty of people around to form HM groups, I don't know what game you are playing but it isn't GW. That simply is not a true statement. I have completed over 30 missions across all 3 chapters in HM and here's how I did yesterday in HM; Hell's Precipice, stood around almost 45 minutes waiting for a group to form up. Entered mission, Seer died due to the group standing around watching her get attacked. The end. Tried to find a group in a couple of desert missions, no luck...half hour wasted. Tried to find a group in one of the Shiverpeak missions, completely zero action in Hard Mode...another half hour wasted. Went back to Hell's...another half hour waiting for group to form up...party wipe within 15 minutes due to one moronic tank who managed to rush around and aggro basically every red date he could find and then pull them all back on the casters. So at this point I give up on Hell's for the day and go back to the desert. Find a group...amazing! Discuss strategy going in, great. Get into mission, fail. Another half hour has gone by. Try again...fail the bonus because again simple aggro management is too complex for a variety of players. Another hour plus wasted. The end of GW for the day. So of my time "playing" yesterday I was able to spend less then half of my time actually in a mission and the rest of my time attempting to find groups.

The point of that sad story is that every person that I grouped with yesterday had the same experience. Maybe they had more success in other missions or were more persistent, but that's not a pleasurable game experience. That's a problem that needs to be fixed by ANET in some way or they are just making their customer base investigate other alternatives.

QFT. That said, to each their own. I think that anyone trying to force an opinion on someone else needs to double check their priorities. Lets not forget everyone here is different. Not everyone has regular playing friends and thats no fault of their own. Not everyone here is at the same skill level within the game. And not everyone wants to do hard mode, because there's too much time and effort involved in the vanquisher and guardian titles. Please don't think I'm pointing fingers either, I'm merely stating the obvious.

For the record, I don't have a single max title. My best is Tyrian Master Carto at 96.6% presently.

So whats the point of adding 10 new heroes in GW:EN if I can only have 3 heroes in my team?

Even in a great guild its hard to get a party to vanquish certain areas. The vanquisher runs are long, and people might not have the time, or they may have started befor you got online, or they may have finished the area you want to do.

So, Heres what my guild has done a couple of times:

A guildie will "lend" his heroes and then exit the party, allowing you the option to have a party of 7, including three extra heroes with skillbars designed for the area, rather than a party of 8.

Since henchmen monks in 2 games are particularly bad (no condition or hex removal, bad energy managment), having two good monks helps... Or, you could instead take 2 extra barrage or intterupt (or packhunter) rangers with pets and get durable anticaster with pet tanks (that never get dp). Or you could take a mesmer or necro or elementalist with the precise builds needed to beat the area.

And all of the heroes may have runes and weapons with bonuses surpassing the no-runes white-weapons-with-no-mods gear that the henchmen use.

3 good henchmen is better than 4 average henchment.

Why does everyone keeps saying "pointless pugs" "people suck" blah blah blah... when you only need one good person and their heroes to make the awesome 2/6 combo team? If you're telling me that you think in an online game, you shouldn't even have to be bothered to find ONE PERSON to party with, you really ought to take a look at, say, any other MMO out there, and tell me exactly how many of them give you anything remotely like heroes, or let you fill up a team for any but the most elite missions with what essentially amount to bots. Go ahead and complain if you want to, but this is an online game, and I think Anet drew a "line in the sand" if you will at 3 heroes per player, and I thank them for it.

I've wondered that myself. Only reason I see for it is so that, if someone actually wanted, they could bring THREE ele or war heros instead of just 2.

While this may not be the primary reason, it could take up a significant amount of time and in-game gold getting runes, equipment, and upgraded armor for them.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

That's not very relevant since most MMOs can be entirely soloed. The only time you would perhaps need to party with other players would be for missions or instances, which are enitrely optional.

Hi guys. I have read some of the comments here and feel we (hard vs normal mode players) are fighting on different issues. The main poster of this thread, if you recall, if a hardmode player (like myself). Let me just break up the "hero issue" the way I see it.

Normal Vs Hard Mode

A compromise can be reached if ANET allows 3 heroes for normal mode, and 7 heroes for hard mode (but see the conditional unlock below). This would motivate a majority of the people to finish the game.

7-Heroes Vs 3-Heroes for Advanced Titles

Guardian and Vanuisher can be considered to be the most advanced titles in the GW game, because it shows a high level of player experience.

We do NOT need 7-heroes for LB and SS titles. But we do need 7-heroes"for Guardian and Vanquisher ones because the enemies are way smarter (which is neat). We need the extra 4-heroes to tweak our team build so that we can improve our combat effectiveness. As of current, it is painful to see a few enemy wipe out an entire team. And let's not discuss what the Rit/ELE bosses can do to the team...

A Conditional Unlock for 7-heroes?

It would be nicer if 7-heroes is enabled in "HARD-MODE" ONLY if a player character has satsified some or all of the following conditions:

[1] Achieved the Title Protector of Elona.
[2] Achieved LVL8 Lightbringer Title (he can use all 7-heroes in Torment Areas only, and 3-heroes if LB < 8).
[3] Achieved LVL10 Sunspear Title. (he can use all 7-heroes in the lands of Elona, but not in DOA or Torment).

If conditions 1-3 are satisfied, then a new Title "7-Heroes Commander" should be made available (ok, this was joke).

My point is, if conditions 1-3 are indeed satsified, then a player CAN use all 7-heroes anywhere in Tyria or Cantha too!

The above conditions ensures that a LVL4 lightbringer character is NOT able to use 7-heroes to farm LB points in Torment effectively. But he can use it to farm LB points in Elona if he has reached LVL10 Sunspear.

Hard Mode Unlock Issue

I feel that hard-mode being unlocked across all characters (even those LV20 characters which haven't beaten any contient) is probably the biggest design mistake ANET made in Guild Wars. Hard mode should be unlocked on a "character-basis" and not "account-basis". Why do I say this? It has promoted farming on a ridiculous scale which is threatenng to the GW economy. Ok, I will not digress any further...let's get back to the hero issue.

Lastly, ANET's Clutter Argument

I do feel that it might cutter the screen if a player sees the skill bar of all 7-heroes, but the truth is, most players will not do it because it is just stupid to watch everything going on.

Bottom Line(s)

7-heroes should be made conditional, not fixed throughtout (to avoid abuse). It should only be made available to a select few who have proven themselves in Elona, and would like to take the "hard-mode" challenge back to Tyria or Cantha.

Experienced players spend a fortune on each of the15 heroes. Give us a reason to enjoy GW even more by allowing us to reap the fruits of our investment (both time, and money).

Hope we see something useful from this thread.

After the Soul Reaping Nerf, I signed up for the Beta for Sword of the New World (Granado Espana). This MMO lets you control three characters at the same time as its normal mode of play. The controls (and they are messing with the control scheme right now) allow you to switch which character you are primarily controlling on the fly, as well as coordinate attacks and other skills.

The extra characters arent heros, they are your characters... you create them, pick their appearance, level them, and equip them.

And of course you can wander into other players on the fly (who will also be controlling their three characters.

It's not supposed to have monthly fees either. So I like what I see so far. Of course the price mode could add monthly fees at the last minute (like Hellgate), or there could be other stuff in the game I dont like, but right now it looks like a very solid & bug free MMO.

Anet needs to consider that:

- People have different timezone
- Hard Mode doesnt appeal to all players
- Not everyone in big pve only guilds
- People have different play styles
- People have their own ways enjoying this game
- Some people are immature and jerks
- Player base are spreaded in 3 continents

I could add some more but these are just the ones I could think of in few minutes.

Being able to use 7 heroes is mostly a band-aid to the problem GW has. And that is, while you are looking for a group, you cannot do anything else. In MMOs, you can throw yourself at a quest and if you run into another player that happens to be doing the same quest, you group up. This provides an option for players to engage in content that is not popular/crowded without forbidding groups.

As Guild Wars has no means of inviting people to a map after a player has started, much less even being able to party seek, players are stuck either waiting around and doing nothing while they find a group, or jumping in and suffering through with 4 henchmen. As Arenanet adds more activities (Hard mode missions _and_ vanquishing) the wait times on finding a group increase and just going in solo becomes more attractive.

A few weeks ago I was in Dasha Vestibule to do the mission and there were exactly ZERO other players there. It was 4am on a weekday, but jeeze.
Then last Sunday night I was back there with another char and there were 4 other people, but the place was quiet as a tomb and no one was even moving around.
Right now there's 3 different games and 2 modes, with less people playing now than when there was just 1 game(my personal obversations, not scientific fact) and there's going to be an expansion to scatter folks even farther.

So in answer to the question, "Is it really that hard to find just one other person?" I'd have to say YES. And it will soon get harder.

At the risk of dragging this thread off-topic, let me tell you MORE about this so-called Gaynado Esgrinda.-

-Make no mistake, the NPC cards that you can get mostly have fixed appearance AND stance set AND fixed stats. Some of them (just the soldiers of various towns, which are CRAPS anyway) can be chosen to be male/female and THAT'S IT, no other customization can be done to them.

-No matter how hard you try, you can't really control each character that effectively. The game is design so that your 3 characters MUST operate effectively at the same time. Although you can tell your characters to focus attack, doing so will make your healer (provided that you have one) stop healing and just stand there (healer must not carry anything in order to heal so he can't attack).

The ONLY mode that your healer will heal automatically is "Guard Mode", which will make your melee attacker run around following mobs like a headless chicken while your caster try to solo another group of mobs on his own. Fun isn' it?

-Switching around between 3 characters may sounds cool. But in reality, it becomes a chore. In GW, your heroes use skills that they have, right? But in GE, your 3 characters WON'T use any skills AT ALL unless you tell them to (well, except 1 skill; HEAL). Now, imagine telling your melee character to use "Provoke" while at the same time telling your warlock to cast his AoE fire spell AND forcing your healer to heal the melee character NOW instead of later. Fun, isn't it?

-Don't even get me start about the grind, and the item mall, and the NPC card characters (which, ironically, the rarer they are, the more powerful. But they come as low level so.....have fun grinding them up to the lv120, same as your other characters).

There's not much else to do in the game other than grinding for levels and fighting some NPCs to gain their cards AND grind for their levels again (if you want ot use them). You can also grind for money and buy beatiful costumes (cost more than 1 million a piece) OR EMOTES (yeah, you HAVE to buy them to use them) or pay real cash for some exclusive items in the Item Mall AND sell it to people in the game for in-game gold. See? No need for e-bay gold.

And like nearly every other Korean MMOs, there's no monthly fee but you have to deal with semi-improtant items in the Item Mall instead (+20%exp scrolls, warp scrolls, healing potions (that are at least useful), the most powerful NPC cards (can't find in-game) OR the upgrade book (in order to grind beyond lv100).

And yeah, I played the Thai version of the game. I couldn't stand the fact that it took me 3 hours of effective (READ: Fight the toughess mobs I could find) grinding to go from lv23-24, and found myself needing a lot more cash to get the new gears for that level AND upgrade them to the "usable" stats.

Joy.

I'm afraid you are mistaken... the game is far from perfect.

agreed. I refuse to use pugs in all cases. Know why? Because all of these idiot 12 year old-know-it-allers think...they know it all! Yeah, who cares about the ones who have been playing two years, gotten numerous of titles and gear. It is the playerbase that ruined pugging for me. The good old days are gone: when everyone actually tried to HELP rather than belittle another person because WTFX MONK USE HEALZSED NUB!' hontestly. ANet realized they screwed up with heros, hence the introduction of GW2.

I find it funny, because Guild Wars has some good content, but some of the poorest sports in the game. This make good pugs really hard to find. Also you have lame people who will only let select classes and builds into there groups. It just make hero's better then 50% of people you find in PvE. Well I guess when you pay no monthly fee for Guild Wars, you get what you pay for, or lack there of for support. Good thing they got PvP or this game would have been as worthless as the games in the discount rack at Walmart.

1. It doesn't require a significant change to the interface.
2. It actually salvages some aspect of cooperative gameplay.
3. It means that you can't just fall asleep at your computer while the heroes do the killin' for you (as you'll piss off the other person that you're playing with).

I really don't see what the big uproar is about allowing one more hero, since you can already obtain 6 heroes by just finding ONE person to play with.

Lack of confidence in that ONE person? We aren't talking about a "PuG" here...

I agree with you here... although, I've been trying to "PuG" a little more and it is definitely ... lacking? You can get a majority of good people, but then you have that one guy who thinks it's needed to spam "I'm using Barrage on That Guy!" 209348098 times. Please. Or the people that spam "I'm picking up 98 gold coins." Yay? The spammy-annoyingness of people irritates me. I have little to no patience for these people. Then when I kick them from the party, I am flamed in a PM about how much of a "nub" I am. kthxbye.

Yesterday I was getting randoms together to do some Sorrow's Furnace things, used to farm this SF back in the day, let's see how it is today! I had people ping their skills just to make sure they had rez's mostly. I'm usually just curious to see what other people use. But none were turned away with their current build.

I think a lot of people think only XYZ work in this area, if you have a C build, you don't belong here. "nub!" Close-minded people, ya know?

I helped a guy yesterday with Final Assault, his build was 4 warriors and 4 monks. His warrior, my monk and the rest heroes. It was interesting... but it was kind of cool to do something completely different.

I'll "PuG" with just about anyone... it is actually a nice way to meet new players and stuff. But sometimes my impatience gets the best of me...

7 Heroes is better than regular players right?

So let me get this straight... the reason people don't like pugging is because they are too impatient, too intolerant and too elitist to deal with others?

I hate heroes with a passion and I always will. I'd rather pug; yes, you find assholes, but you also find nice people. If I want to play with bots I'll go play Oblivion.

Regarding the lack of people playing HM, my opinion is: not rewarding enough. Why should I waste my lockpicks on locked chests if most of the times I get a non-max purple staff anyway?

If I solo farm some area on HM, why does it take 30m to get one measly gold item, some times not even max?

Improve locked chests drops and monster drops, and I am sure more will be playing HM.

to you players here that have a problem with others playing with heroes should really shut it! you dont see them having a problem with those of you who play with pugs and seriously quit telling them to "go play a single-player game" didnt you notice that guild wars supports all types of gameplay? and maybe the gameplay of those other single-player games doesnt appeal to them. quit forcing others to play YOUR style and what game they should play, leave them be. if you keep acting that way then i should tell you to go play second life if you desperately want human interaction that badly.

and this comes from a person who actually pugs a lot even with my boyfriend we pug a lot

Assuming a lot there. I don't have a whole lot of time each day on the computer, so it's hard for me to find a group - that's one reason. Another is many have had awful experiences with PUGs and would rather avoid the chance of ever having that same experience.

Why is that?

Too impatient? You realize some people actually have lives and can only play sometimes, right? If some guy can only play 2 hours a night, I don't really think it's being impatient that he doesn't want to spend 1.5 hours of it LOOKING FOR A GROUP. I mean, I don't know about you, but I bought the game to PLAY, not spend hours standing around, and a lot of people simply don't have to TIME to spend hours standing around. at least not if they plan on PLAYING that night.

Too intolerant? Yeah, I am. I spend an hour looking for a group, finally get one, then find out the "healer" monk brought ONE healing skill(yes, I've had it happen), or get a guy who thinks pinging the map and drawing pictures of a dick is a laugh riot, or other things that waste the REMAINING time I have to play, you're right, I'll be intolerate.

Too elitist? Yeah, if I have some goal I'm trying to achieve, I want to achieve it. And I don't want to have to try 5 times because I get some idiot warrior who apparently thinks the more red dots they wake up, the better they are, or because I get some ranger who thinks a good build includes bow attacks, a pet, traps, and some expertise stances.

7 heroes = overpowered

Everything in this game would be far too easy. Blah blah blah I know you can use 2 real players now and 6 heroes but it takes more time and effort to find a partner that...
a)has the heroes you are looking for
b)team player who will synergize his builds with yours
c)has all necessary skills unlocked for his/her heroes

Give me 7 heroes and you can remove those 3 obstacles altogether. Point and click on a template and you can steamroll through anything in any mode of any campaign.

OVERPOWERED - most of you know this in the back of your mind so no need for me to further point of the obvious. And yes a real team of 8 competent players can also be powerful but funny thing is they are not under my control. (permanent Aegis, Incoming chain anyone?)

They don't wear armor/weapons that I want them to wear.
They can't be flagged or told to stand still where I tell them to stand.
I can't control the lag on another person's end.
I can't control their skill set in any particular order.
Without vent/ts it's really hard to sychronize a spike on a particular target.
Real playes aren't online when you need them sometimes.
Not everyone has the profession(s) you are looking for.
PUGS + competence = Oxy Moron
Due to latency among many other things, humans cannot react faster then the computer AI (see interuptions)

It wouldn't be "overpowered", it would just be more convienient and isolate you further from playing with other people. It's because of that previous fact that we won't be given 7 heroes, not because they're so called "overpowered". Keep in mind that as efficent as heroes can be that there are still quite a few skills and builds that they don't use properly.
I'd also like to discuss these points:

Not very important. As long as the armor is max, along with the weapons, then you shouldn't have much of a problem.
Ping on the compass and say "Hey guys can you stand there for a moment?"
Always gonna be a problem.
Doesn't really matter. It has to take someone really dumb to do skills in the wrong order.
Not a whole lot of spiking going on in PvE...
Agree with both.
Again, agreed...I'm a little confused on your stance - are you for or against 7 heroes??
That's why you don't see a whole lot of mesmers around. It's probably the class that takes the most skill, too.
The thing is you don't need to totally deck them out. You can just give them a minor vigor run and they'd be fine. And I actually think it would help the economy since we need more goldsinks, but that's very unrelated.

8 competent human players = overpowered.

Thus Anet should not permit human players to group together anymore, except maybe 2 so that they can make a party of 2 humans + 6 heroes.

The reason I hate heroes is because they have further thinned out the playerbase, which is already thinned due to three worlds.

And to DKS, all that bs can be bypassed by screening/talking with other players. My encounters with bad pugs has been few, and yes, if those two characters you referenced are new to the game, you need to chill out and maybe offer advice.

Sorry if you are jaded, but I don't let assholes/idiots/newbies get to me.

I can understand not pugging because of low population in the area, and I could only see 7 heroes in hard mode.

We only really want 7 heroes for Hard Mode anyway, Normal Mode is fine since there are enough players there and henches are more than good enough. Basically a team of 7 henches in Normal Mode could probably clear an area while you go afk. In Hard Mode, even a group of 7 heroes couldn't do that without help from the player.

I always take a hero in hard mode as they make the best interupters but usually have to fight off guildies for the other spots. I love my guild!!

And they've also helped out areas/regions/territories with very little players. I also think they were added because the playerbase was spread out along three worlds.

Numerous losses just waste my time, which I don't have much of.

I always play with my partner and use 6 heroes so the change wouldn't affect me either way, but I don't see why some people are so uptight about dictating whether someone plays with 7 heroes or 3 heroes and 4 henchmen.

Live and let live.

That's the same thing that comes up every time there's a discussion about heroes. The people who don't want them bash the people who are for the option? Why? I don't really know. Maybe they are upset because those players don't want to play them, or with random people at all.

Me, I've never really liked pugs. Unless it's a guild group or firends I do not play iwth other people. It's not like I haven't tried though, but a lot of times I'm sitting there spamming LFG and even when I do get a response, I am shooed away when they see my class. Wife, Kids, and work don't give me all the time in the world so I like to get in, get things done, and get out. I don't have time or a real desire to sit and instruct someone on why there build sucks, or complain about people doing stupid stuff in the middle of a mission.

I wouldn't mind if they allowed 7 heroes for Hard Mode or at the very least spruced up the Henchmen builds a bit. Even though they are not going to do it, I am still not going to play in random groups. I'd take my chances with 7 henchmen rather than 7 random people if I didn't have the heroes (like I did pre-NF). Well, if I'm in a guild group and we are missing like 1 or 2 then yeah, but otherwise, it's pretty much not gonna happen.

Too right! Same here. No harm no foul, they say.