Heroes Ruined Guild Wars?

Heroes are the best thing to happen to guildwars. Period. I used to waste so much time trying to grab groups only to fail missions 5 minutes in. Thank you anet for adding these to the game. You win.

My first adventure in GuildWars took place on April 30th, 2005, and with that said:

Everyone has their opinions about heroes - and everyone should have their own choice as to how to play their Guild Wars.

I think the two main positives about the introduction of heroes for me were:

1. Allowing me to move through the game at my own pace, whether it be at my leisure or my haste, depending on how much time I had for my GW session. No more waiting for a random group of players hopelessly stranded among 40 missions, and having one shot at trying to complete a masters mission (on a particular outing that is) only to get 1/2 way through and realise you just wasted the opportunity because your monk starts casting firestorms and your necro is healing your group better.

2. Allowing me to freely, without ridicule or persecution, test every single build for all my characters I've ever imagined, and actually use them through a mission/quest - and succeed. No more cookie-cutting builds because the group leader insists you carry this or that skill. If only the general party leader would understand that it's the player, not the character and the skill set, that makes the great player. If the player doesn't know how the skill you demand in their skillset works, how do you expect them to use it properly anyway? For those whose monks are supposedly collecting dust because you think you're worthless now that heroes have emerged - do what I did and try smiting/protection and take your heroes/henchies along. I doubt you'll ever get that opportunity if you were to join a PUG.

It is very important to maintain a freedom of choice as to how to play this game. I think it is it's most redeeming quality infact. I love joining well-organized groups of real people, but with the thinning of the community across multiple campaigns it just isn't feasible ALL the time. So, thank you Heroes and Nightfall.

Dunkoro doesnt draw male genitalia on the mini map.

Acolyte Sousuke doesnt go to frontline and over aggro mobs.

Heroes did not kill pugs, crap pugs killed pugs. If pugs were good and reliable all the time, do you think people would pick heroes over them? I like playing with people too, I just don't like playing with idiots.

I like the heroes a lot. Too bad you can have just 4 of them, it would be cool to have a full party of them when you intend to hench things.

And yes, I like to have the choice wether or not I play single- or multiplayer. I would find it a great miss when GW would have no heroes or henchies.

Guild wars PvE solo is not a good game. It's pure, dumb hack n slash. Compare it to any of the top single-player RPGs out there and you'll see what I mean. GW pve has always had lame paper-thin storylines. There's nothing you can do that impacts the storyline whatsoever. The game just walks you through. It's just bad....

Heroes promote soloing in an already sorely lacking pve experience. Not fun IMO.

QTF

I stopped mainstream PUGing long ago before even Factions was released because i got fed up with so may terrible players with attitude problems. Ill PUG now and again to help others or occassionally just because i feel like it but when PUGing i always have to keep in mind the chances of failing increase by about 500%. Heroes didnt kill a single thing, there just a customised Henchie that allows u to have a better team build, people who dont PUG wouldnt PUG even if there wasnt any heroes. Heroes also make it considerably to find partys for High End quests and Missions also.

Why, exactly, are you comparing GW to a single-player RPG? I enjoy a good RPG as much as anyone, but I play GW for a reason, namely playing around with my friends... something that heroes made so much easier.

A couple quick thoughts...
I have mixed feelings, I do enjoy playing with other players much more than heros & hench.

However, it is difficult to get a good group together.

I have really had some fun putting together Hero builds with mine to work incredibly well together with respect to synergy

For those who like to play with people, I think Hard Mode is great. the people who play Hard Mode are generally much better than normal mode pugs.

QFT..

At first, I would PuG all the time. It helped learn how to set up my build better. It taught me how to play better. It taught me how to work as a team.

After a few months..I just started using henchies more than PuG's. It wasn't that I had more to learn. It wasn't that I disliked working as a team or learning from others. I disliked the afk leeching, the whining, the random/rage quitters, the unreliable people, the skill/profession elitists, and in general people who only had fun it ruining everyone else's game time.

Hero's helped me get somethings accomplished that I wouldn't have tried or missions/quests that I had the hardest time completing. I still PuG now and then to help people through missions I know I had difficulty the first time through.

At the worst, Hero's didn't ruin Guild Wars, but it may have spoiled the players.
Still, I enjoy the Hero's and what they can do for me.

Ruined for who? As many have said before Heroes (and henchmen before them) are always around in the empty missions, and save for the occasional Little Thom rambo spasm, they follow orders and will coordinate with you.

Contrast that with 95% of the players who would look down on a healing rit or think Paragons are n00bs and suck in PvE, I am far better off and very happy with the option to play with computer players who will do what I say and dont spend more time typing "n00b" or "HEAL!!" every 4 seconds than actually playing and helping.

The only humans I play with are friends and/or guild mates, or occasionally I will PUG it up if I feel like it (90% of the time immediatly regretting it). I enjoy having the choice and if they removed Heros/Henchmen I would probably not play.

And in direct response to the question, no HEROES did not ruin the game. I beat Prophesies and Factions with all Henchmen, Heroes were not around so they couldnt have ruined it then, their functionality is no different than the henchmen that have been around since day 1. To me heroes are simply customizable Mule warriors

so true, although sometimes i think he is screwing around with me live(s).

This morning I did a pug with two monks from the same guild, i just infused my mesmers 15 K suits and thought, hell, why not join em and actually do the Iron mines mission. Ok we set forth with a reasonably balanced group, I thought.

Ok lets rush past the first mob and avoid a tedious fight. Zap, the necro used necrotic traversal to the outpost. Ok we rush past with the remaining guys and we are on to the giants. We decide to fight from there on. No problem, fighting is usually quite quick as well, i never liked running there too much. I hear crackling noises come from the giants, they are on fire O_O .

Damn where is that fiery stuff coming from? Ok lets check secondaries, as we didnt have any ele. mmmmm the monk is the only one, could it be? Indeed lava arrows was still in the aftercast of his arms. Ok, we are being kept alive so lets rock on.

Dzang, whats this arrow shooting forth from the hands of the other monk? Spear of lightning? Wow, what is happening here. Ok I recognized a few more spells from my arcane knowledge, an healing wind, a spell infusing the caster and nearby creatures with health. mmmm strange arcane users. my thoughts were darkening. clouds covered my frontal lobes.

We were suffering, some of us died, why the monks let us die? I use my ether sucking powers on targets to make sure I dont fall low on health, it seems much more potent then their healing magicks. They were not even blessed by the gods which can aid em so much in their tasks. If they were just a little bit more devoted to for example preventing some damage as well we wopuldnt need to be healed. No instead they throw their arcane energies in front of the enemies feet.

Finally we made it to kill the evil Markis, some frontline casualties unfortunately. I felt with them as its not so nice to be channeled back from the skies, much weaker then before.



Yeah, PUGS^^. They can be fun but you must not experience too much of this stuff. I obviously didnt comment on them, nor did others, but maybe we should have so the educate them a little bit what alternatives exist beside healing. now other will join their ranks, and die just in front of their eyes.

I have yet to find any sort of solo computer game beyond Black and White 2 that I enjoy to play and as much as I enjoy playing that, I can only stomach so much of it before I want to bang my head against a wall. I play GW to have fun and I play it because I enjoy it.

I like to play with people, I just don't like to play with PUGs. Most of the people that I play with now are people that I have already met for some reason and then played with. By that point, if they're a bad player I can deal with their shortcomings, as I know they are otherwise nice, good people so it's no big deal for me. Also, for the most part, they are not a problem because despite not knowing what to do, they're aren't so stupid that they will just try and take charge and waste any effort put forth toward the goal. There's a time to be a leader and there's a time to be a follower, and unfortunately a lot of people in GW don't know when to be which.

I've had enough bad experiences with PUGs that I really try to avoid them as much as possible because, like I already said, I play this game to have fun and enjoy myself. I don't enjoy spending an hour doing something just to have some idiot warrior get bored and pull every possible enemy into the casters resulting in a full party wipe because he wanted some chuckles.

I don't enjoy having penises and boobs drawn on my minimap, both of which are usually accompanied by someone scribbling all over said penises or boobs. Then someone else incessantly pinging on the minimap. Or someone spamming who they're attacking, or what weapons they're wielding.

I don't enjoy putting together a group for FoW, asking one of monks what his skillbar is, he pings a heal build, then to be a jerk decides to change to his 55 build, complete with 55 armor.

I don't enjoy a warrior that decides to leeeeroy into a group and then yell when you didn't heal them because you were back with the other casters who need to regen their 100+ energy because they think it's a good idea to nuke with no e-management and a +15/-1 wand and offhand.

I don't enjoy snotty monks who say "If you don't do this, I just won't heal you"

I don't enjoy guys in my groups who sit around and talk about how they should smack their women around so they shut the hell up about something. Or about how rape is like, the kewlz tee hee.

I don't enjoy spending 30 minutes putting together a group for Urgoz just to have a ranger who's never done it before decide it needs to pull, an ele who, for whatever reason, has firestorm and a monk who runs all the way into a room filled with enemies, then when rebirthed, runs right back in and then leaves.

See, Dunkoro and Tahlkora won't demand halfway through a mission that I pay them 5k or they won't heal. And even if, for whatever reason, they decide they don't want to use a spell, I can make them use it whether they like it or not.

If I tell Koss to go aggro a group, he will aggro that group and that group only. If I tell him to stand there and be a tank and hold aggro, he will hold it to the best of his ability. He won't run back to the rest of us, beyond us, and then let the squishies take the brunt of the aggro and then giggle when we all die.

None of the heroes or henchmen will draw a bunch of obscene images on the minimap or ping incessantly and then leave when I ask them to stop.

If it weren't for heroes and henchmen, I would not have gotten my protector titles. There's never anybody in Unwaking Waters, when I went for master's there, the first time on the other side I got a group of 1 person, 7 henchies. We almost had Kuunavang to the health break when you get the cut scene and the other person decided to leave. I then didn't have enough firepower to kill Kuunavang and had to start over. I then got a group of 8 henchies and I beat it with 0 trouble.

I spent nearly a week trying to PUG masters for Moddok Crevice and Nundu Bay, as I figured they were surely missions I'd rather do with people. Failure after failure after failure led me to, out of frustration, add my heroes and henchmen to my group. Guess what? I managed them both on the first try, what a surprise.

Are there some good PUGs? Yes, of course there are. Are they hard to find? Most certainly. I would much rather get to know someone and then party with them than party with someone and get to know them, because 9 times out of 10, I find they're really not worth getting to know.

If people weren't jerks, heroes would not be as desired as they are. I'd much, much rather play with nice, good company than that of heroes. I'd much, much rather play with heroes than bad, rude company.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: STOP TELLING OTHER PEOPLE TO GO PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME IF THEY DON'T LIKE TO PUG. You obviously don't realize how idiotic that statement is when you say it.

NEWS FLASH: If the people who only played with heroes and henchmen were suddenly to disappear tomorrow, you would still have the same amount of people to play with as you do now and finding a group would still be a problem. In GW and not playing with you or not in GW and not playing with you, it won't make a difference. They weren't available for you to play with in the first place. So you go right ahead and have Anet completely rid the game of heroes and henchmen. I'd love to see you whining then when you need a party of 8 and can only find 5 people and can't supplement it with 3 heroes or henchmen.

You've been playing for 8 months? Nightfall has been out for 7 1/2 months. So heroes have been a part of almost all of your GW time then...

Coming from someone that plays a lot and has many guildmates that also do, heroes are an integral part of GW survivability at times such as now, the 'quiet times.' What I'm saying is that when new campaigns come out the existing players and 'hardcore' players tend to group up together and move multiple characters through. At least that's what happens in my guild. In two or three months most have all of their characters through and are moving back to the more individual things such as mapping and other titles. Either that or they play a lot less. Since there are fewer people that need to do storyline quests and missions there are fewer willing to do them just for something to do. This is where heroes come in to help fill missing spots. The same thing happened prior to Factions and Nightfall releases, except at at that time people used entirely henchman teams. There will be less grouping until there's new content that everyone is doing at the same time. Of course, when that content does come and there is more grouping, my guildees and I will be in the group. If you're having problems finding groups at that time it won't be because of heroes.

If you don't have a guild it's much harder to 'accidentally' form rapport with other players. Yes, guilds are chat rooms, but they're much more than that. One thing that stands out that pertains to you is the ability to ask for assistance from people that you "know" as opposed to standing in outposts hoping to get it. You'll also have an idea of what the others are needing and wanting to do so that you can join them. Most decent guilds also have websites that allow you to post/schedule something you would like to do.

So no, heroes have not ruined GW for me or anyone in my guild. They do not correlate to what you perceive as a problem when it comes to my involvement in the game world. Had you been standing around in Augury Rock spamming the desire for help doing a quest in December '05 it would appear no different to me than seeing you do it today. Whether it be then or now I'd probably not see it because I keep local chat off to avoid immaturity, not see it because I tend to not read chat when I'm on TS with my guildmates or ignore it because I'm helping a guildee or on my way to help a guildee, or ignore because I'm at the point where I'm mostly working on individual things such as mapping or vanquishing and I'm just making a pitstop.

That remembers me of Norgu running the whole distance of the radar(no not just aggro circle) to cast energy surge on an enemy.

Heroes are really grat in filling up the missing spots in the groups. Now 3-4 players are enough for a 8 man team and it should be easier to find a group, just take 4 random classes and fill up with monks a minion master or whatever is needed. On the other hand too many people try to do everything on their own which makes it hard to find even the 4 players you need for a real group.

Maybe if the include something like teamspeak into the game and you don't have to hand out IPs of some servers which always takes too much time things will get better. Then you could easily ask players all the stuff you need to coordinate properly. No one uses TS² except for the elite missions but it makes life so much easier.

Remember the titan quests it took ages to find enough players to form a group if you had no complete guild team. And something like a missing monk was always a big problem. Now you don't need a full team and you can use the party screen to find players as well (too bad hardly anyone uses it)

I use PUGs 99.99% of the time. That 0.01% is when there is repeatably no one in an outpost when I'm trying to do a mission. I will rarely have trouble with PUGs also. What I do is I ask people to ping their build. If they refuse, I dont group with them. If their build is a bit...strange...I ask them to explain, if they make sense, I keep them.

I dont worry to much about what class you are, as long as we have two healers (monk or rit) and one frontline (yes even if that one person is an assasin). The rest, I would fill in with mesmers and paragons if they were available. And yes I have dont this before, infact I had two mesmers, myself (warrior), two monks, a paragon, a ranger, and an assasin in the Gate of Madness and we OWNED. I drew main agro, the assasin came in after me to do his spike. The mesmers worked together brilliantly, the paragon had a bunch of chants that make me Superman with the ranger spreading poison and burning we didnt hardly need the monks at all.

My point is if you are careful about who you let in your group and make sure that they know how to run their build, even if it isn't cookie-cutter, you can do missions very well. If they have a bad attitude before the mission, they will have a bad attitude in the mission.

That is a very bad idea and arrogant.What are those who only have Prophecies and Faction suppose to do especially if you just left presearing or Sin Jea island?This whole issuee of heros ruining GW is some what right as back in the old Prophecey only day it was a much better game maybe because you learned slower.The player were more cooperative but some of the real good players have left the game and new ones game who just fly through it and don't know a thing about.I always make sure my Guildies do if not I help them out with it.

The pain in playing with heros is that you have to flag them which I don't do enough of.When playing is coop missions if you wait and be patient you will get into a group sooner or later as most tough missions ppl want real ppl.There is a forum down below for pugs and mission help just make a post in there and look in services you might be able to buy a run.This though is ruining cooperative play in AB as most dn't carry a res signet the most important skill on a bar in the game.

I will agree that it is a lot hard to use heros as a Monk as we don't like to call out targets and they don't attack unless called.This not really what the community asked for it asked for to be able to change Henchman skill bars.I am not a big proponet of heros but I don't mind them out questing.It would be interseting to see heros used in PvP though not just heros battles all the way to gvg.

My personal experience. I needed Masters at Nahpui Quarter with my healer monk. Went to look for a PUG because guildies aren't around. Got into a group within minutes, everyone seems to be ok with the fact that I am looking for a Masters group and ensured me that we are going for masters. The mission started, and the entire team keep stopping at EVERY chests and taking piss stops every corner of the way... so much for my assurance of "we will try for masters..."

Now had I known that the group did not even have the slightest intension of trying for masters I would've went on to look for a group that will. I am not saying that the group HAS to do what I need just because I was a healing monk, rather, I would like some honesty in what they want to do. In this case, I would have even healed for them if they were honest with me to begin with.

So did heros became my HEROS, yes! GW is much more fun now that I have the option of doing all the missions with only hero and hench. I will still join pick-ups and help others and all. I just like the option of doing things on my own too.

join a PVE guild and you will have real people to play with


guild players > pugs

You guys talk like Guild Wars is the only game with bad players.
I played alot of other MMO's before guild wars, and there was always the bad player.
Whenever you go people tell you to be better you have to group with people learn from them.
Well everyone guess what,no you're not that good if you solo the game.
You can't say that's you're a good player without playing with others.
You might've been as bad as the guys you are making fun of, but the problem is that your ego makes you think you're so damn good.

No. Just no.

You're suggesting that those of us who have finished all three campaigns, play PVP, have good skill-bars, etc, are as bad as those who draw genitals on the map, use mending and healing signets and don't know how to use their own profession correctly.

Yeah, you will see bad players in any game you play, but ego really has nothing to do with this. I don't pretend to be the best player in the world, infact, I'm sure I'm not even as good as most players on this forum, but I know for a fact that I am better than a lot of random players out that, it has nothing to do with ego.

Can you blame them? no one wants to team with them and teach them.
And yes not everyone on guild wars knows Guild Wars Guru or wiki to learn.



Edit: Typo.

And can you blame us? When they are not willling to listen or learn, and throw our suggestions back in our faces? R/E who ran around with fire spells build, shouting "I'm a druid! I live in the wood and know magic!", an ele who thinks he's a monk, a monk who thinks he's an ele. A W/A who used bow and wear no body armor, a Necro who thinks he's darkknight and die every 50 sec. You name it I've seen it.

Hey! I'm all for freedom to play the game however you wish, just don't expect to team up with us and waste our time. I was a noob as well when I first started long ago, but I was lucky that my ex-leader was teaching me the art of GW. This game is not the only game that have bad players, but this game give us choice to play with them or not.

Nothing wrong with being inexperience as long as you're willing to learn and listen. Wearing ego jacket is a waste of time, but then again I might be so damn good that I hardly care anymore.

Thank you.

Gonna re-itterate whats been said already. Heroes are as much as you make them, be they the salvation or destruction of the game, it's all down to individual perspective. My personal experience is of massively improved henchmen that have not only made places like Realm Of Torment easier, but have enabled me to improve my own game massively over the past half a year. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think I was a worse player 6 months ago. Yeah, more people play solo now, but if others were to begrudge them that much, they would be no better than the lamentable PuGs you can find just about anywhere.

Every time a thread like this turns up, it's the same old story, we get people who tell H/H players to go find a single player game. Well, I don't think that would honestly solve anything, would it? If they left the game, it certainly wouldn't improve the quality of PuGs. Infact, it would have no impact on the game at all. Then you have people that swear by H/H. It's a fair stance to take, considering how easy it is to burn your hands with a bad PuG and not everyone can rely on friends/guildies 24/7. There is that little thing called real life, you know...

"Heroes are both an enchantment and a hex," yeah, that sounds about right. On the one hand, they add so many extra ways to play the game, but on the other, they drain a lot of the talent from the PuG pool. But we're stuck with them now, whats done is done and I'm sure 99% of us couldn't live without them. (If anything, can you imagine what a logistical nightmare it would be to remove heroes from the game at this point...?)

Just if they make it 3 heroes or 3 henchies max in missions this would solve alot of problems, you have 3 AI slots go with heroes or henchies.
This way the MMO element in this game wont die.

Being kicked because the leader of the PUG did not "like me (or my build)" and being corrected of my "mistakes" during play are both reasons why I don't like to PUG with random people.

Also, those two points in your post, 6am3 Fana71c, are the reason why people will not improve neither in-game or in real life. Constantly thinking that they know everything is hardly a sign of an inquiring mind...

Yes, yes I can. I can blame them for drawing crooked penises on the mini map. I can blame them for running ahead and aggroing a second group and then bringing it back to our monk because they're about to die. I can blame them for the racist, sexist and downright vile bullshit that comes out of their mouth.

If you want help or need something explained to you then ask. Being uninformed is no excuse.

No. Just no.
What happens when you decide to do a mission that rarely has anyone there or you just want the bonus? Basically you're SOL until some random strangers comes by.

If the only way for you to save something is by forcing people into it then it's already over.

PUGs are dead. There isn't anything you can do to fix them at this state.

But then you kill the freedom the game has. Like I said before, I enjoy playing the game with a friend or two, not to join up with other people. Limiting Heroes/henchies would completely destroy the game for people like me, by forcing them to team up with others.

In my opinion, things are fine as they are. It's very possible to play the game by yourself, if you're good enough, or in a small group. But at the same time you can still play with seven others if you want. If you want to play the game as an MMO, ignoring the heroes/henchmen, then you can do that. But the changes your suggesting would only ruin the game for others, to a point were a lot of us would simply stop playing.

Play the game the way you want to play it, I can respect that. But you shouldn't force others to play it the way you think it should be played. Guild Wars has always been advertised as a game you can play in large groups, or just as a single player experience.

Wait for a pug to form for that bonus that will probably fail because we have 1 moron who overlures, or a leaver, or an afk, etc, etc. Long list of things that lead to failure or just the team never even starting.

Or

Take heros with builds you want, bring along a few hench for support, start straight away, can go afk whenever you want without making people wait, will actually be around for things like vanquishes.

If you fail with a pug its generally not your fault, if you fail with H/H it either is your fault for not controlling them well enough or because your build just isn't right for the area.

Find me a pug that can form for a Dreadnoughts Drift vanquish in under 5minutes and suceed and i will never use heros again. Since it is very possible to vanquish said area with H/H.

Oh man, this is great. When you called Guild Wars a "hard" PvE game I almost rofled. What's the hardest encounter now? Mallyx? Isn't that about the only encounter where you can't pick up the seven / eleven people nearest to you and still have a shot at beating it? Right right, after not playing Guild Wars for around 8 months I got a group for Hard Mode Deep the other day. We finished. A total PUG. Try doing that in WoW for the simplest raid encounter and you probably stand no chance.

Then you talk about gear being the only real factor in WoW. You must not pay attention to the WoW news much, because so far two guilds have downed the current hardest raid encounter in the game (Illidan in Black Temple). Neither of those guilds had gear from beyond the first few raid encounters (for those of you who can't understand this kind of WoW-speak, Black Temple could be considered a "Tier-6" raid dungeon. These guilds were in "Tier-4" and "Tier-5" gear). A lot of other guilds were on the same gear level as the two that cleared Black Temple. Clearly a matter of gear over skill. o wait....

Then, skill selection is not "deep" and "complicated". I seriously wonder what you were on when you made this post or if you're seriously that much of a fanboy. Elementalist builds deep and complicated? Any 9 year old with some common sense and reading comprehension could figure out how to use a Searing Flames / Meteor Shower PvE build. Yet somehow PvE is "hard" when you can AoE down every mob while they are knocked down for over half the time. Seriously, Guild Wars PvE is a joke.

I can feel that you have almost no experience with real WoW endgame. You're under the mindset that boss fights are incredibly simple (of course this is kind of difficult to explain to a person who plays a game where there is no concept of aggro). Tank rotations, combat tables, threat....all foreign concepts to you, yet somehow Guild Wars PvE is "hard." Man will it be a surprise to you when you play a game where "tanking" is something more than being the first person to run into a group of mobs...

And for when you are going for cartography titles or skill hunter? Unless our characters can level up more and be stronger and have better weapons and armor, going out in any late game area with only 4 people will most likely be suicide.

Yes, I am.

And you say that no one will play with you, so I assume you're not a good player. Get better and maybe people will let you join their pugs.

Yet you make a thread saying that people should be forced to play with you. That's an ego. Or a sad cry for attention.


It's been said already, heroes didn't kill the social aspect of the game, the people did. I don't seem to have a problem getting into groups when I want, so I would think that maybe it's your attitude that's keeping you out. These threads pop up all the time with people crying they can't find a group because of H/H, they never consider that maybe it's themselves that's keeping them from getting a group.

MISSIONS
Please read it before replying.


You know the warrior with metor shower things he's damn good also.
At least i try to find out if i am good or not trying to join groups and i know i am a good monk in FoW because i get "nice healing" alot.
Ego is wanting to play MMO with other people right?
or Ego is being ignorant to people around you and soloing the the game.
Please check Guild Wars and MMORPG on Wikipedia.

I do play with others, and sometimes I play alone. That's what's great about GW, I have a choice. Nice try, but you lose again.

I'm a good player because I've learned from my experiences with PUGs. Learning usually consisted of shouts of "omg you *^%#ing noob, don't bring Orison on your [email protected] wammo!!!"

That's besides the point, however. One person's experience may've been completely different from someone else's.

This is why I don't/can't PUG: I can usually only play Guild Wars in the morning, EST. This is around 10am to 12pm. There's usually like 3 people in every outpost I go to that isn't a city.

As it's already been stated - probably by me as well - but when you're in a PUG you're pretty much asking for trouble. While it can be forgivable in earlier missions, later missions require a proper and viable build. You're grouping with 7 other strangers that you most likely have never met. You don't know how long they've played, you don't know how comfortable they are with their builds, you don't know their weapons (a good build will do little good when the sword is 9-12 damage (I've seen this happen more than I'd like))...You know pretty much jackshit about them.

Depending on who you are, PUGs are risky. For me, since I have little time, I want to know that I'll be able to get through this mission. That's how PUGs are balanced out for me: With a PUG, there's the chance that we'll win, and become greatly satisfied. With Heroes and Henchies I won't get that satisifaction, but I'd lose the frusteration of having to have been in several unsuccessful PUGs. That's a tradeoff I'm willing to go through with.

As Dragasa has said, this is all about choice. Deadly, you like to PUG. You don't want people to play with Heroes and Henchies so that others can PUG. Not everyone wants to. I'm enjoying my game just fine solo. It is my choice to do so and there's nothing wrong with it.

If you're going to blame anything, blame the way Guild Wars is set-up. You can't do anything in it without a full party, human or not. Not to mention that party sizes are rather large - 8 people is a lot when you think about it, and you need them for every single meaningful area. It sucks.

PUGing has been a problem from the start, whether it was realized or not. Sure, back in the day everything was all super awesome, everyone was pugging and having a blast...That was because Guild Wars was brand spankin' new. It was when there wasn't a whole lot of content to play. Now, a few years later, the Guild Wars universe has nearly tripled in size. Has the player population increased? I'd say barely - the fact that I've had three Friend's List's go obsolete leads me to believe that.

I'll end with this: There can be nothing done about PUGs. Yes, I know you want to play with other people. So do I. But the way it's set up completely goes against it. ANet sees this and wants to change it - which is what they're doing in Guild Wars 2. Whether it will be successful or not, we cannot say. But as always with Arenanet, I hope for the best.

Bryant

I think that heroes became a necessity because PuG-ing started to break down when factions came out. Early in prophecies, PuGs were pretty good because most players were bad. However, due to the nature of GW, most players play through the game multiple times with different classes, so they gain an intimate knowledge of the PvE environment and enemies. Also, with guru and wiki, players figured out a lot of tricks that make PvE much easier. The divide between experienced players and "newbie" players grew larger as time progressed.

When Factions came out, all the experienced players either brought it and moved onto Factions (experienced players who didn't buy probably would grow bored of Prophecies and stop playing). I know many of the towns Prophecies became ghost towns when Factions came out. There are some missions that are very difficult to complete without human players (no heroes at the time), even for an experienced player. You basically must use intimate knowledge of the mission and enemies in order to have a chance with just hench. For inexperienced players, some missions became impossibly hard.

When Nightfall comes out, the same would happen for Factions (how many people do you see in some missions such as Eternal Grove?). Also, another effect is that people who have all the campaigns have a significant advantage over people who do not. The gap between the "experienced" players and the "newbies" grew even further. Just in the process of adding new campaigns, the players are spread more thin over towns.

I think that PuG-ing in general started to die long before Heroes came. I know my PuG experience when prophecies first came out was very fun, but as I got better at the game, it just becomes more and more frustrating because I want to get by a mission I have beaten two times before already but can't find a good group (then I start finding tricks to do it with all hench). PuGs probably work better in other games where your ability to beat PvE is more based on your level and equipment rather than your skill bar and your knowledge of the mission. Even inexperienced players can grind out a few extra levels to make up for their inferior play. In GW, experience trumps everything. I have heard of people beating almost every mission in the game solo (with no hench, no heroes, just one character).

Heroes put another large nail in the coffin of PuGs. I view it as a blessing though. Now lesser experienced players have a shot at completing difficult missions in towns where nobody else can be found. And experienced players can enjoy making their own team oriented builds and strategies without having to look for other experienced players to do so.

There was me thinking GW was a CORPG... i'm cooperating with heros/hench while the useless pugs whine and bitch about how no-one wants to play with them as they use Inferno on there warrior. Part of the learning process involves you THINKING on what needs improving. Not just others telling you its shit.

Heroes did not ruined GW. Au contraire.

They put a little more control and power on player hands, specially the ones like me, that dont have too much time to dedicate do a guild.

For me GW is good because I choose how I will play, when I will play and with whom I will play. This is priceless. And heroes just made it better.

IMHO, GW is not ruined, but a few nerfs and quick leveling messed things a bit. (thats why Prophecies is still the best campaign)