A discussion on 7 heroes

you just get bad people. 7 heros would make the game forced heros for everybody, even if you didn't want to do it.

And what is the difference to 2 players and 6 heroes?

What problem is that when a majority prefer to use heroes?
It's better than forcing people to group with those they don't want to group with: PuGs
And with guilds, you only take heroes if there's no human replacement anyways.

Friends>Guildies>Heroes>PuGs>Henchmen

In all fairness player interaction is fairly dead when it comes to grouping together for missions, except for Z-quests, so why not add in the option for more heroes? Maybe not even 7 just 1/2 more would help people enjoy the game more and surely that's what it's about?

The poll is rather disgusting, never thought I'd see it so one sided. Just goes to show which direction the game has gone over 4 years and what type of playerbase is left.

The very few characters I took through PvE I rather much be partied up with real people, I can see as the game and PvE loses it's appeal and lore and becomes a chore that people would want 7 heroes, still don't think it's the greatest choice. Seeing a poll like this 2 years ago would be rather interesting though compared to 4 years later.

This poll may be disgusting to you, but your post is disgusting to some of us here. See? I can make one-sided arguments and views too!


Anyways, all I can say is your thoughts on this matter is a little selfish, don't you think? If playing with others players is what the majority wanted, obviously we would be having more groups grouping. But the PLAYERS themselves CHOOSE to use AI because it's a BETTER EXPERIENCE.
Do you think they would rather be forced to play with dumbass firestorm warriors who cause nothing but stress? This is called an unnecessary limitation. And they suck, because it doesn't make the game more "challenging" or "harder". It just makes it more annoying.
You also say it loses its lore? Wait, what? Last I checked when you group, you're always rushed. With AI, you can take your time to read quest dialogue.

Anyways, Guild Wars is a Co-rpg and not an MMO. No matter what you say, it was marketed as a simple multiplayer rpg that players can CHOOSE who they want to group with, be it your friends or the ai.
Allowing 7 heroes, possibly with even PvE skills, is probably a good option for the game. Why? Because it is the player preference

Grouping with other players should be something fun. Not a mandatory source of annoyance and stress.



Also, over 1k votes. Woot! I win the bet!!
Time to get 7 heroes working, anet, for the quarterly update!
IT'S CRUNCH TIME!!!!!

I know you see this thread, anet. So you better go prepare your soft drinks, coffee, and ice tea. Cuz' it seriously looks like crunch time

I'm pretty much split down the middle. 7 heroes would be great, as I'm doing Guardian of Tyria, finding a party for a mission, let alone in hardmode is just a plain pain in the ass. Henchmen are just plain useless, they need to be updated. However 7 heroes could also make PUGs LESS than they are now (That DOESN'T mean people wouldn't form them, they still would, but there WOULD be FEWER). 5 heroes would be nice, it would work well for me as I would prefer 8 players than 1 player and 7 heroes, but 3 players and 5 heroes is better, to me, than 1 player and 7 heroes.


On another note, the concept (with 7 heroes) of 2 MMs, 1 player, and pets and other heroes is nice BUT...

3 MMs + 1 Player (with a pet, asuming they aren't an MM themselves), 2 healers, 2 Spirit Bombers (all heroes having pets) = 46 AI + Spirits (on average about 3 - 8 per Spirit Bomber) so that means 49 - 54... this would however mean major lag.


I would like to have 7 heroes because PUGS are EXTREMELY hard to find, especially in HM missions.


The whole concept about it completely killing PUGs is bull shit. It wont kill them just like Ursan didn't kill PvE (groups that didn't want ursan didn't use it... trust me, they were around).

Difference is, Ursan provides an advantage. Heroes provide a convenience. There's a huge difference, unless I'm mistaken.

That said, I'm still waiting to hear about anet's crunch time of implementing 7 hero slots.

The number of heroes obtained should be tied to Guardian title.

Guardian of Tyria = +1 hero
Guardian of Cantha = +1 hero
Guardian of Elona = +1 hero
Legendary Guardian or Legendary Master of North = +1 hero

Done, 7 heroes obtained, but it will need some work!

Guardian is too easy. Should be the Vanquisher title. :P

They better give out the Source Code of the game.

How about 7 heroes but only in hard mode? To be honest even a rubbish pug in normal mode can usually get through a mission quite easily so 7 heroes isn't needed for that at all, but in hard mode where its hard to find a pug let alone a good one it would b fairly useful to have the option of 7 heroes.

No, sorry, I don't want to be an anti-social player in this game like the rest of you who agree with this ridiculous, seven hero idea.

Thats the point to the post above

Nobody wants you to be anti social.You play the game as you wish nobody is forcing you or anyone even to play with heros never mind hench.

Thats the point its your choice
I mean seriously 26 heros and allowed 3 its defies logic


Sure even anet knows guys use 6 heros with dual accounts ect.

All I can add is keep it front page news and mabe yes mabe somebody will suggest a way to implement it.

Its that to maximise profits.We have seen that appearing re panes .name change ect.The game is over 4 years old and since Aion releases on 23rd Sept
we may see some sort of content on Guild wars once that is running.

I for one would like to see it implemented, keep on trucking guys

At this point in time Yes since we are on auto pilot till GW2 comes out. The economy has been hosed by PVE skills so whats left to save.

That would clearly be a move in a WRONG WAY.

They should be encouraging multiplayer activities more instead, because it's not a single player game and it's pretty sucky as one.

I'd much rather like to see a limit to 1 hero per player, max 3 in a team than something as ridiculous as 7 heroes.

What would that encourage more: grouping, or quitting the game altogether?

If playing in PUGs was actually fun, I think we'd see more people migrating to them even if there were 7 heroes. As is, a lot of players would rather play with a party of henchmen - or not at all - than play in a PUG.

Making the PUG experience less dreadful is going to take a lot of work, but it comes with a great payoff.

So true, i'd rather quit the game then playing with pugs.

So that counts me out of the pug population, then why can't i use 7 heroes ?

I was bored the other day and decided to PUG several mish (Eternal Grove, Gyala Hatchery & GOLEM) I had a couple fail pugs, but really it was in the forming of the group. It was fun and all just to see players trying to figure things out. I dont think you would see less PUG'ing than you do now with 7 heroes because most of the places that people PUG (which is VERY few and far between) they would still do so. I think the 7 heroes wouldnt really change the amount of pugging.

I really wish the people against seven heroes would come up with some argument other than "I don't want seven heroes, therefore no one should have them." I honestly don't get what gives you the right to tell me how I should play the game or even how I should have fun.
Let me explain something as clearly as I can here:
You. Don't. Have. To. Use. Heroes. At. All. You. Can. Play. However. You. Want.
Now I have to ask, why can't I? Why is it that when I want to play a game my own way, in a manner that gives me enjoyment, you try and tell me that I'm wrong? How I play the game has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on how you play. Now, please, try and tell me why your misguided imagination makes you think it makes sense to dictate how everyone should play? What's next? Do you want tell me that I can no longer dye my armor black? Or that my elite platemail is stupid and I can no longer play with it?
Seriously, all the arguments against seven heroes are as ridiculous as if the other side was arguing that everyone should be required to use seven heroes. Both of those are totally ludicrous, but there is nothing wrong with letting people play the game as they choose.

As for me, I have a very simple reason for wanting seven heroes. It would allow me to do more. The amount of fun in this game, for me, is linked to how much stuff there is to do. Currently, after about two years of playing, I've done most of what I want/can do. But if we were able to use more heroes I could do some extra random stuff, like messing with random new team builds, more elite areas, and more HM. I can't really see a good reason why this should be disallowed to me.

I'm not only want 7 heroes, also i want to use my other chars as heroes, as anet forces us to play with one char for not make all titles account wide, i miss my chars, so as they are a big family i demand to use them as heroes so i can grind those stupid titles with my Cough, cough (forced) "main" while i don't feel bad for leaving my others hardworked chars forgotten.

If that's the case, then that means less than 8 people don't want it.

So no, that logic doesn't work.

Refer, the game is already forced heroes. I never see people grouping for primary quests and most of the non-end missions.
"Guildies" is not an excuse, unless you have some super-guild that always groups with you for every darn thing.

If I can't get into a PUG because everyone is playing single player in 7 hero groups, then I would have to play with heroes. That's the issue here which you have to address if want to make this argument. You want to play single player so you don't care, but surely you can see how that would make already difficult to find PUGs even more scarce? Most people play MMOs at least in part for the player interaction, and thus do not want game changes that reduce or eliminate that.

I like playing both ways, but that definitely includes being able to PUG. I am grateful for the z missions and bounties for that reason, but wonder if people would even PUG those if they could load up 7 heroes. I think the current system is a decent compromise.

Typical freedom problem - where does my freedom ends and the other person freedom starts.

You can't force someone playing with PUGs. On the other hand, if you make a certain area impossible to do without people what will happen?

Lets look at ursan blessing times.

Very hard areas could thenbe done quite easily with UB.

Loads of PUG around in DoA.

UB died, DoA PUGs died (or the large majority of them).

DoA HM. Really though to do with heroes. But you don't see pugs either cause it can still be tough (or tougher than UB times).

You don't see either loads of people with heroes, or even 2 players with heroes or 1 player using 2 accounts.

Most PUGs are about farming a certain area.

Then zaishen quests came to concentrate people in certain areas and promote pugging.

People that play generally with h/h or 6 heroes, still do those areas with 6 heroes.

PUG that pugged all game and/or can only farm, need to PUG to abuse 24 PvE-only skills. Others can now find PUG players to play with, because everyone wants to do the same missions/quests.

Now take a zaishen quest in a place like DoA or some HM dungeon - you will see a bit more activity but not that much more, and most you will see is guild/alliance groups.

GW became a multitude of games over the years - it is a PvP game, it is a PvE game.

PvE game also branched - it is a solo or small teams with AI support game; it is a solo/duo/trio farming game; it is a team farming game; it is a PUG game.

The best way to improve PUG game is focusing people in certain areas and have those areas beaten by a highly standardized team build.

The best way to improve solo play with h/h is to replace henchmen with heroes, which allow much more customization and build options. And if you think well, a h/h is so gimped vs a 2 players + 6 heroes that the game allows that is ridiculous. And the not being able to abuse PvE-only skills gimps so much the heroes that isn't even fun.


So, to conclude, you have a group saying "I want my game experience improved!". And other group saying "I don't want your gaming experience improved because then you will stop playing with me, destroying my game!". The first group will easily reply with "but I'm not playing with you anyway!".

Sincerely, I'm from the group "I already play with 6 heroes and another person and so have the best of the both worlds". Although I wouldn't mind if some of my heroes could bring SY!, TNTF and GDW.

Players that play h/h will keep playing h/h until they find someone it is in the same play skill plateau, in a guild for example, and then they will occasionally do some stuff that is annoying with h/h together.

Players that like to PUG can't PUG because there isn't enough PUGs in most of the places they want to play at any given moment.

If there was only a handful of quests and missions to do, a PUG person could expect to PUG a lot more easier and much more consistently.

H/H players simply don't play the same game PUG players play.

If GW can't cater to the H/H players, they will find some other game.

One thing is true - games with the complexity of team build/play GW offer aren't abundant. Typical solo RPGs like NWN, Elder Scrolls and Diablo II, don't offer it!

The people stating that the H/H players might as well play solo games need to indicate games that resemble GW - party based, with limited selection of skills, varied professions combos, attribute refunds, etc.

Tons of people don't group now due to pug stupidity. In general, for myself, I'll grab default henchmen then put up with fail pugs. Default Henchmen are greater then Fail Pugs and many many people, as you can see by the votes here, feel the same way.

z missions were good because people are pugging more due to that. Before then there was little incentive to group up with random people for missions you've done a dozen times before, when others were off doing other missions so the people selection was very limited. What z missions did was dragged the player populous to one specific area with the same goal in mind, and thus forming a pug, for those who like doing that, is suddenly easier.

I think the only game that could resemble it would have to be Baldur's Gate, but not only did it have a pause button it actually had depth. I wish soloing had the same kind of micro complexity I was experiencing when I was first H/H'ing, but the exact opposite turned out to be true. Because of that I would recommend a soloer play a solo game: there are many out there that are more

That's besides the point, though, since all of that could be amended by actually balancing the game. What's actually relevant is what I've been leading up to, and that's the experiences I've had that make me want to play through the boring playstyle of H/H rather than with people:

-Leaving Mid-Mission: If a player, especially a monk, leaves the party then you're screwed. There's not a thing you can do about it: you are down one player and it's going to stay that way until you restart the mission no matter your progress.

Sure you could restart, but that has the possibility of losing more and more players which leads to having to find more and more players. I'm sure many of us have been there: party starts mission, party fails mission, half of party leaves, party has to find more people, cycle continues.

-Failing: Yeah, losing sucks and it's how you get better. But there are a lot of set-backs that make it particularly annoying in Guild Wars. This isn't saying that the missions are hard, but that when you make that little mistake that you screw up the whole mission.

This can be high-lighted best through my experiences with THK: *all* of the failed groups I was part of made it all the way to where you have to protect the king, and all of them failed. Because we whiped once, we have to start to entire mission all over again. Couple that with the cycle I described above and it's easy to just "give up" on playing with other players.

-Just Starting the Mission: You have very specific roles and 8 spots you have to fill, and you can only stand there while you wait to find the set amount of people. That right there is a pain in the ass all by itself.

At the end of the day you can't please everyone, some people are going to miss out that's a fact. There is already a big divide in the PvE gameply, namely people who want to PUG or be in a player team and people who would rather go it alone with H/H. I highly doubt there is any way to make or force people back into making pugs and seeing as the majoirty would like the option of 7 heroes I think ANet will have to address this or face losing more and more players to rival MMOs.

EDIT: Just like Bryant said above, we've all been in failed PUG groups and eventually I got to the stage where I could not be bothered to be in another one, it's not that I'm antisocial it's just I play to have fun and being in failing PUG groups just isn't fun in any way.

Also people forget that there is PvP, Guilds, Alliances and Trading for player to player interaction, having 7 heroes would only kill pugging not the games ability to allow you to meet and talk to other people.

"Having 7 heroes will kill what's left of pugging."

Uh, how? If the argument is that people pug things because they are forced to due to hero limitations, then that is wrong. Almost all content can be H/H'd as it is now. Having 7 heroes would do nothing to change the attitudes of the players who would already rather play by themselves (evidently 80% of the population). What it would do is give people more hero slots to customize, and thus more stuff to do, without adding any actual content to the game, something which ANet seems quite fond of. Seems like a win/win for the next quarterly update.

People whining about 7 heroes seem to be imagining some subset of the player population straddling the fence as whether to play with humans or AI, which I have not noticed to exist.


"Having 7 heroes will make henchmen useless."

Most missions can be completed solely by henchmen. When my friend bought Nightfall he didn't feel like customizing heroes so he just beat the game with henchmen instead. It's doable-- In normal mode. In hard mode, and possibly even normal mode EotN dungeons, henchmen don't cut it. But good luck getting that 8-man hard mode Arachni's Haunt group together at 2 am PST on a Wednesday. Or hell, even in peak hours. How often do you see a group getting together to do Bloodstone Fen HM? Even during peak hours with interdistrict travel available? Not often.

The henchmen are fine for NM, that is now largely their use. But for HM, they have poor energy management, do little more than auto attack dps, and come with poor skills. And people still would rather use them than either pug or sit waiting hours for a pug to show up.


"ANet has said no to 7 heroes."

Did they? Even if they did, so what? It's their game, they can make whatever decisions they want, and yes, even change their minds.


"Having 7 heroes will allow one person in PvP to bring a fully customizable AI team that abuses their abilities."

This is said to be slated to be changed in an upcoming update.


"Guild Wars is a multiplayer game! Heroes aren't players!"

Then why have I, since Prophecies, been able to solo the content? Diablo II is a multiplayer game, too, but you can certainly play it alone and then seek a group when you need help killing Duriel or get bored by your lonesome. I can't honestly expect to find groups for every silly, rewardless quest in Tyria, can I? What if I just want to aimlessly kill monsters for awhile? Not a lot of people lining up for that group.

Further, players do not tolerate my frequent piss breaks or my urge to constantly wiki things, get distracted and tab out for hours. Players are not always available, and not always hospitable. The heroes have never called me a noob and ragequit, even when I led them to their doom and back again.


"But, but... people will buy less of my 600/smite dungeon runs!"

Probably not. Even with 7 heroes, you would still have to equip, give skills to, and command them. Bad players will not becomes gods and good players will not forget how to play nicely with others. If the occasional guy sitting in the Great Northern Wall spamming for a run is any indication, people will always be willing to have the game played for them no matter how easy it is. Don't worry, you'll be able to buy your chaos gloves yet!


"Well, I'll quit the game if 7 heroes comes to pass. "

Well, I'll play more. To each his own, screaming about fictional changes doesn't really do anything. (neither does writing long posts which nobody will read).


"I'm not reading all that you moron."

tl;dr: 7 heroes will only serve to give those who would use it more options while only tangentially affecting those who won't

On the other hand, playing in a party also doesn't involve any micro.

I don't understand why playing with H/H makes you a lesser player than playing with people.

We talk about about playing with h/h - "ah but you don't micro", "you could send the heroes to do their stuff" - when in party filled with 8 human players all of that is the same.

Your own understanding of the game has 0 relation to playing with other people or AI party members.

Actually playing with players can be a lot easier!

But I guess people are admitting in this thread that the average player sucks more than a hench, hence playing with people being harder via gimping.

Having 32 extra slots to costumize adds more depth. And microing with a pause button is taxing...

I agree with this.

Additionally, a party will rarely have the time or patience to try and retry, understanding their mistakes, improving as a party and overcoming the challenge.

You on the other hand, with heroes, can try, retry, and learn, analyse, etc.

Regardless of their position about 7 heroes, I guess no one can deny that if we had the choice to use 7 heroes and customizing them, learning and adapting to the challanges would be, not only much easier but also much more rewarding.

Trying to improve, only to see jamei cast healing breeze when that mind burn just dealt 200+ damage to you is frustrating.

Many people talk about the no monthly fee to justify the fact they play GW.

Some of the facts that attracted me was the instanced world, the "no waiting in a cue" to kill boss x, the fact I could play alone and still have a team.

I want to come and play. I don't want to come and only start playing 2 hours later and then after 30 minutes play I need to go.

On the other hand, sometimes I don't mind waiting those 2 hours, if I'm chatting in-game or in TS/Ventrillo.

I like options. GW give more than many other games. But sometimes, it feels Anet was just trying to feel the ground they were stepping in.

It doesn't at all. Where'd you get that in my post???

The tidbit you did quote was in response to people telling soloers to find a different game - which, as a soloer, I actually recommend at this point. The only enjoyment that can be left to had is the varying experiences you go through when playing with friends.

Although I might have misunderstand your post (its late and english isn't my main), the fact is that many people will talk as if playing with h/h should be harder than playing with people and it is actually easier. I've never understand that. Sorry in that case.

Generally what happens is having more work by playing with h/h, since heroes sometimes don't "understand" their builds very well and have crappy positioning, don't run out of AoE fast enough and have a tendency to either overextend as warriors/frontliners or kite in to aggro range of a second close mob.

You have more work in the sense that you have to do everything by yourself, that is true. But there's technically "no work" since there's very little you yourself have to do. There's very little work required for all that you receive.

The most I've had to do is get killing orders down and do the occasional flag-and-pull.

And yes, it should be harder, but much moreso than what we have now.

EDIT: In case you're confused, we're on the same page.

Yeah, but basically it is the same work or even less you have in a party of players.

The work you have in a party of players is generally before playing - heroes just come with the profession we want them to and the build we deem best, while players you need to be more diplomatic to convince them to use what you want - and c'mon, should that be the deciding factor for a player skill?

And when UB was all the rage, you could see loads of PUG. Guess nothing like no setup time plus very reduced chance of failure.

I just can't believe how lazy people are
You want to put 7 heroes on "auto pilot" and do absolutely nothing. Computer program will do everything for you... full DoA run, UWSC, FoW, Urgoz... you name it

Where's the option for doesn't mind either way?
..........

GW multiplayer is now about talking on GC or AC with people doing similar stuff not playing with them together.... Seen it in so many guilds or alliances recently.

One year ago I was against increasing the hero cap due to still a large number of newer players coming in to GW. Now I am for it since the there is less and less new players coming and the ones who came mostly just want to be run all the time not to play together. Also Nicholas and Zaishen quests make the pugging for those who liked to PUG quite easy and enjoyable so my another argument became obsolete. I have to say that with Z quests and Nicholas Monday farms it is much easier to find people to play with than with Ursan times... What is more those pugs do not fail so much as they tend to last year.

I also think that for most of us HM is easy anyway so 7 hero cap will not make it easier, we wiil just do the same stuff which we are doing now for the 100th time already in a different way.

Lazyness and auto pilot have nothing to do with it. And in case you forgot, you don't need 7 heroes to put on auto pilot, it works with 3.

Btw, I want to see you do an UWSC and DoA HM fullrun with 6 heroes. You may even use 3 of mine if you don't have two accounts. I'll set them up like you want, runes, weapons + mods whatever. And even if you succeed, which I doubt, only a very small % of the playerbase will be able to do that.

People don't want 7 heroes to make the game easy, they want them for other reasons, which is something you should have known by now if you read the topic.

Reasonable reasons such as... ??

Ah for christ sake, do I need to repeat them again?

- Playerbase is spread out over 3 continents and the game is 4 years old. The playerbase itself has decreased too.

- No long wait times, no forced pugging.

- More control, more creativity.

- More food for the brain, as people can experiment and setup synergy builds and what not.

- Henchies are very boring as they have fixed builds, no creativity.

- You can already play with 6 heroes, one more won't make a difference balance wise. It would be more practical as you wouldn't need a second account or annoy friends to borrow their heroes.

- ...

Basically to have an increased gaming experience and to have more fun which doesn't equal an easier game.