Unlock all henchmen to use anywhere in any campaign?

Ok, we've been through suggestions for 7 heroes and been told no, weve asked for better henchmen, it doesnt seem like it will ever happen. So heres another suggestion I have to slightly improve gameplay for hero / henchers.

Allow us to use henchmen from each campaign and gwen wherever we like after completing the relevant campaign.

Example, after completing GW:EN, we would be able to use the GW:EN henchies in the other campaigns. After completing cantha, we would be able to use Erys Vasburg or Seaguard Hala (Far better then Lo Sha in GW:EN), or one of the highly efficient Life sheath prot hench or rit healers in the other campaigns or even GW:EN.

Now you maybe thinking 'but thats an awful lot of henchmen, choosing the ones you want will be too hard'. So the second suggestion would be to add a tab under henchmen in party search for each campaign.

This would somewhat alleviate henchmen restrictions by allowing a more diverse selection of skills that the player can choose from, and tailor their group around as they choose.

Now this wouldnt affect pug play at all, so that theory can be dismissed instantly. We have limited skillbars, many of which arent that good. But at least we canplay around and have a lot more versatality in our builds.

Also, please note that I stated 'After completing the campaign'. This pretty much implies that its primarilly to make hard mode a little less frustrating by being unlimited in henchmen choices (Like in factions where the good hench are spread all over the place and only in a few outposts).

And we may as well exclude the prophecies henchmen from this suggestion, and just leave it as consideration for the Factions, NF, and GW:EN ones.

Discuss.

/signed

I'd say drop the clause of completing the campaign. Let the players recruit any the henchmen of their choice after they have "seen" them in hench action (and buy the relevant campaign) will do.

Also include alt-versions too (LoD Mhenlo versus WoH Mhenlo) while we are at it

And finally only make these extra henchmen (or alt versions of henchmen) only selectable at the Party Search window via a f11 option for some people who insist of not wanting to use them.

Hey, hey!
That would be fun.
There are some henchmen/henchwomen I really like.
And some I like just for how they look. Like the 2 Wallows. Oink, Oink.

That's actually not too bad. Of course, I still haven't thought of the downsides to this yet.

You'd be able to make an all x profession H/H group.
I don't think that's bad, since the henchmen have set skills.

The downside is probably a story thing.

Like having a bunch of Luxon henchmen when you're trampsing through Echovald Forest.

Another downside is that you can have a party of 7 archers, H&H, which may or may not be more scary than the H&H party of 7 warriors.

I don't see Anet agreeing to implement this.

People can already have a group of all warriors, rangers, monks, necromancers or elementalists with 2 players and 6 heroes all the same profession. Except they get to pick every skill the group uses. The henchmen idea you'd have to use the sets they come with.

If they're going to go to that kind of trouble they might as well break down and go the 7 hero route (with only 3 flaggable) after all. And yes, I know they've said no, and it doesn't matter. In the long run, as the population dwindles, the only way that some areas of hard mode and elite areas are even going to be viable is with a full party of heroes. They can give us that or let whole swaths of game fall into disuse.

Edit: Actually, I take that back. Any help is better than none. Let us choose from the full scope of available henchmen and let us use henchmen in elite areas.

/signed

Please give me the WoH Mhenlo for GWEN. The AI on the LoD variant is so terrible I'm totally willing to trade down skillbars to get one he can (sorta) use right.

I want "break-dancing Mhenlo".
I wonder what happens if you use multiple mhenlos. Maybe one is palette swapped to have a red uniform, bandana and blonde hair.

Whatever....

He uses lod perfectly fine.

Sounds good to me... But what will their skill sets be?

One would be "Ascalonian Monk" or something

And then they can add a cheesy sprite that is a moutache hovering over their face. It has to move around oddly when the character moves...for added cheese.

I would love to be able to see the hench skillbars without having to check wiki beforehand. I wish you could talk to the Hench NPCs in town and they'd offer (via a dialogue box or something) to spam their build to you.

That would be neat.

i sense a problem with taking a Mhenlo henchman into missions with mhenlo as an NPC

Yeah they could both run off together and agro twice the crap then let eveyone die while trying to rez the same person instead of healing.

other than that.

/signed since getting 7 heros is a no go.

~the rat~

Maybe just replace Mhenlo's shitty bars everywhere else with his relatively good LoD bar from GWEN? That'd be nice too :P

Why not just make the henchmen from prof, factions and nightfall suck less? That would be enough for me ^^

Interesting idea. Personally I would prefer to use Daemon as interrupt. I don't seem to have too much luck with Zho in GW:EN for some reason, and I generally prefer only to take an interrupt hero when absolutely necessary - even though one would be nice all the time.

Regarding storyline stuff-ups, surely there is some way they would be able to block you from taking a hench on a certain mission?

I don't know how this would/could work technically though, I'd understand completely if Anet said it would be difficult to implement.

What Anet seems to be ignoring is that people are not grouping up like they want. After countless missions with griefers,rage quiters and all out retards, some of us prefer to take hero/henches. Its just more fun to actually be able to accomplish a mission the first or second time instead of the tenth. It took me a month with my monk to do aspenwood because no one wanted to do the mission when i was on, or i got a bad....I mean BAD pug. Since Anet wont let us have 7 heros maybe they will give us more choices on the henches.

Because I dont see them fixing the bad player/pugs any time soon.

~the rat~

I think this is a good idea. Especially if that means I can bring some of the GWEN heros builds which are far superior to say...prophecies henchmen.

/signed

I really do like the idea.

It would be nice... the outposts data it's already stored...

You would only need a way to get them... something like... a 'Job Agent' to take them into party for a small fee (10gold or so)

Would like to make a slightly alternative surgestion here.
Maintain the current hench at the outposts, but for Hard Mode enable people to select from the 'pool' of skillbars that are already on the various hench.

This may even go so far that someone that does not have Factions can still load a hench with a Factions bar.
That way, instead of taking the Durham default bar, they could take Erys Vasburg's or Seaguard Hala's skillbar (and AI) instead.
Advantage for A-net is that people with one campaign can experience the power from some of the other campaigns' skilbars.
And maybe even buy that chapter.

Meh. dont think changing henchmen skillbars is ever gonna happen. Two years into the game and they are still retarded. But most of the Gwen ones, daeman, erys and gita are great. Being able to use these ones everywhere would be great.

I guess you guys forget the coding for GW1 is basically over. GWEN is done and now they have moved onto GW2. Oh you'll get a smidgen of tweaks, bug fixes and balances, but, nothing major for GW1 for a long while now. Best just sit back an enjoy what you have you ain't getting anymore except the bonus mission pak that's already been done for awhile now I'm sure and that's that. So, no 7 heroes, no henchies where you want them to be, no pve only skills for heroes and no using heroes/henchies anywhere at any time like you'd like it to be.

Wow if thats dev team attitude, GW2 sounds promising, cant wait for it. This suggestion is not hard to implement in particular. All henchies are there already, just enable them in any campaign is the whole point of this thread.

They seriously need to do something to improve solo play fast. The sooner they leave it, the less players they will have, and the less they will sell GW2.

Anet's choice really.

There are a few things that would greatly improve my enjoyment of the game.

I would like henchmen to obey the "go to marker" command that you can issue heroes - perhaps just have them follow the "all heroes" marker, and avoid having to deal w/ specific ones for each one.

I'd also, at least, like to be able to see what skills they have. If we can't change their skill bar, then at least let me see what we're working with.

It would be very nice to also get some idea of their stance - attack, guard, passive.

Perhaps have the henchmen be set to equal your level, upon leaving a town/outpost - it bugs me when you spend extra time to get some more levels in, only to be presented w/ henchmen that are nearly useless. It's also frustrating that trying to get my necro from LA to Kamadan is such a headache because she's 20 but the henchies are only 11.

Lastly, is it too much to have all henchmen from a given campaign be accessible in all towns & outposts? It's a bit frustrating to go to a town near the beginning of the campaign, come back to where you were, and have to rebuild your team.

They already provide a very useful function, and allow me to solo when no guildmates or good PUGs are to be had. I'd love to see some of the QoL things addessed, though.

Thanks for reading.

It wouldnt be too hard using the party search menu with the henchmen subdivided into groups by campain

/notsigned /omgfail /lolololol

Your own words work well for this suggestion.

nice that a lamer is the first person to oppose the idea so much and without any valid reason why.

I like this idea. once you've played the story line the whole game should open up because seriously...if i want to in tyria i can skip well over half the game straight fromt he northern shiverpeaks to the southern...storyline is obviously not a big concern in this game (or shouldnt be) /signed