Hey Anet Let's have a No Heroes No Henchies Weekend??!

I like to pug sometimes, but what always happens is that I end up taking charge and herding the rest of the group through, despite my best attempts to remain courteous.

It can be kind of fun, you get a reputation for competence.

Then it'll just a weekend of no PvE?

What's funny is that back before heroes and when henchies AI and skill bars were terrible, pretty much everyone grouped up. People often talk about those early days as the best time in the game. The OP makes a suggestion to return to that scenario for 1 weekend and people go nuts.

Back then the game was arguably a lot more interesting, although a lot of Pugs had obnoxious losers scrawling private parts on the map. Sometimes it was awful. Sometimes it was great. I guess it's a lot more fun to hit c space and let your twin SF nukers clean everything out. *stifles yawn*

And you're right. Games that force people to team up have no chance of being successful. Look what happened to WOW. Remember that game? You had to team up with real people for most instanced dungeons. Now, no one plays it anymore.

I would suggest double chest drops for full human teams as an alternative to the OP's idea.

Go right ahead. Just means I can pvp for a weekend

And yes, people used to group all the time in prophs. But that was different then. Most pugs were actually competent for the most part. Nowadays, most experienced players either go with guildteams/friends or H/H, leaving pretty much the newbs and the noobs to pug. Not pretty. I don't mind the newbs, used to run them through gates of madness for fun, but getting caught in a pug of 6 noobs?

Bad, bad idea!
[skill]Skull Crack[/skill]

There would be no one in PvE (except the PUGs) and everyone in PvP (except the PUGs).

/not signed.

You know what I find funny here? People who started out with Prophecies who used to group all the time and are now experienced with the game call anyone who is not experienced; incomptetent, ignorant, stupid, moronic and the general other titles people give when they place themselves above others. When they themselves were these very things they are calling others now. Pugs are not bad "on purpose" they are bad because anti social people don't help others once they have obtained a status quo, but, they certainly want help while they are climbing to that status quo. I've seen it in pve-ers and I've seen it in pvp-ers. Once they reach that status quo of experience and vetertan status they belittle everyone else under them and act like they are scum of the earth to play with.

You know, there's an idea. Maybe not precisely what you're suggesting, but generally providing incentives for teaming up with human players rather than H/Hing everything. It can then be up to the players to decide whether they hate the community enough for those incentives to be insufficiently worthy.

I'd suggest a sliding scale, though. One of the big problems pre-heroes was having a party of 6 sitting around waiting for healers - an otherwise human team that takes one or two heroes to fill a gap shouldn't be overly penalised.

Cool, I'll skip that weekend entirely.
I really don't want to play with immature little kids. Kazjun is an example. How can you call people in the Gate of Madness noobs??? Just take those arrogant self-important players right out of my life.

If it weren't for heroes and henchies I would have stopped playing GW ages ago and would probably never have bought any new campaigns or expansion packs.
I did random arenas exactly once and the people in my team were so puerilely obnoxious that I have not, and will not, ever do PvP again.

Sure and all abandoned missions will be even harder to complete, no thanks.

/not signed.

I didn't say they were noobs. I said I used to run newbies through GoM for fun. Though perhaps they are. You find that the bottle neck missions you get a lot of noobs and a lot of newbs. The difference is that the newbs are willing to work together to get things done (and stick it out the whole way) the noobs aren't.

But take away heroes and henchies, and with the current pug population, the chances are that in a pug of 8, you'll get about 6 noobs who will run off in different directions, rage quit at a single death, afk for half the mission and spend most of the mission expressing their artistic abilities by drawing on the minimap.

As for judging pvp just on the basis of a single of RA match, maybe you're the self righteous immature kid.

I hate Bookah, enough said.

/notsigned

/notsigned

This means I will have to put up with stupid 12 year olds
This means I will have to put up with mending wammos
This means easy stuff becomes hard
This means easy stuff will take much longer
This means I won't be able to scrape anywhere because noone else wants to
This means I have to put up with rage quitters, idiots, people who run off, afk, and stuff like that

---------------------

I sure as hell know I won't be going anywhere near GW if Anet does that.

Right on.
in fact I've got a little story that reflects this very well. There's this guy, I won't name any names so lets just call him "Mr Cool". A while back in prophecies this Mr Cool is doing some droks running, he runs two of my friends there, then waves the fee at the end saying he understands how it is, "you pay big for your droks run then don't have the cash to get your armor when you get there". Now this qaulifies Mr Cool as a very nice fun and sociable player no?
Well quite some time later in factions my up and comming rit ends up in a pug with this very same Mr Cool, seeing a lack of monks in the area Mr Cool starts demanding that I change out my tried and true minion bombing to be resto, something I had never even considered up to that point. So I oblige and grab some resto skills and throw together a quick resto build, and we're off. A little ways in things go south, this formerly sociable and nice player begins raging and insulting my healing. My glorious 5 second throw together isn't holding up, this combined with the fact that this is the first time I've had to play healer means our poor little pug is sinking fast. Our esteemed captain Mr Cool makes it a point to blame and insult me before ragequiting and earning himself a one way ticket to my ignore list.

The moral of the story: just because you've got more experience than somone dosen't mean that they're completely incompitent, they're just learning. Remember, you were a "noob" once too.

I find it both odd and very annoying that basically everyone thinks that everyone else sucks in pve... now logically that just cant be possible can it?

I dont think a no h/h weekend will be good, infact, its a terrible idea. Just stop giving ridiculous answers like: "Oh, my alliance members are the only good pve'ers, all others suck!" I can assure you, there are tons of people much better than yourself, and considering they "sucked" at some time too, i think you should have some better manners.

..../not signed though

I agree with Shadowmere and Red Sonja.

We all used to be noobs, and I don't think this is the best idea, increased loot drops with full people team or something sounds better.

/notsigned

Anet can't force me to be your friend

There's like a million threads out there about heroes and henchies. What I learned from all of them is that I'm a noob, because I do PuGs and can't do everything with my heroes (because I have played for 3 months and don't have all skills unlocked and I'd rather spend money on my gear then their gear to be useful in well - PuGs). I also learned that the biggest leetness in GW is being able to H/H everything. Seems to me that this game is basically something based upon NWN companions system with built-in MSN. Oh, and of course you can show-off your titles you got while adventuring with Dunkoro & Co.

It's amazing to me how people in a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER game tend to solo everything. I fail to see the point if you ask me. I can agree that lots of people in PuGs can have terrifying skill bars or no game knowledge whatsoever, but I can also tell you why this happens. This is because all you leet people deny the possibility of other's ability to learn. Of course, there are gamers that are simply ignorant, but there's a vast number of others that are actually willing to learn from more experienced gamers. I personally have seen a lot of people that asked about what skills to bring and what to do in certain areas, I'm also one of them. This way everyone has the opportunity to learn, which is taken away from them most of times, because more experienced players will prefer to share the picked up gold with heroes instead of contributing to the overall knowledge/skill level of the community. It's not new and unexperienced players that make PuGs a horrible experience, it's the majority of the veterans that are a tad too fussy to actually get a human group for anything.

I agree that alliance teams>PuGs, but given the number of the guilds in GW and their requirements, not everyone can be a part of a decent community that will help him/her improve their skills etc. I wonder how all the H/H people would play like now if they NEVER EVER teamed up with human beings. I don't think we would be that impressed with your skills at the moment, at least it would take much more time for all of you to figure out some of the stuff.

I have tons of fun while I do PuGs. Not every time, but most of times. I PuGed Duncan in HM as a noob tank taking advice from people that are more experienced than me. The run was successful and it didn't even take that long as you probably would like to think. I feel just a bit more experienced now, because there were some nice people out there that didn't mind pointing out the flaws in my tanking.

And if you really want a game that doesn't force you to play with other people there's a whole genre out there that meets the requirement - it's called SINGLE PLAYER.

in the party formation window you have 2 red buttons kick and leave. leave your henchies and kick your heroes.

why force other to not use heros and henchies ?

To encourage people to play together for the weekend. That was the whole point wasn't it?

Anyway, alrdy gave my 2 cents

There's a difference between being inexperienced and looking for help and incompetent and stubborn. Guess what the majority is?

This type of weekend wouldn't warrant more people for you to 'play' and 'PUG' with at all. It would simply leave you standing right where you left off prior to weekend, but without all those people with 4s and 8s above their heads - for they'd be doing something other than Guild Wars, or joining their alliances/guildmates for groups.

I admire the idea, and have nothing against new players or those wanting to join groups over using henchmen or heroes...but you wouldn't get the desired result any faster, or better, this way.

Rather than forcing (and yes, even a weekend would be forcing) everyone to have to join human groups, I would suggest starting a thread to rally all those who feel the same way you do, and share the same thoughts about grouping over henchmen/heroes, and set up times to play together. That seems more productive over a crapshoot as to who is and isn't going to stick around for a no hench/no hero weekend.

/notsigned /omgfail /lolololol

I hate you, why should I be forced to PUG with you?

Wow, I would not be able to play that weekend with my timezones. No one is ever on when I am.

Seriously, terrible idea.

So you decided to dump BOTH groups. I once heard that I'm a sucky dammo from some 'very experienced' player, she didn't even bother to ask to see my skills. I had Rebirth equipped.

EDIT: To be clear - /not signed, as a weekend like that would empty the servers and do nothing constructive. I just think some of you should think again about PuGs and H/H. Because we got noobs on one side, but we also got elitist jerks on the other.

Right, with my paragon in tyria, I could do the missions with just myself and a few heroes. Which is what I did. Me, Tahlkora, Olias, Jora. And I would always leave the other two places open and ask lower level people if they wanted to come. D'alessio seaboard for example, I took a level 13 assassin and a level 9 warrior, worked out fine as we could cope with it all. This is all fine until you reach the harder missions where the average PUG just /fail.

/not signed

/notsigned

Not everyone has the same playing habits or schedules, and forcing people to PUG everything is pretty much excluding anyone different from the game. I work night shift, which means on my nights off I'm playing at 3am, and on my workdays I'm logging in at about 8am. Good luck getting enough people in a district to even *form* a group, much less one with the right requirements to get the mission/quest done.

As far as the quality of PUGs going down, I can't really tell, as I rarely pug, and before heros I used henchies. But I do know that I'm not interested in playing with the general community. I once spent a few weeks on my necro in Factions helping people with a difficult quest, for no charge, just because I thought it was fun. 95% of the people I helped did one of the following:

1) Didn't even bother to thank me for my help, just mapped out or left the group

2) Ran the opposite direction of the rest of the party, forcing me to request that they let me lead, and still not being willing to.

3) Rushed in with their lvl15 sins and then yelled at me when they kept dying. I was MM'ing, not healing, and it is not my job to make sure they stayed alive. I would have been perfectly fine with them staying out of the fight entirely, but of course they wouldn't listen when I asked them to. Fine, fight, but don't yell at me when you die, and don't expect me to expend my energy to raise you. I'm busy exploiting your corpse.

Those few who didn't fall into one of those groups went on my friends list. Until they started whispering me every other day requesting that I help them with other missions, give them gold, farm them weapons, bring them into my guild, etc. One person requested I help them with a mission I had done myself multiple times, then went afk halfway through and told me I could go ahead and finish it, don't worry about them. ... As if it was me who needed it.

At this point, there is only one person of the many that I met during that time who is still on my friends list. *That* is why I prefer to run with hero/henchies, sometimes even over guildies. At least the H+H don't whine.

So why don't I play a single-player game? Because I have RL friends who play GW, and it's an excellent way for us to be social. Just because I'm not willing to play with PUGs doesn't mean I'm anti-social. It just means I don't feel like talking to strangers.

That's actually the first good point about playing GW with mostly H/H.

But weird times of being online? Wait, what? I get the feeling that some people only play MMOs to show-off titles, weapons, elite armors and w/e there is to show-off and that is the only aspect of the game they need other people for. Yay, admire me, I'm so leet I won't play with you. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to be forced to do everything with a human group. Excuse me all WoW-haters, but I think system implemented in that game works well and might be a good solution for GW2. You can solo most of the quests but you need real people to do dungeons. And excuse me once more, but overall level of WoW players' skill is much higher than in GW. Why? Because if you can't play you won't get to play at some level. In GW you can get heroes and henchies, get ran through tons of missions and areas, in the end you I meet rangers at Raisu Palace that claim they can heal. Why? Well, Dunkoro didn't mind before.

I do play with real people thank you very much but only if they have the same tag as me, same color tag is ok as well. Promote grouping and pugging, what a joke? Forcing people at gun point is more like.

/signed because it'll show them pve'ers how stupid hero's really are, especially in a pvp format.

/signed
i like idea, lets ee how it will be going....
ussualy i do h/h when i want job done but when i want fun i play real ppl groups, pugs, guild group, alliance group
btw my monk have ench spear

omg, so instead of burning through Gates of Madness with two deaths I am going to be forced to do it 5 times before I get through?

Me: can you please bring Wild Blow?
Other player: Blow me!
Me: If you can do that wildly I might not boot you


MEH not signed

Hey sonya, people who are already H/H'ing would rather try to find a way t play solo than try PUGging which mosty fail.
Not 'popular' enugh to go with your own guild? Can't do a mission with h/h? Boo-freakin-hoo.
This thread and idea fails as much as typical PUG

I've had more good pugs than bad lately...maybe people have started learning but everyone who has written them off have had their blinders on too long to see that.

Just orchestrate your group...kick those with crappy builds.

Me...I'd be happy. If I started getting crappy pugs in a row, I'll just go solo farm, or guild run UW or FoW.

Maybe we should have a no player weekend only heros and henchies.

heroes are only stupid when you don't know how too control them.

I love to help out new players. I hang around in Q&A half the time answering questions.

But, I still hate pugs, because every single time I decide to pug, I end up with stupid, immature, ignorant 12 year old kids who think they're the best with their awesome tanking skills (AKA agroing everything on the radar and then blaming the monk for their death).

I've had one good pug in the 1 and a half years I've been playing. If I get forced to pug I won't touch GW that weekend, thank you very much.

I would pug alot more but Every PuG team I join has at minnium 1 of these kind of people I always try to be as nice a possable when I notice these and ask if they would run 1 of the many builds that works and they say NO NO NO my build pwns and of course they die in 1 hit and rage quit because they can not handle the LOLs from the group and people saying you should lisitened to him now were gonna have to restart, hours later and many PUG groups later Im still wondering how we have not completed the Goal and you just H/H it and complete on first try HMMMM which would you do? hours wasted or 1st try competion?
That is why people do not PUG anymore and those who do still PUG are the people who refuse to change builds, tactics, and of course compass drawing.

I solo a lot of the game and hop on guild activities when called for. I wouldn't play at all, and some missions would be inaccessable due to hero requirements. For quests, even!

And I've quit trying to PuG. After recent experiences, I just won't PuG ever again. If I'm not H/Hing stuff or playing with guildies, I just chat or hop on my permapre character. Where a Charr-farm PuG isn't as bad.

One more thing to mention:

Everytime Anet make weekend event, there's something to do in game for people who don't like that weekend. Does double faction affect everyone's game? No, and if they don't like gain twice as much factions, they can go play AB for example. Same with reputation, droprate, everything, right? Okay, and now imagine Anet would make OP's mentioned event. Would be players that don't like idea of it affected? Yes! They couldn't play at all, if they don't like PvP.

i guessed who posted this as soon as i saw the title -.-'

anyway /signed if you want but AFAIAC, that'll be either a non-GW or farming WE for me, but i guess it's more original that 2x fame,2x noob-green, 2x dyes WE ^^