What Do you think about this Companion idea for GW2?

I'm personally happy with the system we have now. My guild is pretty tight-knit and we help each other out with missions whenever we can, so grouping isn't so bad and we don't mind taking one or two pick ups with us (and sometimes they decide to join our guild at that point). I think that's the system ANet is looking for and it's a system I like. We use heroes whenever necessary, but otherwise we mainly play as a guild. I do think it's important to have the alternative to bring NPC heroes along to fill a group, but I don't think groups should always be filled by them. What sets Guild Wars apart is the complexity of team interactions; no character profession is capable of doing everything... at least not unless you decide to use a 55 build and farm things... but farming isn't really playing, it's more like work anyways. Anyways, I digress. I'd like for GW2 to have the possibility to add NPCs, but not to promote it as the better alternative as it does now. I'll agree that sometimes I've partied with complete PUGs and realized that the henchmen and my heroes are better at the game than they are, but I guess that's why there is a guild system.

I'm with Witchblade on this. Forced grouping = fail. That's not to say I dislike parties, I just think parties are more for things like what was described in an interview with someone from Anet. Band together with random people to fight off a dragon or something and be rewarded! I just pray it doesn't end up like the grouping system in WoW/Lineage2. The last thing we need is a mass of nerds fighting over loot.

The whole idea of a companion/sidekick is interesting, even more so if we can pick and choose their equipment and appearance. However if we can't make them unique for each player then it is going to be pretty dull considering the army of sidekick clones that we'll see running about.

This is just a thought, and perhaps off-topic... But think of it like this, say the person in question has 2 main characters, I think it would be cool if one could use the other main character as a companion. It would make things unique, and would reward us whether we focused on just one character, or two.

All I care is that the companions are customisable, like a whole other character. I do not want to have to party with a member of the select few companions, it ruins the connection between your character and his ccompanion.

i think it willl be best if they make the grouping like in city of heroes.

Eliminate the one aspect of the game that truly made GW different from most others? Good idea....~sigh.

I just remember from my days in EQ wishing that I could solo the blues and whites (it's a con thing) as well as certain other classes could who, despite being even more squishy than I was, were soloing all the time...thanks to their pet. I was so happy to finally get my flying hammer...only to realize that by that level (50ish), smashy was more squishy than I was, not to mention he didn't like to stick around and would go "poof" the second a target died...almost. He did make a good distraction though on the few occassions when I bothered to whip him out. That whole experience is partly why I chose to play with dead things in GW instead of trying to keep them from getting that way. Imagine my dismay at seeing my newly summoned bone horror degen away in a matter of minutes....well....it just made me get really good at curses.

Anyway.....good times, good times....but yeah, I actually like being able to just grab the mercs and try a mission knowing I may have to leave long before I complete it. How would real players feel about having party members drop just before they complete the mission....just because they were just checking it out.

Not sure about one aspect.

- No ongoing fees
- Many skills, limited skillset
- "Skill > Time" (yes, we all have our opinions on this one, but most MMOs don't even try)
- Limited character advancement (level 20), main focus on strategy
- Fully instanced world
- Map travel

There are probably a few others I haven't thought of. GW is not just one thing.

If you put that much value on solo play, why are you playing an MMO? Maybe Oblivion or something like that is more your style?

I think GW2's companion system will be more like what I was expecting heroes in GW1 to be.

When I first read about heroes in GW1 that could level up with you and be your new best friends, I figured all players would get to pick one or two and invest as much time into them as one might invest into a second character. Instead, everyone got a ton of heroes and most people I play with don't use superior vigor runes on their heroes and spend time giving them good builds like I do. That makes me sad when I party with someone for a mission and they need to take all their cool heroes and there isn't room for mine. I ask them to ping their heroes' skills only to find Tahlkora is using mostly fire magic and Jora is playing a Healer's Covenant bar.

I think the GW2 companion system sounds very interesting! Option 1: Have a companion to synergize with my own skills (tank for my caster when I am solo), or Option 2: leave my companion behind (when a human tank is in my group) and instead my caster will be buffed.

Doesn't that sound cool? If I play at times when my guildies are away or busy, I can get AI help. When I party with my friends, I get buffed. What's there for me to complain about? I'm anxious to see if GW2's companions act in this way - the way I was expecting GW1's heroes to act.

Personally I needed a break from GW, and in playing LotRO, I find the biggest reason I needed a break was because I was sick of playing an 8-headed hydra (me and 7 others) ALLLLLLL the time.

LotRO has a great quest system that tries to pretty much tell you when you can play solo, with a buddy or two, or need a full group. So, it is apparent which carrots I can run after depending how I want to play at that moment.

I think GW2 will benefit a lot from the Companion System. It will allow more flexibility in soloing (see the Warrior and Ritualist companion example in an above post), and hopefully it foretells a little of the design philosophy that A.Net is going for in GW2. No more required 8-headed hydra for every (nearly) instance of PvE gameplay.

I for one am really excited about this type of gameplay in Guild Wars.

I'll miss the "team build" strategy we have in GW. I am currently going for the vanquish titles then I'll be doing the Missions in HM after and having to think up and lay out perfect builds for each area is one of the finest aspects in any RPG ever. I think this style of play will be greatly diminished or even non-existant in GW2, sad. But, I don't want to speculate, I want to see it first hand. Anet, in spite of all the negative talk, always manages to make the game better (I started in April05) so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Some people like to solo areas, others like the team play. I don't think A-net is trying to take any of that away. I'm pretty sure the Companion isn't as much of a buff as it is a more viable way to do something solo. They have said that should you choose not to take your companion your character would be buffed appropriately. Maybe people would be sacrificing stats by taking their little fall back buddy.

So far, I've taken this companion system as:
-1 hero
-Nothing to do with henchmen. From what I gather, they'll still be around.

Well personaly, I don't know what to think of the idea. I kind of like it, just because i've found no reason not to.


Still, if they arent customizable like a second character, ima be real pissed.

exactly how I see it.

I like the idea of a companion. I guess this means we wont lose gold/items that henchmen eat up. My biggest hope is that they can somehow be controlled/customized.

Thumbs up to the removal of heroes and henchmen, imho.

Will have to wait and see about how the companion system works. Why would you bring one vs why would you not? Are there other drawbacks to taking one as opposed to literally soloing? They almost sound like a more advanced configurable rune or piece of armor in some regards. Maybe you always have one, even in a party.

Even with the companion system they havent solved the reason why they might be removing heroes and henchmen, ultimately. The game needs to be balanced to encourage grouping while at the same time allowing for solo play and offering benefits to both.

I loved to 'train' and equip Diablo II companios and make them fight, like if they were Digimon.

I hope we can do that here too.

It would be also great to have different amont of companions depending on your race:

- Asura: 5 member krewe
- Charr: 4 member warband
- Human: 3 member party.
- Silvary: 2 member duos.
- Norn: Norn fight alone, XD.

It's not an all or nothing proposition. Most other games have a mix of quests that require groups or can be done solo. As someone else mentioned, LOTRO even goes so far as to rank them according to whether they're normal or hard solo, require a buddy or two, or require a full party. Guild Wars just forces you to group, even if just with H/H, for every bloody thing, and it's kind of annoying sometimes.

What some MMOers fail to recognize is that not all of us who enjoy playing MMOs always have three solid hours of time to do something, so we'd like to be able to sit down, run a quick quest or two solo, and then leave the bigger stuff for later when we do have the time to do it. When I played WoW and LOTRO, I spent a lot of time solo questing, but I also joined groups for quests or instances when I had the time to actually devote to doing so. I feel like I can almost never play Guild Wars with other people, though, because everything requires a group, which usually means H/H for me since they won't get mad if the dog has to go out or the wife needs something, and as a result I just play H/H for EVERYTHING now. I spent so much time learning how to manage those dumbbells that I now feel almost obligated to just use them for every single thing, even when I have the time to group up.

The companion thing is fine with me if what they're going for is a buff to allow you to solo some areas of the game.

To me it seems that companion is something like another secondary class.

Maybe replacement for secondary class.

shrugs.

Its time to play. . . . . . What IF?

What if all companions are generic except for the skins?
What if mini pets were the companion skins?

Why do I care about party size when my entire guild can be grouped/ fighting the same monster?

hhhhhhhmmmmmmmm

Why do I care?