An examination of PUG and Hero/Hench gameplay.

6 humans with ursan blessing and 2 humans with seed of life +7 other skills is overpowered. Point?

A full team of heroes is overpowered. Three is plenty to get through most of the game. The guild team you mentioned is more effective because it's a team of say: eight players. Yours is one. You deserve to be weaker. Guild Wars can be played with people, or alone. They have given you the alone. If you think you need more heroes you continue playing the game, then you obviously need to rethink strategies.

I completely disagree with your post. Sometimes, I have more fun pugging with random people because of that social aspect. Who cares if you fail the mission? Try again. No one guaranteed that you're going to 'win! Win! Win!' or everything you touch turns to gold and makes you happy. If a video game was easy, there'd be no point to playing it. The game is already easy with three heroes and a full team of henchmen. I'd say, deal with it. You can all deal with it. If I really can't beat an area, I grab a friend. He throws his heroes at me, we go beat stuff. Yay.

/notsigned

I voted 'no' because I'm not lazy.

BTW, please don't sputter out your 'ursan build, ftl' garbage at me. I don't want to rofl right now.

I've been doing fine everywhere with heroes and henchmen; the reason I, like most other H/H players, want the cap removed, is not because we need help (except in elite missions; cannot be done with a human and 3 heroes) is because it would be more fun. Why is it that you seem to be completely ignoring that and assuming it is a request to make the game easier? I'd be happy, personally, with a full hero team and the game's difficulty spiked upwards.

GG

If the game is fine for you now, why must we cross the cap limit? If all you're trying to avoid is QQing with PuG's, then I really don't see a point. That's all you stated in your OP. I'm sorry, but you don't really strike a point that would move Anet to remove the cap. Period. Especially if I'm not moved. I can't even do Slaver's Exile with heroes.

Compared to what? Because obviously not compared to full team of 8 people.
What a pathetic "logic".

The game's difficulty is too easy, but that's not the point here - what heroes would do is allow us more freedom in party control and the freedom to run what team builds we want to, as well as opening access to elite missions for hero parties. In short it will add more variety to the game experience and make it more fun for us, and will not inconvenience you in any way at all.

You seem to be under the impression that the reason to want a removal of the cap is making the game easier or to have an overpowered team even though we have repeatedly stated that it will not be overpowered; indeed it will be balanced quite well, with a level of power a bit under a guild team. I have to wonder if you're trolling or just don't read our posts.

Let me say something about difficulty, as well - until Ursan is nerfed, we can pretty much ignore difficulty. The same goes for any accusations of overpoweredness - Ursan destroys all such possible accusations.

I'm pretty sure that you not being convinced has little to do with whether ArenaNet will be convinced.

Also, please explain to me how PUGs will be hurt by people who already avoid them continuing to avoid them (which we'll do either way) and how exactly heroes are overpowered (no one's actually given a valid explanation on this one, leading to me believe it's just wind).

As is yours.

You mentioned that the game was meant to be played 'solo,' however you're complaining that you can't solo comfortably. The game also didn't mention that there will be arrogant players who will refuse to take you in their group because they're too 'leet' to deal with you.

You're the type of player that makes me sick to my stomach. There isn't anything to be accomplished here other than making the game more easier. Three heroes is a good cap, because ArenaNet capped it there for a reason. If seven heroes doesn't hurt the game, why don't they give them the PvE skills you earn and already let you implement seven heroes? There's obviously a reason you're untouched with.

So far, you keep throwing this argument at me: "It's not intended to make the game easier." but yet, everything I have read points to "makes PvE easier to do by yourself."

Sorry. This idea isn't going to pull through.

You keep saying it's unfair for a team of eight humans to be better than a team of one human, three heroes, four henchmen. So, seven heroes helps balance the score. It's obvious, that there were some areas (such as elite) that just weren't meant to be done alone. Like PvP, you're forced to ally with people. If you want to play with computers, but still be in PvP, they introduced Hero Battles, and the Zaishen.

My logic doesn't consist of "8 players is okay, but 7 heroes and 1 player is overpowered". But nice "no urs" right there, totally unexpected. And I like how you decided NOT TO explain how it is overpowered. Obvious troll is obvious.

I just can't wait until GW2 when you can solo the entire freaking game. Not sarcasm.

Unlike a team of eight players, a team of seven heroes is like controlling eight players to yourself. To me, having seven heroes in my arsenal would give me the option of getting what I want, when I want it. I could make any option come true, whilst with players, not so much is true. Not everyone is in a guild with players completely active. Nor do you see players often in groups of eight in the first place. Why? Heroes. Because two players and six heroes has been plenty. The last time I saw a group of eight players, they were getting ready for a UW trip. The last time I saw eight players in a non-elite area, were PuGs who went together in a group and completely failed the mission, because they appeared back later. Eight players isn't common. Heroes already help enough as it is. Seven is just overkill.

What, never heard of something like "team leader"? And what does "controlling eight players to yourself" even mean? Does it mean they won't run off or go afk like typical pug retards? Yeah, guess what- that's one of many points why people go with H/H.

Maybe you should team up with decent players once in a while.

.
How sad you "forgot" to mention that in order to go with 2 players 6 heroes you need another account or a friend. And having to depend on a friend defeats the sole purpose of H/H.

Outstanding logic, 7 heroes are overpowered because pugs fail miserably.

Oh, and also you didn't point out any specifics as to why 7 heroes are overpowered. "option of getting what I want, when I want it, I could make any option come true". How is that not possible with a team of decent players with a nice team build?

The problem with heroes is that Guild Wars was designed to be a multiplayer game. With a party of 8, roughly speaking, each human player can be considered as contributing 1/8th of the total combat effectiveness of the party. That's never strictly true of course; you can attach more importance to monks, the damage dealers, the interrupters, or whatever, but let's just run with this for a minute.

Knowing that your contribution to the party is about 1/8th sounds like something that could be accepted in a multiplayer environment where you are part of a team of real people. The problem arises when you project this contribution onto a single player game comprising a team of one real player and 7 AIs.

When you are playing solo with Hero/Henches, you can pretty much approach a mob and let the AI do the majority of the work. Even without 7 heroes, for a lot of the game you can just press c-space, then afk until the battle music stops. Anet know this is a problem - that's why henchmen have crap skillbars, and that's why we're currently limited to 3 heroes.

And when you are playing with other people you can pretty much do nothing and let the rest of your teammates do the job. Limit the team size to 2.

You're still contributing and the likelihood that you'll sit there and do nothing isn't so likely.

They do limit team sizes, by the way. Yep, teams come in sizes of four, six, eight, and twelve. Before you sputter that the four player areas are areas like Ascalon that can be done by yourself, in hard mode it becomes a bit different. Whilst, you can still solo those areas in HM, even by yourself and three heroes.

Is the difficulty level of the game really supposed to be based on forcing solo players to group with 4 retarded AI with retarded skillbars and no runes? Because that doesn't seem like a very effective difficulty scale.

7 heroes is not an alternative to guildies/friends; it's for when they're not there, whether they've done it already or are busy. This is a multiplayer game; there won't always be someone around who wants to do what you want to do. So shut up with the "go find a friend with heroes" argument already.




Anyway, slight modification that I propose: 7 heroes only allowed in HM, and no EotN PvE skills.

And how does your rambling prove that a full hero team is overpowered, while a full team consisting of normal people is not?

Oh lawdy, lawdy, did you miss the part when GW was advertised as a game where you can play with people or solo? So shut up and learn what game are you playing.

Alright, I think it's safe to say at this point that you're not really thinking logically or reading our posts. Even lying at times, as evidenced by your claims that I think PvE is too hard, when I don't.

I don't want an easy game; things like Ursan already make the game too easy. I want a hard game, something of a difficulty that requires me to be awake (the present game doesn't, especially on my paragon who I can already macro to do most of the game for me). So stop saying I want an easy game because that's not what I want, it's not what we want, the game is already laughably easy. If I hear you pull the 'omgz u want teh ez gam!' card again, I'll know that you don't really care about the issue, you just like arguing, and aren't really reading what we're saying.

There are 25 heroes, they are going to waste. The limit on heroes is arbitrary and does not make sense. Maybe it made sense when Nightfall came out; now that Ursan's here there's no balance reason not to, and with PUGs insufferably rude there's no social reason not to. We want the freedom to run a full hero team so we can run the team builds we want, instead of a partial team build and then putting in the outdated henchmen to patch up the rest. There is no reason to limit the amount of heroes.

PUGs will suffer? They've already killed themselves.

It will make PvE too easy? A couple of my characters are an Imbagon and a Godmode Warrior (the others are sin, rit, ele, ranger, monk), and I can tell you that PvE has already been far too easy for far too long.

It will be overpowered? How hard is it to understand that Ursan Blessing is more overpowered than hero teams ever could be? Look at the times for elite missions with Ursan. A hero team will never achieve that because heroes cannot use PvE skills. So explain to me how it will be overpowered.

It gives players control over their whole party? That's exactly the point.

Exactly, you understand now! We want heroes because it lets us play when we want to, how we want to. Because unlike you, some of us have things to do with our lives and can't unconditionally depend on humans; we may be called away for real life events or simply choose to take a break and AFK; maybe you're one of those hardcore players who used to sit down for a many-hour DoA run, but a lot of us can't put in that amount of playtime and dependability for teammates. And we shouldn't have to in a game where AI are supposed to be just as valid a playstyle as humans.


I love when people oppose something that's never going to affect them, like gay marriage for example, or 7 heroes, just because they can't stand the thought of someone else enjoying something that they don't :\

If I have to say this a million times, I will.

I just want to have fun when I want to have fun. It's got nothing to do with PUGs, or the general hardness/easiness of the game.

I just want to have fun whenI want to have fun. And real people just don't seem to be around, or interested.

Besides, it's not inconviencing anyone who doesn't want to use Heroes. So, what's the beef?

If it's because you think I'm playing the game in a so-called bad way, that's really not your call to make. I bought and paid for the games-Proph, Factions, NF, and EOTN-same as everyone else, and that means I get to play it the way I want...

I don't know. Bad troll is bad.

In the case of it being serious...

Heroes are absolutely stupid, can't run a normal bar of decent skills without babysitting or imbalanced attributes, no PvE-only crap and basically you're affecting nobody. There is no rank involved join if you want because it's a party of AI, and those people who want to PuG will still do so.

Oh, and if that's the case we should also nerf Ventrilo. 8 players using this is overpowered!


Too true. Henchmen existed from proph for a reason.

Off-topic : Can I say the OP should really learn to avoid full human pugs, 3 human minds are easier to manage (and evaluate the IQ) than 8 people (and 4 players is in easy to group area).
Don't feel like replying to the OP's anti-pug comments.

On-topic : Yes full Hero team would be a boon to every decent (not good) player.
Is it nescesary? Considering you only need, in the worst of cases, 2 players and 2 hour if you REALLY take your time to do most things in the game; no they are not needed.
What are the chances ANet will tweak its interface and implement the last 4 hero. (what keys do you intend to use to manage 7 (SEVEN) skill bars (dont forget you have to mouse click them)? Do you really feel like playing 8 characters at once?) Tought 1 thing they could do is allow full hero but make only the first 3-4 of them manageable.

EDIT: I voted no because the game feel more right the way it is and, as the poll says, I do dissagree with the OP on many points.
Hadn't noticed he also wanted PvE skills to heros...
Also, they already said you will have 1 hero with you but AI allies will still be present.

I am voting on removing the hero limit close to when GW2 is ready to be released.I would say H/H made players play bad it is the reason why most don't bring a res and think it is the Monks jop to do it afterall who has the res in post searing and in Sing Jea and Istani.The henchies Monks.

That is why you see no resses on other bars who have been H/H and want a break to go with it with real players.

^the reason I forget to take a res in pve after H&Hing frequently is because with the H&H, I hardly ever die. With Humans, pugs, ect, I die, I die alot, what does that tell you....

The res sigs on the 2 non monk henchies is enough for emergencies, and the monks clean up after the fight. Otherwise I can just kamikaze if I start taking losses, flag the survivors back, re-spawn and eat candy.

PvE is already sort of a joke, even without ursan, without PvE skills, before heroes, all the way back in prophecies before they implemented "flags", the henchmen were responsible for getting me through about 90% of the game. It's a controlled circumstance, always the same, once you make a strategy to beat it and then execute the strategy, it's "easy". Until they drastically improve the AI of the enemies the game will always easy with the right party. What's interesting is making new parties and strategies, hard to do with only 4 slots to mess with, a PvP oriented guild that mostly despises the monotony of pve, and a community of childish, troglodytes who've welded ursan to their bars.

Before Ursan, the dungeons, and such, there was B/P, Obs tanks, "steel wall" groups, and whatnot. Unless you filled one of the roles in these types of canned groups, good luck getting pugs. This sort of thing repelled me from elite areas and their retarded pug groups. If 1 cog leaves, you're FUBAR, and the ones that stay are a bunch of jackasses.

I don't necessarily want PvE skills on heores, I might not even need the 4 extra heroes if they'd put some sort of ascended henchmen in the "temple" districts, DoA and Urgoz/Deep(like the zaishen in the Tombs of the Primeval Kings). Give me Elite Luxons and Kurziks in Urgoz and Deep that can handle the teleporting puzzles, give me Zaishen henchmen in Temple of Ages, Chantry of Secrets, and Zin Ku Corridor(that couldn't leave the zone, only enter the realms of the gods), and some Elite whisper agents in DoA and I'd be happy, and I'd never have to put up with ursan grinding again.

Yes, honestly yes.

I personally have never heard of a person not bringing a rez and saying "It's the monk's job to rez". Seriously, in the time it takes a monk to rez, another person will die from not being healed.

As a monk, I can tell you that I have heard that several times over, and headdesked every time I hear that. If I bring a rez, it's the last resort - I don't rez midbattle, because I'm busy healing/protting/whatnot.

I've played with people who have started screaming at me to rez despite me being busy healing the rest of the party, after I pinged the fact that my rez is Rebirth, and therefore a last resort to prevent party wipe in missions. It happens, alongside party not holding aggro, getting the monks killed, and then shuffling their feet and going "er, no rez" when the monks ask.

(Admittedly, nowadays, I don't expect that much from PUGs. It's always nice to meet a good player, but I don't go in expecting people to play wonderfully.)

I enjoy playing this game. Granted not nearly as much as I used to, but I still play and I still find many things to do while wandering around on one of the 3 continents.

I like helping new players, but heroes didn't kill the social aspect of this game. All anyone has to do is sit and watch the chat in any town for just a few minutes. Someone will ask a simple question and "BAM" Smart--- answers start flying. Arguments start over the pettiest things. I'm afraid no one can use the anti-social argument against removing the Hero limit.

"Removing the limit will make the game too easy". Uh, nope, I don't believe so. See we all have this thing called "choice". With Loot scaling in place, as severe as it is, taking extra party members when it is not necessary hurts the player. It is only advantageous to take a full party when we absolutely need to. And besides, if I want to beat the game, does it really matter to you how I do it? I could just leach off of some high level group and have them drag me through. I'm sure that has happened at least once in this game's history.

I like my hero necro, I never leave home without him. Why? 'cause there are always at least 4 dead bodies to pull minions from. The henchies are ALWAYS the first to die. We talk about the difference in their AI's. I remember taking Alesia when I first started playing, I felt so sorry for her. How could anyone that brave be that incredibly stupid! Then, I met her twin sister, had the same name, too! You know the one. You probably fought her for the Bison cup. NOW THAT was a WAMMO!!! I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if my Alesia could fight like that? How easy would it be to boost up the henchie AI? We have been given up to 25 heroes per character, call me greedy, call me unreasonable, but I want to pick my team.

The henchman concept was good in its day. GuildWars came up with a better concept, and only half released it. Its time to put it into full swing. If you choose not to use it, well that's your decision, but don't deny me mine. I want to continue enjoying this game.

And one additional note: I've been to war, there is no reset button in life, Dying is NOT an option. I want all available resources!

I think that 7 heroes should be allowed, (I also think they should be able to use PvE skills, but I'd rather have 7 heroes) because if you want to do a vanquish/mission/quest etc. with people, you GENERALLY won't choose, a PuG, you'll pick your Guildies/Alliance buddies anyway.

My thoughts exactly.
/signed

Overpowered in comparison to H/H vs Monsters is what I meant. I should have said more powerful, and powerful enough to wipe through PvE.

And I'm 100% for Ursan nerfing. That is overpowered, many things are, and I wish ANet would nerf them so that they are still useable but not overpowered.

7 heroes is not as powerful as 8 players, especially when those players use imbalanced builds such as Ursan team, or Imbagon, etc etc. But, at least those teams support working with other people (which seems to be very hard for most people, especially on the internet), and 7 heroes in comparison to 3 heroes and 4 henchmen are too powerful for PvE.

I see half the people in this thread that are pro 7 heroes argue against Ursan, SF, and the other Imba builds/skills and want balance. Your arguing two different sides people! No wonder ANet won't do anything, not even individuals seem to know what they want.

I'll state right here what I want:
1. 5 heroes (more in Urgoz/Deep)
2. Nerf to imbalanced skills and singular builds (meaning sabway is ok, due to many places being harsh on them *mainly low corpse areas*)
3. Let heroes use PvE-only skills of their faction (so most get none, but Sunspear heroes get sunspear PvE skills, Kurzick/Luxon heroes get their version of those skills, Jora would get "Bear Form" instead of any of the blessings, Ogden would get Dwarven skills, etc. etc.)
4. Buff to the weak skills so they see more, but not a big buff like SF and Ether Renewal got.
5. NOT to be able to solo the game with AI completely (meaning HM and Elite Areas should not be completely soloable, some areas yes (Slavers', SF, Tombs is good enough for Elite Areas, and many EN HM places are a pain, at least to me), and having max heroes (3-11 depending on location) slaughters this. There should be a FEW places where you have to team up for a full team.

Overall, My opinions are for 5 heroes max, excluding Urgoz/Deep where it should be either 7 or 9 heroes. And my view on 7 heroes is that it is more powerful then what PvE needs (and I AM pro-nerfing overpowered skills and builds, so for those who brought up them, I want those nerfed to be moderate skills/builds *and not slaughtered like some skills have been for PvP*).

Although I will say this: IF no limit on heroes is implemented, then add heroes to Factions and Prophecies so that it ends up being 30 heroes, 3 of each profession (and for lore purposes, change 5 heroes' professions and add Devona, Mhenlo, Aiden, Cynn, and Eve as heroes). Seeing how there would not be much need for Heroes if you have just two of the games, just remove them all together and add(and change) 5 heroes (or remove some and add more then 5).

But making it so that there are only 3 per profession would need a lot of side-game stuff changed (especially if adding Devona and co.). So it could also be done to make it 4 per profession, that way only 15 heroes would be needed to be added, 8/7 seems best, maybe just make one hero a Core hero (maybe gained in a new UW/FoW quest).

Of course, that is IF it is made to no limit on heroes is implemented (and I am still against that, although I voted yes because I want the limit raised).

I stopped reading here, because I was too confuzzled to understand what you're trying to say. You gave no reason to how being pro 7 heroes and anti-Ursan is a paradox or something. You just said it.

What if I just said, "Well, obviously, if you're pro PUG, you must like clubbing baby seals! No wonder the Anet and the EPA are different entities, not even individuals seem to know what they want."

Kind of resembles the same thing, so long as you're not going to have a rhyme or reason to say it.

We are not arguing two different sides. 7 heroes is not imbalanced and claiming that it is implies that a guild team of 8 players is imbalanced because a guild team of 8 players is more powerful than heroes.

Could you explain a way that 7 heroes is overpowered that also explains why guild teams aren't, despite the fact that a good guild team will usually be smarter and more capable than a hero team?

Rez on PvE bars = Your doing it wrong.

If an 8-man team needs 8 rezzes there is something seriously at fault with the team.I've never seen a need for more than 2 hard rezzes anywhere but thats another thread me thinks.

Imo that's pretty easy.

A guild team requires communication, team work, organization, time to set up and 8 people.

A hero team doesn't and allows the player to set up 7 team mates in any way they see fit which usually results in a more powerful synergy between builds.It also takes seconds.

Most guild teams are also far from the most efficient team builds as they usually revolve around the class and builds individual players are currently playing or enjoying at that time as opposed to the perfect 8 player synergy one could attain from 7 heroes.

The current 3 hero set-up is already able to steamroll most of HM.Imagine if you will 7 hero Sabway on steroids with an Imbagon thrown in, assuming PvE skills were also added to heroes.gg.

In saying I'm all for this idea but I find it hard to ignore the obvious result of OP'd team builds surfacing within seconds.

So you're saying it's OP because it saves a lot of time. Basically you mean that we should penalize players who need to be ready to play quickly because they might not have hours and hours to play. Guild Wars was meant to emphasize skill over time, and here I see you advocating the opposite.

As far as OP'ed builds go, [Barbed Spear][Spear of Fury][Focused Anger]["For Great Justice!"]["Save Yourselves!"][Anthem of Flame]["There's Nothing to Fear!"][Aggressive Refrain] is already rolling everything in human teams. I tested it and can even macro it and let most of the game play itself for me in the majority of areas, so overpoweredness isn't even relevant for discussion here.

EDIT: Skill tag fixed.

No offense but I hate it when people read a post, misinterpret it, and then post there misinterpretation as rebuttal.

I'm saying it's OP because you can have perfect build synergy, anytime, all the time.Sure you can get that, and with PvE skills even more so, in guild teams but let's be realistic here.

7 hero team builds would make HM even more of a walk in the park than it already is.

If you can't already see how easily this would be abused in the current PvE meta chances are nothing I say will make any difference.



Comparing a single OP'd build centered around a PvE player only skill really seems to serve no purpose in discussing the changes a 7 hero team mechanic would bring to the game.If your using it as a means of justification for 7 hero teams I really don't see the relevance especially when you bring ["Save Yourselves!"] into the equation.

Again I'm for this idea.

7 heroes would be awesome but if you can't see that it would be exploitable and used to make OP'd team builds theres not much I can say.Denying it does'nt make it untrue, out of context or any less relevant either.

Aehm, stop mixing PvE only skill usage on heroes and 7-heroes. First won't and shouldn't happen, ever, second is up to debate.

About abusability:

One major thing that limits abusability is that you have limited amount of primaries you can put to 7H team. No more than 2 paras for example.

Everyone will probably end up running saabway+racway+one random hero (i suspect bha ranger).

Which is what people already can do if they have friend they can bother for 1 second to borrow heroes or if they have second account. They miss that last random hero, but that's not issue (see FoW with H/H thread for numerous examples.)

The hero limit being removed is something I would really like to see. I could take or leave letting them use PvE only skills, but honestly I think the community would take it better if the heroes were kept the way they are now (where they can still use near-broken combinations of regular skills). And who knows? Sab/Rac way might well become obsolete when you have 7 heroes to mess with instead of just 3

The moderators could simply insert a poll into the original (and much more insightful) thread, instead of allowing ANOTHER thread that goes in circles about the same arguments. I'm really, really tempted to summarize the proper counterpoints to Zahr's OP above, but I already know where the arguments will go (and what this thread will degenerate to).

Oh well, if you guys want to beat your chest on it here again with the occasional person saying "well, 7 heroes is overpowered, and that's the only reason I have" so you can beat down on them, feel free.

/signed

PUGs are usually for those who don't have any better options.

The only reason? lolno

7 Heroes as soon as Nightmare Mode comes out....

yes please! i only play with guildies/friends or h/h so that would be great. can't always find guildies or friends that have time to do what is needed, or have their character where it's needed, or WANT to do what yr doing, etc.

allow 7 heroes, or at least rework the henchmen bars, imo. most of the henchie bars are just epic sad. EotN henchies were a step in the right direction.