HM - a total failure

Been discussed countless times.....seriously. The game is broken and there's no turning back. If you don't like it just play another game or get a good guild.

Oh yeah almost forgot, It's thanks to heroes that I still hardcore play GW after 3 years.

Your own fault then. If you dont like heroes oh well, they're here to stay, get used to it, if you are either too stubborn to leave your guild for a more active one, or call on allys, then you have to get heroes, cause most people learned very early on, pugs will always have either

A. that idiot that has no clue what he's doing & refuses to learn.
B. that idiot that thinks he's the greatest player to ever play this game but when he proves he's the weak link in the team he blames everyone else but himself for being total noobs.
C. you usually get the monk & warrior arguing over how to do each others jobs then one or both quit & the team is forced to resign & start over because these 2 retards crippled the group with their selfishness.

Fact: Heroes follow called targests
Fact: Heroes don't leave in the middle of whatever you are doing
Fact: Heroes will have decent skill bars unless you yourself don't know how to make one

That in itself makes heroes much better then people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_algernon
Basically, it's implying that people need some "miracle tonic" to become less stupid. If only...

For every change that anet has made, there has always been people that QQ'd about it. Yet these people still play the game and post here to qq more.

Itt: people not being able to move on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon

EDIT: Damn, Mesmer cast [skill]Stolen Speed[/skill] on me

Most important fact - Heroes don't take 3 hours to setup and they come in all varieties, colors and professions, unlike those single profession players out there that are always warriors or eles.

Still, any half experienced player (there are a few out there) will spank any are 3-10x faster then any heroes setup (especially cause heroes suck at melee and they can't use PvE skill, but who cares?).

Last patch was a nice boost in the way of improving actually play instead of farm/abuse. Not that I have anything against the persons that like that kind of activities - I do them daily, although its called work and I get paid to get better goodies to have fun.

Keep bumping the rewards for actual play (go out with a party, human or AI, preferably mixed profession ones) and kill everything that moves till farming isn't more profitable that actual play.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...9&postcount=18
So, no more Go Sabway all the way!!!?

I dislike free updated content that doesn't effect co-op play as well...

At first I was a bit bummed about HM as well - until I realized how hard it is to make an even barely intelligent AI with the millions of variables GW contains, especially with ANet's limited resources (not even WoW can achieve something like this as evidenced by the tanking mechanics).

The largest problem I can pinpoint is that a few classes don't necessarily fit the mold of such a method of increasing difficulty.

I suspect this thread is this thread in disguise

Another point to point out is that by making a hard mode into the game they separated the player base once again. At one time we were all playing in the same game frame. Now, 1/2 are playing hard mode and 1/2 are playing normal mode. So this reduces the number of players to group with once more. Then you have most of all the old content like in Prophecies and Factions where the majority of the districts are empty or just people standing around afk. The pugging/grouping aspect of GW was definitely affected by hard mode and they really should take it out and bring it back to the way it was so everybody is playing the same thing in all areas.

Good post and I agree with you. The co-operative aspect of GW is why me and my real life friends chose GW at release. And for almost 4 years now, we try to avoid pugs whenever we can. I h/h or play with 6 heroes when none of my real life friends are online. But even the first year when we didn't have heroes and HM around, I prefered henchies whenever I could. No forced and unnatural pugging.

I don't mind other players, there is social interaction in towns and trading etc. as long as I'm not forced to play with them it's ok. We have more of a PAT relation (Playing Apart Together) and that's part of GW succes imo. Get and play in your own world and have some fun. It's not something new, the Baldur's Gate series had it too, except that there we could play with a all 'hero' party.

Personally, I think it's great, that you do not have to go looking for a group of 15-year old noobs with no concept of team work (or other brain-activity-requiring-concepts), whenever you want to accomplish anything.
The "good old days" you seems to remember, appears to be missing vital points, like waiting for an hour to find that 2.nd monk and failing multiple times due to baaad players!

the main reason that I do not pug is not because players have bad skill bar or that they talk crap or that they are rude, the main reason that prevented me from pugging, the number one culprit, is:

Pug: hang on one second okay, i have to go for dinner. and they are away for half an hour. .... and believe me i meet with these a whole lot, yesterday its worse I met a low level players in the jungle area, they was inviting my Survivor Monk to play, so, i declined, log in to my elementalist, invited said players because as my rule that will be the person i help that day, and half way thru the mission, they say good bye and left the game. .... but then I never learn, i still pick up pug almost everyday. ...

PS: I don't even need to do that mission in the first place...

to Mystica: you are right. Three months ago I started with Sabway and thought it was great. Obviously it still works great, also in HM. But that's besides the point.

It boils down to me being frustrated about PUGs. I used to love PUGging, even with all the problems that PUGs entail, which have been well documented.

This discussion shows once again the diversity in what people like, dislike, expect and hope to get out of GW.

You can't force players to play the way you want them to. There's not much you could have done to force people to PuG if they don't want to. Many people play multiplayer games to pay with people they know (guilds or just friends). Many people play because of the dynamic nature of an online game, even if they prefer to play by themselves.

If you think that ArenaNet could have made people go back to using PuGs then I think that's a bit naive. Even Blizzard cannot do that for old content, and they've tried pretty hard with the achievements and what-not. What happens is people look within their circle for other people that want to or need to do something (such as the paladin/lock mount quests in WoW or any old non-HM content in GW). If they cannot find someone they know (and I know this from people I used to run with telling me exactly why they wouldn't do something) then they just do not do it... ever... People have told me if they can't get someone they know to do something or someone from their guild to do something (or even soemone they know to run through it with a higher level main/alt) then they absolutely will not PuG it, hence will not bother with that content..

The problem is (with the internet and certain games in particular), too many people that turn out to be asses run people off from PuGs in a way that many of them never come back.. For them it's literally not worth the hassle to go through that experience in what is supposed to be a game. You don't have to do everything, and many people choose not to. They're not playing the game to provide you company. They're playing for their own enjoyment, which means limiting anything that may take away from that enjoyment.

This isn't Burger King. Even though it's a multiplayer game, it doesn't mean anyone is going to play with you. They may play with others, but there's nothing to say they have to play with you, unless they know you already.

Guild Wars isn't the only game that has problems with PuGs. In fact, most do a one point or another. The best time to PuG is when something (content-wise) is brand new. Hard Mode didn't bring new content.. It just made old content somewhat harder (relative, not saying its hard, just harder than normal mode). EotN did help PugS for a little while. I saw firsthand that there were PuGs out there (as I got into quite a few). Other people I played with that didn't mind PuGs got into them. If you didn't get into PuGs (any of you, not any one person in this thread) then it's just a case of certain people wouldn't PuG with YOU, not that they wouldn't PuG.

Guild Wars Hard Mode (and missions) is mostly an all-or-nothing situation. If you wipe in a mission, or get to 60% in Hard Mode, you lose ALL progress towards your goal. You start over completely. For short runs, it's no biggie, but for longer runs, that's quite a chance you take running it with someone that you don't know that could rage quit, quit for other reasons, not be up to the task, etc.

Mythic put all kinds of non-endgame content into their game Warhammer Online to make it different that other games where they really start at the level cap, but now they're finding out that players are so attuned to the game starting at the end of the content that players are just powerleveling through the game to see what's at the end (endgame). You can't make people play against the way they want to. If there were no heroes then people would be stuck at bottlenecks like they were before (yeah, not everyone is uber nor should they be - it's ok to suck at a game forever if you're having fun because for most people it's a game not a way of life). If they took away henchmen, Guild Wars wouldn't work as an instanced game. If you want a guaranteed multiplayer game then play something with a matchmaker such as Halo or Gears of War. You can play EVE but even there - no guarantee anyone will play with you.

And that's why I don't do HM anymore. A few areas in Prophecies to see what it was capable of and then it was the same game, new paint job.

Now I like heroes and hench. I completed all of the game with just hench when I got a bit more experienced and did the same with Factions. Heroes just made it easier for everyone. You will always have the OPTION to group with real people, just as now there is an option not to.

Uh, hate to break it to you ... the problem isn't that hard mode is so easy that even heroes can do it. The problem is heroes are better players than 95% of the pugs that you will pick up.

I don't take Livia/Olias/MoW with me because I am antisocial and don't want to contribnute to a group. I take them because they give me the best chance of successfully completeing the mission. By alot.

Yeah. Even Goren is better than 90% of pug players.

And has better skills than 99% of pug players.

EDIT: <insert basically the same reply to this paragraph that 10 people already made, gg me for posting before reading rest of the thread>

Shouldnt this be closed?
There is no discussion in here.

HM, isnt that PvP?

It's the juice you get when you squeeze smart white mice.

get a better guild tbh, and team up with them to pwn pve with full human party.

I'm someone who was MiA from GW for a long long time. Then came back and decided to give PUGs a chance.

After days and days, I'm back with H&H (exceptions are guildies and mesmer meetings).


These are the things I had to go through with PUGs:

1. Leechers. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but 3 leechers within few days? This is really despicable. I am not talking about occasional afkers, but intentional leeching.

2. Afkers. Selfish people who think that online is 100% fictional world, and that PUGs don't matter, that PUGs are not people. Hey, if I PUG, I dedicate my time to PUG group. I'm not going to make excuses every 5 min "oh im sorry, i have IRL so you dont care, deal with it". Well if you have IRL what are you doing in online game, and why are you wasting time of others people, just take H n H.

3. Leavers. OK, sometimes a person has to go. No blame here. But in longer missions etc, you need someone reliable. And heroes are more so.

4. Incompetence. I am not talking about beginners who didn't grasp the game yet. I am talking about veterans who still seem to have horrid skill bars. When I PUG, I have one rule: DONT SHOW ME YOUR SKILLBAR. I don't want to know, and don't torture me please Ignorance is bliss. And they equip heroes with worse skills than henchies have (!).

5. Attitude, lack of organization and discipline.



May I have 7 heroes pls. Not for higher efficiency, but more fun.

No offense but a lot of places I seen you post it was just "cool story bro" or some crap like that...wtf.

Well yea I like pugging too it's more fun than H/H even if they fail sometimes, so we can see wammo/double dragon ele RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.
Tannakai temple vanq, for example, was a bitch with H/H. Then I found someone with the primary quest and beat it ;P

One of the reasons I've stayed away from pugging nowadays is because some of the people's skill bars I've seen would make the hamstorm warrior on the Guild Wars Proph box seem like a better candidate to bring along than them.

I've played this game for three years, I don't want to group with people anymore. Heroes have made my life semi-easier. And I'd take semi-easy over impossible any day.

Perfectly agreed on that point. I still pug and try to direct them in the right way by helping with builds and such but most of them drown back to the bad builds. PS: Forgot to mention those are players with fow armor and epeen stuff and character names that I saw more than 2 years ago.

One thing I noticed in pugs is that they don't use many pve skills.

- You guys really don't see where this comes from? The players you see PUGging are those who have just started. When the first skills W/E gets in his bar are Frenzy, Healing Signet, Firestorm, Flare, then those are the skills player will use. They don't bother seeking out skill trainers in remote locations, because you know their skills are LOCKED OUT when they've bought the game. I spent good amount of time playing PvE with different profession combinations just to be able to fill roles in GvG team when I started out. Where does it come from that Guild Wars is a "PvP game".

Do you, after beating UW and FoW 50 times to get your FoW armor, perfect skillbar, maxed out PvE skills and five million balthazar faction return to replay some random normal mode missions? I don't think so.

Now put yourselves to position of new player. How does he know that +armor bonuses don't stack past +25? Nothing in the game tells you so. How does he know that Mending is a bad skill - he doesn't know what energy and health regen means! Again, nothing in the game tells you anything, I've read everything on wiki. Nothing in the game tells you about GuildWiki. I happened to come across it when visiting www.guildwars.com out of interest. That's where I also found out about these forums.

Are you still wondering why PUGs suck?

I still think the best idea for HM would have been to give monsters a secondary. Making them higher level could have worked as well, but the increased attributes, armor, health, and skill activation/recharge times was just poor. GW:EN added monsters with a secondary, and it works quite well. Some of the monsters even have very nice builds using those secondaries.

I do a lot of PvE myself, and am very glad for the hench and heroes. Because not many people are on when I am on and wanting to do what I want to do. Since I have trouble finding people on when I am that want to do what I want to do, the hero/hench teams allow me to go with 1-3 other people instead of 7.

i agree with you about the fact that there aren't many people playing with others, but it is their choice entirely if they want to h/h

To me Anet completely missed the point with HM. The old whine that HM is just NM but with the enemies supercharged goes to the core of the problem.

Back in the old days the two most 'difficult' prophecies missions were thought to be Thunderhead Keep and Thirsty River. I actually remember people ragequitting because of Thirsty River. Neither of them had the hardest enemies in the game but they did force a team to actually play together, watch aggro and make some strategic choices. The ring of fire missions however were never deemed hard. If anything they're just boring... Why? Because enemies with higher lvls or more armor do not equate with an elevated difficulty.

Anet however chose to make HM challenging by going the Ring of Fire-way and not by stressing the importance of team-play. The thing is however, that if you supercharge enemies you'll automatically limit a player's ability to chose skills freely. The harder an enemy hits, the more you're forced to bring along specific counters to that enemy and the more you'll be forced to run certain builds. If you force players to run specific buildsets in an environment in which most players are just running crap then automatically will you create an environment in which PUGs are deemed horrible and Heroes are deemed reliable. HM does not force you to be more efficient as a team. HM only forces you to optimize the builds you run with. HM is alot more Build Wars than NM and is thus automatically more suited for H/H then for PUGS. Best times I had in GW was when I was exploring new environments with a balanced all guild team, not knowing what you will face and what choices you would have to make. GW is most fun when you're forced to use player skill to overcome a disadvantageous situation. Not when you can overcome each difficulty by using Skill X.

Solution: When entering the game every time for the first month, a big flashing message PRESS F10, PRESS F10, PRESS F10 needs to be added. As soon as people know that gateway exists to the Wiki, nothing is keeping them uninformed anymore.

Well that's a lot of bullcrap. Yes, there exist certain builds which utterly destroy HM, but in no way are there only a few ways to do any particular area. When vanquishing, I continually switched up my heroes and their builds. I probably would have gone a lot faster if I had just run discordway or something like that, but I finished LV without ever running any 3 necro build. Building for an area by dropping RC on one of your bars when you're going into a condition-heavy area does not make HM = build wars, it means that you just have to plan ahead a little.

What is the difference with having heros with well thought out builds compaired to another game with cheat codes. It is up to you to use them or not if it too easy then don't sab try different henches. There are so many combos of skills you can use it boggles the mind. Be creative try something new.

Advantage of heros /henc group they listen

Humans do as they want

hm is a joke

GWamm is not worth it

I believe it was evident that HM was a total failure the moment I stepped into the first HM Explorable. Unless I've been dreaming, of course.

Well, actually, at first it was like ZOMG WTH IS GOING ON.

Now I accidentialy pressed HM button, didn't notice and went out to do quests. Didn't notice it was Hard Mode until I got wanded for 30 dmg. Few times in a second.

And since then, Hard Mode = Normal Mode pre-making-it-easy-mode + a bit bigger numbers.

H/H didn't ruin GW. You could always hench the hardest missions before hero's even existed.

Back then most players still preferred to group since back then it was easier to win with actual players. With the addition of PvX, PvE skills that require little to no thought to use effectively, separation of pve and pvp skills due to noobs who can't adapt, and general dumbing down of the game to 12345 builds...GW has become a game so easy that even terribad players can solo without the aid of real players. Do not blame heroes, they were a good addition to the game. Blame the powercreep and win button pve skills/CC builds that even a trained monkey could use.

Off course Goren is good, hes one of my maid AI when I go hammering with my warrior character.

HM gives players a false sense of accomplishment. You often hear things like HM is supposed to be hard. HM is only for people who are capable. Bad players don't belong in HM. The list goes on and on. The reality of it all is a joke. HM is nothing but...

The fact people are steam rolling through HM and countless Legendary Vanquisher among many other titles are constantly being maxed effortlessly basically throws the whole "HM is meant to be hard and it's meant to be for good players" theory out the window.

Same goes for DoA. If good teams with a balanced setup (using no gimmicks) can waltz in and be done with it in 1.5 hours that throws the whole HM is meant to be hard out the window. You guys were looking for a challenge and got none. Well maybe initially when everything was all new but that challenge is long gone. Given time, some pugs will learn and get better as well provided they get a positive experience in their gaming.