How did Heroes kill Guild Wars?

I've seen several threads saying that the introduction of Heroes in Nightfall was one of the killers of GW.

I'm not sure I understand the logic. Sure, outposts became more empty with a lack of humans...but how does that kill GW?

people don't group

Oh boy, here comes some rage...

In PvE: They lessened the ability and need to group to successfully complete objectives.

In PvP: Their godly reaction time as interrupters trumps even the best human players on the best ping imaginable.

I enjoy heroes myself, but I understand why some people don't.

well u can h/h everything nowadays and thats not how gw used to be there was lots of grouping and an all around more friendly atmosphere i dont think its killed gw tho just made it kinda pointless that it requires internet access if noone needs a group. but the zquests are making a slow comeback for grouping

Heroes didn't kill the game. They were simple a tool Anet used to get people to buy the expansions. Allow me to vent a bit.......

Making certain skills different in pvp vs pve was stupid.
Constantly cycling thru buff, nerf, buff, nerf, buff, nerf has burned a lot of players out.
Factions is far too structured. You can only get to outposts in a very specific order only after completing specific quests/missions. Like it or not, running was a part of the game that introduced normally "loner" pve players to other players. In factions they actually made it faster and hence more beneficial just to hench missions as opposed to taking the time to form parties.

Massive Loot scaling. I understand bots were a big issue, but so severely hurting EVERY player for the sake of undermining bots was like killing a fly with a rocket launcher. I like solo farming, that's how i spend the majority of my time.....but the incentive is pretty much gone.

All have been in the name of making the "next" expansion more attractive. For instance........

Factions had new skills, and the bosses were in static locations....friendly to farming. Good, but not great.....

Nightfall had heroes, and new skills seemed to be aimed towards farmers. Well, you have GOT to get it for the heroes pretty much.

EoTN was a practice in complete manipulation. Maintain Shadow Form as an elementalist.....this was huge. Maintain Obsidian flesh, also huge. More heroes, pretty big. URSAN.......wow....I swear, every noob in game had an R10 Ursan.....if you didn't have one, and you weren't a monk, you didn't get to the UW/FoW with any full party. Then there was Vaettirs and Raptors, 2 places that 100% was designed for enticing farmers. Does anyone seriously even consider that the designers did not know what they were doing when they put 34 raptors so close to an outpost, and 60 Spectral Vaettirs so close to a portal? They had to design it by hand, trust me, they knew full well it would be farmed.

They included just the skill necessary to farm it with any efficiency in EoTN......that being Glyph of Swiftness. That let folks maintain both shadow form and Obsidian flesh.

The unintended consequence was the fact that solo sins could farm ecto in the UW with ruthless efficiency. The price of Ecto declined so much that it had to be nerfed......which it was. When they discovered it hadn't been nerfed enough, it was nerfed yet again, then again one last time.

It has happened over and over. When a new expansion is released, they make it so completely necessary to compete that players have to buy it. After a sufficient number have bought the expansion, the benefits of it are nerfed.

yea i dont know how they didnt see this coming....ive given up pve(except some farming) , half the fun was finding a group of real people to play with, now theres none of that

Another great point. It seems like Anet has driven people to use gimmick builds. So instead of actually forming a legitimate group to play with, there is always some stupid gimmick build to facilitate some gimmick run/farm/mission etc. If folks aren't on one of these gimmick runs, their gimmick farming some type of "points" to make their gimmick builds more useful to gimmick parties doing these stupid runs. Whats worse, is that players are FORCED to do this, because to get any respectable amount of points conventionally would take YEARS.

So even playing with players feels a hell of a lot more like solo farming than pre-loot scale solo farming ever did.

Who honestly does the FoW/UW in any conventional way anymore? Where is the fun? If you can't show off the awesomeness of your build simply because your build is the exact same as 6 other people in the party..... How is that not fun? The game is a grind....even with full PuG parties these days, and those that still play it are nothing more than addicted grinders or players still new enough to think the game is fun.

Obsidian Flesh was easily maintainable with Serpent's Quickness before EotN.

And perma A/Me was possible before EotN. A/E only happened after the SF buff, which was a long time after EotN was introduced.


TBH I would rather have Ursan back for elite areas only. Nowadays DoA is completely dead for PuGs, and as I've joined a PvP guild I can no longer do it. Cryway PuGs are just epich phail.

The playing of PVE guildwars wasn't killed by anything other than time.

By that I mean at first everyone was trying to finish prophesies with their first character then some repeated it with other characters.
So in those days lots of people were in the towns doing missions and no shortage of parties.

4 years on and a large proportion of the players have done all that time and time again.
There are now 4 map games but not 4 times the number of players and many of them are farming or going for titles.

The advent of heroes does make many play without other humans, but a fair proportion of them have done that because of the lack of human parties.

Even before heroes came out we were having to take the odd henchman to fill in for missing people.

They didn't kill anything. I and many others wouldn't play with randoms before heroes. When unable to make full guild/friend groups, always preferred retarded AI and bad builds of henchmen to the even worse option of the pug. All heroes did is allow the people who weren't about to pug anyway to have vastly improved, customizeable versions of henchmen.

The idiocy of the average player and the sense of entitlement (running bad bars and refusing to change, etc) killed the pick up group. The pug was dying long before heroes were introduced.

The game would been dead long ago without heros..and the ai vs ai playing is gonna continue in gw2 too..thank god :P

ai> pugs......or so it was...it's been so long :P

They iz good at teh Jagged Bonezz

This pretty much covers it all.

Adding heroes might have speed up the process, but in the end PvE dying was inevitable. Luckily there are still Guild and Alliances mates

I fully agree with this statement. I remember when I first started playing GW (Yes the dreaded Noob), just asking a simple question in town was like sending out an open invitation for insult and rude comments. Why would anyone want to group with people like that? Im not saying EVERYONE is nasty and rude that plays this game, but to many out there are that way to even bother with pug groups. I learned in the first month of playing, if I cant get help in the guild to just go it alone with hencies. If I failed at something it was my own fault and the henchies dont cuss you because you didnt load as fast as they thought you should. As for heros, all they did for me was make it so I can create the skill bars for the AI I would be using. I have been playing for 4 years now, and every now and then I will take a pug group just to remind myself why I prefer to go it alone.

i often found myself in a situation, where i chose h/h over pugs for the reasons some mentioned above. i guess, the 1 companion only rule, which might be introduced in gw2 is an elegant solution. you can own mobs alone or with your personal henchman or with a pug. i hope, anet balances all options well.

It is true, it only took me about 5 Hm Frostmaw runs to start going 600/smite in my quest for fancy bows. Many times doing things the simple way hinders your ability to achieve the goal your after when by design people who do it in a full balanced team should get it faster.

Heros, Pve skills, and farming are not the culprit. The problem is the games mechanics reward you for Using heros, spam killing a dungeon, and exploiting skills. Let us all hope that this is the exact reason they are producing GW2 instead of adding on top of this.

Agreed. Before Nightfall came out, if I couldn't get guildmates to help me, I would have gladly taken the henchies and their horrible AI over someone who would complain about drops, order me around, or complain how I wasn't leet enough to be in a group with them. The ability to go with AI instead of being forced to group with random people is one of the reasons that I stayed with GW instead of other mmo-type games. Like it was previously said, not all random people are rude (some pugs I've grouped with even joined my guild) but as it is said with bad apples and whatnot . . .

What would really help the pug situation would be a rating system for players similar to the star system in the Auctions. An in-game rating (maybe karma points?) would let you know what type of people were potentially joining your group. Granted, there are some flaws in it, but something like that would be the only solution I could see reviving the pug situation.

I have a remedy for all of your problems. It will very successfully actually force people to form teams, but it won't render heroes useless. There will be times when you will want to do a normal mode mission lonely with henchies and heroes just as you will be able to bolster your HM team with two heroes.

normal mode

1) maximum one hero per each human player
2) maximum 4 heroes in the party for 8+ players map, 3 heroes for 6 player man, 2 heroes for 4 player map
3) can fill all slots with henchmen in the party

hard mode

1) maximum one hero per each human player
2) maximum 2 heroes in the party no matter the difficulty
3) able to fill no more than 2 slots with henchmen in the party

pvp

1) heroes banned from any form of ranked pvp games excluding hero battles and guild scrimmages
2) in non-ranked/scrimmage games no limit on the use and availability of heroes

Advantages of such system?

1) grouping in HM makes sense, gimmick pve builds such as discord, imbagonway and other shit is dead
2) heroes still remain very useful and often well-skilled and well-equipped hero will be crucial since it's not too easy to get 8-man team each time
3) Urgoz/Deep/DOA/SF/any dungeon will become a place where real human cooperation is needed, heroes nonsense is over
4) now it's easier to focus on one or two heroes instead of wasting money and faction to get 4-8 heroes well equipped ... now you will be more likely to focus on no more than 3-5 well equipped diverse heroes since you can bring only one of them with you
5) pvp is again a human vs human fight, there is no room there for heroes ... and this brings old, good prophecies/factions days back in place ... perhaps HA level will rise since gimmick builds will be likely to die-off natural and painful death ... hero battles which are based solely about heroes micro and capping points is untouched

It's really hard to fully pin a lot of blame on Heroes, because at the same time the PvE world was getting bigger and bigger.

Some argue that heroes put a major kick to the multiplayer component, but given how faulty GW's party system is and the current size of PvE, I feel that they're doing a lot more harm than good.

I would stop playing Guild Wars.

^^^This is a Epic idea^^^ especially the removing heroes from Ranked PvP

This. I'd much rather be running around with the AI who won't go AFK, run questionable bars, or quit halfway through. Then heroes were introduced allowing me to explore the build possibilities of every profession on one character.

To anyone who thinks heroes and henchmen are a bad thing in Guild Wars I suggest you try another game where large full human groups are required to enjoy the endgame. Then you will truly appreciate the luxury of having AI controlled players.

Disadvantages?

1) My buddy and I bought this game to play together, just the two of us. You method would lock us out of HM, unless we chose to team up with strangers. Two players is multiplayer, in the full spirit of an online, multiplayer game.

2) Want to vanquish a region, but nobody's available or willing to play? Sorry, no game for you!

The system now is fine.

There is logic, but that's not why group play in GW is dead.


Want to know why people who know better avoid playing with others at all costs?

/report

That's why. This simple feature allowed carebears to rule guild wars entirely, getting anyone who says a word to their dismay or anything remotely "risque" banned. After you get banned for absolute senseless bullshit you learn better than to let filthy carebears anywhere near you.

Cause, i mean, i used to play with people cause it was fun. Even though heroes were more efficient, i used to enjoy playing with other players just because it was social and fun. After i learned being social isn't allowed because of overly sensitive children or middle-aged people with children, now i just stick to heroes. Cause even if i would choose to play with people i wouldn't be able to talk in fear i might say something super offensive like "what the hell?" and get banned.

That's why, people.

Not that I am even close to an expert, but heres my opinion.

First, Guildwars is a social game at heart. You make a character and join a guild. Within that guild you make friends and play together whenever you want. Its easy to group with players from your guild unless they just don't want to play with you. Regardless of heroes, you can still play in groups due to having guildies.

Alliances are another way to make even more friends and find players to group. Granted it seems that some players in the same alliances don't really care to much about each other and the same can be said for guildmates. But its not impossible to get groups from alliances.

Most populated towns and outposts still have players willing to group, and many are looking for groups. Hundreds, if not thousands of people don't own nightfall or eye of the north. So they do not have heroes. Many of those players hate henchmen. So they are always looking for friendly players to group with.

The only aspect of grouping that really became harder is farming groups. Why bother farming in a group when you can flag heroes away and get all the drops? This bothers many people for reasons easily understood and some reasons unique to the player. Still, you can get farming groups within guilds.

With all that said, Heroes did not kill PvE. PvE is still going strong in many places with players enjoying the game content, with or without other player support.

Heroes, which I love, did not hurt the game at all. What it did is give the ability to enjoy the game back to the little guy. How many times have people been stuck in a town for days/weeks/months waiting for a group? How many times have players been kicked from group after group for not running the skills people wanted, or because they were not the profession people wanted. Also empty towns like those found in magnum jungle and so on were lost causes. What are those players supose to do? Deal with it? Not play the game? lol.

Maybe if the general playerbase wasn't jerks and abusive users, heroes would not have been needed. But since most of you don't deserve the right to have the internet, much less interact with other people, Anet was forced to include custom, controllable henchmen to avoid losing massive amounts of players (newbies and noobs, by your standards). This took power away from the jerks and they don't like it. Well, too freaking bad.

Heroes didn't kill PvE. Skills didn't kill PvE. If anything "Killed" PvE, its a blend of jerks and lack of new content. Thats it and nothing else. But PvE isn't dead by a long shot to many, many players and we will keep on enjoying it every day, thanks to our new skills and heroes. -And if you don't like it, then I guess you're just S.O.L.


PS: LOL @ all of you who hate the report function. You must be doing/saying things you shouldn't. I'v never been reported in almost 4 years of playing and I'm far from a "carebear". Then again I don't go around doing obnoxiously stupid things causing people to hate my guts.

The system now isn't fine. There is no reason not to allow 7 heroes per player in PvE. Heroes in PvP, though, except HB, should be banned.

Like I said, add in perma ursan and 8 heroes and this game is complete.
/thread.
/forum.
/internet.

So, are you an addicted grinder?

Granted, GW is an MMOG. This has been used to insist that if you play you Must play with all persons who play - IE. If your option is to hench or play with someone named Leafbroker Bongtoker more socially oriented people feel you should be required to play with the druggee. While they may reject this idea when presented with it, they constantly call for action to force others to play with them.

I don't want to play with people who are blatantly inappropriate. I also do not want to be forced to play with people who feel you owe them your drops if the droo is useable by them and not the character you are playing at the moment. Nor do I want to play with people who screw up all group objectives as readily as breath. I am not playing with people who have little or no proven consideration for the interuptions real life causes (such as changing diapers, first aid for one's kids, a phone call from X, etc. Because I am not willing to be friendly with every Joe and Jane Wannabematuresomeday heroes work. As long as said Joe and Jane are 10% (or more) of the community heroes and henchies work. It is not my responsibility to finish raising other people's near adult or over 21 children. Heroes and henchies allow me not to have to do so.

People are dumb and dont listen, heroes do anything you want them to without asking retarded questions, leeching and going AFK.

if it wasn't for heroes i wouldve probably quit a long time ago

.

None, never will either...unless its something truly horrible.

There are already to many people with skin so thin you can see thier innards.
They waste time of folks in support who could be doing something more useful.

I've been in a decent PvE guild since the beginning. Mid-prophecies guildies were always grouping up to tackle DNKP or ToPK. I quit around factions release and came back a few months after nightfall. Still about the same number of people playing, but very little grouping going on. I don't think heroes were solely responsible, part of it is just the expanded content spreading people out, but heroes definitely reduced the incentive to group- while there isn't much chance of failing with guildies, there isn't with heroes either, and heroes are always ready to go, while it takes effort and time to organize a human group.

That said ZQuests have brought alot of us back to grouping again, so it may more have been the spreading out thing instead of just having the same few elite areas to choose from. Regardless it's hard to say that heroes "killed" guild wars, but I do think they significantly reduced the grouping in favor of solo play.

Well If the heroes werent there, nobody would be able to get anything done and therefore just quit...

It is supposed to be a online game and it turned it into a singleplayer pretty much nobody parties unless its with guild members or friends now. It is also more fun to interact with real players than steamroll everything with heroes. Also playing alone makes the game boring really fast. I am not saying we should take away heroes people have their own preferences.

They are a tool. Like all tools, they are not the source of the problem, but the one using them.

A gun doesn't kill. People kill.

Of course, people won't kill with guns if guns doesn't existed... but then they will use knives, and we can't live without knives.


So, all in all, just play the way you want. I use H/H for easy stuff when there is no one needing my hep to do something, and to fill gaps in PUGs.

Personally I think heroes added to the game, not killed it. I remember when you were in the Crystal Desert and had a max party size of six, and the henchmen were noobs and usually so were most PUGs unless you paid for a run. Heroes allow you to customize NPC's to your liking and if you prefer not to group with people you don't have to. Sure for people who prefer playing with others, heroes are a game killer, but still they're better than just using the henchmen were were limited to before.

Heroes didn't kill Guild Wars.

PUG players tried to kill Guild Wars; heroes kept it alive. I bought GW to play primarily solo on my own and was delighted at the presence of AI companions. Heroes even more so. Seven of them would be nice.

While we're at it, a humble thread of mine - http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10307401

Looks like somebody never read the back of the Prophecies box.

GW was meant to be both multiplayer and singleplayer depending on which you prefer. That's what it always was.

Say hello to Guild Wars 2! If you've been keeping up even a little with the notes, they are already expecting something similar to this. Obviously they are facing current big-time problems in the upcoming release of Guild Wars 2 to give it hype, but I'm not the one to say that they are killing Guild Wars to make Guild Wars 2 better. I really enjoy playing Guild Wars, I have played many other MMORPG's, including WoW, EQ, DAoC, etc. but Guild Wars is one of the first unique games to date that I enjoy. A limited skill bar was ingenious and allowed for some strategic play.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about, they are already looking at "Companions" which can be brought into explorables without taking up a party slot and each person of the party can bring one. Therefore, you can go with 8 real people AND 8 Companions. And, considering they still have not released much on the game, don't quote me word for word on this.

---

Also, to all of those saying that future campaigns are what killed PvE, you are not really sticking on topic. The topic at hand is that heroes have killed it, nothing else. And as mentioned by multiple, if it wasn't heroes, it would have been henchmen. Henchmen are clearly not that bad, what makes a hero more valuable is that you can FLAG it and MICRO it. A hero running the same bar as a henchman's bar is more valuable for this very reason. Sure, you can customize their bar, but having a bit more control over the fight scene is what makes heroes a dominant element over humans and henchmen who have that little variable of randomness (or idiocy as some of you like to coin the term).

Your hero bars must be terrible then? (Albeit most EotN henchies are OK)

Yes flagging is an advantage but it's not relevant 95% of the time. Running a decent bar (that the AI understands) is.

Still, henchmen were completely sufficient for soloing normal mode. A few places in factions got hairy, but sans one or two masters, it was doable. Hard mode is the only place you "need" them, plus the elite areas that didn't have henchies. I'd be shocked if someone managed to pull off leg guardian using just henchmen without some super imba-tank bar like Imba or Perma.

Considering Legendary Guardian did not exist in the time of henchmen-only, the argument is a little illegitimate. I said henchmen are not that bad, but I didn't say to go out and solo everything possible with them just because you could. Also, if you are not flagging your heroes or henchmen most of the time in Hard Mode, you could be doing a lot better. Pre-protting a frontliner to run in and divert the damage then running in after is almost always guaranteed to work even with some enchant removal present. With practice, this will definitely call for smoother runs done with H/H only and not make it go slower due to the constant flagging and pulling. I would much rather have 10% morale than 60% DP and going back to an outpost because I was reckless even playing SABway or Discordway.

Conclusively, however, you only picked one phrase out of my conclusion that doing everything with only Henchmen is the way to go. It's not and I don't suggest it, you need to read all of what I said as a whole and not critique only one sentence of it.

P.S. If you are using MM based teams, there are a lot of places where you can get stuck in a loophole even if it is small regardless of the fact that necromancers can play great MM's. In a vanquish where there is any number of non-fleshy foes, if you wipe and leave this section of the map untended, you will have a useless MM with no minions to take the hits, thus the tactic of needing a frontliner becomes apparent. Drakkar Lake is a perfect example because the dervishes also carry [Banishing Strike] for any minions you do have which will actually tear your team apart.