How did Heroes kill Guild Wars?

I can name at least 10 video games off the top of my head that are timeless, including some that require servers etc. I'm glad to know you don't think GW could have been timeless though...it really lets me know what you think about the game.

Factions suits title chasers well, yet "real" titles weren't introduced until after Nightfall. Interesting theory.

People who can't afford a Ferrari shouldn't be able to have one. Ah well Daesu...we agree to disagree.

I also want to say a word on titles. They were also bad for the game, but in my opinion heroes and titles almost go hand in hand. Titles were introduced, and heroes were a tool to grind for these titles. Ah well...life goes on.

People need something to do.. Witht he way guild wars is. It wasnt mean to be grinded away or played by HARDORE PLAYERS IN PvE AREAS. Guild wars's PvE was made for casuals that play aliitle drop it go eat sleep party think about life log back on an dplay again. NOT for 8 hour game play time after which " Wha me no got to play moar, whats gives this sucks"
Title were made to quench the thirst of the hardcore PvErs that wanted to say "Haw haw haw look at me , me gots all these titlez..me is bestest naow"

Regarding PvP thats a different story, Balancing is hard and more skills = more inbalances and such

Once again combining both heroes and real players is how the game should be played now. (Look at my previous post if you bother to read this 1)

I slightly agre to why tityles and heroes were introduced all together but i find it being only 10% of the whole list of reasons.....

It can't be timeless because ANet has to maintain those servers somehow. If it is not from subscriptions, since it is free to play, then it has to be from new campaigns or other means of getting financing.

Lol, "real" titles as opposed to "fake" titles in Factions? Right...

Titles and heroes dont necessarily go hand in hand. I had to rely on human players in many areas to hit Legendary Guardian, so do heroes replace humans? The answer is a big NO. Human players are still much more overpowered than heroes.

That's right. Man and Machine...

The problem with people playing GW PvE is there is no incentive to play together. The Level 20 limit means that using bonus experience as a reason to play together wouldn't work and people would continue to H/H. If ANET made it worthwhile to PUG, some things that could only be obtained or done by real people grouping, then I believe people would play together.

Cyborgs.. What else you need =)... Feelings of a man ( and other things "wink' wink") But the strength of a machine. calculating power of a computer, eye sight of an eagle and dexterity of a proffesional sniper.

Apply this to guild wars hybrid teams... Quiq interupts by heroes, tactics of a human, coordination of a human, fast reflexes of a hero =).. Win Win....non the less full human team will offer alternatives....but you get my drift

There are many places in the game that are worthwhile to PUG. There are tougher areas that are very difficult to use heroes for. For the other areas, sometimes I prefer to PUG too since it takes more effort for me to use and micro heroes due to their limited AI. The best team would be an organized human team.

Titles would've been a whole lot more awesome in the game if they were not the grind machines we have now. If they were based on singular achievements - surviving a fight with 1hp left, killing one of every profession in PvP, win a whole match without dying - I'd love GW a whole lot more.

I don't mind if there's some that take awhile to do (hero title, lux/kurz title), but it's really gonna have to depend on how you can progress towards that title.

For more examples, just look at the achievements for TF2.

We're not mentioning this group not because we don't care about them but because they don't care. They're fine with whatever change ANet makes. They would have nothing to offer to this discussion, and especially given how long everyone here has been arguing about it it's quite a vital one.

You think Guild Wars could never be timeless. I rest my case.

Compare the amount of titles released in Factions to the amount released after and get back to me.

Yes they do. Most titles are easily grindable with heroes.

If it was because of skill or intelligence I would agree, but instead they are more ovepowered because of the inbalanced skills that shouldn't exist.

Anyways I'm off for a few days. This could be my last post or not. I have stated my case on the original topic of this thread. I think heroes were detrimental to the game. End.

What has that got to do with anything?

Totally BS. It is not easy to grind maxed titles with just heroes, except for those that you can just buy with gold. Titles are far easier gained by having a good guild supporting you.

Another BS, a good human team even with no PvE skills or cons, is still superior to a H/H team.

Totally agree. The AI can only do a handful of things 'on-par' or 'better' than humans; namely specific trigger skills (such as hitting SoLS precisely when a target is v50%), micro-management (such as minion-bombing), and timing interrupts. Everything else is much better used in the capable hands of a medicore human player.

You could bring up "following commands/targets" as a pro for H/H, but then it just comes down to communication and personality issues with the human party. A good guild with voice com will nullify that bonus right away. A PuG may have problems, but again, that just shows the overall problem of the PuG rather than with H/H.

I would venture to say that a party full of mediocre players will do just as good, if not better - without cons or PvE skills, mind you - than a mediocre player with H/H. Subsequently, a party full of excellent players will destroy anything in PvE above and beyond what a single excellent player can do with H/H. Again- this is without cons or PvE skills which, when added into the equation, should erase any doubt of which is superior. I don't think anyone can deny that. If so, you are delusional.

DreamWind (and those who agree with DW), if you agree with the above, then what exactly is the problem? If you disagree, please explain why.

Well I got 1 more post in me.

...Nevermind.

Meh...almost everybody I know who still plays PvE grinded GWAMM with mostly heroway. Its mostly easy.

Completely irrelevent...and I hope some people see what I'm trying to say by now. Again...my case has been made.

In terms of a PvE perspective, they're largely figured to be the supposedly #uno killer of PUGs. But I don't think that's fully the case, as evidenced from below:

Not entirely.

Many of what I consider problems in PvE are largely based upon how the earlier missions (pre-NF) are designed: eager to die mission-vital NPCs, time-based Faction bonuses, one wipe=complete restart of the mission - things that if implemented into a solo-play game wouldn't be so bad.

But in multiplayer? Added onto all the other things that PUGs can bring - i.e. random accidents leading to whipes on the beginning, subpar builds, bad pulls, etc.? Not a good "party up!" design, especially when topped off with the 8 player requirement.

What should more be advocated for is not the removal of heroes but the fixing of PUG PvE. If all was well designed we'd be seeing many more players actually wanting to play with others. But if so many are trying to go out of their way to play solo, we need to figure out why.

I can't really say how much "negativity" heroes have brought to the game. If there are players who still really want to pug then they'll pug, and if someone switched over from pugging at their release then they may not have been enjoying what they were previously doing. We'll only know much "bad" heroes have been once we get into the mind of quite a few million players.

Exactly. That is where I see the true problem is. Heroes didn't have anything to do with the declining of PuGs (whether that can be an identifier as the 'death' of a game that isn't dead is a whole other matter entirely), but rather the way PuGs are in GW were the cause.

Before heroes, I would venture to say that most of the players used solely henchmen, and if they couldn't make it past a certain area they either "put up" with a PuG (and likely ended up with a horrible gaming experience as evidenced in this thread and many others), they struggled and kept trying till they accomplished it with henchies, or they simply quit playing.

Heroes didn't kill PuGs, they killed most of those desperate, horrible PuGs that were filled with last-ditch efforts by aggravated players. Title-farmers using heroes shouldn't even count since they probably wouldn't even be playing GW if they had nothing to grind or no H/H to grind with; and that covers most of the other players. Everyone else who plays with real people have likely found good guilds by now, and they do major PvE farms such as SCs, elite areas, and/or dabbling in PvP.

Think about this for a while: If there were no H/H, even if no one quits, do you really think there would be enough players to fill a random PuG in every area of the game as spread out as all the towns/outposts are? I mean how long do you really think that would take just to do a mission like The Wilds or Kodonour Crossroads if they had to "War LFG!" Do you think the incentive (reward) is enough to go through all that trouble? Oh, what - the fun? Re-read all the "fun" PuGs people have put up with and then ask yourself that again.

When people have a clear advantage they will team up with others.
UB is a good example of the past, SC is the current example. Teaming up with others benefits the player.

What I ranted about in the past were teaming options.
Not so much teaming up as well as finding people in the first place when missions became less popular. US players might have had an advantage but as euro player I had to switch through various regions to find some players (fairly often German had some players while English was empty).
It's just the time related to forming a full team that gives a disadvantage.
Why wait for someone for 15 mins if you can hench the same mission and it will take you 10 minutes longer.

Then we had some minor annoyances.
Class discrimination (you know those Sins that blow up from afflicted or mesmers who give no advantage against huge numbers of foes).
Many PUG leaders who could not form a decent team (easy solution: lead yourself) but with the attitude of the best player in the game.
People run odd bars (pre skill-ping time).
Vital NPC's blowing up (many people where happy when R and T finally died).
Unclear mission goals for new players (desert for example).

When I look at the main reason why I fill a team with heroes instead of human players it has always been time.
In the past because I didn't know when I had to quit playing. H&H allowed me to get away from the computer fast, help my fiancee recover from panic attack and get back an hour later.
Nowadays it's because waiting for additional human players (I hardly H&H nowadays, mainly tag along with others) is too time consuming compared to the additional advantage of another human player.

I've explained this in the past.
When looking at team builds it's easy to state that the more humans you have the better the team will be.
However, this does not include the additional time for waiting for players.
The optimal team is 8 human players, no doubt. However, lets assume each joining player takes an additional 5 minutes to join. For a full human team this would mean about 30-40 mins for a team to form.
In many areas this isn't worth it considering the time difference between a 2 human/6 hero team and a full human team to finish.

The real advantage for human teams is either in busy places where teams form fast or when stuff is organised (guild/alliance or z-quests).
In most situations however it often takes too long to form a team compared to the difference in time additional human players would make.
Heroes tipped this too much to the advantage of 2/6 or 3/5 teams in my opinion and are therefor part of the problem.

Implement something that cuts the time for teaming with other human players and I'll probably tag along with people more than I do nowadays.
You won't hear me complain about the skill of the average PUG, we all had to learn to play the game and the occassional gem is nice to discover, enjoying the beauty of a PUG doing everything right.

Just my thoughts on this subject.

So you are saying those who adapt.. dont care?

Maybe. maybe.. im not denying the scenario you are explaining.

Is it a bad thing?.. Instead of hearing Biased.... "this is bad i want it back to 3.5 years ago" or "No NO what are you talking about, with the possibilityies we have now there is no way we need to go back" . Hearing from some 1 who adapted in full having non-bioased 9somewhat) view on the cituation. How that is bad...

The reason these individuals dont post are for simple reasons

Age- they adapt without realizing the "faults" that are described by the debaters here

Game time- They adapt realizing all the changes but simply dont have time to post on the forum, being bussy wiht the game

Poster- They adapt but at the same time asses the situation from both points of view which i have stated above regarding 'good old times" and "better advanced ones now" Making a logical comparison of both combining them into one view which results in the said adaptation.. Realizing that + the time at hand they go in and enjoy the game with same-minded persons.

The latter one is rather rare on the forums especial when it comes to the Riverside Guild Wars "Now and Then" threads that come up every week.

Im torn etween now and then.. but sort of in the middle.... To me personally heroes are fine.... Titles could be changed or some removed... PvE consumables can be removed .... the ones bought in EotN and such...PvE skills are meant for that PvE.. they hold no ground in PvP so shouldnt be touched at all.

Maybe i am one of those adaptable people.. i dont know i am definetly not "Emo" aboiut the changes and not gonna go on a "Wa@#@@3 the F@##...i didnt pay my muney for this cwap" spree... but not going to go glorify allt he changes made either....

I think what it comes down to me personaly is the so called "Balance" of proffesion in both PvE and PvP..... PuGs want only perma sins monks and RoJers... for elite areas adn there is no place for a War there at all.. Im just glad i got a guild , and we do thing with breather and fun ...

Anyway Bryant Just because some players Adapt.. doesnt mean they are HAPPY or SATISFIED with changes made to the game they do what their instincts tells them its to ADAPT... Obviusly instinct to argue and complain is present and completely natural and is alwasy welcome.. its just overshodowed by the most basik and primary Animal instinct given to us at birth...

EDIT:

AGreed... Just another example of adapting to a new feature.. =)

Okay *now* I see what you're earlier post is saying - and it's wrong. We've been taking the majority player into the equation as much as possible in this sense, especially since these changes do affect them.

The casual, however, is indeed very "meh" when it comes to their game. In general they're satisfied as long as they can hit stuff. That's not saying they're stupid, just that they want to play a game.

Precisely...I agree with you on hitting stuff and playing the game... Somehtign that some ( no 1 in person i ust cant find a word to use so il use 'some') can seem to be doing becaus eof the changes. wether it be for personal reason such as "My bar isnt good eanuf me no play no more" or for more serious reasons like "Witht he way the PvE set up right now i cant seem to find a reason or gola to continue playing the PvE portion of the game and because of the PvP balance issues i find PvP stale and boring"....Which 1 would you listen to first.. the one that is complainig about his build.. or the person that looks at the both sides of the issue....

Now take the 2nd person add adaptability to it and you will get this (in my opinon)

" With the way the PvE is set up right now i cant seem to find an effective group of humans to play together in order to have a full human team so i am slightly forced to put on heroes instead of certain parts of my team. Due to the low content of the game at its 4th year of existance titles have given me something to do.. i agree some titles are completely useless but being a very dedicated player and a fan of Guild Wars i decided to spare few hours a day doing VQs and dungeons for those said titles that will benefit me in GW2 in the future. PvE skills only honestly are almost constantly on my bar now due to their power.. i dont like to use them very often but due to the PuGing i do sometimes i am forced by the team to put them on, as wel as buy consumables. PvP (well i havend GvGed in a year or HA,s i cant give anythign on it).....Heores shouldnt be involved in PvP in my opinion but once again teams arent alwasy full and sometimes i really want to win so i will put on a hero interupter for greater efect. I find myself sometimes wondering if it was better back in the era of Proph but alwasy find myself easily adaptable to situations at hand>"

OK there we go... I mean thast my average thoughts and those of my guildmates... how is this not caring?.. or just "Whack and smack il aduptd dut -ta-duh" kind of thinking....

Listen i agree wiht you about almost evrythign besides the fact that daptoble poeple dont care ot just there to "MEH" Casual player cares about his game time.. he just doesnt post here....

Anyway feel free to comment

As alwasy at the end of my statements.... No insults or personal attacks intended sorry if i did.

I'm probably taking this out of context, but aren't the majority of players casual?

I try to find PUGs whenever I can, I enjoy playing with other people, especially on Missions.

If Heroes killed GW (and I don't think they did), then the Zaishen Missions brought it back.... ie, it's easy to find PUGs for HM for those particular missions. And surprisingly, I've found most of these groups are good.

Of course, when I need to, I use Heroes/Hench, especially on normal mode where you can't find people, and it's easy enough to do anyway.

Ironically, it's the Z-quests that I do by myself with H/H. That is, the quick and easy ones, when none of my guildies are online, or when they're all already busy when I arrive. Practically everything else I do with real people.

And when I say quick and easy, I mean most missions and most non-dungeon bounties.

Sure, and that would be the balance deciding between H/H and a human team. A human team, although more powerful, requires you to invest additional time to form. You can always go for a hybrid team, which is what ANet recommends.

And if you are forming for an unpopular quest like Titan Source, it can take alot longer than 30-40mins to form a team. This is partly due to the spreading of player population across 4 campaigns. Without heroes, this game would be unbearable, as most of my time would be spent waiting in town. For easy quests/missions, it makes sense to use H/H because that is the faster option. But for some of the tougher quests or missions, I can't help waiting for people because they are too hard to clear with H/H. For example, you can try completing (with bonus) HM Aurora Glade, HM Dzagonur Bastion, or HM Eternal Grove with H/H without cons. These are some missions that would go a lot smoother with a good human team than with H/H.

Let's start with the simple observation that a large number of players doesn't even realise that fan sites exist.
Some will be able to find wiki, but guru or other fansites have no real interest. They play the game and enjoy doing that, but that's where things stop. Others know the sites exist but don't bother using them.
I started reading here ages ago and later started contributing because I felt I could share some of my little knowledge with others who knew even less than I did. But the number of people who likes to contribute like that is small compared to the number of players. And I think this is natural.

Next we have another issue and that's how discussion works. I take side A, you take side B and we argue till we find something we can both agree on. It's no fun to start in the middle and it doesn't really help shape opinions.
I rather take stance in favor of heroes or rejecting heroes alltogether than entering a discussion that they have advantages in certain ways of play and are causing harm to the game from other points of view.
This is to trigger other people to express and explain their point of view and more important to learn from it. I don't know everything and might have missed something.

Part of this is caused by logic. People say they think A because of B.
I understand that, but a lot of times B doesn't stand on it's own.
It's the result of C and D combined. And it might well be that we have a different view on let's say D which makes our opinion on A differ.
When we argue about A or B we won't get closer because those ain't the real disagreement.

This is a completely reasonable reaction. Elite areas ain't played, they are farmed. Farming is all about speed. Speed is the result of chance of failure combined with the time needed to finish the farm.
Find the optimal combination and you have a winning team.
Then it's just the question if the speed nets enough gold/hour compared to other farms.

Only a very small number of PUG players in elite areas will be willing to play the area with other randoms. Playing the area is slower and very often involves more risk.
What's a reasonable time for a random non-SC PUG team to finish NM FoW? Considering they won't split and might face a few near wipes due to inexperience, I'd say 1-1.5 hours without consumables.
You need to find people who are willing to spend those 1.5 hours in FoW with the constant risk of failure. And FoW is the easiest of the Elite areas: UW, Urgoz's, Deep and DoA are far less forgiving. Same for the harder EotN dungeons.
It's for good reasons those areas are hardly played with 'balanced' PUG teams. The risk of failure or exceptional long times (3-4 hours+) is just too high for many players.

So you just expanded on my thoughs more.. with addition of flying colours?

I kinda had hard time finding out what was the main idea. Agree or Disagree? Maybe i just had hard time understanding i dont know ...

ANyway same situatrion.. read it for a long time before i started posting.

Regarding the Elite areas.. never saaid making PuGs and expecting to complete them in fast time.. i said guild group (aKa experienced players that enjoy doing it for fun).. I said PuGs want speed (aKa rojers, Permas)

If you have read the little quoted part youd see my stand on the thing....Even though i tried not to put personal thoughts into it and make it more objective rather then subjective. I am pro heroes and want them kept in the game the way they are i just expanded on what (i think) an average Guild Wars fan/player who doesnt post and just adapts to the changes..

My entire goal of the post was to show that even if peole adapt and dont post on the forum doesnt make them care less or not care at all about the changes made....They just simply adapt suck it up and make the best out of what they got thus the 3 examples i have given in my prior post.

i'm not following the flow of the thread, and i'm too lazy to quote, so i'll just summarize in response to what i've read so far and expand what i said in a previous post (hardmode/titles/heroes):

1. i never said heroes are the number 1 cause for pugs dying, but it is a major factor.
2. i do believe population spread is a greater factor, but the thread is about heroes. however, if you insist i shall discuss the population spread:
3. if the campaigns split the population into 4, then hard mode doubled that and is now split into 8.
4. titles split the population in the sense of their goals. it is harder for pugs and communities to strive when their current goals clash with one another, i.e. pve guilds vs pvp guilds.
5. zaishen quest and speed clear groups are examples of pugs that strive because they have smaller communities with similar-minded goals.
6. however, those "puggable" areas (30%?) are very small in number in comparison to the "h/h'able" areas (95%?) we have in gw today. it was not like this pre-heroes.
7. final point: while things like the population spread made pugging harder to do, heroes killed pugging because they gave us a reason not to pug. as the jos said, why pug when its easier to h/h?

I have said this before somewhere on this thread, I honestly dont really care if heroes kill pugs. But I would disagree if someone says heroes kill GW, which is the title of this thread.

Pugs are really one of the least important element for the enjoyment of this game, to me. In fact pugs often cause many of us agony and frustrations. If I want to find a human team because I need the extra power, I would ask my guildies for help. If I cant get help, I would resort to heroes, then PUGs would be my last resort.

There are too many problems with the current pug system in this game and there are too many things that can go wrong with random pugs, to jeopardize the mission. I wouldnt recommend pugging an important mission unless you are willing to retry afew times if it fails.

Heroes hurt PUGs, there's no doubt. But maybe PUGs didn't quite die after all--go play some z missions and see if you still think that.

Since I'm reading this thread while waiting for my regen to complete in PW-MY, I'll throw my two pennethworth in.

Heroes were indeed a killer of PUG/PUP but in all honesty, it was starting before Nightfall was introduced. Heroes just helped speed it up significantly. Gone are the days I'm afraid of knowledgeable people running characters through the game. Don't get me wrong, there are still these in the game but not in the quantity there used to be.
A lot of people I know prefer to run H/HH instead of PUG/PUP-ing because they don't wish to deal with the agrrovation of the generic group being a pain. And let's face it, the majority of Guild Wars PvE can be done with H/HH. While it may take longer than running with experienced people, the annoyance factor is ommitted (only having to deal with the crappy AI).

It depends on the individual's goal in game too. Get stuff done quick (go with people) or get the stuff done at their pace (H/HH). Guild Wars always was designed to be either MP or SP, you get to choose.

And let's face it - 2 people running gimmicky-style hero builds can whomp through the game in next to no time. So at least there is still the "buddy" element

Anyway, back to my grindfest! Adieu!

and to me, pugs are really one of the most important element for the enjoyment for this game. gw once used to favour pugging (by at least 60/40), but now it leans towards your direction (around 20/80). am i just expected to find a new game?

also gw used to favour pvp...and it has been favouring pve now for a long time. what's a pvp'r supposed to do?

see, to me, just playing the game is enjoyment enough. apparently for you, enjoyment = doing whatever it takes to win. of course enjoyment is subjective, and your entitled to yours as i am mine.

How heroes actually saved Guild Wars

Before:

1.Join a random pug filled with idiots.
2.Group enters mission/explorable area.
3.Wipe within the first couple of minutes
4.Blame the monk
5.Blame the rest of the party
6.Everyone leaves


After:
1.Form a party of H/H
2.Enter mission/explorable area
3.Win.

None taken, no worries bro.

I think we might be a bit confused at who we're talking about here, and I apologize for that. I thought we were talking about the majority of players, the casuals, who don't not care about the issues but just aren't aware of them. As long as they can wield a cool sword, play through the game, and enjoy themselves, they're totally fine with how things are. This is the "majority player". They may not be playing the game anymore because they beat it, but they still hold a good impression of the game.

But I do agree that there is a group that doesn't voice their opinions over here, people that do have a lot to say, that do have issues with choices ANet makes - but will just simply adapt to what they face.

Indeed. Er, I thought that was the impression my post was giving off : o ?

Only a few things I want to reply to in here.

In regards to Hard Mode: If HM didn't exist, what would the players who play in that setting do otherwise? Wouldn't they not be in those outposts? I'm not terribly sure what HM impacts here, unless you're talking about the fact that those who can do HM can choose any order they wish, hence why it's hard to find people for it?

In regards to the final point: Playing with others can definitely be fun, L4D and other co-op games have shown us that. But how is it in Guild Wars?

Well from my point of view it can be quite a huge pain in the ass. Not only do you need to find the proper professions to make a good team config, you need to fill 8 spots. Then you get to run into all the other problems that I referenced to earlier.

Sure, playing with h/h is quick and easy - but is it fun? I can play Gears 2 by myself or play against bots - both are easier to set-up than going on XBox Live - but I play with others in both areas anyways, because the enjoyment greatly makes up for the work involved to do it. Same with L4D and others.

But I just don't think the same can be said of Guild Wars. There can be enjoyment to find in PUGs, but it's really hard to find and *really* easy to find one that's just not going to do good. Hopefully with GW2 they don't make it as simply to totally bork things up when you're pugging and don't put such a massively heavy requirement on so many aspects that hurt grouping.

AI is always easier to access, always. But not only is it not always preferred people will usually go out of their way to play to others if its even on par. But the same can't be said for Guild Wars, so again that needs a bit more change in the future.

ANet's push is towards a buddy system, which is why they would never provide a full hero team even though many people have asked for that numerous times. Call that a hybrid team if you want.

They are already removing heroes from pvp.

Is failing the mission/quest and getting team wiped repeatedly enjoyable? Perhaps it is to some people. What is enjoyable can be subjective, so I choose to play the way that would be enjoyable to me and I wouldn't infringe on the right for others to play the way that would be enjoyable to them either, if they dont infringe on my right.

There are alot of things that I encounter in pugs that I really hate. Granted that I started on yesterday's zmission rather late (midnight PST), but do people really need to leave shortly after the mission just started? This happened for 3 or 4 PUGs that I joined. Another example of why I dont encourage random pugging. Having people leave in the middle and going back to town to re-Pug for the 4th time is certainly not enjoyable for me.

i have quite some reliable success in pugs. experiences may vary i guess, but tbh i think your failures are a matter of randomway pug vs organized pug (yes, there is such a thing).

I've found I haven't been able to have a whole lot of bearing on pugs. There have been moments where I've told people how to do such and such and everyone in general has a cheery and hopeful attitude. We get a moderately balanced team going and yet we still continue to fail.

Then I've had moments where I'd join a pug, we'd have no healers so the Mesmer would run some heal spells and have Zhed with 12 Healing, just in general having a terribly crappy set up - yet still acing the mission, including Masters.

So in general, *my* success in PUGs has been pretty limited with a few surprises of decency here and there. But overall I'm largely avoiding them.

Maybe it is just the perception of Guild Wars as a MULTIPLAYER game.

People log on to play with Heroes. +have a shorter ICQ style friends list for some chat besides that.

Massive Multiplayer Online...?
People who consider grouping with other humans in online games vital will hate this feature for sure.
Those who just want to play and do not put emphasis on this will love Heroes.

While I am concerned about the grouping-unfriendliness of GW, too, it does not bother me that much on the other hand, as I prefer a sure shot with heroes over pugging any day.

Perhaps, but if I dont do random pugging, I would ask my guildies for help instead, like what happened with HM Dzagonur. All the random PUGs I tried with just failed that mission+bonus, and H/H failed too. So having gone through all the missions in this game HM+NM, I have to disagree with Dreamwind that heroes replace or can replace human players in all areas and situation.

Random pugs, as expected, provide varied experiences. There are some pugs that are very good and some very bad. Heroes, on the other hand, are quite consistent. You learn what heroes are good and bad at through experience, and you can actually train yourself to synergize better with them. At least they wont leave in the middle of a mission or go afk.

I had a guildie who as far as I recall did H&H all HM missions including Eternal Grove. The posibility of getting this done depends somewhat on your primary profession though. Dzagonur HM is doable H&H without cons.
Might take a few tries though.
I think most if not all vanquishes can be done H&H, this again might depend on your primary. FoW can be done with 3 heroes but takes ages.

Next step is 2 humans/6 heroes.
This will make every vanquish possible and every HM mission. No doubt at all.
Only restriction might be that it's harder with certain main profession combinations.
This will also make the following areas doable: FoW NM/HM, UW NM (maybe HM, 3/5 works for sure).

For Urgoz's 3/9 works, HM without cons (excluding DP removers). Full caster team. Takes a while though. I'm not sure about Deep but I know a mixed human/hero team can get the job done. Dunno how many humans we brought though (probably 5 or 6).

This leaves DoA. I don't remember the minimum required human players for it. Think 3 or 4 with fixed main professions and roles (SY, PnH/Divert Hexes and such). Mandatory consumables. Not sure if this will do for HM though.

And I'm not sure what Dreamwind exactly said.
Did he state that it's possible to replace all humans with H&H at all times?
Or did he state that it's possible to replace humans for heroes at all times.
That last one is true if you can get the vital roles filled by human players.
The first one is not true but there are only a few areas that you cannot get done solo with H&H and only a handfull that you cannot get done with 2/6.

Not taking efficiency in account here, just doability.

And that is what I can't change. My primary title character is a ranger. Not necessarily the best profession for a title character but I am somewhat stuck with it, if I dont want to redo all those other missions. I guess many people are in similar situations when going after titles.

Took a few tries with H/H, without cons, but it didn't work out for me and I needed the bonus too. Thanks to my guildies, I completed that one.

Those situations that depend on primary or take ages are not good examples of heroes being a universal replacement for human players. Afterall, the main advantage of using H/H is to avoid the waiting time, if you have to take longer to vanquish the area with H/H then that counters the shorter waiting time.

Any area that is completable by heroes is completable by a human team. But not every area that is completable by a human team is completable by heroes. Even if you argue with certain primary, cons, with lots of hard work and retries, and with the stars aligned right, you may be able to make it work with H/H. Even if you are right (I would need proofs), for practical purposes, most people are just not going to use H/H through those areas, if it is so troublesome.

Having said that, I would be interested to know feasible 6-heroes builds that can clear ALL of HM DoA, especially foundry. I dont see anyone posting that, even if it is possible, it is probably extremely difficult even with cons. Also I would be interested to know 3-heroes+henchies builds for completing HM Dzagonur+bonus without cons. That sounds like an achievement in itself, which would be alot harder than just asking human players to help out. Honestly I am not sure if these areas are even possible with only H/H and without cons, with a ranger, but I would be interested to know how it is done, if they are possible.

i h/h'd all mishies on hm numerous times without cons.
i don't player ranger, but im pretty sure i could do dzagonur with one.
my tactic is to go full 8man or 1/7 split to the west shrine and clear that boss literally as soon as he spawns, then run back and defend center. you might lose the east shrine, but masters only requires 5/6 defenses intact. after that first boss is down the rest is a breeze, because now you only have 3/4 the enemies and only 2 shrines to defend. after the 2nd boss goes down, you can pretty much take as much time as you want and go slow. however, if the very first boss is not killed right away, the number of forces will be overwhelming. timing is very important.

Here we are 22 pages later discussing a post that was that was biased in it's wording, by a poster known to bait the discussion. A more honest question would have been "How did Heroes change Guild Wars" which I think many people here have segued into. The fact that the poster has only posted 2 times in this whole thread shows how little he really cared about the discussion, his second post (Plus I have Amnesia, which increases my Special up by two levels!) shows this. I just think the OP had not so honest intentions with this post, and probably very proud of the length of the replies. While a good discussion might have emerged it was all based on a dishonest premise. Just my thoughts.

Some more anecdotal stories of PUG success:

Did Boreas Seabed HM in 11 minutes with random PUG. (not sure if that's a "good" time or not, but it worked for me).

Amen to this.