How did Heroes kill Guild Wars?

/agree

Heros was most likly the best thing to happen to GW, I may have stopped playing if they had not been introduced. I know there is a lot of hate about them in pvp but here is my personal opinion. Back when nightfall came out my guildies and I could never get a full team together for HA because of our rank,(no this is not a critic of rank) so we ended up using heros. Because of this we were all able to get to r3 and gradually start getting more peopel to play with us. Esentually, we did not want to play with heros but used them when there was no other option.

If Heroes killed PUGS, why then is everyone standing around the latest Zaisen Mission spamming "LFG HM"? (Myself included).

Heroes are great, because when you need to fill a PUG or can't find anyone, they are better than nothing.

But in PvE, a Player with PvE only skills is a better alternative.

And anyway, nothing "killed" Guild Wars, it's still up last time I checked.

Pretty sure it was all of the crappy mismanagement that killed Guild Wars, not heroes (though, they arguably may have been part of that).

The only thing about heroes that killed GW for me is Anets refusal to let us add 7 of them. I haven't played for months for that very reason. I just want to make my own bloody team.

Heroes didn't kill GW at all.

GW isn't in the shape it was a couple of years ago, but this does not mean it died.
It's just getting older. And heroes are actually keeping it somewhat young.
If you want to blame someone, blame A-net for lack of teaming options (empty outposts, though the Z-quests seems to have solved this somewhat).

But don't forget that it's an aging game, I've known most of the people I play with for several years and so do many others. Many play with friends and guild only. Or people they know they can trust. There still are random teams, but not that many as there used to be.
In the past it was not uncommon to wait for 15-20 mins for players. Nowadays? Load heroes and go. Is it good or is it bad that people don't have to spend half their evening waiting for random players?

The only way GW is objectively hurt by heroes are those missions/quests where you are required to take specific hero and are NOT allowed to ditch him in favor of human.

The problem is that -customizeable- henchmen aka heroes are so much better than human players.

Henchmen got improved over time, still they did not allow for things like Sabway, a dedicated bonder (I have run DTSC with a hero smiter e.g., it works). Add in other ideas they had, and the game gets too damn easy. Or just at least having a Ranger NPC able to daze Kuunavang, which is very useful for Unwaking waters.

This has of course a bright side. I also love heroes! They are curse and blessing at the same time.

I wonder how much easier Prophecies without Factions/NF and all the other things added would have been with Heroes. The amount of control over their builds and flagging, all that, make them so much more powerful than henchmen.

Still, new players do so much better with heroes. They have no human player coming to their help, in the deserted early game outposts. It really seems to be hard to get into Guild Wars nowadays. We as veteran GW players might not see it, but I know a lot of people who start, play all alone, fail, get frustrated or simply wonder what is fun about the game.

- Still, grouping was already on the decline in Factions, without Heroes being around at all.



I think the true problem is hidden somewhere in this.
In WoW, I was glad to have found ANY idiot to fill up a dungeon group at times. In GW, people eye strangers like they are terrorists and assume the worst.

How did it come so far, IMO this is the real question.
I say, heroes are infinitely better than a huge percentage of the players you could group with, and you have full control over group composition and build.

i beleive that heros and henchies are far superior to most human teams. why? mainly cause when you ping for a spike, you don;t have 15 other people thinking they can try and target somethign else.

as well as this, you don;t get people in the group running off and aggro-ing other areas and you can stop and take a break half way thru a mission without anyone leaving etc etc.

as well as this, i find that the henchies are nearly always perfect for the area you are in (ie. they generally give the hencies the right skills for the area you are about to do).

without exploiting things such as Sabway and Discordway and any other bullshite way, i am able to play areas much faster and safer than with normal groups. maybe i just have my own builds that work well for me, and most areas can be done H/H.

my fav combination as an ele is;

Me (SH Fallback E/P)
Koss (Dev Hammer)
Ogden (SOJ Boon Smite)
Olias (AotL MM)

Herta (Earth Ele)
Devona (Hammer Warr) or Fire Ele Hench
Motivation Hero (Para hench)
Healer Hench

Watch things go Boom.

Maybe heros have killed the game for some people, but really, it is just a lot easier to do the game sometimes with heros / hench. i just wish DOA / UW / FOW would introduce some henchies so i can find someone (AI) to do DOA with me.

Before there were heroes, my wife and I (with whom I play with almost exclusively) completed the campaigns with just henchmen. When heroes came along they were a godsend. This was especially true for me, because I for one actually enjoy playing around with different builds. In a way, heroes gave me opportunity to focus on just one main character to play with.

Having said that, I do not believe that heroes are in any way more competent than human players. True, they tend to interrupt things faster, but they're liable to do stupid things. A human player would know to move out of the way of a Meteor Storm, or take that one extra step to be in someone's Ward. And let's not forget PVE skills. A group of 8 people with Discord or Cry of Pain or even YMLaD is potent, to say the least.

I love having heroes around, but would say their presence is not killing GW. I would love for them to remove the 3-per-person limit in PVE.

I do not think their presence is exactly appropriate for PVP, though. I would put a cap of 2 heroes per team at least, if only to ensure that missing player slots get filled.

But what you said is not a superiority of heroes but rather, the STUPIDITY of your specific team right? I am sure many good pvp teams would be able to spike right. This proves that a human team can do it.

Just because you have some bad apples in your team, that particular day, doesn't imply that heroes are overpowered. Heroes are just more consistent in terms of ability and disability. For example, I can also say heroes are consistantly stupid about kiting from AoE attacks and always bunching together. While I had a good PUG on that one particular day so heroes become not overpowered anymore.

Whatever the case, at their best potential humans with their 24 PvE skills in an eight man team, always has the upper hand to be alot more powerful than heroes. Choose the best human team against the best hero team and the human team would always come up on top. If you dont believe me, try to beat the best human team timing for UWSC with just 2 humans and 6 heroes. See if you are a match. Or try completing HM elite areas like DoA with heroes then try it with a human team that knows how to clear the area and see the difference.

Playing pve was a dream with a good party, usually from my guild and alliance members.
Occasionally there would be a great or at least fairly good pug, and that's one of the main problems with the game.

The pvp part lends itself to the guild system ie grab your team choose an area and play.
PVE on the other hand has everyone at different stages in the game all needing other players but often unable to join together on one mission.

Pugs started to deteriorate imo when builds became standardised, the rule that you must have build x to do this mission with us became the norm.
Players became defensive when asked to ping their build in case they were laughed at.
PVE is mostly easy and can be done with henchmen with their "awful ai and build" so why humiliate players and go on about their awful build when it doesn't matter.

If players stopped being so demanding and had a little give and take the community would be far better and playing with strangers a more pleasant alternative to heroes.

Agree with the idea of limiting hero numbers so some cooperation between people is required.
Or you could just appeal to their natural greed and make the mission drop rewards far far higher when the party is all human.

On the PvP part... PvP should be human only.. There is no way that AI. make
PvP a fun and honorable match.

PvE... wel I love the option to ad hero's.. as explained before.. I still group up.
but only with alliance members, and occasionally with others, for example with a zaishen quest. And that gives me a lot of fun.
But mostly I just wander around doing quests and exploring with hero's and AI.
And that my friends, is very relaxing make your own funny builds and just
go out.
They should only give us te option to ad 7 hero's in PvE

Because a human team is already superior to a hero team, BY DESIGN (i.e. 24 PvE skills and ability to work independently at real time time), this is not a good idea.

I find the biggest problem with human teams is the personality of the players. For example, quitting in the middle of missions, going afk in the middle of missions, bitching and not following instructions or everyone wants to be the leader attitude.

This is why heroes "appear to be better" even though they are designed to be inferior to humans from the start. The right thing to do is to educate and improve the other humans, not nerf heroes and bring the game down to the worst level for everyone.

How about their inability to check for line of sight and keep shooting at the wall if you are behind it? Also how about their inability to respond well to AoE attacks and just run around the AoE like headless chickens till they drop?

If you are smart, you should be able to exploit your opponent's weaknesses during PvP. Heroes are easy to beat if you know how.

Heroes didn't ruin anything at all. They just allow you to play at any time. A good player team will always be better if you have the luxury to find one. But everyone knows that by the time Nightfall came out, the playerbase had become to scattered to relyably find a team.

i think u left out 'battles' in the title
________
FREE JOOMLA THEMES

I have to admit even though I only have 5 titles, I have H/H them all and I only started doing this a couple of weeks ago. I remember when the game first came out everyone was playing together, it just doesn't happen now. I am not sure whether that is from Heroes though :/

Indeed. Take, for example, this thing that happened when Unwaking Waters were zquest:

So, I loaded up my Rt, added MM and curses hero and stunning strike para hero and henchies, clicked HM and entered.

Other side was human party. They immediately resigned when they saw me. No big deal, they probly hoped to synch with someone.

So I left too and reentered. Met with same team and "omg, noob again", /resign again.

Third time they were quite shocked as was I and complained about noobs some more.

Now, fourth time, I was lucky to get paired with some random assassin player running H/H and made it till end in quite nice (5 min) time.

Unwaking HM is criminally easy. Why would anyone waste time looking for perfect team from other side? Why be so damn squeamish?

Heroes didn't kill Guild Wars. Really, it would have been nice if we'd had them from the start--or at least the ability to tell 'henchmen' when to hang back or not attack etc. Ultimately, I like Heroes. They beat waiting around for actual people in the more lifeless outposts, and sometimes people just don't feel like playing with other people.

The major problem was how they were introduced into Nightfall. Not only were you forced to include some of them in your party for any number of missions (the number of time I saw PUGs obliged to kick out an ACTUAL PERSON because they forgot they had to make room for a HERO was just stupid), but you also had to invest time in levelling them up so you didn't have, say, a level 5 Tahlkora in a bloody level 20 mission.

What they should have done was just have the Heroes level-scale with the PCs, but I guess grind was the order of the day. :/ At least Koss isn't level 2 when you bring your level 20 character over to Nightfall these days, I guess... but he's still not level 20.

Is it true there was a time without henchies once? Now that sounds unplayable.

I think it's a good thing they make pve soloable for GW2.

I agree a human party is far superior to an ai party and always will be.
They also lead to a richer gaming experience as every mssion is different due to varied builds and tactics.
Educating the players is an almost impossible task you need something basic to the game that encourages players to team up.

Making the drops better is as simple as it gets, for example if every party of humans knew that there was a 5% chance of one gold item dropping on a mission as against a 0.1 % chance if even one hero or henchman was involved they would do it.

I am not advocating those values just saying that monetary or other encouragement is a simple way of encouraging team play.

Make team play harder, to allow for the more powerful human party and increase the reward.
Keep the human/ai mixed party difficulty and reward % same as now.

GW wiki and pvx and how it has been implemented and used in GW killed the game. :-)

Now, if you dont use the strategies being poorly explained on wiki when you do any missions whatsoever, pugs will yell at you and inform you your NOOB status.
Now, if you dont use any cookie cutter build from pvx, people will call you noob.

I prefer heroes because I can use them and play any way I want without any pug idiot telling me I'm a noob and should use one of of their copy pasted builds from pvx they probably dont even understand. Most builds on that page are fun for a lot of people, but I want to make up my own builds tyvm, and if it means avoiding pugs - that's what I'll do.

Heroes didn't kill the game, they saved the game imo. They opened up areas, different strategies and options to the player. How many pugs would let you pause for a break, go off the main path to explore or open a chest, to experiment with new builds and ideas? Not many that's for sure. It's about time we got the ability to use 7 heroes at once, but that's a discussion for another thread

There are two things to blame for the rejection of random players.
The first is that many people who played for a long time are used to a certain playstyle. My guild rolled most HM missions, vanquishes and elite areas (except unnerfed HM DoA) even before EotN. At the same time I was teaming up with randoms quite often and many just didn't perform well enough, even on NM. I'm ok with new players not performing too well, but almost always asked players if it was their first time in the mission. And very often the answer was no. Then I'm not ok with them performing bad.

Second and related to this: Titles.
Nowadays people need to perform and succeed. Why? Every minute wasted is a minute you need to gain back somewhere else to finish some bloody title.
There is less time to teach random people a bit of how to play or even mentor them.
If I need let's say Elona Reach or Thirsty River M+B NM for my title I would be stupid to take a random player. Chances are they draw bad aggro making it harder to succeed. Before titles this was less of a problem, just do it again with another player.

For me teaming up depends a lot on what I want to do.
If I want to play Urgoz's HM like yesterday, I take a guild team with heroes.
I don't want to put a random player through all the stress of it (randomway, no cons except DP removers, couple of near team whipes).
If I play on my second account I play for fun only. I take whoever I feel like taking. Except when I want to do something fast, then I ask guild.

However, since those random people have less chance to play with established players, how are they supposed to improve?
I think that's a problem for both sides....

Kill?

I dont think so. I mean im still playing right.. I ALWAYS have a choice to play with my Guildmates and PUGs...im not forced to use Heroes....Didnt kill anything

If anything is killing PUGs at least is 2 classes that are used to do everythign right now.. Sf sins and RoJ monks.. pay attention to them.. Im not even looking to get into PuG as a War.....Im just glad my guild is decent enaugh to play together and when no 1 cant Heroes replace them.....

Heroes just add another lvl of gameplay to Guild Wars......Even in PvP

And what happens if there is a guy in your party who decided to go afk while you kill for his gold drops? What happens if there is a guy who collected all his gold drops, then have a full inventory, leave the game while leaving you to finish it? What happens if the guy calls everyone a noob and bitch about everything, not wanting to go where you go? What happens if the guy would only party with you if you use his favorite pvx build and not your build?

I can understand your greed for suggesting better drops, but giving better drops to human-only party would not improve this game since you are not really addressing the biggest problems partying with some of the human players. This is why this game relies on your friends list and guild members. Pugs are risky and human teams are already getting better rewards due to 24 PvE skills/team and the better ability to synchronize in order to clear elite areas (e.g. UWSC, DoA HM, etc.). Hero teams can never match that. If your guild sucks, go find a better guild.

I love the idea of having heroes. Being punished for using them should not be implimented.

Honestly, I do try going with other players as much as possible but in most cases I end up solo for one reason or another.

Heroes don't insult me, leech or abandon me like real players can do at times.

There is always the pvp area of the game if I feel like I want more interaction with other people.

Then there are areas in the game elite missions where I can't find a group at all becuase I am inexperinced.

So yah the double edge sword no one willing to team with me cause I am not experienced enough and me not being able to learn or gain experience since no one will show me.

Go figure.

I'd like to keep heroes and yes a whole party of them if possible in gw2

guild wars is still alive, nothing has killed it, but...

pugs killed pugs - simple as that. people got tired of failing because of one or more awful players on their team and opted for henchmen long before heroes even existed. and now with the /report feature, you can't even tell someone their build is bad without them reporting you like a toddler having a tantrum. pugs died mostly because of human fails, ie. personality defects, lack of skill/knowledge of game mechanics, afk's, and leechers.

just because outposts are empty doesn't mean the game is dead. let's face the obvious...the game is 4 years old. not only is the player base is spread out across multiple campaigns, most people have played all the missions by now (likely several times over) and aren't going to repeat them without good reason (ie. zquest, new character, friend/guildie needs help). there's nobody to pug with because everyone's already done everything and has likely moved on to farming or title hunting or pvp. elite areas of the game, however, are very active pug zones due to the efficiency of pve-only skills, and they are still kind of fresh, fun, and offer nice prizes.

just an imo...playing alone is good for the game. it gives people the opportunity to learn how to play without getting ragged on or given bad advice. learning from your mistakes, thinking for yourself, and pulling your own weight are good things and will better prepare you for elite mission pugs or pvp or other places where skill and knowledge is more important. if people carry you on their backs the whole way...what have you really learned? what contributions can you really offer a team? squat.

as far as i'm concerned, heroes are the best thing that ever happened to pve, period. i'd use 7 of them if i could. i'm not going to stand around in a mission outpost for an hour trying to find a group that is going to fail 5x and frustrate me into signing off. games are supposed to be enjoyable, and that is far, far, far from my anyone's idea of fun. i would have quit pve entirely a long time ago if it weren't for heroes.

heroes have nearly killed pvp, however. as much as i like the option of tossing in a hero when a guildie has to go to bed but the rest of the guild still wants to gvg, heroes aren't generally used for this - they are used in degenerative builds where their ai can be abused. how many mesmers do you know that can pleak 1/4 cast spells, on purpose, consistently? nobody, but gwen can! how many monks remove blind from you before you can even swing your weapon again, on purpose, consistently? none, but tahlkora can! heroes are really bad at pvp for the most part (ie. they try to cast with a ranger/mesmer in their face, eat bulls like its chocolate cake, cast through shames and diversions, get stuck on things when they base, etc), but the things they are good at removes player skill from the match, and in pvp...player skill should matter. pvp is player vs player after all, and i really think the heroes need to be removed from gvg and ha once and for all.

skill balances, generally, haven't done pvp any favors either. sometimes they're good, but most of the time they're "meh" or "wtf?!??!?". calling them "skill balances" is a joke really, all they really are is forced meta shifts. people get tired of playing the same old builds and the shifts add a level of freshness to the game every now and then - for better or for worse. it doesn't matter what they do...a chunk of players is going to ragequit after every shift if they don't like the new meta. (the vod changes certainly didn't help either.) these things have led to the steady decline of gvg guilds. you know if you can go 3-3 in the mAT and get a bronze trim, something is very, very wrong!

anet would be wise to create a meta that allows for a variety of successful builds instead of just a handful. knee-jerk nerfs to powerful skills isn't the solution, and neither is buffing random skills just for the lolz. thinking ahead and planning a variable meta is what needs to happen, though i fear it is too little, too late, and only wishful thinking.

tl;dr - guild wars isn't dead, pugs killed pugs, and heroes and meta shifts killed pvp.

I think 90% of the people in this thread are wrong. Of course me and Bryant Again have been over this before, but I might as well post it here as well.

We can argue all day whether Guild Wars is dead or not, but that isn't the point. The point is that Guild Wars is MORE dead than it used to be, and heroes ABSOLUTELY contributed to that death. Yes we can say time did as well, but we are talking about heroes and I am saying heroes contributed greatly.

In PvP the reasons are obvious. When heroes were introduced, nearly full parties of heroes were allowed in HA and GvG. The effects were massive, particularly in HA. HA literally died overnight. The population died and many people never returned to the game ever again due to the tragedy that Anet imposed in its game. GvG population also took a hit (and still does to this day). Heros in PvP are the perfect example of something people had fun with but were still bad for the game overall. Even when more heroes were allowed in HA we had people on mostly PvE forums (like this one) saying that they should still be allowed there.

In PvE the reasons are less obvious because we have so many people abusing heroes who don't care anymore. Let me put it this way...the peak of Guild Wars is when the game was all about teamwork, strategy, and guilds. Heroes are not only counteractive to all 3 of those, but they completely destroy any semblance of all 3 of those in this game anymore. None of those 3 are required anymore due to heroes existence.

Let me explain myself further...Guild Wars used to be a multiplayer team strategy game where players teamed up to tackle areas together. Pugs were a part of this, and guilds a major part. This was the height of the game. Heroes turned the game into a single player RPG/grindfest that can barely be labeled an MMO anymore. It is a single player RPG...and if I want a single player RPG I can buy one of those anywhere. I preferred Guild Wars when it was more unique and different.

So while you may argue that Guild Wars isn't dead, it is clear that Guild Wars AS A MULTIPLAYER GAME is dead and heroes were the biggest factor in this. And if Guild Wars as a multiplayer game is dead, that means Guild Wars as a whole is dead to me, because I know of much better single player options. The multiplayer was what made Guild Wars unique and awesome.

Heroes didn't kill GW in PvE . There are still people to group and do missions , but I prefer heroes , why ? because my heroes doesn't need to go to toilet , or do something while in the middle of a quest, mision , FoW etc.. and if I need to take a break I take it , and my Heroes are still there ,they don't no complains or leave the game(their payback is stealing the droprate lol ....) Anyway , the PvE is ok , Heroes are a great addition.

Now , what heroes did to PvP ? they are so good on some areas like interrupting ,etc. that replaced some real players , so I believe that Heroes ruined some areas of the PvP. Is not fun having heroes on PvP , that is just wrong.-

But still , Heroes didn't kill GW , what I think that killed GW in some aspects are players running bots, selling/buying on Ebay GW gold or what-so-ever. Hackers hacking accounts or stealing accounts. Bad people grunting good players. (they are always there , in any bloody online game) but I see ANET is constantly checking this , so is fixable always.

And the must powerfull tool , the weapon that bringed more destruction and almost killed GW is the magical staff of Nerfing .......... I know hundreds of people (a clan that I was member long time ago and other clans, yes I am saying clans !) that left the game when some skills got nerfed at a certain point , even the points mentioned above didn't cause enough damage as Nerfing.

But as the previous post said, GW isn't dead , even with the mess with heroes in PvP , hackers-ebuyers and the magical nerfing staff GW didn't die at all, because WE, the players, always find a new way to do our stuff.

Except, of course, that "mulitplayer" is not the same as "eight player".

As I stated earlier in this thread, my buddy and I purchased GW to be able to play a game together, while living in different states. We've each done our share of pugging, but our favorite way to play is just the two of us. I've got a character of each profession, but my buddy has one main. Before heroes, he really only paid attention to the Warrior class. Since the addition of heroes, he's spent time learning about the other classes, because he now has an opportunity to get deeper into inter-class synergies. And now when we set out, we have talks about all of the classes and skills we want to incorporate into our group strategy.

So, at least for my buddy and me, the addition of heroes has done nothing but enhance our multiplayer experience. If your ideal experience is with a full group of players, that's great. But don't assume yours is the only valid way to play a multiplayer game.

I'm split on heros. I think they are good but have killed the game too. PvE is just boring 24/7. I don't care how good they are, that they don't talk, and you can make them almost anything. Guild Wars is an online game... if I wanted to play something by myself I'd play that kind of game. Funny enough, I don't get any of the bad people you list on here.

How can it be dead when we can still PUG at the Zaishen mission/quest everyday? And also my guild has regular UWSC, DoA, etc.

Like I have said, if your guild sucks, go find another one. My current guild is definitely very much alive and active.

That we have no idea about.

As you very well know, I'm still pointing the blame in all these "pug problems" because of GW's party format itself: You *have* to have X amount of people.

This, like it or not, the obvious solution to forced team play after a few years is to use AI players. Very few games stick around for a long time and the few that do are either very complicated or are adding new things to keep it fresh, neither of which anet is jumping through hoops to do.

Your whole statement boils down to this part.

one of two things will probably happen

either

1) the people 'forced' into groups will resent the other people in the group for being needed to play the game, thereby lowering the gameplay experience of the whole group through poor attitude and comments

or

2) the people will do what they were doing before heroes -> try it with henchmen or avoid it altogether and either do easier content or play another game.

many MMOs 'force' people to group for content - such as 5-man parties or 10+ man raids in the most popular MMO

as such, there are people that do not complete the 5 man content without friends or avoid the 10+ man content altogether

It boils down to this.. The people that are not willing to pug will either do content with their friends or not do it at all. The people belonging to that group that currently use heroes/henchies much of the time still will not party with you. Again, they will avoid content until their friends are online or avoid it altogether.

the option to force people to party would work if something forced them to play the content that required them to party, or even forced them to play the game in the first place.

The fundamental problem with PUGs is not heroes, but rather the fact that a-net made a game which it's very easy to be bad at, and very easy not to know you're bad at it.

GW presents players with an unprecedented number of build possibilities -- literally millions of skill/attribute combination -- but all of them save a few dozen are awful. No other game of the sort has such a low ratio of good build possibilities to bad ones. And no other game makes it so hard for people who don't put tremendous though into it to stumble upon something good. It should be any surprise that most people are running terrible builds.

Add to this the fact that it's very hard to get reliable feedback on how good you actually are. Most missions/quests are "pass/fail." Unless you're racking up huge DP, it's hard to tell that you're doing a bad job so long as you finish the mission/quest. The timers in Factions give a little bit more feedback. But that brings us to the other half of the problem: Human psychology tends to take credit for what goes well and shift blame for what does not. The fact that all of GW is done in teams exacerbates this problem. If the mission goes well, it's because you did a good job; if it goes poorly, blame the monk.

The net result is that GW is full of bad players -- worse than the henchmen (who are really pretty bad themselves) -- and that's why people avoid PUGs like the plague.

Guild Wars is dead? Huh. Could've fooled me, and several thousand other players. Hell, even the Henge had well over a dozen people hanging around when I was there this afternoon - and that's crowded compared to how it was around 10 months ago when I took a 9 month break for WoW & City of Heroes, when I could go there in prime time and I'd be the only one there. No problems getting a party, either, on those few occasions I need/want one (unfortunately, I rarely group due to pacing problems - I just can't seem to move at other peoples' paces, fast or slow).

As for Heroes being the ones who 'killed' it, obviously I can't agree. They might have killed it for GvG/HA purists, but... *shrug* (my only problem with Heroes is, in Nightfall, being forced to take specific ones for primary quests and missions in Nightfall - I don't mind Dunkoro or Tahlkora, of course, or the Master of Whispers (an MM is mandatory in my parties ), or even Melonni, but I have absolutely no use for Koss, Margrid, Zhed, or that idiot General. Other than that gripe, all's fine in Heroland as far as I'm concerned )

The heroes are not the problem.

GW lost a lot of popularity during the long era of the nerfbat, players got angry, left, found another game, and never came back.

General PvE drops have become pathetic, and this had to be done to stop the botters. True though that poor drops discourage a lot of players.

Then too, there are just a lot of games to choose from these days. The improvements that are needed to restore GW popularity will come with GW2. There is just not much more that can be done with the old game as it is.

No, heroes are not the problem.

Tack on how insta-fail most missions are. Rurik dies? Start over. Party whipes? No res shrines, start from the beginning. Losing can be a pretty discouraging thing in Guild Wars, just one of many things making playing with PUGs all the more uninviting.

Edit, after post below: hm, I never really thought about how easy it is to be and *saty* bad at this game...

Quoted for the mother-RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing truth. Key point bolded for emphasis.

The forced party mechanic introduced a lot of unnecessary problems (not the least of which was lack of immediate and unmistakable feedback on player performance). What corresponding benefits are worth such a crippling limitation?