How did Heroes kill Guild Wars?

Or, would we see any players at all : o?

Obviously we would since people are quitting because they can't play with other players and not because of other decisions A.Net made regarding PvE.

It's nothing new that AI characters (that you can level up and customise) join your party in RPG games. Eye of the Beholder had them in the old days, Baldur's Gate series had them too etc. So they were around before we all started to play online and I always found them a fun experience, the same goes for GW. They enriched the game, they didn't kill it.

Baldurs Gate !!!

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 ...

Best game ever made, customisable party with sooo many classes and customisation options.

My hardcore RPG fetish went from Baldurs Gate to Morrowind, then to Guild Wars, where it is currently stuck as I cant yet find a better game.

This is part of the reason why I personally I advocate them more than I shun them. If there is quite a lot of players rolling with heroes as opposed to with players, there may be more of a problem regarding the latter than the former.

DnD Online weeeee!!!

But seriously it looks like it would definitely be something you'd enjoy since there are quite a many quests where you can enter as Normal, Hard, Elite and *Solo*. Problem is that some classes are easier to solo than normal, but the partying format is what I personally look for in an MMO. It's essentially this: "Don't have a buddy? That's okay you can still play through this...Oh you found a buddy! Aight bring him in!"

While I can't say it's the greatest most awesome MMO thus far it's definitely been pretty refreshing, especially playing as a melee focused character.

Already tried DnD online.

Didnt like how the whole game is just one city with no explorable world, and it isnt worth the fee. Plus it couldnt be soloed, although finding groups was easy enough with a cleric, but I reached maximum level in under two weeks, and felt like I had already done everything in just that much time.

The DnD games lost their appeal to me from ruleset 3.0 onwards and with 3D graphics, they are totally different to what Baldurs Gate was and nowhere near as good.

And Oblivion, while the groundbreaking and total awe inspiring, jaw dropping and drool inducing game that it was, still felt totally inferior to Morrowind.

Now all hopes are on GW2 and Diablo 3, in the meanwhile a I have my second GW account to play through.

Games just seem to get worse with as the number after the title increases. I'll just hope that GW2 wont follow that trend.

*When I played DnD online, solo quests only went up to level 6. I will play it again if it goes free in europe though.

I know this is offtopic but if you are looking for a replacement to the RPG heights achieved by Baldurs Gate 2, GW2 and Diablo 3 are going to leave you sorely disappointed, frankly because of the sheer difference in subgenre.

Might I recommend Dragon Age? It is wholely developed by Bioware on their own proprietary IP because of how restrictive DnD became (which was a good move imo...3.5 onwards it just became messy) and it is scheduled to come out in a few months time. Frankly, it looks to be the best RPG ever since Baldurs Gate 2 and the gameplay is being modeled on that very same series even.

Now, to be ON topic, I don't believe people quit because they "couldn't" play with other players...because there is no lack of people who are willing to play with good players, be it via the means of a guild, alliance or a friendlist.

No Cooperative campaign mode sucks. Can't believe they take a step back on that part compared to Baldur's Gate. Other than that the game looks promising, but no coop mode is a breaking point for me.

Here's a thought:
Let's not forget that players have been claiming that PUGing has been dead long before Heroes came about. Have they helped the situation? In terms of forming human teams, no, of course not. However, they are not to blame for the situation as it stands today, no matter how people may want to think otherwise.

I remember the days when Necros and Mesmers where shunned like the plague. Rangers had a moment of hate too. Then came along Factions and oh, how the MMs rejoiced, but God forbid you decided to roll an Assassin and wanted to group anywhere on the mainland. Without Heroes, half my characters would still be stuck in the Crystal Desert.

Hanok Odbrook

There are always people oblivious to the overpowered builds 90% of the people are running (aka discordway atm). Yesterday somebody in town needed help with a quest and I decided to quickly rush him through with discord heroes. When I joined he had 1 hero and the rest henchmen. When I asked him to run discord he said "what is discord?". Then I asked a guildie to help with his discord heroes. The guy we were helping refused to kick his monk hero, because "I have -1 health and Ogden has a skill that makes me have +2 health".

Yeah, ok. You're just trolling. When people quote your posts and respond, it's obvious they haven't read it. It's almost like when you quote posts and then post something barely related. If you actually had a point you wouldn't be repeating the same garbage over and over, or worse, referring people to your garbage without pointing to which garbage you think addresses their response (which it doesn't). You're not convincing anyone.

I agree.

Examples of this? I think I've been more on topic than most.

If anybody posted a good question or point I wouldn't have to continually post the same answers or points. I agree that this thread is going nowhere interesting, but it certainly isn't my fault.

Probably not many. At least I did get some people to concede the PvP point though (probably because they don't play it enough to argue with me so they simply agree). Many of the readers of this forum are so set in their mindset and their way of playing that they have no idea how to understand or respond to the position I'm coming from. That isn't my problem. I am simply laying out how I believe the idea of this topic came about. I'm not the only one who thinks this way...I'm simply one of the few who bother to post about it.

Many people dont realize that when they reach the later parts of this game (maybe they are still new), that it is very difficult if not impossible to H/H in HM elite areas. Many of these elite areas are farmed by human teams one way or another much more efficiently than H/H, if it is even possible to bring henchies. Even if it is possible to H/H through it, the loot would not be as good because a human team can accomplish the same area in HM with even fewer players or they can accomplish them faster, giving more loot in the same amount of time due to faster runs.

This game is purposefully designed to give human teams a huge advantage over H/H teams. Just that in easy content, you dont need a full human team and you can probably complete it faster with H/H than sitting in town to LFG. The HM elite areas where the BEST loot are in, is when a human team is needed. Only newbie players do not know this because they are not experienced in these elite areas, and are also not experienced with the limitations of the hero AI when playing in said elite areas in HM.

I see people arguing how overpowered heroes are and how we shouldn't be using unfair PvE skills and so on, just proved to me that they haven't been down to HM UW/FoW/DoA/Urgoz/Deep/Slavers much with a successful human team before. And they also do not understand the limitations of heroes in those areas either. If you want to party up with real humans you should do hardcore PvE more often, and not stick to the carebear levels, basing your views around the carebear levels only.

Didn't you see my earlier point about how badly the game is designed in this area? The areas that are able to be done with H/H are easier and have better rewards than areas that require human parties. For example, nobody does DoA because FoW can be herowayed and has better rewards. That is bad game design on many levels and it promotes a singleplayer game. The fact that human teams have inbalanced options that heroes don't have is irrelevent. The inbalanced options shouldn't exist.

Did I just hear BEST LOOTS? You're telling me loots in HM Elite areas are better than my beautifully skinned collector stuff?

I say bollocks.

DreamWind got my points for realizing that while loots in FoW/UW aren't necessary better, the ecto+shard for the FoW armors (or should I say, the trade currency?) is enough reason why people would run it instead. H/H-way-able or not.

Besides, why bother going through the trouble of LFG-ing, making (copying) good builds, communicating with people, when you might not GET ANYTHING OUT OF IT? Just farm the hell out of the most profittable farm spot and buy the stuff you want. End of story.

What? Oh it's fun to play with human? God forbids people having fun in solo/H-H farming, right?

And is FoW actually being being herowayed? No. FoW is being speedcleared like everything else if people actually care about rewards, they want them fast and will, indeed, play with other humans, especially when it increases run speed several times.

DoA is dead because:

* Rewards suck. Yes, I agree on that.

DoA rewards are basically just different weapons with not really that impressive skins (some, like tormented axe and swords, being fugly) and thats it. If you like to waste gems you also get lottery tickets that reward you consumable and minipet. Thats it really. No rare skins (they got destroyed by easy chestruns), No greens (like every green, too common after a while)

But that means that:

* Every minute played at DoA is minute wasted.

If you play doa, you are not getting stuff vanquished, missions completed, zoin quests done, current rare-weapons-of-the-month farmed, nicolas stuff farmed ....

You might want to play it for fun, but:

* It came out too 'elite' to even allow small progression.

It has never had "casual" gameplay mode on start. It was Death On Arrival and even if it was thoroughly nerfed, people only dare to do it with specialized teambuilds.

There is no hope that such area will be ever pugged for fun.

And if people actually had reasons to do DoA, they:

* Been there, done that.

Anyone who wanted to do DoA for its rewards did it when ursan was at rage. They got statues and they got their tormenteds. There is nothing more, so people do not return.

---

Heroes did not really make difference in here. Design flaws at DoA are much deeper than 'people rather play with h/h than humans'

The fact that other elite areas can be H/H ed is not issue, because they are also being speed cleared.

You just don't add heroes and start merrily stomping UW/FoW, you join speed clear group that can do it in fraction of time it takes you to H/H

Let's see. I'm a new player to the game and created a ... Dervish.
I get to this nice elite areas only to find out that my profession is not wanted in the teams forming there. So I create let's say an ele. Now I can join teams but I lack the elite and some other skills I need. So I need to play more to get those. And my Norn rank (to name one) isn't high enough to be efficient.
For established players with most skills unlocked this does not apply but the initial investment needed to play a specific area is substantial.
And you are looking from a farming perspective, which is quite different than the perspective of a regular player.

That's when looking from a farming prespective again.

It's very possible to do most of the the elite areas with several spots filled in by heroes. It's not as fast as a speed clear but it works.
Deep with 4 humans and 8 heroes (not sure if we did 3/9). Urgoz's with 3 humans and 9 heroes (even an all casters team). UW /FoW/Slavers with 2 humans and 6 heroes. All done HM. Without consumables except some DP removers. A guildie cleared FoW with 3 heroes for fun (and to see if it was possible).
We played DoA NM with 3/5 or 4/4, can't remember. DoA HM is the only option we never tried.
You don't need humans, they only make things more efficient. But you can do without them.

What I think is that you mean speed clears and such by 'hardcore PvE'.
It doesn't mean shit to me. My guild finished stuff by playing balanced whereever possible (only exception we didn't finish this way was DoA HM) which requires far more skill and experience than abusing some skills. Far too many people involved in SC and other farming teams are not able to play decent. I received this complaint from several guildies when I was with two of the more noticable HM alliances of their time. This was not about their farming skills, they were good at that. But anything else HM (missions/vanq/balanced elite areas) was just bad (not all alliance guilds were a problem though).
I'm still in contact with one of the leading people in a known HM guild and was asked several times to join them (with a small number of players) or apply with my guild for the alliance they are in. I declined, the status of the guild isn't too good atm because I was inactive for a couple of months bc of shoulder problems. And changing faction will put a huge pressure on the guild (been there, done that).
They don't ask me this because I'm such a nice player and my guildies are also nice. Nope, we also know what we are doing and get things done even without abusing PvE skills and consumables. Hard Mode ofc. Using farming builds will only make us more efficient.

You seriously expect me to team up with players who only know some meta builds and discriminate based on profession and skill?
People who ain't there for the social stuff but because they need other humans to be most efficient? If they could achieve the same efficiency with H/H or 2 human/6 hero teams they would use those. Because each additional player is a liability. And it might take longer to form teams with more humans.

Skilled organised full human teams (friends, guild, alliance) have always had advantage over H&H teams, specially with huge numbers of players online or scheduling events. Put them on vent for even more efficiency.
The success/fail rate (total time to finish an area) of random teams is far worse and might even get near the rate of a good team using some heroes.
Specially when we throw in some consumables and abuse the things heroes are good at.

Mmmm, maybe I should change my point on having no heroes in of 20% of the content. Considering I might be forced to team up with people who are at carebear level...... It might drop my efficiency.

Let me rephrase. The fact that an elite area with superior rewards is H/Hable is a problem. The fact that it is being speedcleared by inbalanced options is a joke beyond the scope of this thread.

Okay, let me Rephrase too:

Elite area being completable with H/Hs is not an issue if humans are faster and better.

And, by default, humans are faster & better. Even without PvE imba.

FoW is *entry level* elite area. It is designed to be more forgiving and less challenging than UW as it originally was just step up from last mission. I see no problem if players can H/H it. If they DO H/H it for rewards, they are wasting their time, so, 'whatever'.

The fact that people shun DoA is not because they can H/H FoW (thats *ridiculous* idea). It's fault of DoA. (Which is, by the way, H/H able too)

DoA is not fun place to mess in. Or to rampage through. DoA is ugly place. Thats how simple it can be.

Give me 7 man hero party (it can perfectly rule NM doa) and I would not play in DoA. Give me 7 man human party that can do 10 minute doa HM run and asks me to have honor of AFKing it, and I still would not go there even with all rewards on silver platter (ok, i would be greedy enough to AFK it, but you get the idea ...)

FoW on the other hand is fun place to mess in. Mobs that are at least a bit interesting to fight. There is even actual interesting lore. It has as nice visuals as dust'n'fire gray area can have.

DoA is dead for reason. Its not H/H.

It is a problem. Elite areas with elite rewards should not be completeable alone in a team based game.

I agree they can be....I question why so many people in this thread is complaining about playing with humans then.

Entry level? You could have fooled me. It has some of the best rewards in the game (by a sheer time/money ratio). It also has the elite armor skin in the game. In Prophecies it was THE elite area. Has the addition of more areas somehow caused FoW to be entry level? Or maybe something else...

LoL...you think DoA is dead because its ugly and FoW is pretty? Come on now. DoA is dead because the effort to reward ratio is not worth is compared to most other areas. That and its too hard for the average player. DoA has no place in a game that has sadly become all about farming.

Learn to read:

HM DoA is still being farmed for torment stones. I dont think it is that DoA rewards suck, DoA has its own unique rewards but they are more limited. Besides, FoW is also alot easier compared to DoA.

Zwei2stein is right, people dont bother to farm them using H/H because it is alot more worthwhile to join SC teams.

It is not worthwhile to use H/H to farm those areas because you can never beat the timing of an experienced SC team with H/H. The faster you clear, the more loot you get in the same amount of time. This is why most people join SC teams to farm those areas.

This would put most players out of that part of the game.
They are far worse in coordination than playing with heroes, even if all you do is plant a flag once in a while to prevent them from catching aggro.
Completing an area like FoW with 3 heroes (not sure you can take hench down there) isn't that easy except when running a specific farming build I think. Sure, one can cheat and load another account with heroes or ask a friend to join and leave once in.

Then we have another issue: A-net allows certain perma-tanking builds in the game, allowing for relatively easy play.

By today's standards it became entry level.
FoW was hard once, but with the powercreep from both Factions and NF it became a walk in the park. Me and some guildies play the area for fun sometimes to try different builds.


^^That

But when I look around in my guild this isn't the only reason. Most don't really care about the loot. DoA requires a serious amount of effort if you want to play without certain team (farming) builds. I don't mind a challenge, but DoA isn't a challenge. It's just massive numbers of foes with huge damage over and over again. It's just retarted that the original 'PUG' DoA build was one tank protected by 3 monks, a BiP/EoE to keep energy up and 4 nukers.
Sure, the environment effects were not really helping but that was not the only reason to run tank&spank there.

Compare this to UW, an area that I think has a nice layout. There is some challenge in the groups for balanced teams but it doesn't come from the huge number of foes. It's more the variety of quests and foes that is part of this.
But then, why play balanced if you can SC the area and finish in a fraction of the time the balanced team would need?

I know this isn't for most players. They want loot, more loot and even more loot. And they should care, some titles are expensive to obtain.

Which brings me to:
I fully understand that. In the past this was not different. However, they only join those SC teams because it's the most efficient way of playing.
If H&H was more efficient many would use those.
The same applies to balanced teams. There is no need to use them, you just SC your way through in a fraction of the time.
Please farm as much as you want and get some nice stuff. I don't mind that.
It's just that decent balanced team work isn't rewarded anymore, just like before lootscaling solo-farmers had a huge income advantage over team players.
I would like players to at least have an option. SC (and Ursan in the past)takes that option away.

This is why good guilds are important to find like-minded people to play with. It is also harder to design an area where only a balanced team would be the most efficient. A balanced team can still clear the area, just not as fast as SC.

My main point is that H&H is NOT and has NEVER been the most efficient/fastest way to clear an area. Sabway and discordway are just generic builds for lazy people who do not want to think of optimizing builds each time they go into a particular area. If you optimize your build to the area well, you can easily beat sabway/discordway/whatever generic way in that area.

UWSC or whatever SC teams are fast and efficient because they make use of the fact that they can carry up to 24 PvE skills per team. Heroes cant carry any of these overpowered PvE skills so they have a much more limited potential than a human team. Elite areas HM can be so challenging that it is almost exclusively human players team only. A H/H or a 6 heroes would be very difficult to succeed.

Hero's give me the option to put together groups for my guild. They aren't speed clear groups, they dont set many records but they do include many guild members, and dont require you to grind out PVE rep titles. Hero's help with this because they fill in empty spots.

DreamWind has a problem with H/H being able to finish certain areas at all. What he fails to understand is that team-oriented means a team, whether it be H/H or other players, as opposed to solo without any other assistance (hi permasins). Before Nightfall, FoW and UW were restricted to players, because henchmen are forbidden from entering. By allowing Heroes to enter, Anet was opening those areas to people who wanted to attempt using Heroes to do the quests in those areas. The problem with FoW and UW now is not the fact that Heroes can enter, but that they can be speed cleared, which really has nothing to do with Heroes at all. In fact, they usually involve a full party of real players.

It's been pretty clear that henchmen are not supposed to be the equivalent of real players for years now, but Heroes are supposed to be viable alternatives. See: infusion status vs. Mursaat before Devona and crew. The fact that a lot players prefer Heroes over real players is mainly a control issue. Heroes are predictable and reliable so long as you understand how their AI works and cater towards it. Players that you don't know or haven't played with much before are not as reliable or are not viewed as such. This ties in directly with the PUG stigma.

In the end, it becomes a matter of risk vs. reward. PUGs are high risk and high reward. Heroes are low risk and medium reward. Guild groups or friends are usually low risk and high reward. The problem is not Heroes (since their cheating AI got fixed, anyway).

Spot on.. Nut i think its not only Hero hate its henchmen aslo.. i mean when factions came out i henched it....so that means that they should be taken out as well. Correct?

Heroes are essentially henchmen nothing less. it just happens that these henchmen can be constumized thats all.. as far as AI goes i find it hard ot find a differnece between the Hench and Heroes.. In any case Monster AI seems to bne much higher then above stated... It all comes to the player to "command" and build those said henchmen...
I Thought one The Guild Wars box it said.. "Cant Find a buddy? No Problem you can take a Bunch of Highly Skilled henchmen to help you out"......so essentially all these people are against a core of what the game been since its beggining

You seem to be completely hung up on the idea that since human teams have more inbalanced options than H/H teams (thus making them technically better), that means everything is ok with H/H teams. Wrong...it simply means the game is inbalanced and there is still a problem with H/H teams. Until you get out of this mindset, I don't think anything I say is going to get through to you. I won't say learn to read though.

Most players SHOULD be out of that part of the game. Only elite players with good teams should be able to complete elite areas.

That is correct (which I was hinting at in my previous post). The game has had a serious power creep that has caused inbalance throughout the game, but it goes beyond the scope of this thread. FoW being so called "entry level" and completeable/farmable without a human team is just an example of the problem.

Yes, H/H teams should not be able to finish certain areas. I know I'm going to get the "but you can't deny content to me" people on my ass, but its the truth and there was another whole thread on the subject so we shouldn't go into it here.

Either way, you have fallen into the Daesu trap. That is...you acknoledge that the game has serious inbalance issues (like permasins and being able to farm elite areas), but you then use that problem to justify H/H teams being able to do the exact same thing just to a lesser degree. The fact that H/H is potentially less powerful DOES NOT MATTER because there is no team skill requirement that "makes up" for the power level. That is not to say that the power level of human teams is right...it simply means that the power level of human teams is ridiculous and the power level of H/H teams is too strong given the skill set and level required.

STOP RIGHT THERE. You just now stated a problem with hero teams. In general for balance to occur, there should be low risk for low reward, medium risk for medium reward, and high risk for high reward. The fact that heroes allow for low risk and medium reward (in your words) is already a problem.

Which means they aren't henchmen at all, thus invalidating the rest of your post.

I have one last question for now. Does anybody know WHY Anet didn't allow 7hero teams? I don't want to go off on a tangent, but just think about it.

Oooh, I can answer this. I remember the answer being something like their promoting of "buddy gaming." In other words, Anet wants you to play their way or be punished (with crappier henchmen). It also is what they are planning on doing in GW2, for the most part with their version of the "sidekick system."

Sorry, I don't have any links, but I think it was in a James Phinney interview or some such.



I suppose we're forever stuck with 6 heroes when playing alone in 99% of PvE. Darn, I so wanted that 7th...

Either provide why it's the truth or don't bring it up at all. It's not terribly fair to bring up an arguable statement then say we shouldn't talk about it.

In other words, ANet doesn't mind you having more heroes as long as you pay for them :3

Hell, or if you have a really, really good friend who can just zone in and leave.

Eh...its been a topic of one too many threads and its a bit off topic. Basically, if a game introduces an elite area, should the non elite be able to complete it? The logical answer is no. The only people who disagree are the "I should be able to access all content no matter what" whiners.

Meh...yet another thing that has been in too many threads and is a bit off topic. Anet has sold out plain and simple. They might as well sell us NEW heroes at this point.

I was more pointing to this:

Unless you're saying that you're automatically unskilled if you decide to use h/h?

Sure, if you regard Ursanway and Cryway as elite players. And that is the way it is going to be as long as ANet allows each human team to bring 24 overpowered PvE skills. They can nerf CoF and Ursan all they want, but CoF and Ursan are not the only exploitable overpowered PvE skills in the game.

The only reason I play GW is getting titles which I consider good such as vanquishing, guardian and stuff with a friend of my using 6 heroes

I personally would quit this game(which isnt something I havent done. I have quitted twice; once I didnt play for 1 year and once for 6 months. Main reason for quitting was that there wasnt anything to do in the game for me. The reason I kept coming back was the game would become more "accessable" for me.)

Also, without hero and henchmen, for example vanquishing would be almost impossible along with many other parts of the pve play.

By the usage of heroes I can simply get in an outpost, fill my team up with h/h and go.
What would happen otherwise? I would wait a long time to find people, it would be possible for harder missions but on easier ones people would have alreadt henched them (I have henched ALL of prophercies and factions)

One last thing:
DreamWind, dude you suck

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that elite areas or anything designated as hard in a team skill based game should not be completeable or farmable with H/H (or with abusable stuff that only humans can use).

Of course. As I said, there is a lot of degenerate inbalance in GW. I notice you didn't mention my previous post though.

Just another hero supporter trying to insult me. Omgz I'm offended this guy should be banned for flaming me. *tears*

you should be banned for sucking too hard instead

Why, and how, should they not be completable my H/H?

If a player is good, he should be able to transfer that skill into his performance with heroes.

That has nothing to do with heroes.

In fact, it can be argued that it is a bigger accomplishment to 6-heroes through these areas than to join a human team because it is alot harder to use heroes due to the high damage AoE attacks in those areas.

And for all the talk about pugging, "skills" and "pugs" should not be used in the sentence unless there is a "no" in it. Random pugs are just not well organized enough for any amount of decent team playing. If you want to learn good team work among human players, go join a good guild, please dont recommend people to attempt to learn that through random pugging.

Technically, that player is able to transfer portion of someone elses skill to their heroes too as build is huge part of hero performance.

You are walking towards Raid-style dance. No mercy for mistakes, play the way fight is designed gameplay with exact positioning and timing or loose ...

That is not fun game to play.

And its fortunately too late for it.

Given that there is no real hero build posted in pvx for HM elite areas (perhaps only FoW and beginning of Stygian?), you have to come up with your own build. I would respect someone for coming up with a feasible 6-heroes build to clear all of HM DoA, even if it is only foundry, than someone who did it with the usual Cryway/Ursanway/whatever overpowered PvE skill way.

It's generally a huge part of general PvE performance as well.