Why does everybody choose to H/H?

I remember how Thunderhead Keep was always full back in '05 and '06. Good times, haha.

Last year, on my old account, I remember that PUGing was pretty much dead with a few people willing to join up and PUG. That account was hacked, and last week I got a new account. As I was going through Nightfall, I noticed a lot of people doing NM as well as HM, but were actually willing to PUG. It surprised me and I thought it was only in Nightfall... Until I ventured into Factions and Prophecies as well. I mean, like, tonight I just did a quick thirty-six minute run (Normal mode, mission plus bonus) in Riverside Province with two other guys and one guys heroes. At first, the warrior (who started playing again after quitting the game in late 2006) aggroed every single foe by the watch tower. I was like, shit, we lost and this is why everyone doesn't like to PUG. But nope. We all recovered had a good laugh at the guy's misjudgement and went on to careful pulling.

I had an awesome time, made two brand new friends, and, then, a question popped into my head: Why does everybody choose to H/H? I would much rather play with real gamers and make new friends, then go through a mission in complete silence. Most of you guys would say "H/H can perform way better than a lot of other players", but wouldn't you rather play with real people, have a nice conversation, and make new friends? Please answer with something decent, not what I just said (H/H is better because ___). I want a real reason for why you think so.

Pugs and people in general are retarded, refuse to ping their bars, and sometimes leeroy and fail the mission.

Heroes don't talk back, run whatever bar I want them to, follow all my calls and stand where I tell them.

EDIT: Real reason: Most of the time I can't be bothered to sit there and spam for someone to do it. I'm in a pvp guild too so my guildies aren't willing to jump to do a mission or a quest with me. It's easier and it takes less time to just load up heroes and henchmen and go. At this point in time no one really wants to do some mission again for the 1000th time especially if it's normal mode. While I kinda miss the days of proph and getting to meet people the majority of people leave a very bad taste in my mouth.

Pretty much sums it up. Though sometimes heroes like to stand where I don't want them to (IN a Meteor Shower).

A couple years back, it was easy to find a pug & people knew what they were doing. Its pretty much how I met a lot of my friends. Hell I pugged a lot of proph. Now, there is rarely anybody who does pug and if they do, there's a high chance that the group is made up of idiots.

I prefer heroes to people since I can control their builds, they listen to me, and sometimes they don't leroy into everything. Also, it easier to h/h then wait around for a full group of people to show up. Then end up failing because something went bad >.>

So, I'd pug if it were like two years ago. Now, nty.

The majority of pugs fail because a lot of players in this game are horrible.

Personally, I play for fun. Failing an easy mission/quest/whatever due to a random persons lack of skill (and common sense) is not fun. I play to play, not to have conversations with people. I have msn and IRC to talk to people, I go to parties to make new friends. I'd much rather play with humans, but I refuse to play with random players. I'll still play with friends and guildies when the opportunity arises.

Not only that, but getting a group of 8 players together can be rather time consuming. Not everyone has time to wait for 7 others. When you play with humans, you have to wait quite a bit to form a group unless you're in an active guild/alliance (even then, it can take some time). With h/h, you press 'P', add 3 heroes, 4 henchmen and play. Much, much more convenient.

Being full doesn't mean it is good sign either. Back then the skills were not as powerful, so more people get stuck in THK than right now, so most people who are still stuck there are usually bad, otherwise they would have moved on. Before HM, there is no reason for good players to repeat missions, unless helping out guildies/friends, or starting a new character.

Sanctum Cay is one of the easier missions so I would just go with H/H if I would to do it. The hardest part is if you intend to do bonus and mission at the same time, you have to watch your aggro and pull. Even that is not that hard.

Because most people dont PUG with the purpose of making new friends. They PUG with the purpose of clearing the mission and they leave immediately after they have achieved that purpose.

Well I made new friends in Facebook and made other friends through the introduction of my friends.

I tried to strike a conversation in PUG many times but nobody seems interested to know what I do for a living or what my favorite color is. They are just so focused on the mission. If their attitude change, then maybe it would easier to make new friends through PUGs. I also dont like the way people quit without saying goodbye upon the first death. I find that very rude. I mean if they are really interested to make friends with us and all, shouldn't they be more polite to the people they play with?

I find that it's pretty easy to fail a mission. This isn't saying that the mission is hard, rather saying that one bad pull or not paying attention to the main NPC could cause you a whipe.

There are way too many things wrong with GW's party system to ever go back to playing with strangers. It's just not worth it.

Because people in GW today are immature and want you to run nothing but what they want you to run (usually kick you if you run something original and non cookie cutter) and H/H just play with you and don't afk, complain, leeroy, etc.

This.

And as much as the ignorant playerbase complain how heroes "ruined" the game, the fact we use heroes so much truly shows just how much we prefer them over other players.

We need a GW rts...

Because h/h puts YOU IN COMPLETE CONTROL..
There =)

I have no problem to find pugs for Zquests. And they always work. Exept for hardcore stuff like Frostmaw and Rhagar wich requires guildies.

Now, if you want to do a random mission you probably need heroes because the outpost will be empty.

I liked PUGs, yes it was frustrating, but it had its moments, and I like heroes too. I just had this idea (no idea if anybody suggested it before): new titles (or other rewards) that require all human parties for missions/certain quests, it would work like HM/NM => PUG mode lol. Would people jump on something like that?

I think the pugs of "the golden age" seemed better because the mosters in Prophecies were weak and even a monk with only orison and healing breeze was sufficient. And there was no hard mode.

Because nobody wants to group with a ranger anymore these days.

I'm serious. I have to start groups myself in order to get in one and half of them are filled with people going "Y SHUD I PING MY BAR? TELL ME Y?!"

Some people also are very picky on what professions go in a pug - then often they want you as a certain build - eg monks are healer only.
Lack of co-operation also a problem - somebody rushes in and over aggros , someone decides its tea time an leaves etc.
Not saying this is always the case but it does happen.
I did uw once in 5 man team - 600/smite with 3 necros and the person we took as a pug - was the idiot from hell.
Smite bonder is such an easy job yet he wondered why we wasnt in hm as its easier , he tried to tell team what to attack and when and even went to extreme of tryin to aggro himself - and he had never been into uw before that time.

H/H you do tend to have more control in the team and you never get h/h telling you what to do or attack - set ogden as avoid combat and he will - some humans dont know what avoid combat is.

One last reason and can be a big cause of ppl prefering h/h -
Few months back sitting in zehlon reachs outpost ( cant spell name ) someone came to outpost and straight away was being abusive , every line had a swear word and he was insulting when he said he wanted help.He then carried on saying all players were gay etc as none wanted to team up with him.When pointed out his attitude may be the problem and he should be nicer when after help - he told the person to stfu and then rampaged at them.
Tbh - would you team up with a player who was like that or would you h/h ?
Only you know the answer to the above and most can guess the reply.

A team of Discord/Sabway Heroes is better than a PUG group, and most outposts are empty. I only play with guildies and ppl from the alliance.

People don`t tell you their skil bars, leave the group in the middle of the mission, are possible noobs, and are generally possible fu*k-ups.. Who needs that? There are sabway, discordway, hell i even prefer three searing flames eles over pugs.

It's already been said, but the primary reason I H/H is because they don't leave. That's the big problem with Pugs- sure the "Upper crust" ( AKA once in a blue moon good ones ) pugs will steamroll high end areas with no problem...but it doesn't change the fact that human players are flakes. Pugs leave in the middle of a mission. Pugs leech. Pugs afk to clean their dogs yardshit. Pugs QQ. Pugs bring stupid builds ( E/D avatar of melandru...hurrrr.... ). Pugs take 5 minutes at least to form.

H/H has none of these problems.

I H+H because it's quicker than trying to build a team in a lot of cases. Sometimes, using H+H means I'll get the mission completed faster to - and since I work full time, my gaming time is kind of limited. I don't want to blow that standing around in an outpost spamming 'LFG'. And I certainly don't want to stand in a mission waiting for a monk to come back from afk. I have been pugging some of the zmissions just because it's easy to get a team for them.

Lag of inspiration when people use only above builds if you tell me.

But indeed when it comes of playing together, its with guildies and alliance members. Nothing wrong with that, couse thats the reason guilds and alliances exist.

Asides that, I love to play with hero's but don't like hench for that matter.
Hero's you can adjust and make someway a team of it. Hench you can't adjust to a team build so I'll try to ignore them as much as possible.

Most of the time we play rather often with a team existing out of guild and alliance members and its not rare that we fill a team with some hero's.
But there are times, when I have had a busy day on work or with the family that I'll like to relax and just do some simple things with hero's.
And on those moments I hate it that I cant use more hero's instead of untameable hench.

I H/H frankly because I can get up and do other things while in the mission.

I don't have to worry about being called away because of a medical emergency and leaving my team to curse my name and carry my inactive character through a mission that takes 45 minutes to complete. If I need to get up and leave, then come back 15 or 30 minutes later, I don't think the Heros and Henchmen care that much.

Nowadays it's a common belief that a PuG consists of people who can't manage a mission on their own, which implies that their gaming skills are all but desirable for anyone who usually H/H everything without a problem. Why team up with a potential r-tard who dont know how to finish a mission when you can do it all by yourself in no time?

I never H/H, it's guildies/friends or nothing for me. :-) (I don't pug either)

That is just a result many unsolved problems :
- 1 Heroes and Hench are always there , you dont have to wait for them.
- 2 You dont have to use your brain to fit into a group build, you choose the H/H that suits you.
- 3 They follow your command
- 4 You can even micro skills and its like playing with 1 character and a half

Because of those reasons from above the diff between a A)good player , B)average player and C)bad player has changed a lot like this.
- 1 A has less patience now , like B . C Often dont choose , just play a gimmick build and if it doesnt work in that zone/mission , QQ thread or somethin
- 2 A plays more and more confortable , B becomes lazy and starts to play only X and forgets about playing any other role . C Doesnt even know Hench skills so often that gimmick build saves his ass and he thinks he and his H/H are awesome.
- 3 A gains efficiency and have to do less work . B and C learns nothing about targeting and positioning because are playing gimmick builds and dont realize that the way they are playing are so far from being efficient.
- 4 A will get more results with same builds than B and C but they will never know.

When A , B and C are into the same group , anything will fail . A will fit into a group build , B and C will be playing stupid builds that fit to something they are playing 24/7 and : they wont change build - they change build but dont even have all skills - they will change build and use it very poorly.
A will be pissed with B and C ( sometimes call ppl names ) and B and C will blame THE ENTIRE group.

Conclusion , H/H are always great if you know how to use them and play with them but even though you know how to do that ,it has nothing to do with your playing skills. For me , playing with pugs and H/H are totall diff things . Some will think that its the same or almost the same but hey , there has to be C and B players too

I only play with players on HM, because that's where people tend to know what they are doing.

Getting through NM was gay for me, I tried to play with people sometimes, and I know I play well, but I would post a weird build that wasn't being used by the masses and I would get kicked.

With heroes and henchmen you tend to get through it not only better but faster. One of the most important things is when you attack something, the NPC's all attack the same thing; that's probably an important thing for me. I can't count the number of times I was in a group and you had people flying all around the map, I can't even do it in Tomb farming with players either. You tell them how it would go faster if you all attack the same thing, but everyone wants to just show off that they can go over there or something.

The reason that Zaishen quest PUGs are so good is because those are players who know what they are doing, they are the people who do everything on Sabway or Discordway. They only come out because its better and faster by force.

I do both
Similar to why i love having the instance factor of this game aswell. You still have the option to play with others but there are times where you just wanna play on your own and do your own thing.
Heroes and henchman however allow me to just go out on my own and choose what i want to do, whether that be quests, vanquish an area, just mindless killing... Simply map travel where i want, decide to go which way aswell - spur of the moment whilst out and about. If you make a mistake then you won't dissapoint the group and control the henchman how you want to try and get a particular mob cleared.

Well, before going into the good player/bad player argument: GW has three continents, and a lot of things to do in those continents - vanquishes, missions, dungeons. Unless you want to do something popular: DTSC/MQSC/VSF/ZQuest of the Day/whatever - chances are, you won't find a PUG team. You could get guildies to fill in the slots, but that might still require you slotting heroes into the team if you can't find enough guildies or alliance-mates who want to do the same thing you do. This is particularly true if you're setting out to do something that might take a while - which would you be more willing to go out of your way to finish: a Canthan mission, or Rragar's?

While I personally favour 2-man heroway, I'm kind of thinking of that as a variant of H/H for the purpose of this thread, anyway - so the alternative is PUGging, which brings with it its own problems. Very, very frequently, the bad experiences outnumber or outweigh the good experiences. I've had good PUGs - yes, they exist, I agree - but for a good PUG to form, everyone in the team has to work together, whereas it only takes one idiot to collapse an entire group.

That, and I'm not inclined to walk into a group and have people demanding that I run this or run that, complaining because I'm not running HB (I usually PUG on my monk, so maybe if you usually PUG on an ele or necro you'll have different experiences), shouting at me when they're doing something stupid like sitting under siege, or leeroying. Yeah, these are small things, but over time these experiences accumulate way faster than the good ones. Eventually it'll hit the point where you'd rather trust guildies or H/H, because they're more understanding and they won't verbally abuse you.

I gave up PUGs for a really long while shortly after Ursan era hit, because I don't play the game just to be insulted by people who think UB is the solution to everything, including Lair of the Snowmen. I never really took to it again - I PUGged a few times after the ZQuests came out, but: five tries to do THK HM with a PUG, vs. the one time it would have taken me to do it 2-man heroway. I'll take the latter, thank you.

Solution? Limiting use-able-ness of h/h? Perhaps each hero can be used for 30 mins per day? It will encourage moar team builds that just sab/discord.

I mean 30 mins of gameplay, dont expect heroes to leave in the middle of the vanq or something like that. Just if you pass'd 30 min in that mission, you cant add him again until tomorrow?

But that doesn't make sense, especially in view of the NF missions where certain heroes are required. So if I do Consulate Docks in HM on one day, I can't do Moddok Crevice after that? Both require Dunkoro.

Crippling heroes and henchmen will not make people play together, it will drive people away from the game. On top of that, the active players are so spread out so thin that people would not get anything done really. Can you afford to wait for 25 minutes to play a 20 minute mission? People turn on their computer to consume computer entertainment, not wait in line for something to happen.

It has been said correctly before in this thread. People don't like to take huge risk and with H/H you at least know what you are getting yourself into. If you look for a second Sab or Discord, then that is also true. But random madness never bodes well.

Also people want to play and not wait around, so if there was a way to "jump the bandwagon" and join a team already inside a mission, then that would be a great way to connect people. But the fear of exploits and a weird definition of game balance might prevent that. So you will only be allowed to have yourself rushed through a dungeon doing nothing, instead of at least joining in late and play with people.

My brother once went to TA and some warrior wanted to join his team. He was asked to ping, and he did. His bar contained no elite, and he was kicked from the team. He then PM'ed my brother (the party leader) and said that he had an elite. He then pinged him the old skillbar, still with no rez, but this time it had Ray of Judgment.

If this happened in TA, imagine what skillbars "random" people would bring along, and how good they are at playing, when you meet them in a mission outpost in PvE.

Once upon a time I was trying to get to the RoF to cap RC. I advertised LFG M+B, and capping in abbadon's mouth. was invited to a party, I was the only monk, there was an oath shot ranger who was using oath shot to spam Meteor and Meteor shower, 2 other rangers, 2 eles and 3 warriors, I tried to tell them to stop, but before I could they hit enter mission(I wish you could bail while the counter is running)... After barely getting in the gate I advised releasing leah the sloth butt while we cleared out the rest of the base but at this point half the party decided they didn't want to do the bonus, 1 went AFK, and the dumbass oath shot met shower guy still thought we might pull off a win if we pressed on... so I went to dance in the lava... This was before heroes, when the henchmen still sucked(you cad to flatbow at something to command them) and since I swore off pugs forever. If you want to run your stupid "original" junk bar(IE oath shot metshower FTW! leet domeges from teh burin roks from heaben!) go ahead, but screw you, you ain't gettin in my party... Likewise for the warriors with a bar full of 5 energy attacks, no elite skills and frenzy healsig with no cancel stances, the monks with 8 burst heals, no condition removal, prot or e-management, same for the casters with level 12 pets, and no bar synergy between the pet and their bar... had enough of "original non-cookie cutter" leetness....

Also had enough of dumbasses who don't listen, everytime I used to go into oldschool Thirsty River, I'd explain how the thing worked, how if you gank the priest straight off it allows the other NPCs to kill your backline, and 2 minutes is more then enough time to take out the whole team, then gank the priest, but NOOOOO, every idiot whamo charges in, I have to push in, draw agro, get whacked while the retard spams "RES MONK, MONK RES NOW"(as in the whamo died and he wants me to waste 6-8 seconds, back then, to bring him up)...

Then there's THK, where all you have to do is sit at the little keep up top, light the torches and let the jade fight the summit, then fight the easy mursaat mobs 2 at a time on the balcony, but idiots can't even follow these directions... And when the bosses show up, instead of killing the ones that are easy picking, NOOO lets all try and gank the regenerating boss while 6 mursaat pile up behind it and gank the king from the other side....

I was henching stuff way, way before there were heroes because of dealing with the above scum, some players encounter nice people, good players, and I have too, and add them to my F-list and never hear from them again.... only to log in 3 months later to see a list of names I have no idea who they are...

AI FTW!

Because as mentioned before, most players are retarded, h/h don't talk back and do what I tell them too, but most importantly they don't have to be raged at as to why you don't take healing breeze on a warrior.

Main reason for me is time. I have a limited time to play on most days and it is counterproductive for me to stand in an outpost and wait for PUG to be completed. The other main reason is the attitudes. It seems more and more people are leaving PUG when something goes bad and it just sets off a chain reaction. H/H don't leave, don't go AFK, and don't waste my time trying to scam my group like it has happened so many times before.

The reasons why most players choose h/h over pugs is already explained in this thread, but I would like to add the following:
When Factions came out, I was already playing with full hench group most of the time, except for elite areas and certain missions. If they would remove heroes from the game, I would go back to full hench team unless I have no other choice.

I like playing with people, but often times there won't be anyone around/on that's doing what I'm doing, so it falls to h/h. That's the main reason I h/h.


I don't mind pugging most of the time. I've had some crazy experiences with random people and on the other hand some very good ones and have made friends that way.

Last Time I pugged was for ruins of surmia HM, it was a good group and we finished with bonus aswell and all. I had fun however there was some lack of build synergy among the team.

If pugs knew how to make group synergy with builds and use proper builds I wouldn't have to choose heroes.

This is also the reason for why those players use heroes. Usually when you get a monk with mending on their skill bar, you would want then to change their build or kick them.

I'm currently doing HM missions in Prophecies and Nightfall. If I go to do one and there are people there looking for HM, I will form a group..

I don't ask for build info unless a certain build would help for that mission and let the monks settle their builds between themselves. I just ask that one bring some protection skills to ease the healing needed.

But yes, often my heroes would be better, as they have a wider range of skills available. I am always running into monks and eles who only have one build available.

There's a really simple awnser to this really.

Control.

It doesn't matter what side of the arguement you try to represent it always boils down to this at the end of it.

because nobody likes to waste time in a way they don't want to waste it