So do you miss...

No, I don't miss it.

I played mainly with henches anyway, because PuGs were terribad and in those days I only PvPed with my guild, rarely any PvE.

Because as we all know, current and past GW problems were caused by heroes.

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That. I am also ,as someone else said, in an inactive guild. all my friends have stopped playing GW. So to get my guardian and vanq will you get 7 people together in all the outposts and wait for me? No, I have actually been to mission outposts in tyria where I was the only one in the outpost. so your telling me that I have to wait there for 3-7 other people to pitch up? I am sorry, I started GW with Factions. My friend and I both got our protector titles with henchies. Then NF came out. we got our protector title with heroes (was great since we could really slap together a good team). Sure we pugged some of them, (esp Cantha since the time limits really caught up with you if you where using just henchies.)

So lets be really honest, the 3 maps are Huge, do you really expect people to be spread out all over them right now? The largest concentration of people are still in EotN.

I am using the Zquests to do the missions to get my Guardian Title, do those then if you "miss the good old days". If you don't like the mission... log off and go outside or a mall and go watch a movie.

I vanquish regions here and there when the mood strikes me... I was half way with the region outside Amnoon Oasis (forget the name), when I had to leave for a bit... the "bit" turned into 3 hours. My h/h just stood there waiting without complaints. Now you tell me if I where to do that in a pug... lol

No, they did not ruin the game. They did not make it better either. What makes a game good or bad is yourself. If you keep telling yourself that the game was ruined by white items, you are going to believe that the game is ruined. It is all in each persons mind. I still enjoy the game, the only annoying thing is that I can't have 7 heroes (yea yea i know), but I stated it is an annoyance.. not a game breaker. I solo missions/quests/vanqs because I can, and I can do them at my own pace on my own time.

I really don't know why I am typing all of this. I will just get a "your a noob" sticker and they will almost instantly fall into the whole (Heroes/55/600/SF) ruined the game. Did they really? or is it just you don't know how to use them? I still solo the chamber or UW with my 55, I experiment with 600 when I feel like it. I don't have an SF assassin, and you know what? The world has not come to an end.

Besides WW2 was worse, people actually died there. This is just a game. If you don't like it anymore, why are you still playing?

Yes. Teams were mostly made of human players and the mere suggestion of bringing a henchman was frowned on. PUGs generally accomplished what they set out to do and players showed more cooperative skill. Those were my favorite days of Guild Wars. I miss those days.

Heroes were not the only factor towards changing them, however. As people became more experienced, the mindset of more and more efficient and impatient play surfaced. Heroes simply helped move the change along. I enjoyed what Guild Wars became - just not as much as what it was before.

If it wasn't for Hero's Guardian and Vanquishing titles would be a pain.

I miss eraser pens..

Oh, heroes did make a difference - you can set up builds for your henchmen, stack classes in ways that you can't with henchmen, and so on. I mean, I henched a significant part of Prophecies and Factions, and I just find heroes more fun to use.

Also nice: flags.

Also, for QueenofDeath:

I was trying out a hero build with my necromancer, decided to give it a go in hard mode Docks. While I was making sure everything was in order, two other players asked me for help doing the mission in normal mode - which I agreed to do. But that was it, in the US district, docks in late afternoon Pacific time, three human players total. The playerbase is spread rather thinly throughout all four installments, and the earlier you get, the fewer people you're likely to find doing the quests and missions you're on. Do you really want to force full grouping in that environment?

^The suggestion of henchmen was frowned on because the most needed part of the party was usually a monk, and alesia's bar sucked ass. In factions they actually gave henchmen decent bars what didn't suck(they could actually remove hexes and conditions and not just spam Heal breeze VS shattering wind riders till they 0 out of energy...). Other then that the rest of that paragraph is either false or you're playing a different game...

Thirsty River was a noobmaker mission, I recall EVERY pug I took there failed miserably. Thing is, at each enclave you had 2 minutes to gank the priest, so every tank, nuker or whatever would waste time trying o kill that priest and let the rest of the forgotten zerg the backline. I try to explain how this fails before the mission, that you can kill their whole mob, then gank the priest at leisure but they were stupid, so I H&H'd it+ bonus in the first try(I was hesitant due to the aforementioned monk hench failure in the jungle, but they get better in the desert).

Same deal with THK, The first part of the mission is a cakewalk, then you get to the castle, and all you have to do is camp at jalis and fight stuff as it comes up the stairs, but stupid ****ing, pug, wammo, moron, dungbrained idiots would try and hold a gate uninfused... I try and tell them, hold at the king, stay together, but they run off and die like a wrist slashing emo...

Then there's the "glory days" of Sorrows teamwork... yeah right, "LF KEG SS MM BONDS" or "LF 3 BP MM" You either had to have a BP ranger(and this was when barrage was a lot harder to cap) a necro or a monk, or a stance tank or you didn't get in a group(or rather, you got in a fail group of other rejects).

Reverend DR is 100% correct, anyone who had written off pugs did so way the hell before NF was released, probably even before factions was released, and it wasn't the fault of any AI or added feature, it was pug's own inherent fail that caused this. Not only that but Heroes made pugs better, no more waiting for 1/2 hour in the jungle areas for a monk to show up, and having to take alesia's failing dumbass, you can fill slots in a party better, play better, and not be handicapped by other player's failure and the shortsightedness of the henchmen's bars.

Would be nice doing some missions/quests with some actual people not h&h.

I wasn't around in the begining sadly.

I started with Proph though and I pugged my way through on a few chars. It was interesting. Met some good players, some bad (which I'm sure I was in the begining ). Found a guild with people who were nice and helped when needed. Then I got Fac and NF. Heroes were a nice change. If I wanted to do something, I didn't have to use henchmen or wait around for people.

Now most of the people I originally did things with no longer play. So new and bigger guild now that enjoys chatting and doing things together, which imo is always a nice thing. I do still take my heroes and hench out on some things that I don't want to bother other people with or if no one is interested in doing at the time. Sometimes it's also nice to have them because then I can afk when I need to and not worry about slowing a team of people down.

But overall, I enjoy playing with people more.

I do miss the old days actually. I only experienced factions without heroes, but it was enjoyable, because a group was easy to find.

Now everything is about having good hero builds, and if you don't have that you'll most likely get kicked.. And myself, I don't really care too too much about having the top hero builds and updating them all the time as if they were my most valuable jewels.

I don't miss it...because there's nothing for me to miss. Back in the "old days" I was still playing by myself...the only difference is that I was grouped with henchman instead of heros. I learned very soon after I started playing, that it's more efficient, more fun, and less stressful to just hench everything. I still had "player interraction"...I chatted with guildies while I henched my way through everything, and occasionally grouped with a friend or guildie, so that wasn't an issue. All heros did for me was to make playing more fun.

I find it to be extremely fun, to meet up with a friend, add six heros and just head out. Grouping with a random mix of morons and failing not long after however....not fun.

So no, I don't miss it at all.

The part I miss is my original guild. We knew each other really well, we did almost everything together, and we didn't rely on the cookie cutter builds. Now I simply cannot find a guild I "belong" to and every one of them is either very elitist and wants the 150% most effective build or GTFO, and their sense of fun is gone. They don't really like getting to know new people either I think.

Heros IMO were a good thing, I like being able to tweak "henchman" to each individual area and give them their own armor and runes, etc. I don't like the way it turned out - a PUG killer.

There were good things about back then, much fun to be had farming with simple builds at a nice and slow pace. Ettins and Griffons etc.

But there were also good updates in the present and not so distant past that have made the game better.

The worst for me was Nightfall's inscription change. I mean sure it's useful but it also destroyed something I liked to do, which was selling items. It was more fun when you could make a lot of money off of a mod or a certain rune or certain weapon cause it had the right mods. Now it's just not as fun and most items are junk right away.

Takes two things to get a good PuG going. A competent leader who knows the area inside and out and a group of people willing to back burner their egos and other bs for the duration. As the game got older more people wanted to be the former and not the latter with disastrous results. Enter heroes and the issue of too many cooks spoiling the soup is gone. Do I miss PuGs? Absolutely not...but I do miss having more activity in the game. Have to take the good with the bad on this one I guess.

Heroes were one of the best additions to GW, period. Without them, and especially without henchies prior to, the game wouldn't have been nearly as popular for as long. How much of one's time is/was actually spent doing missions, the part of the game that was most usual for guild groups and pugs? Not a great percentage in the big picture I would say, no matter how many characters you run through. When a new campaign came out the first few weeks were always spent doing the missions with guildees. We'd take several through and then focus on other things with just occassional missions mixed in. 'Cheerios' were especially appreciated by me and the officers of my guild because we were expected and expected it of ourselves to help guildees with missions. Without them we would have been doing even the easiest missions dozens of times more than we already were. If we had been forced to form player groups for every single thing like exploring and questing that would have been stupidly rediculous. I wouldn't even consider playing the little that I do now if I had to form groups to achieve anything.

yea gw used to be awesome, but the advent of heroes didnt make this game worse, I think consumables and the pve only skills, and perma sf just was overkill, and ruined this game.

Sorry you're wrong there pal. Heroes made the game entirely too easy as opposed to brainless henchies with crap builds. (You notice there was a major update to henchies recently too). Where I used to run with 7 henchies I can run with 3 heroes now and not even have to fight just pickup the loot after they clobber the ai. No you couldn't do that with the old henchies even with 7 of them easily. I remember playing with just henchies and they are nowhere or never have been as good as 3 heroes I can deck out and create synergy with myself in the way I setup their skills.

Heroes had a major impact on pugs and how people played before them. I know I've been here since the start and players just don't pug like they used to and heroes have played a big part in that a major part as they had henchies a full 7 of them long before heroes and there was plenty of pugging and grouping before them. Now all I see are jillions of players with an 8 over their heads and you know very well that's 3 heroes and 4 henchies in the majority of those zombies just standing in zones as none of them ever say anything or move.

No, definately not.

Hero builds are optimized specifically for hero use...of course they are overpowered compared to henchmen. Apparently you were around since day 1 so I don't have to remind you it took a long time for people to catch on to how powerful heroes really were. Where we are today has essentially reached their full potential compared to when they were first introduced and most people were clueless. 2+ years of experimentation would tend to do that in an environment that doesn't change much.

And opposed to 8 people, especially now, with pve skills?

Me too!

I'm one of those people that still try to PUG every mission. Whether we win or fail two-thousand times in a row, it's always hella fun to me just get out there and share joys and frustrations with other people. That's the one aspect I really miss about this game.

I hate going into mission outposts and seeing it barren as hell (especially in the Prophecies game). I chose an online game to interact with others, but most people are like "H/H and/or guildies for me and nothing else because everyone sucks!!!" Playing by yourself is so lonely. If I wanted to play a single-player game, I would've picked one up. D:

Do I miss how it was before heroes? Not at all.

Forced pugging was and still is overrated by a minority that discriminates the majority who wants 7 heroes. Thanks a lot for that. As Anet wants to please as many players as possible, they chose the middle road and nobody gets what they really want.

QFT. <3 my heroes, letting me play by myself more easily and have a heck of a lot more fun doing it.

No, there was a day when any henchman addition was frowned on and done only as a last resort, irrespective of Alesia's skill bar quality which agreed, was indeed pitiful. All-human groups were very common, they were the majority in any outpost during Prophecies (random PUGs or teams of mostly guild members and a pick-up player) and, if you were careful in which you joined instead of joining blindly, they were most often successful. Even when better henchmen appeared in Factions, most groups rarely used more than one or two, if they did at all. In my experience.

In some outposts it took a little while to find the right party to go with and to have a monk or two join, but I rarely experienced the epic failures often described on these forums when it comes to PUGs. Even less so when I was the monk. There were, of course, some truly epic and humorous ones, but much higher percentage of successes than fails. I PUGged in all-human groups across 6 of my characters for Protectors in Prophecies and Factions. Best times I had in the game.

Edit: I wouldnt do it now. I'd hesitate to think it could even be done now.

Seems as though you did not PUG successfully so have a bias towards Heroes. I understand that. A lot of people cheered their appearance and being freed from other players. I also do understand the usefulness of Heroes, the ease with which they made play, and the fun in that, even though its a different kind of fun. As I said, I used them in Nightfall and going forward, but the game changed upon their release. There's no falsehood either in that or in my statement about enjoying the game more before Heroes, so I havent any idea what you are going on about.

I have to go with Aera Lure on this. I've come across groups that weren't so great, but I've found pugs in general to be good. Maybe you're the one playing the different game?

Read again what he said.
There is a SLIGHT difference in what he said and what you responded to.

What changed is that people learned more about the game. They realized that it wasn't the henchman bars that were so bad, but the garbage they were running. The first week of guild wars was when I discovered henchmen. Myself and a friend were stuck in the desert and after a terribly failed pug we joked that even henchmen (as we also suffered under that delusion at the time) would have been better. As a joke we filled the party with henchmen and went in. We blazed through all of the desert and killed glint on our first try.

Heroes didn't present any fundamental change to guild wars. The game could already be played completely single player long before the addition of heroes. Yes, heroes made single play more efficient and you could build heroes around you rather than building yourself around henchmen. However, heroes merely catalyzed the community opening its eyes and realizing that they do not need to wait around for pugs and that they can proceed under their own power.

The game has always been like this. This is not a result of adding heroes, but a result of the community realizing more about the game.

Now, I haven't passed any judgement on whether or not this is necessarily a bad thing. As many other people have stated, they will go afk or quit mid mission and of course the bots don't care; I share a similar playstyle. Should the game be playable alone or should it require groups of live players? This is not a question with a yes or no answer, it is a question of game design: What type of game did they want to make?

But I'm really just irritated at the number of people that blame heroes when our current situation is only caused by the community becoming smarter and more aware about the game.

You mean pve only skills and consumables? At any rate it was better before heroes, before consumables, before pve only skills, before grinding wars and way better before SF sins and even Factions. So, yeah I wish and hope GW2 goes back to the way it was and eliminates any ability to run through content and has a healthy open pvp system so I can stomp on some of these moe's in the game. )

Both I guess. I kinda get lonely always playing with heroes. Makes it feel like a single player For some reason I enjoyed beating a mission after attempting it for the 20th time with a pug.

I specifically dislike being required to bring hero "x" on a certain mission. If they are required, they should be as an npc.
i do harbor a special dislike for dunkoro as well...

I remember life before and after heroes. Both have their high points.

Before, I had more friends that enjoyed GW. Now most have quit. I made most of my friends in missions. Who would have thought?

After, I rarely actually play with friends now. But I don't have to worry about getting yelled at for having to pee midmission. Nor do I have to worry about bringing a crappy monk that is running Orison of Healing, HB, and then the rest Dervish Scythe attacks.

My least favorite scenario now:
I'm helping a newbie in my guild. I join their team. They need a monk. I say "oh one sec." then pop Tahlkora or Dunkoro, who are running above average builds.
"Ew no! Heroes are bad." We get the monk with Orison, HB, and Dervish Scythe attacks.

As much as I love open PvP, I sure hope GW2 doesn't do it. GW was supposed to be about skill based arena PvP, not ganking bob as he kills a walking plant. You can't have both open world PvP + arena PvP in a game and expect both to strive. Just look at AoC - minigames were dead.

Uh, before heroes I just got henchmen instead.

There was nothing to miss, either way.

heroes or no heroes, i still would not have pugged with the likes of you or anyone else. i have ALWAYS been successful doing everything with henchies (yes, this dates allllll the way back to april 05)...failure is not an option. time is precious. i do not wish to get 30 minutes deep in a mission only to have some retard with mending over aggro and have a party wipe. no, ill instead take 30 minutes and be successful on the first run.

it just baffles me to see the arrogance of the ones against heroes/henchies. regardless of their bar or AI, they will almost always have a better bar than humans, and will atleast have the sense to run out of a meteor show or firestorm.

And ability to think. Ability to prioritize. Ability to split properly.
Also, it's cool that you addressed what I was talking about.

you- heroes made the game easier lol
me- because 8 people was super hard mode?
you- lol consumables pve skills heroes all the same thing :DDD

Well I still have fun with heroes. I always played hench before besides if I want to join up with someone I useually just shout "anyone wanna come along for fun?" and useually someone replies within a minute or two. if noone does: No biggie. I go alone XD

Because Droknar's runs, Sanctum runs, Thirsty River runs, *insert pretty much any mission here* runs, invincible 55s (pre- and post- prot bond), and 100k+ weapons and mods weren't around in Prophecies, right?

Fixed that for you.

And just as an FYI, ArenaNet have already stated that most of the game's content can be done solo (alongside the companion AI). It's possible that some areas, such as dungeons/elite missions, will require full player teams to complete, but ArenaNet will implement heroes in GW2 once the complaints start rolling in. (Primarily from people whose classes aren't part of the precious PUG meta you like so much, but also from the general 80% of Guild Wars players who prefer H/H gameplay.)

You're really very ignorant, aren't you? 55 has been around long before heroes, and that sort of build (solo farming) has and always will be around, regardless of how group play works. 600 is just a variation of that, and even today, PUG groups always seem to insist on using an SF sin. Because human group players are retarded like that - they think tanking is good in Guild Wars.

I cant' believe I'm posting in this bad thread again, but I can't help it. Me and Bryant Again have already been over every angle of hero vs antihero.

The only good argument for heroes is that they allow people to play in empty areas. Fine. But when I say everything was better before Nightfall, I mean EVERYTHING. In Prophecies you could get a team basically anywhere in the game.

Let us put that aside though because it is in the past and there are people who would still rather play with AI. Here is my problem. Everybody continually uses their worst pug experiences and empty districts as some sort of justification for the greatness of heroes. Don't people realize that the game was built as a guild/team game, particularly a guild game?

Whether people realize it or not, heroes DID change the game drasitcally. They changed the entire philosophy of Guild Wars. Guild Wars used to be a team game with the option to hench. Since heroes, Guild Wars has become a solo game with the option to team. There is a gigantic difference. The game has changed and the community has changed. If you like how the game is now then more power to you. But a large part of the reason the majority likes heroes now is because the majority who don't like what the game has become as a whole have quit and aren't posting about it.

While I don't put all the blame on heroes for all this change, they certainly take a lot of it. They were the single biggest shift in gameplay in the history of Guild Wars.