Allow Henchmen to UW/FoW (or remove heroes)

First of all, i tried to search for this topic and got no results, if there is a thread in this same topic please do merge ths with it and sorry about it.

This have been in my mind for like years. What i would lik to ask is either allow normal players to enter these areas with henchmen or remove the possibilities of entering there with heroes. Anther option may be to allow 4 heroes -OR- henchmen.

First reason for this is that this game claim to look for fairness and balance, and ¿how can be fair that a character without NF or EOTN expansions cannot go there using AI characters?

Second reason is that, in the case of those players without heroes, there is no way to explore these areas at all. I did the test myself, over the last days i spend (checked by clock) 30 hours in ToA looking for groups using different texts, like "to charm spider", "uw exploring" etc but always stating the "non experienced" thing, got zero invitations in all that time, so the options here are reduced to three:

- Lie and act like if you were experienced, screw up the group once you are downthere and get (rightfully) insulted in all kind of languajes for what you have done, meaning as well making yourself a bad name among the habitual people who enter UW/FoW.

- Go completely alone and do only the same known farm runs over and over again or die 3 steps after you go to explore.

- Remain unaware of the whereabouts of these two awesome areas since no human party will take a newbie there (specially if it is not for farming purposes) and there is no possible way to go there on your own.


I suggest this for those reasons and with the backup of the well known "stupidicy" of henchmen AI, specially of prophecies henchmen, like 99% of people claim that henchmen are completely useless, bad AI, waste of time, etc etc etc. so, takng the most common position regarding the henchmn usefulness i believe no one should have any valid argument against letting people go there using these little AI folks and at least have a little tiny chance of roaming around in those maps.

That or establsh some other way so people who's new to UW/FoW can actually enter there not depending on some random act of merciful kindness of some people actually willing to help them get to know the area.

Thanks for reading and i hope this suggestion can be taken seriously so it can make the access to these areas more fair for everyone playing this game.

Actually, you can explore the Underworld during one of the Wintersday quests.

But that's irrelevant so

/signed

Buy Nightfall and/or Eye of the North. You may not like it, but it is good business for Anet to keep it that way. And if you still won't buy those games for the use of heroes, stop looking for PUGs and look for a good PvE based guild. I'd be happier with the removal of heroes than the addition of hench. The hench available in the Temple of Ages are too low a level, and there is only 1 Monk. But the real answer is for you to buy the other games and find a good guild.

/signed

It's not that I don't like grouping with others, but being able to have the extra hands/heals/meatshields along would make things easier when groups are just impossible to get. Besides, the henchies are far more polite than a few of the rude pugger's I've dealt with before (I'm sure we've all had those). This would also give people more of a chance to get to know the areas & the enemies, experience which could make them a bit more desirable to groups.

This has been asked for repeatedly through the history of elite areas. It's pretty clear that, after all this time, it's just not going to happen. That being said, I don't see a lot of harm in actually having henchies in places like UW, FoW, The Deep, Urgoz and DoA. After all, we get to use henchies in Slaver's Exile (which is supposed to be "elite" as well as other dungeons, and also in places like Sorrow's Furnace and Tombs.

Even if a player is in a nice PvE oriented guild there are going to be times when it will be hard to get a group together, and generally pugs are avoided in those locations for very good reasons.

Now, if it's just exploring you're interested in OP, there are lots of ways to do that without running the quests for the full area (well... in some of those places anyway). Various solo/duo/trio teams can get around pretty well in each of those areas (except maybe The Deep and Urgoz). Of course the more reliable option is to just buy NF and EotN for the heroes... each of those can be obtained for 10 dollars or less these days. Good hunting.


Edit: To Magma Red: while I don't disagree with what you said above, it is important to realize that suggestions like "join a good guild" are becoming harder and harder to follow, due to the steady stream of departing players. I know plenty of people who were in active guilds and now their guilds are practically deserted. After years in the same guild its not interesting to many to simply leave to find something better, particularly if you're the guild leader and have spent~650k buying stuff for the hall. Just sayin...

On the "buy Nightfall and/or Eye of the North" suggestion, that is out of context since i am talking specifically about those who do not have them Vs those who does, thus it create a cler disadvantage to those playing only the core campaign. I would like to find some of those expansions at the prices mentioned by captain bulldozer but i'm affraid thats an utopic price for where i live, 30 USD is the cheapest you can find it here if you can find them at all, and purchasing online is not always an option. Anyways, anything that tries to force people into purchasing something is not "good" business, it is just having the customer as a hostage.

On the guild suggestion, it would be worth to mention that i highly doubt that any of the PVE oriented ones will be any different than just getting a PUG, no one going to UW/FoW seems to want to do it with unexp people and i don't see a great "offer" of PVE oriented guilds out there.

The Guild Owner case is also very valid. Even when my suggestion for the henchies is not about my case in particular but about many other people out there as well, i can use mine as example, i own a family/close friends only guild, created in May '05 and currently with very few people in it, with a half populated guild hall (non of us is a farmer so it takes ages to purchase all the NPCs) and i don't see any valid reason why would we have to resign to that what we constructed along five years, in order to try our luck to find a decent guild with people to go there.

I just came back 1 week ago after being some time away (a couple of months) and now i found my guild hall literally crowded of henchies for PvP, so why is it possible to use even specialized henchmen for that and not to go into a PVE area?

I say remove the ability to take heroes. Henchmen are retarted as we all know. If you're looking to explore UW while killing and hoping for a lucky ecto to fall at your feet, only do Clear The Chamber quest. A couple friends and I pretty much 3 man UW, clearing whatever happens to be in our way. Sure it may take a couple of hours, but we have fun doing it. Make friends with people you play with, the better ones anyways.

The elite areas aren't meant to be soloable for the most part. Get some friends or get into a decent guild and bob's your uncle. Not all guilds focus exclusively on speed clears and are willing to take a variety of professions and players of varying skill level into elite runs. Good luck

How 'bout this:
1) Read up on the areas on the wiki if you've never done them before.
2) Use builds that are known and popular to PUGs, not your uber-1337 home-brewed batch of fail.
3) Don't advertise yourself as unexperienced, but don't try to take a leadership position or do anything without someone else doing it first. Someone should be saying "let's do X now", even in a group of experienced players, so follow along with that. Especially in FoW, this is more than sufficient to get you through. For UW, it can be a bit trickier, but nothing that wiki won't guide you through with some pointers from teammates.

If you can't do 1, 2, and 3, then the addition of henchmen isn't going to help you, because you're going to get slaughtered within 2 minutes of entering either of these zones with a H/H party.

And, of course, I reiterate: Guild Wars.

Oh, and the notion that people without NF or EotN are discriminated against for these elite areas for not having heroes is as ridiculous as the notion that said people are discriminated against for vanquishes, or that it's not fair to people with just Prophecies that they can't run AP caller builds. That's kinda the point, isn't it: new campaigns provided new skills, abilities, weapons, and (for two of them at least) heroes as incentives for people to buy them. You want to take away the inherent advantage of having access to heroes that everyone with NF and GW:EN paid for? How about you take away all those skills too, since that's an unfair advantage and all...

You have a funny definition of "force". Heroes are an incentive. Providing incentives to purchase your goods is what all businesses are about, because without them, why the hell would you buy the product? You don't want to pay for the campaign, you don't get the heroes...it's not a hard concept, and it's perfectly fair.

Dont burn the people who want to use heroes... just find a good guild... there are alot of friendly guilds out there who are willing to hamstring themselves a bit to take someone who doesnt have nf or eotn skills, the people in town are gonna be rude period. thats just what comes from a 5 year old game when confronted with someone who is considered "sub par".

/Signed.
Absolutely
PS If you have factions, two man Rit farming works good PM me and we can go get some ectos

Before the nerf to the pug friendly UWSC.../notsigned

Now?

/signed

In few words because i wont waste much energy talking to a wall: UW was there before heroes even existed in concept, and it was part of prophecies core campaign, new campaigns were added, nice, new content, but do not unbalance the previous campaigns with them. Heroes are unbalancing the access to these areas, if someone want to go there with the so useless and stupid henchmen, then it should be allowed sine now people can go with super heroes in uber-leet builds which are also a zillion times smarter than henchmen. So why would that hurt anybody to let henchmen in?

If henchmen in fow/uw are bad, then heroes are bad as well. Period.

And for the people who is unnable to respect a tradition guild, well, if we don't respect our own family and our real friends then there is nothing else to do in this lifetime, sorry for you if a game is worth more than your family or your friends, sad.

/thread is dumb

The reason hench aren't allowed in UW/FoW is because they would be eaten alive due to their bad builds and the difficulty of the content (and the UW quests that basically require splitting and other activities the AI can't handle). Since a hench team would be absolutely doomed to failure, the game doesn't even let you try.

Heroes, on the other hand, can be given decent builds that can handle the content. (And a team can still manage the required splits with a few heroes in tow.)

(Also, I don't want to sound too negative, but if you think you'd be able to clear UW in its current state with Proph hench and no NF or EotN skills on your bar, then you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.)

If you want just to explore then there's no need for henchmen
- for FoW there are many ways to make a solo runner build on different professions that can explore the whole thing alone, and in many cases even farm quite a good amount of stuff there.
- for UW you need to complete the first quest in it and then you're free to explore everything just like FoW. A spirit spammer rit can easily SOLO the first quest and explore the whole UW, farming almost everything on his way. There are many solo builds which can solo complete the first quest, just not sure if they can explore everything after.

Back in the days before heroes, I'm sure many 4-7 man teams could handily beat the content with hench filling in a few slots. It was a design decision to keep them out and require full groups, one they didn't replicate for the almost as hard (at the time) Tombs, and did replicate for the factions missions that only a handful of guilds even had access to. Between lack of AI, favor and town holding, the point of "elite" missions was that not everyone was entitled to play. Between the favor changes and access scrolls, this is a policy they've (wisely) had an about face on.

DoA on release was basically undoable by large AI groups, you might get by with 1 or 2 heroes which NF provided, hence no need for henchies. Nightfall represented a fundamental change in approach for many aspects of GW, including promoting AI as a valid playstyle instead of a mere fill-in for missing humans.

These days a decent hero team + any henchies could easily roll NM FoW, DoA, Urgoz, Deep, and if they toned back Dhumm they'd tackle UW just fine too. In GW's current dead state, there's no reason to require people to group up with empty districts, and this is a far simpler band-aid fix than 7 heroes.

Offer hero slot increases, at ten dollars per hero slot. Buy four, you can take seven heroes with you.

I'd blow forty dollars on that instantly.

Heroes would be killed by foes that they can't tell are about to kill them. At least with humans you can have a chance of them not standing there like an idiot if you know them. Perhaps try dual spirit spamming to explore.

I'm all for the freedom of players to play any game they buy any way they wish.
Forget what was once intended as regards elite areas and live with the reality that you have to make compromises in such an old game.

Finding guilds can be a frustrating experience for new players as can finding friends who are willing to help and treat them fairly.

Yes you can find good players on line willing to help, but are they willing to help day in day out for may hours a day helping you through the game, I doubt it.

Finding a reliable source of help on a regular basis isn't easy so give the players the ability to help themselves.

Find a guild that even if new or has low members and see if there are others within who wish to try and do uw - it may be a learning curve and may fail but at least the team/guild is learning the methods.Pugging can be hit or miss and often pugs want only the best players and inexperianced players get left out.
H/H id hate to consider in uw - we all know how at times h/h ai can suck or even go a lil mad and do things you dont want.
Also as a few others stated - its a high chance that even with h/h theres no way uw can be completed in its current state , id hate to be in chaos plains tryin to keep myself alive and position h/h with the random ( well random in having 1 or 2 spawn points ) spawns of mindblades that appear - would h/h be able to take out 9 mindblades and stay alive ? Would h/h be able to cope with the ice king quests and several spawn points of dryders , 4 horsemen quest and even dhuum.
Im sure most players who have done a bit of uw plus its quests will agree and say at times you need to be relying on team mates quick thinking and common sense incase of a problem rather than a h/h that decides to attack something it shouldnt or by design flaw get stuck on a small pixel.

LOL... Y' know? I actually wouldn't be surprised if Anet did that. They'll do anything for player's monies... I mean just look at that whole "costumes" gig!

$40 waiting to be blown on a dead game...but I will blow because 7 heroes will be really coooooooooooooooooooooool

sort of off topic but there is currently a thread in the PuGs section here where a guild will take you into UW and complete it. all you have to do is leave a post in the thread and they will get back to you. i went with them cause i hadn't beaten dhuum yet and in the group i was in one of our monks was a prophecies only skills and we still completed it.

back on topic it wouldnt' bother me one way or the other if henchmen were allowed or even if heroes were suddenly banned from UW/FoW

The topic of the thread is "Allowing henchment into UW/FoW or removing heroes", all those posts about "look for a guild" or "use another build" or "put more heroes" (which is actually against the whole idea and i find it pretty insultant) are completelly off topic and should be avoided removed becase they are biasing the original topic.

It is not about if youc an or cannot clea/survive/fight there on your on, it is nly about hte inclusion of AI characters int here. Please stick to the topic. Thank you.

I don't see the harm.

There are certainly no game balance issues to worry about, and since the doors have been opened to AI teammates, it only seems fair that henchmen should be included.

Could the group you described above clear all of UW? No way. But it would at least have a chance of getting in there and getting familiar with the landscape and challenges, without having to waste the time of human players. Especially if you consider a team with three heroes and four henchmen.

I've just never liked the restrictions put on elite areas. Wait for PvP players to win games to access, no AI teammates, etc. I think it's better for the game to have the same tools available everywhere, and to let the challenges alone distinguish elite areas.

@ the OP the guild was just a suggestion as it appeared you were having issues with it..

on topic.. i guess i didnt clearly state my position last time, i'm perfectly fine with henchmen being let in. that being said i'd never use them, nor would i ever recommend anyone using them there considering all of them are level 15 in ToA and generally that is the leaving point for UW and FoW... and yes i do realize you can leave from zin ku but that wouldnt help people with just prophecies and would cause another thread like this.

Nobody would use LA for UW/FoW access unless going with at least 1 human and both having heroes. People needing the hench would be using Zin Ku or Chantry since the hench there are level 20 and offer at least 2 healers. Heck, Zin Ku would be the best place to enter, as you could get an MM from Su, an SoS Rit from Chiyo, and more total options (17 hench) than either ToA (7) or Chantry (10).

You know, now that you mention that bit about the level 20 henchmen in Zin Ku and the Chantry, it makes me wonder why henchmen aren't allowed to go to the realms of the gods. I thought the reason that it couldn't be done in Prophecies was due to the henchmen not yet being ascended, but that's not the case for those in Zin Ku or the Chantry.

Well, i guess that IF henchmen were allowed to enter there, then the level 20 henchs from the expansions would be a genuine incentive reward for people using the expansions versus people not using them, i wouldn't care about level 15 dumb enchmen in ToA as long as it gives people a chance to go thre on their own. I couldn't explain it better than Trankle already did:

@chaos: no, i'm not having a personal issue with it, maybe i miss expressed myself, i am sorry if that was the case and i offer my apologies for it. I have done some tests of what response would someone unexperienced get there, i haven't gone to UW/FoW myself for years, i guess a lot of stuff may have changed, but i have the habit of thinking in the common wealth and not only in my own back yard

I was one of those who pushed and pushed and pushed to make those areas (and the elite armors) only available for ascended characters, because that is the only thing that gives characters an elite status in the game. Now, ome people say these elite areas should be accesable for humans only, OK, perfect, then that would mean removing heroes since they are not humans, but if heros are allowed, then i think henchmen should be allowed too.

ArenaNet has known for a long time that there are quite a few people who would have paid for full hero parties. Less now that the game is dying, but still.

well... maybe make a fix so the ToA henchies get to lvl 20 when entering UW or FoW (no matter mode) like they do when you enter HM in normal explorable? Would still not be as good as Zin Ku and Chantry in regards of the types you can take with you but would still help I think.

I don't really see that big a problem in this... it is harder and harder still to find teams on various things... so you are most likely gonna fail... so what... at least you can give it a shot.

I know it's off topic... but I would so waste money on having more heroes on my team too xD

hrm.. yeah... well I guess I /sign for henchies in the leet areas... doesn't really hurt anyone.

Yes , it's quite hard to find a team in those elite areas if you don't wanna play " sc " , or even at some hours there are just 0 teams ( morning gmt at DoA for example ) .

It would be nice to allow henchies at least so you can have a chance to complete the area by your own

Nobody likes to be insulted in different languajes. Therefore I think henchmen should be added to UW/FoW.

Haha, signed.. That'd be 40 bucks straight out of the window the secound it came lol

I allso think henchmen should be added to FOW. Simply because in the current state of the game only a few professions are wanted in there. I will never make a PVE sin to join in to the good old farmfest..

Thanks for resurrecting an 8 month old thread.

Specially when we already have news of the increase/removal of the hero limit.

sure why not.