Allowing us to play as our heroes

I don't know how many people here have played Dragon Age: origins, but in it, there is the option to play as either your own character or any of the heroes you have brought along with you. I think it would be pretty cool to be able to actually switch which character (our main character or any of our heroes we bring along) we play with in PvE, in the same way people who play other rpg's like Dragon age can choose who to play with at any given time. Anyone else think this would be a cool idea?

Just make a new character if you want to play as another class. Race issues can cause balance problems, even in PvE. And if you really want to play as a hero, die, stay dead, and control the hero from that perspective.

/notsigned

DA:O and GW have different engines. I seriously doubt it'll be easy to just give us this capability. Besides, if you want to play a profession, just make one. The time and effort required for this is way beyond what we would gain (which really isn't anything).

I dont know if you have ever played any of these games that allow the player to actually control their heroes, but it is a completely different experience than having to flag a character around. How would there be any balance problems anyway? Its not like, balance-wise, this would be any different from micro management of a single hero. I don't really understand why, based on the issues you bring up, you would be opposed to my suggestion. Maybe you wouldn't think it necessary because you would rather create a new character, but that isn't really any reason to be opposed to being able to transfer controls from player character to hero.

There are 10 professions and only eight character slots (unless one is willing to spend money on new slots). Besides, what If I want to play as Tahlkora? Or Goren? You can't do this by "creating new character". In DA:O, you have the option of transfering control from the player character to Alistor or to Morghann (sp?) or even the dog. I simply think it would be cool to have the same kind of option available in guild wars. I mean, I dont really see any reason why it would be a bad thing...

There is a reason the game has more classes than character slots. It generates revenue from people who want to play as all options. A condition like disease spreads between any character of the same race. If you were playing as Jora, you would not spread disease to or get it from any human, Asuran, Dwarf, Charr, etc. If I want to play as a Monk, I load my Monk, not switch to Tahlkora. If the only thing it did was provide the skin, then that would cause confusion for players used to seeing that skin on a hero with different AI than a player.

I enjoy playing my characters. I don't want to play as a hero, a hench, or any NPC. I enjoy playing with them at times, but the coding to enable this is significant for little purpose other than novelty.

This is Guild Wars. If you want to play Dragon Age, then do so. I personally don't want to change a game I like into one I don't.

OP gets a /signed for an original and fun idea. Allowing switching control of your character with one of your heros you've brought along would be really cool as long as there are some stringent rules behind it.

Was thinking about this the other day. This would ensure that profession A gets what it needs to get (say a certain title or area vanquish) without having to change professions which would defeat profession A's chances anyways.

Sometimes certain situations call for certain tactics, and if one of those tactics require the player to fill the shoes of a certain profession for a time, then why not?

Example: I'm on my Elementalist vanquishing, I just approached a mob that really requires a monk to manage his skills correctly, what do I do? Do I log off of and switch to a monk? I could, but whoops I just defeated any chances of vanquishing that area with my elementalist toon. Now if I had the option of overriding one of my monk heroes I could not only fulfill the requirement of needing a human monk for that situation but I could also complete that vanquish for my character.

Plus it's less tedious clicking a hero and wsad'ing while controlling it's skill bar than spending an hour trying to find keys to map to your hero's skill bar and constant flag clicking on the compass.

Uh, no. Bioware has been doing this for years and years and years all ready, so any originality that comes with this idea is nonexistant. Not that originality has been one of ArenaNet's stronger characteristics.

However, I don't think this is a bad idea if they can do it without having to rework a large part of the engine. If it is feasible, I'd also like to see a restriction such as not letting you switch to a hero if you don't have a character of the hero's profession the same level or higher on your account. E.g., Having a mesmer under level 20 (or not at all) on my account wouldn't let me switch to Gwen. No ducking the need for character slots.

why not just make costume brawl permanent?

/notsigned

Yeah would be playing as a hero...and all the criers wanting costumes in pvp could get what they want...

2 birds..one stone

Yeah, I like this idea.

/signed

What Magma said.
And also, that would make no sense lore-wise. How can you be someone else? Demonic possession? Heroes help you but it's not you. And IMO this game would be somehow ruined with what you suggested. Just go and play costume brawl.

TBH - I'd rather swap my heroes for my alt chars. I don't want extra drops or anything, I just think it would be cool to see my others chars running about with my main.

If you play heroes you should play like a hero. Aggro everything, res in the middle of fights, refuse to attack called targets, all that fun stuff.

The whole point and challenge of most titles is that it is harder to do with one profession. Vanquishing is pretty easy at the best of times. Allow yourself to be any profession at any time and it becomes a joke.

Being able to play your heroes is an interesting idea, but it doesn't really grab me. I do like the way you suggested it and made a case for doing it though.

/notsigned

/signed, makes microing a lot more fun!
But then again, let them rather put more effort into GW2 than GW, i want to play that game already :\

This.

Heroes have really nothing special over playable characters except their appearence. Tahlkora plays like a regular monk, with the very same attribute lines and the very same skill bar with 8 slots.

In DA:O, switching between characters probably has some (strategic?) point in the game, hasn't it?

It would be nice if you had to make some choices in Guild Wars, such as:

- Play as your character vs Play as Tahlkora in the Tihark Orchard mission. You either try to convince Prince Mehtu the Wise with your arguments, or take a shortcut and exploit Tahlkora's family relationship to reach your goal, though giving up the full approval of your deeds from the prince, who still treats you like an istani spy untill proved wrong.

- Play as your Character vs Play as General Morgahn in the Ruins of Morah mission. Morgahn hesitates to finish Varesh off because of his soft spot for her, so the mission gets a twist of difficulty when Varesh has the chance to stand up again.

And so on.

It's impossible to introduce such a complexity and so many split paths so late in the game tough.

/notsigned

then you would be able to easily access all skills unlocked on your account as soon as you make new characters through the use of heroes

There isn't really any strategic point in DA:O besides commanding one character rather than another.

Plus, in many of Bioware's games, control is transfered automatically back to the player character when a cutscene or dialogue starts. Therefore, there wouldn't be any problems with splits or whatnot. The story in the campaigns would be unaffected.

I didn't think about that. I know that most older players have already unlocked a majority of the skills already (or have access to unlocking them), so this wouldnt be a problem for them. However, I could see how this would be problematic for newer players who buy the all skills pack from Anet. Maybe something could be done where Heroes can only use skills that the player character has bought until the PC reaches lvl 20. Just an idea from the top of my head. I'm sure there is some safeguard against abuse in this way.

/signed cuz it would be fun, but I don't think it would ever get implemented 'cuz of the engine

It's not about appearance, it's about switching to another profession on the fly to fill a particular role when the situation demanded a human behind the wheel without having to log out of the area to change characters to do it. It would be perfect for vanquishing or having to override one of your heroes because it wasn't doing an adequate job keeping your team alive or not firing skills off in a particular order.

Because Costume Brawl (also Rollerbeetle, Dragon Arena, and Snowball) is a terrible format. If it was around all the time, then it would be just as populated as Codex.

/notsigned for this idea, interesting but no.
If I would play as my heroes I think something along the lines of the bmp would be more fun.
You can play as say... Xandra when she was still back at the turtle clan and her way to eotn. Or Tahlkora as she returns home after the events in nightfall. Play Pyre as he tries to avoid capture by the other charr.
Simply something adding to the lore around the heroes, I think some of them have some quite interesting background stories and/or makes me wonder what happens to them next.
Maybe say you buy it like you do the bmp, but you need the hero unlocked, you then gain an option when hero is in your party to trigger the heros story. Hero will keep the skills you gave him/her. (having a set build like in the bmp missions would be ok too, but I would like making own builds better)