7 Heroes/Embark Beach Early Next Year

Just thought I'd update this with a couple posts from the Live Team lead's wiki page.

On the topic of the dervish balance and whether we will get skill previews before release:

This is more information on the expected time line (which is still vague) but ironically less information than what he gave out with the Kill 10 rats interview.

On the topic of why they are taking so long to implement the full hero parties early next year instead of simply removing the cap and releasing them now:

We can speculate on what this means, but apparently the full hero parties will be more complex than just full hero parties.

Personally I think they will add party formations like in Baldur's Gate 2 (triangle formation, form a circle around your character, paired in a straight line etc).

You do realize you've been talking about a Dervish balance update since around May, right? It's been nearly seven months. I realize I don't pay monthly for this game but it better be damn good if you're going to take 7 months for a skill update.


As cool as that would be, let's be real. For Anet to do something like that would take another 6 months...making the prediction of June for the 7 hero party completely accurate... Still, I think it has to do more with the AI, as they mentioned making melee AI more useful. Flagging is not a very polished mechanic.

So something along the lines of making all classes work well under hero AI so players don't jump the gun on making full hero parties without including melee heroes? I guess that makes sense (and fits in with his claim he wants it all smooth from the get go, not fixing up later which would be too late for players to consider melee heroes as they'd already establish caster/ranged builds).

I still thanks that's underwhelming for the "something cool" or w/e the extra oomph the hero update is supposed to bring. Fixing melee ai seems kinda ordinary to me. I'd rather they give pets their own bar . That would be something cool.

Well maybe our definitions are different. Apparently the majority of the community wets their pants over pink dye and new, buyable costumes.

Pets getting their own bar is not even viable with the current game design. It would require some heavy reworking. I doubt anything we see will fundamentally change the game or require heavily reworking code.

Party formations is completely possible, but I doubt it will be as defined as "circle" or "triangle." Definitely some more elaborate hero commands would be great though.

Simply having them spread out a little more would be fantastic.

I can hardly wait... At this phase in the game, especially with the new content where the henchmen are dinky a few extra custom hitters would be just awesome.

I wish it had been implemented from day 1... i hate gimmicks, and the pugs who run them. It's less lame if you got a guild group but still... I like this game, that's all there is to it, and most of my in game buddies tend to move on to other games or just start sologrinding stuff, and my F-list goes dark or is full of people who don't talk to me... Gets lame having to sift through a new batch of sucktards every few months... Thing is I've liked the henchmen since the beginning, learning their quirks, how to wrangle their AI with a flatbow, how to fill their shortcomings on my bar. For example, bewteen lina and alesia, neither has hex removal or condition removal, all you need to do is put any one of several skills on your heroes, or on yourself to fill that gap and alesia isn't that bad. Also dunham has shatter hex, not great but he pairs well with alesia.

My one concern, what happens to the henchmen... i mean they'll still have to be there for people without NF and EotN, but otherwise, poo guys are going to be collecting dust... I almost wish they'd have just had it so you can pay gold and customize the henchmen's bar, gear and stats. I don't really need to micro them, just have them fill some roles they don't do already. They could have put a few Elite area only henchmen at the DoA, ToA and such... But whatever, CHEERS FOR THE MAGNIFICENT 7!

Id not really care about them spreding out in a fight if they werent so incredibly dense and stay standing in AoE the whole time if you dont manually flag them away. I can just picture speech bubbles above their heads with "OOohhh, Look pretty lights!" whenever this happens.

My biggest problem with them is they don't seem to do too well with a melee player. When you run, they run. Sometimes mid battle, when I'm chasing a random monk down who keeps running, my heroes will stop healing and run with me even though they are within earshot of me.

I've always found heroes far easier to manage on a ranged class than on a melee class for the above reason.

What would be fantastic would be to have the H/H actually obey my Warrior when I call a target - and for them to *NOT* instantly swarm my Assassin's targets without being called so that he can get a combo off every now and then against stuff other than the biggest of bosses. :/ And Hero-esque Lock/Aggressive/Guard/Heel controls for Ranger pets (and AI so that even on Guard they don't run back to you the instant their target dies if there's something actively hostile in range) would be nice, too.

Same happens to me.
And even when not them nor me have 'within earshot' or any other skill that uses ranges, they always have to get close, when they would do much, much better by standing behind me outside aggro range. And for some reason they have the ugly need to stand behind me, if I turn around while attacking, instead standing where they are until the fight is over, they'll try to move behind me, and while doing so, they just run directly into enemy lines.
It's tiresome to keep always my back towards the place I want them to be.

I <3 the dev team and I'm thankful that John Stumme is being so vocal, but I don't buy some of this. I wish we could know specifically what the holdup or special requirements or limitations or whatever of full hero parties they're waiting on. I don't see how it has to be any simpler than just raising the cap. I wish I did, but I don't.

I don't believe that you need to add anything else other than the maximum number of slots under the dropdown. We don't need AI updates or formations or different hero control panels or whatnot, we can get by with what we have rite now. What we have rite now has worked for years, man... really... we'll be A-OK with it I promise!

On that note, formations would be great in the future. Please add full hero parties now and do formations later.

Also, different hero panels would be nice. Maybe a floating panel unit which contains all heroes, rather than individual floaters for each. Something more sleek and collapsable. Please add full hero parties now and do a UI overhaul later.

You know what I'd really like? A "voice command" menu like in Unreal Tournament so that we can issue a series of commands to our heroes with a few quick keypresses. (Taunts for the enemy would be there too, bahahaha). A versatile, intuitive interface like that which we can use to issue and change commands to our heroes on the fly? Yes please! Please add full hero parties now and improve hero commands later.

Different/customizable hero AI would be awesome! Let us load basic scripts for each like "Stand still, don't kite" or "kite front/back" or "don't autoattack, just cast" or whatever. We don't need this now, though. So please add full hero parties now and do AI script additions later.

Love ya!

:wink:

You guys do know pets already have thier own bar with controls right? Maybe you guys meant giving pets thier own skills and improved bar? I vote for an improved bar. But, giving pets thier own skills at this stage would be either OP or useless. Its just the nature of GW1. I admit they dont have the best AI. Since they can be considered melee, hopefully the melee AI update will effect pets as well. I always keep my pet bar open, or else good luck trying to pull w/o killing your pet

As for the Melee update, I think part of it is a routing issue. Even if you make them attack your target, they either ignore that command, or they cant properly route to your target and start attacking the closest target(probably a spirit :/). Same with pets.

Heros in general could use some AI updates. In the case of you being melee, I have noticed your mid/backline heros again use poor routing judgement, like others have mentioned. One big problem I have with heros when I'm tanking is that when they follow you, they all ball up together behind you in a massive hero ball. This makes them an easy target for AoE.

As I mentioned before, one of the best features I could hope for is a scatter function for heros. I imagine it works more like a shout, when you press the button your heros stop everything they are doing and fan out in a circular fashion.

EDIT: I vote for reactive changes over proactive ones. ie. give us a full hero party then give us the AI/whatever updates. I can do just fine adding more heros. The rest of the heros changes is just gravy.

oh wow... I CANNOT WAIT for this!! 7 heros OMG That would be AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe they are working on how heroes respond to AoE. Instead of just scattering in any random direction, drawing extra aggro, they might just fall back the way you came or some such action. Instead of running around when blinded, they stand and fight, but still try to move from under meteor shower.

I'd rather have this for heroes/hench over 7 heroes anytime

Technically, it took seven months for...

• Costume Brawl balancing and changes (costumes, new map, and reward rework)
• Halloween quests
• Hearts of the North
• Dervish update

Stop acting like the the Dervish update is the only thing that was done. :/

I for one am greatly looking forward to what I was told would be coming with the 7 hero update. (go go being in the Test Krewe :3)

1. Anet previously said 3-4 large skill updates a year. 7 months for the Dervish update basically makes it the second of the year.

2. I belive many people agreed that CB was fine BEFORE any sort of updates. It was/is arguably one of the most enjoyed festival games. Their resources could have been allocated to things MUCH more important, like broken skills.

3. New costumes? Lulz. I've said it before, its you damn teenage girls that have made this game about playing dressup with different costumes as opposed to the development of skill it once was.

4. They want to make new content bridging GW1 to GW2? Great news! How about they fix some of the issues with GW1 first instead of compounding the problem with more layers on top of it?

5. Technically we still do not have the Dervish skill update. We don't even have an official preview. It's not out till its out. I said 7 months, but knowing Anet it could still very well be next year sometime.

Obviously #4 is coming from a very cynical POV. I played and enjoyed the WiK content for the most part. I think the wedding is a complete waste of time, though. I really wish they would focus on GW1 somewhat more separately, since it has its own preexisting problems that are not being fixed in a timely manner. Instead we're getting stuff that leads up to a wedding...

I don't think people are acting like it was the only thing done - in fact, it hasn't been done yet. People don't like that it was more significant than everything in your list yet it still managed to take a lower priority. Every time a new excuse came up (honestly, costume brawl is around for 1-2 weeks, dervish changes will effect the entire game and an entire class for the rest of the game) the dervish update was bafflingly put on hold. Why would you do that? If you promise something since early May, postponing it because you are tweaking an already fine feature which is temporary seems like priorities around the wrong way.

Most players would happily trade their costume brawl face lift, 2 hours of halloween quests for an entire game's worth of enjoyable play time on the dervish.

How many times are they going to postpone it? If you keep doing that every time it is due out it will never get released - costume brawl, halloween quests, Hearts of the North, Wintersday, Canthan New Year, Winds of Change - there will always be something else that needs coding, but most of it is less important than an entire class.

The most frustrating thing about this is the paragon was supposed to be looked at after the dervish, when will that be out? 2012? I personally was hoping they would look at the ranger (pets and general build variety need some serious reworking) and maybe the assassin or elementalist after the paragon. These things are more important to me than a couple new festival quests here and there. The playability of PvE with classes which got the skill rebalance (ritualists, mesmers, hammer warriors) dramatically improved to be enjoyable, effective and efficient, something most classes can't claim at this point in time (they have some effectiveness but are largely have dead skill pools and limiting play styles). I see it as fixing the slow decay caused by PvP balance to PvE skills but most classes haven't had that treatment and most classes could greatly improve if they did.

Thank you for that pointless contribution. I hope it successfully boosted your ego because it did nothing for anyone else in this thread.

I understand the stance Stumme took on this but I agree with you. It would be an infinite increase on my ability to play the game as it currently is if they simply allowed the 4 additional heroes for now, even if it didn't come with any more UI than henchmen do. Level 20 heroes for WiK would make a world of difference and being able to customise my party for vanquishing is far more significant than additional UI or even AI. I don't use any of the additional hero flagging or UI control when vanquishing as it is (that would take too long).

TL;DR I appreciate the ambitious attempts at delivering more content for every festival (quests and apparently more GW:B content than previously delivered) but I feel like the big substantial priorities are falling by the way side in favour of 20 minutes worth of questing which you forget later on when the festival ends. Class rebalances revitalise the entire game, festival quests (or costume brawl costumes and builds) distract you 20 minutes.

Realistically "most" players couldn't give a damn about the dervish. It's one class out of ten.

↑Not only that, the dervish is also an expansion class and as such has a smaller overall player base.

The Dervish Update... you know, I'm more concerned over how enemies will be affected.

I mean, look at what happened to "We Shall Return!".

Now that I think about it, I'm probably the only person to actually be concerned about it.

PvE isn't all that hard to begin with. I would love to see better buffed up enimies to roflstomp.

Most? doubtful

Quoted for truth.

Very much okay with some harder enemies. "We Shall Return" is indeed annoying in Joko's Domain and some other spots in HM, but that's just as much due to the nature of the skill. Several skills make mobs harder to kill, but they're not necessarily overpowered on enemy AI, they're just troll skills. Think of Lightning Reflexes with Call to the Torment. Fffffuuu.

Plus, Dervs? The Avatars are only cappable in one place each, and no foes use them regularly. It'd be a neat challenge to have them be extremely hard caps. After all, you're trying to kill an Avatar of a god to steal their ability. Some skills might make the game more difficult, but it's very unlikely that it will break anything.

I also wish they'd push the 7 heroes live and then give us an "icing" update that handles formations, AI, whatever it is that's the extra thing. But if I wasn't a GWG lurker and so informed, I'd want the update to work and be overwhelmingly cool. So for the majority of the population, I understand wanting to push out something really cool instead of giving it in installments.

They already are among the hardest to cap in the game, for most players. Maybe a few skills that only show up in late missions (having a helluva time getting Panic since Moles Quibus only seems to want to spawn in the bowl with the portals and Armageddon Lords in Hell's Precipice) or in the Realm of Torment are harder, but not by much.

Personally, I still don't see why Dervishes need an update. Earth and Wind could use a bit of buffage, sure, but Mysticism is excellent (both its intrinsic effect and the skills in it) and Scythe Mastery's great. So what if Assassins get more crits and Warriors get a bit more armor penetration? No big deal. Doesn't make Dervishes in any way not worth playing. (personally, the only reason I don't like Dervishes is having to stop to cast Enchantments, so everything else reaches the spawn before I do)

Far more important would be to buff Tactics so that it's useful for Warriors, but keeping them from being overpowered for Paragons.

Everyone and their pet hamster has a ritualist after the rit buff. That class rebalance had a huge impact on the game (the same goes for mesmers).

The most significant thing about the ritualist update was reducing cast time for spirits for reasons similar to dervishes needing to constantly keep up enchantments. The stop start gameplay of the dervish is why I don't play them (and if you look at the popular builds, the stop start enchantment style play the class was designed around isn't very popular and thus not used for the same reason you pointed out - that's why the rebalance is needed, the class never played well using it's own mechanics). I suspect the new mechanic the derv will get will replace the garbage enchantment style play in favour of a more fluid and dynamic combat presence like the class should have always had. Then again there's a good chance I'm expecting too much.

The Live Team already had a look at tactics for the warrior and did some unsuccessful buffs to them. I don't think they will be willing to buff the skills to a level where players will use them. Paragons need their own class rebalance instead of leaching sub par warrior skills.

This thread is about hero parties and embark beach... so we got way off topic with dervish balance updates.

I honestly can't believe this. Mysticism is some of the worst energy management in the game, and the health gain is so inconsistent and insignificant it might as well not be there. Why do you think Dervs have to rely on an elite like Zealous Vow to have a build with maintainable DPS? Whereas Assassins can spec into Crit Strikes and put in Critical Eye if necessary for unlimited spam of good skills. Warriors have adrenaline of course, and Rangers have Expertise, which is amazing.

Scythe Mastery is decent because of a few skills. You have the standard Eremite's/Mystic combo, and a handful of other worthwhile skills that are basically the only functional attacks. Yeah, Warriors and Sins also have some worthless skills, but they have far more functional combos and can use multiple weapons to great effect.

Earth and Wind definitely need buffed as well. Leaving no highly effective attributes. Dervs are just underpowered compared to their peers.

People can argue all day that Dervs are great and don't need a buff, but why do you think there's major effort going into one? Because players complained? And why did players complain? Dervs are underwhelming. The opinion of a few Dervish enthusiasts on Guru doesn't change the feeling of the vast majority of the playerbase or the reason the metagame in both PvP and PvE is shaped without Dervs.

Same thing could be said about the need to work on the Costume Brawl. Us PvE only people don't need PvP crap worked on, and like someone said it was already fine (never used it so I can't really comment on it). On the flip side, so could the GW:B content (which I like), said for the PvP only people. They can't appease everyone, so they're always going to upset one group or another. The people with Derv mains (myself included) want the changes to come out, over other things, but the Devs know best, so its done when they say its done.
Also, hence the need for them to revamp the dervish class, cause then maybe "most" players will like what they do (hopefully).