Feature Build: The calm before the storm

Hmmm, I do hope that that makes one of your guys a hero for the whole account... otherwise, this could get expensive...

But DAMN, they DO know how to put a price on stuff you don't actually need but still NEED!!!!!!!!

I have 24 chars on my main account...and if they deleted a char to create the hero I would never, ever convert any chars to heroes.

Delete my chars so I can never play them myself again? When I've played them to level 20 and beyond? Never get birthday gifts on them anymore? Lose chars I've bought elite armor for, had fun playing with builds, got attached to...just to get an AI uncontrollable replacement?

Screw that. I wouldn't even delete them myself when I'd created them as a survivor attempt and they failed. Why would I pay to lose them, after paying for additional char slots to keep them?

Fortunately, I don't believe ArenaNet likely to be that cruel. In the interview, he did say they would take a snapshot of the char...that doesn't sound like a deletion.

Those of us attached to our chars such that we'd like to keep 'em with us would be unlikely to pay to have them deleted on us. Which I believe would make a significant dent in their expected income from sales of merc hero slots.

Though you could not buy more than 12 charr slots

I think in the end its a cosmetic choice, if anyone wants to use 7 necros go for it ... though i dont see why anyone would.

Mercenary Heros

Sounds to me that you have to buy a special slot. Then a "snapshot" will be taken and that character will be available for any of your characters to use as a hero. The new hero will have the armor that the hero has on the moment it was added. Also seems like you can change that slot at any time, with any character or just to change the armor. It will NOT delete the character. From then on, all other hero rules apply. The character must be Level 20. Not sure if PvP characters meet the requirement.

Also, I dont see a huge advantage to this. Sure it would be fun to have 8 Necros. But, would having 4 or more of the same type of profession really be the best possible teambuild? I say no. Most of the "good" teambuilds require several different professions(minus SCs). Plus, I think it will be alot of fun to have my toons fight side by side. On a side note, this will cost me a fortune to get all 10 of toons set as heros.

Pre-Searing

About time they show some love for the pre fans. Acquiring LDoA was the biggest oxymoron in the game. Grats to everyone that was able to do it. I'm still hoping for the possibility of more skills. Doubtful, but it would be fun. I havent seen my pretoon in ages. Now she can get her title by NOT dying. Although she is going to miss her Fire Imp once she hits 20.

Survivor/Drunkard

These are titles I messed up before I decided to dedicate a toon for title grinding. I dont mind if they make titles easier. I maxed all the consumable titles a long time ago. And I was happy for the community when they made them easier to obtain through events. I feel the same way about all titles. Power to the casual player!

Zaishen VQ

I was waiting to finish my VQs for 7 heros. This might be better, and actually get me to PuG again. Not to mention it will be a nice way for people to farm reputation points and ZKeys.

Embark Beach/Seven Heros

Wether or not this will kill Pugs once and for all has been discussed ad nauseum. Its win-win. The players who solo can do more efficiently. Likewise for Pugs. You can never make the solo player want to Pug. And the Pug now has more options.

Minion Panel

Not sure how useful this will be. But at least they are trying to encourage players to MM again.

EDIT:

According to ArenaNet, the maximum amount of additional character slots that can be bought (on top of the number that came "out of the box" with campaigns) is 26.

Well I get the impression that the mercenary option is a skin snapshot of your char.. otherwise just another hero.

And I am extremely excited about the prospect of taking my family of characters adventuring with me. It is going to be so fun.

I may blow a makeover charge and recreate my Ranger to her old Presearing self.. complete with her Krytan.. and snapshot her just to have a nostalgic bit of what she was way back when.

Haven't been denied buying one yet, so nope - you can definitely buy more than 12.

Though that's been in batches of 2-3 slots per purchase over some 4 years or so, it represents 15 bought slots (+8 from campaigns & +1 preorder).

Pugging bonus: 1000x gold coins, 100x gold drop rate, 100x factions/reputation.

Ya I know I exaggerated like mad but that statement is not exactly true...many mmorpg in history had grouping incentives that works...GW just doesn't have any.

Wiki: The current maximum slots purchasable is 26

I still wouldn't pug.
I've pugged less than 6 times in total. I've done enough, never again.

PvE skills, tactics, and human intelligence is more than enough incentive for me. Some players are either anti social, been let down by pugs too often, like to accomplish goals with out help from others, or all of the above. Thats why you will almost never get them to PuG. I'm not saying its right or wrong, just play style. But yeah, some more incentive would be nice, but not necessary.

on this i agree, it really isn't that hard, it just means you have to learn to play better

as far as these mercenary heroes.... i'm quite sure i won't be using this feature, you get enough heroes in game and they will just basically have the same AI as any other hero, so i guess its just one of those quirks that people that enjoy spending money on pixels can have.

i still don't think you should be allowed to have LDoA and Survivor on the same toon, but it seems this update will allow for that


wouldn't say micro managing minions, sounds more like you will just get their health bars in a easy to see and click space to make it easier for a human to play as a minion bomber


By the way, am i the only one that heard that the "added " 4 heroes would just be flagged using the basic hero and hench flag? i kinda like this, i can set up a squad of 4 to flank my enemies (cuz hench AI and skills made this terrible).


I do not think the mercenary heros will be able to use PvE skills. Basically from what I gathered, the mercenary hero will be the same as any other hero but with the visual aspect of one of your toons.

M...MERCENARY HEROES?

Shoot, good thing I got paid today...

yeah i heard that to. i guess it was easier to code the last 4 to use that flag. so just set the heroes in the right order like you said.

Also that guy in the video is great, "PURE OZZUMNESS, HERO WIZE"...!

I heard that in the interview too. At least we figured out how they solved the cluttered UI issue. This way you just have to make sure that your squishy heros are added first so they can be flagged seperately.

And that is one of the high points of GW, to me. It does not reward one playstyle over another for the vast majority of the game, there isn't the divide between solo and group gameplay other MMOs had. We all "group" in GW for most things anyway, but you seem to think an all player group is more deserving of rewards.. Why? And where do you split it.. does a 4 player 4 h/h group get 50% of the bonus?

This is the basis of my elitism comment earlier.. how is your 8 member group somehow more deserving of anything than my 8 member group?

Most MMOs did far more than give group incentives. They also massively penalized the player that did not participate in groups. Not participating in group play meant that a very large portion of gameplay, gear, and character development was unattainable by other means. It basically was forced grouping, and many people were not happy with it. In GW I have choices to do a mission that needs a full group, I can H/H, I can take a friend, two friends, whatever and fill the group with available heroes. Not so in other games.. Solo, with a friend, with two friends.. no dice. Not doable. Pug or GTFO. Thank goodness for choices.

I am very glad that Anet has chosen not to reward one choice over another. The incentive to play with a player group are already in game, better skill use, more PvE skills, better tactics, better thinking, and more efficient gameplay.

At first you hear the comment about how the other 4 heroes follow the all henchman flag you think theyre being lazy but i suppose its one step in the way of giving actual pugs more of a point. Also can you imagine what they would go through if they added 4 more flags to the display.

Minion Master UI is interesting and can't wait to see simple ideas add polish to a good game, i remember when the Pets didnt even have a UI and decided as they pleased.

Overall i would say yes they are adding some new content to bridge the gap, but also i think there is enough 'small tweaks' that can be made to ensure the overall quality of the game is great.

They also raised a good point about peoples orginal views before RAndom arenas existed etc

Originally i thought the idea of the beach is kind of pointless when if people want to do the mission theyd be at the outpost anyway but i realised the advantage of travelling to embark beach would provide not having to go via Lion's arch etc...
which also means, i hope to god this was tested well because if people start teleporting all over the shop...that would be hell..like it has done in the past.

so.. should i use my heroes (all of them are fulllly equipped and runed), or some of my 10 characters, all of them also fully equipped and runed , decking vabbian, as mercs?

the choices, the choices.

With 24 overpowered PvE skills per team vs 3, independent control, ability to easily split the team, and the chance of leveraging cons from someone else, ARE grouping incentives.

Having the ability for older characters (i.e. pre-survivor title) to gain the survivor title again, would be great.

Is it fair to players who have created all their characters back when GW started, without all the crutches like Kilroy Punch-Out, heroes, cons, and overpowered pve skills, not to be able to get survivor anymore without re-creating their old characters, wiping out all that they have achieved?

My biggest hope is that they allow further exploration of the Pre map. There's a full 1/3 - 1/4 you cannot reach. Just North of Ranik there's a big undiscovered patch (other than the zone you access during the Academy quest) and there's another huge patch in the Northlands.

Yeah, like now they don't still do whatever they want. Apparently they treat the UI as merely a suggestion, not a command.

Wait does this mean if i have say one nice weapon, i can put it on my character, make him a mercenary then switch the weapon to another character ..have an army of my characters sporting similar gear

I'm guessing that the Mercenary hero will be an image of that character only in appearance and armor. I think you'll get a 'clean' mercenary that you have to outfit with runes and weapons much like a general hero.

I am wondering how it will work with head pieces. Will they work like hero head pieces (i.e. +1 of rune attribute)? In that case you can have an elementalist vabbian fire eye that give +1 energy storage if you put an ES rune on it .

We'll see.

Perhaps you'll have to set your soon-to-be mercenary's equipment and runes, then take a 'snapshot'. At which point, your other chars can equip that mercenary but only alter skills/attributes.

I'd expect you'd be able to erase and redo your snapshots/images as much as you feel.

Just my speculative projection.

WAIT.

We can have our own characters act as HEROES? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Seriously, I can not explain how excited I am about that. Haven't had time to read through all the comments or watch the video, but I'm curious as to how the pay-to-use method will work. Will it unlock that mercenary hero for use across all characters or just once? And does it keep all costume, armor, and weapon sets unique to that char or does it revert to a beginner's set?

In any case, I can't wait to see all the updates and give it a run once I get some freetime.

yes you buy X images/spaces/open slots and go to embark Beach (i think) and make a copy of your self at the moment in time. skills,armor,etc.. something like from the interview. update is laster so we will all find out together.

also when your copies dies in a mission/quest and needs a rez... don't YELL at it! your just yelling at your self! lolz

Wow, that's pretty nifty. Thanks for the info.

I'm sure this will be abused in some way - 7 necros/rits, etc. But I love the customization aspect of it and being able to make full teams of your most beloved chars. Certain a lot of people are also excited about that fact as well.



I've got some spare cash at the moment, so I don't mind spending some on this.

Haha to true! xD

Has it been confirmed that Mercenary Heros are microtransactions? I really hope they are not as it could add advantages for rl cash.

Yes. You will pay for it with your "hard earned cash".

Imo it's wrong to give an advantage for rl cash to one player that buys it over one who doesn't. Might as well add OP microtransactions skills too if this is the case.

Yes they are, but its not really an advantage, your heroes can be the same way, its just cosmetic...That is assuming PvE skills dont transfer to the Merc heroes

Which im guessing is not happening.. Which i Hope is not happening...Which wont happen.

Why would merc heroes be OP?

So...you could still only have 2 rit heros...and your mercenary would replace either Xandra or Razah..or could you pay for mercanary heros to be added to them....i.e xandra, razah, + as many rit chars as u have paid micro transaction for?

If they merely replace current heros then my fears are basless. If they add to current heros, then it may be an unfair advantage over those whom don't purchase them.

Snow i'm sure it just for kicks. in the interview he said you can have a copy of your as a hero for your team. But having the benefits of a custom, armor, weapons, dye, etc... most of it's just comedic. I mean unless your GW account is full of necros to make 7 copies and run as a full necor team or ele, or mesmers or whatever your account has.

edit
yes you could have 3+ rits in a team build. anyone have a build for 3 rit heroway? that be awesome!

plus i would hate to run/play my other toon! i'm so picky when it comes to stuff. Let the AI do it for me =]

[popular opinion] Because I have a level 20 Necro and Rit on my account, if I add them as mercs, I can now have a party of myself + 4 Necros + 3 Rits, which is grossly overpowered. [/popular opinion]

But in all honesty, I don't think the redundancy is the most effective way of playing. It would be a nice way to get a 4th Paragon, for example, since Paras do in fact become far more effective with redundancy.

True, but unless you have a ton of the same prof on ur acc....

I know people would farm lvl 20 chars to do that but meh, is it really worth that? Its PvE and having 7 necs wont really hurt the way you personally play and tbh its not worth the time and cash needed to do that.

Once you've made one of your player-characters into a mercenary hero, do you lose it as a player-character? i.e. is it an either-or scenario?

I dont see why it would be an unfair advantage, a player with 4 necros or 3 rit heroes might kill faster and maybe stay alive longer, but who is going to notice since most of those players will be opting for a full hero party anyway, if some idiot says that you must have 3 rit heroes in order to join his quest, mission or whatever else, just dont invite yourself and look elsewhere. i dont see the problem here.

Guy spams in EB/GoA...

Running DoA+Mallyx 100k 60 min run. room for 3 ppl (something like that sorry don't do DoA)

Guy farmed on his account the right build and has urber mico skills and he can run ppl now

so yes?


@Moiax got that right! holy cow set up Gwen for a test build in UW.... speachless..... never seen aaxe go down that fast EVER