The reason why high-level content is soloable and why PvE is easy in general.

I like this idea, but not by itself. I believe that if this were to happen, henchmen should also be un-screwed to compensate, meaning that they get a second prof, a better understanding of when to use their skills, and heck, I dunno, maybe just one interrupt. Please? I guess the ranger ones are too good, but if you gave Dunham some interrupts, he'd actually be useful for more than mean jokes. I want this because 1) we need henchies that aren't dumber than rocks anyway and 2) it would allow PvE to be more interesting but not more difficult. I believe this is important, because soloing in some areas is already frustrating enough. I certainly don't want it to be any harder, because whether anybody else likes it or not, I do not want to play with other people. I wouldn't mind if I could play with my friends, sure, that'd be great. But I am in a very tiny guild, and I'm awake at weird hours. My only choice if something is too hard to do with the bots is to get a pick-up group, and frankly I'd rather disembowel myself, because random people on the internet never cease to completely infuriate me.

PS: Huh. So, I guess when most people say soloing, they actually mean solo, not with henchmen? Huh. Go fig. Well, the point stands.

Yeah using henchies is not solo soloing, it's soloing with henchies or SwH.

/signed

I want the Stone Summit to IWAY me! Well, maybe not. But PvE seriously needs more replayability.

This would be a good idea, as long as it's not too random. Too much randomness eliminates a significant amount of strategy. For example, if every mob was 100% random (i.e. random class, secondary class, and skillset), then there would be no reason to run anything other than two or three balanced builds. There would be no more trap groups, no more 55 builds (although it's old now, it's still tremendously innovative).

If there's randomness, it should be in terms of themes. For example, Dungeon A might have more AoE, Dungeon B might have more energy denial, and Dungeon C might have more conditions. There would still be a lot of innovation in these themes, but you'd still have to plan around specific threats as well as anticipating and adapting to the unexpected.

EDIT: Another example of randomness would be PvP. You never know what you are going to be facing in PvP, so you have to compensate for that in your builds. However, there is a metagame, which makes building a PvP team more strategic.

Tell me about it, random 4x4 pvp arenas are the most random you could ever get in this game. I think it's why I play it so much though because it's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get on either side. Though I do hate it when they are so unbalanced as with a monk or even two monks on one team and not any on the other. This is so unfair.

LOL... take out those dudes first!

/sIGNed FoR UsEfUlLnEsS

/signed

random builds on all monsters would be great, as would higher difficulties for late game PvE.

goes without saying that henchie AI should be updated to compensate.

i wouldnt suggest making the early part of the game more difficult tho, because its not really "simple" as is. the reason most of us think of it that way is because we've done it multiple times with multiple characters and it IS simple for us NOW. try to think back to your first char, the first time through - thats the experience ANET wants to give to the new players, and i think they did a pretty good job. too simple = people will get bored and quit, too difficult = people will get frustrated and quit, just right = people like me and everyone reading this who still play

Good idea, /melike.

Doubt it would be all that difficult to implement either, tho it depends entirely how Anet has set their current system up now.

I like the idea of spawning various builds.

I would also like to be able to choose at least 2 or 3 skills for my henchies as well, if not all of them! That way you can prep for an area with your henchies. It would be nice to be able to give a few simple commands like guard me, attack, defend etc.. and to be able to set Alisha to healer only and not go into the fray and get her butt kicked!

I have been playing this game for in excess of 100 hours SWH, I have yet to play it all the way through! The reason being, that I am busy doing all the side missions and I don't get run anywhere.

I enjoy that element of the game, being able to just wander around. I know some say you can complete the game in 20-30 hours, but is that fun as well?

Maybe they need to look at a PVE enhanced set up. Anyone wanting to stick to the way things were use an ordinary PVE char but those that want the randomness use a PVE enhanced char? That way new players get to play it through, then when bored they can switch to the enhanced version. A bit like increasing skill levels in other games.

Love it, I'd like to see the monsters keep a certain uniqueness

e.g. Tengu still use seaking blade, riposte and the like, while the summit use more brute force, powerattack, cleave etc. Keep monsters unique but increase their skillbase.

I like the idea of difficult PvE.

However, as many others here pointed out, the henchmen AI needs to be buffed as well, to compensate. In no way a rise in difficulty should lead to have areas playable by full human parties only. Having ALL PvE content accessible even to parties largely made up of henchmen needs to be an absolute requirement for every possible change.

Sometimes even today, that requirement is not really fulfilled. There are areas where henchies just aren't up to the job. Take Mineral Springs for example. I can't even begin to imagine what this area would be like if you'd add Priests of Sorrows to the group of 20 Ice Imps in front of the Cave...
By the way, Mineral Springs is a very good example of why the OP's idea is a good idea in general. Yes, Mineral Springs is somewhat hard, but it's also utterly unfun to play. There are only two different type of groups in that area: Avicara ranger spike teams (which are totally over the top by the way, the only way to deal with them seems to be a VERY competent prot monk) and one type of balanced group Avicara. Bascially, there are only Avicara in that huge area. And yes, Avicara get old after you have killed like 200 of them in a row. Oh, and of course they always spawn in the same spot, too. It's one of the most boring areas in the game, despite it's "difficult". Diversity should the keyword here. In Mineral Springs, monsters kill by mass assault and by being overpowered, not by imagination and an intelligent AI like it should be.

Personally I'd not touch existing content that much, but adding new, high level PvE areas in the way SF was made. SF is a very nice example of what high level PvE should be like. SF is a good piece of work because
- there are different types of groups which require/encourage different approaches to handle
- there are enough types of different enemies to keep it interesting
- even usually discriminated against classes like Mesmers can feel appreciated there (Priest of Sorrows and their much beloved Ressurection spell...)
- it's reasonably difficult without being too hardcore
- it still can be played with henchies (with the exception of Orozar and High Priest quests which I don't like for that very reason).

If we'd add some more randomness to SF (in the way the OP suggested), we'd really have a next to perfect PvE area. This is the way PvE should be.

I wont sign or "not-sign" this post since I really doubt random skills on monsters would do much difference. The fact that your party is controlled by humans and the enemy's party isnt, will make sure that you wont ever have a challenge, unless the enemy gets an unfair advantage, like it often does (higher than level 20, 2 elite skills etc. If you want an example of 2 elite skills, there is the warrior-wood-thingie in FoW - down at the beach. It uses both Flourish and Victory is Mine).

And the fact that all (i think) monsters only have 4 skills on their skillbar, pretty much sets a stop at the possibility of any effective build.

So if you want a challenge, I suggest you pull 2-3 groups at the same time.

At least all the henchies bring a REZ SIG (smiles)

I like this idea as well; however, I would like to see tougher creatures. Not harder hitting, just more life on their side and fewer of them. Rather than fighting lynch mobs of hundreds of foes at once, making them tougher or more resistant to damage will make the fights last a little longer and allow for more and better strategies.
As for the henchies... oh yea, they need major help. The leader of the group should be able to assign each henchman to a target with a simple attack, defend, guard, ect command ui. The henchies also need major help when it comes to skills and spells. Someone already mentioned that poor mesmer and I agree. He's about as useful as a tic on a dog. If he could strip enchanments as fast as the creatures could then he might have some use. Other henchies... well, when you can't find a group, it's them or logging off.
Lastly, more randomness to monsters might also help with the glf class X,Y, and Z issue that I keep getting blocked with. More randomness to the point of having no clue what you will run into will open doors to more creative classes/combos. At least I think... and that's after taking lots of cold medicine.

Say that to the farmer build designed for specific area. They would feel the love, oh they would...

Lol Farmers would scream at random monster skills, especially in UW/FOW. That random Disenchanter would just thouroughly put the love in an invci-build. haha

As long as the randomness fits into the theme of the enemy, it'll be great. For example, having W/E minotaurs wouldn't be logical. However, minos with sword/axe/hammer builds would add variety.

Implementing it in the xpack content wouldn't be too hard either. But, asking for a randomized rehaul of existing content is overkill though. Hope Anet is listening...

At the very least making spawn points for groups random in UW or FoW would help a lot. It will be fun if you suddenly spawned in chaos planes instead of the usual place or maybe in the spawning pools?

I'd go one step further and join Avatar of grenth and balthazar at ToA into one NPC. Give him 1k and its random where u'll end up can be FoW/UW(Forest of life/Land of illusions... in chapter 2??), it'll be fun then, it will bring out the player's skill, killing the cookie cutter/mindless builds that have made PvE so boring. Then increasing quality of drops/rare items will also be possible, cause bots will take a beating. Although "theclam's" also made a valid point.

PvE simply doesn't encourage strategyor tactics becauseof it's lack of difficulty. There are plenty of PvP strategies that can be used in PvE, but why would you? PvE simply isn't difficult enough to require strategy or planning in the same sense as PvP. Your Warriors don't have to overextend and snipe the monks, your rangers don't have to cripple, and your necromancers don't have to spike. Not because it's inefficient, but because it'd be overkill with PvE's lack of difficulty.

Completely agree but only for areas such as uw, fow, pvetombs and maybe SF, but if you do this could we please have decent henchmen ai and builds. Last time I checked the ranger one was using practiced stance as an elite with kindle arrows which is hopeless, give him barrage or even qs then he would be good. I think the devs have said they plan on bringing pvp and pve closer together, this would certainly help.