Gwen is still better company than henchmen...

I will first state I am a HUGE fan of diablo II and up until the time GW arrived at my door, I was still playing a modded version DII. I am only focussing on the PVE play since PVP stands alone in it's own light.

Gwen is better company than henchmen!
This is my biggest complaint about the game.

Henchmen as they are, add no real value to the game other than allowing you to get through the game. I feel no connection to them, if they die, I can care less.

Henchmen should be RPG like, stats, armor changing. You create your party but you are still limited on party size by the GW system. This would be a big draw to me. Here you are building your party as a whole and you will care if they die, unlike faceless henchmen. You can still party with real players, this is just a bonus to feed the soloing crowd in PVE.

Lots of new armor, weapons and stuff to arm your party with would be required. This however should be done anyway as it is bigtime lacking in GW. DII or Neverwinter Nights was never lacking in interesting and rare "stuff" for your char. Why here in GW?

I'd also like to see puzzles, secret unlocks in things like behind waterfalls, treasure boxes in odd places like shallow water, add some REAL interest in exploring places here guys, not just killing your way to the next mission marker!

I agree, henchmen should be RPG and customized before you start the mission.

Since Henchies have infinite energy, I would love to give Divine Boon to Alesia and Lina.

Erm, they run out of energy. Ever wonder why Alesia's meleeing so often?

I take Claude around just so Alesia and Lina can get energy back. He'll sacrifice himself just so they're not tapped.

What I'd like to see would be keeping henchmen like ranger pets. If you don't take them out with you each time (ie you get into a group of players), fine but the next time you decide to go out, you get them as they were. This way they can progress with you and they don't lose levels nor do they get dropped when you map out across the board to save travel time. You should be able to switch them out which if you do resets them.

I don't have an issue with each time you switch out a henchmen (henchperson for you PC types ;-) ) they get reset to a certain level just like if a ranger changes his pets. Ya Ya I know there will be about a billion posts on how wrong this is but at least if you are allowed to keep them, you may have a more vested interest in them. I mean the sole reason I have changed out my stalker yet is because since he was the first pet of my ranger, I've grown attached to him and I don't even euip him any more. Being able to out fit them like we could D2 would be a nice addition but that may be going way overboard so I would be willing to let that go by the wayside.

I hate Gwen...it's not enough I risked my life finding her stupid broken flute, but then she has the nerve to make me buy her a new one...and after all is said and done, she decides I owe her a cape for some reason? That tears it...I don't care if Little Thom is a big fat aggro machine, at least he's never asked me for anything...

Actually you have to get Little Thom a cloak so...

No, that's the uncleverly named "Little Thom" that goes and dies somewhere wearing a red cloak. The henches ask for nothing but a large portion of the drops and their share of the gold..

Stephan all the way! Me and my guild love Stefan, we take him everywhere, on trips to the beach, on walks in the desert, on charr raids. He's the best ever!

That's the same guy. And you give him that cloak in a KoA (pre-Searing) quest. Also, the henchman Orion is none other than Orion Elek, who you also meet in KoA.

what's Koa? never saw that abbrievation

No way...if little thom dies, why is he a henchmen through-out the game? I figured they were just 2 different people with the same name.

He faked his own death, you don't actually see his body.

Yes, Little Thom is not only alive and well, but if you do the mission where you ahve to escort a certain sergeant from the Regent Valley back to Ascalon, you will see that clearly it's Little Thom! He faked his own death, changed his identity, and now he's adventuring with you starting from Yak's Bend!

I dont care if other players die though either. I will rez them, and I care insofar as it doesnt cost me the mission or whatever...

I am kinda a cold heartless @ss though, so maybe I cant relate.

this is a cool opinion, because other game makers have used it for solo play; in a combat situation that requires teamplay. (Dynasty Warriors)

it seems like a huge patch to do that, but it could pay off for drawing people to play the game.

Leave the henchies as they are, most of the time, I just want to pick them up, and start the mission right away, I dont really want to spend hours trying to customize my henchies. That's just my opinion though

I think those are good suggestions. It would also be cool if they gained XP and levelled up too, but considering certain issues I can see that this won't happen.

Gwen is weird issue. You either seem to love her or hate her. I would let her tag along when questing pre-searing, but it used to piss off my mate.

Though I know the obsesive sprawl of talking would piss off a lot of players, it would be nice to hear them say something once in a while. Whether it be a battle cry, an observation, or windging about the journey. (Another idea: What about trying to sell themselves in the town trying to get picked?) Just the occasional comment to make you think they might actually be people in the world, and not simply some mute mindless zombie of AI. I would also say that this hirling chatter either doesn't appear in the chat window, or if it does there is another check box to switch it off. Again, I could see people being annoyed.

I have to say I thought the talking issue was a point of blandness on D2's part, the henchy was this mute thing that just seemed to tag along, though at least they gained xp and come the expansion could be given equiptment too. I doubt XP will be given due to game balance issues for quests, as stated earlier. I also doubt that the option to give equiptment will be granted, unless they produce a simplified equiptment system for the NPCs, as they did for D2. Another issue was that you got one hireling in D2 tied to your character, and as more people played with you online the difficulty of the world got harder. GW doesn't work like this, the difficulty remains the same and the hirelings are available for everyone. The point of this is what equiptment does a hireling take if there are three PCs in a party, each with different equiptment?

One way to get over this is the pet idea, which makes it more like D2, but I don't like that exactly. I like the way hirelings work in GW from that perspective; it works well with the game scope. Another option is to almost make a proper hireling shop, rather than just a line where you add to a group. Players then get all the hirelings, as they are. As they go along they can then customise their copy, giving it special equiptment as needed, and maybe even allowing a name change (which may or may not be chargable). When you create a party you then get to choose which NPC copy you include, based on the members in the group.

To delve a bit more deeply (for clarification), you only get one NPC copy. So you only get one Alesia to alter, not multiple copies. Furthermore you can only have one Alesia in a group. I think that might work better as a means of achieving customisation, if that was to be done. For this purpose it would work almost the same as it does now; you select the NPC and press the '+' button to add it to the group. If there is more than one copy available, however, then a new dialogue window is then displayed with all the various copies you could use (and maybe the level if levelling were allowed).

The obvious thing is then which copy do you take, and it could cause more party arguements. I can hear 'I want my healer,' 'no, mine's better,' and later, 'I told you we should have taken mine, she'd have survived,' 'no it wouldn't, no healer would have survived that.' That I am worried about, given all the complaints I have already seen about player maturity on GW. I wish that wasn't an issue, but I would be fool to suggest it wasn't potentially.

As for Little Thom, just to note that when you complete the quest to kill Little Thom the person who hired you says she very much doubts he's dead. Firstly because he lost his cape just a few weeks earlier and secondly because he's crafty like that. I missed that the sergent was Little Thom, but certainly it is the Little Thom, not an imposter.

As for KoA, I assume it stand for 'Kingdom of Ascalon'.

I hope those were useful ideas/suggestions/answers.

Edit: I just saw this post further down on the forum and thought I would link it as it is relevent, if taking a slightly different idea. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a look.

Your "henchmen" or "team" would be created at the start of the game when you create your char, just like in an rpg environment. They would always be part of your char, like your own personal guild, to select and add as you please. The lvls of the team would never exceed or, maybe stay at 2 levls lower than your personal lvl. In adition to this, would be nice to hear screams and battle shouts in battle from the party.

This whole idea is totaly doable but it is deffinately a jump from what there is already (expansion). Would be great IMO.

I like how Alesia is a better healer 9 times out of 10 compared to human monks simply because she never forgets to heal!!!

It's so easy to tell who comes from a MMO background here and who hails from the Diablo2 mindset.

MMO player: "treat your henchmen as you would yourself."
Diablo2: F*** 'em.


Tal

Gwen was a pain, she was always getting me stuck somewhere. Against a door here, in a tree there, fighting a bear here, in the can there. Henchies are cool though, without them, I would have had to have waited for a party. They helped me beat 90% of the game alone. I love Henchies! But not enough to customise them everytime. Grab 'em and go. As long as you play it safe, it's easy to keep your henchies alive. ^^