does anybody else feel this way?

I know what you mean. Most of the people I meet in the game are completely incompetant. Not using common sense to make a guild build, let alone common sense to play correctly. Judging by many posts, the forums aren't a whole lot different.


Thank "god" for henchmen and solo builds.

My feeling is it goes something like this:

1. A good group of humans is better to -far- better than henchmen. Henchmen are about equal to a mediocre group of humans. Henchmen are better to much better than a poor to bad human group.

2. About 90% or more of PuGs are mediocre to poor, or worse, so only 10% of the time is a random PuG going to be -better- (i.e. more efficient) then henchmen.

4. Unless you are a bad player (i.e., not competent enough to use henchmen), it's more time-efficient to play with henchmen for almost every single mission/quest/zone, since they'll get the job done on the first try. Going with a PuG -might- get the job done, in which case you've just broke even, and very well might end up as a total RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOup, at which case you are back to square one.

5. Reality check: if you aren't good enough to use the henchmen, then -you- are one of the bad players bringing down the quality of a group (although you probably don't know it, or are in denial of this fact). Yes, that's right, -you-.

This is very true. Unfortunately it also creates an awful situation. Most of the good players only use henchmen which leaves the bad players standing around the mission areas saying "LFG". Once the bad players become good players, they too learn to use mostly henchmen. This keeps the quality of PUGs from ever getting better.

before implying something learn to read

People have done the ENTIRE game with Henchman.
Dont say they suck.

Happened to me today in IronMines.

We were al infused. We decided to run to the Seer to revive at the cutscene. I spam SKIP THE CUTSCENE and Whisper all the party members (I tried the pets) and made sure they said they would skip. We go in the cutscene (we had 3 dead) and you could see >>>!!! SKIP THE CUTSCENCE!!!<<<< over my head.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 out of 8 party members want to skip the cutscene

Reason? "o I just felt like watching it"

Henchmen are predictable, yes, but take the healer. There is absolutely no reason why she should be running up in the middle of a battle to fight along side the tank. She should be hanging back healing the party. That is what a healer is for. The other classes have tendencies similar to that. That is what makes the Henchmen so bad.

rofl, stby. If someone wants to watch a cutscene. Let them. If it's long, go grab a coffee or get out of your chair and have a stretch. I'll intentionally not skip just for these reasons.

I'd much rather our wonderful tanking Alesia helping out with the damage than the monk who once asked by me what happened to their healing replies with "It's hard to keep the team alive when I just have orison of healing and heal party". It's around about that time that the W/Mo with mending probably is more capable at keeping us alive.

well, i tend to take henchies 99% of the time.

mainly cause my two main chars are necro primarys, so i hardly get looked at, other than when i wear my collectors top and they like to stand infrom and stare down the cleavage ^^

i also dont skip cutsenes much, but thats cause most of them are new to me. once i have seen it then i dont mind though.

as to pugs...i havent had much use of them, probably again from the necro thing, being euro and also being on a dinnertime to 10-11.

one thing, though.
leaders, dont allways assume that you are the font of all knowledge.
oh, and if you DO get someone that dosent know where to get a specific skill you want them to have in your pug, dont JUST kick them...tell the where to get that damn skill.

if we just ignore the lower players that dont meet our standards, how are they ever going to get better?
if they refuse to learn from you, then so be it, scribble thier name down and pop a skull next to it on paper and never take em out again....

we could do with a PUG blacklist function here, Devs, like the friends list, but it shows only the one brainers we do not, under any circumstances, ever want to party wity again hehe.

What goes around, comes around...

Written by him in a zynical thread about nerf the world:

You don't really wonder why YOU attract the lowest of the low, the dumbest of the dumb and the most moronic of the morons... do you? With that attitutde of yours, i'm quite sure the decent persons just skip on you. So don't complain about only getting moronic groups when you act the way you are acting.
Karma my friend, you've been owned by karma.

/edit:
This is not meant as a flame, just a mere pointer as to why you tend to attract the bad groups.

Not a frequent poster, but I think I can go with this. As a relatively inexperienced player (1 ascended char, not finished yet) I guess I still get to see both sides of the coin. I'll use PUGs or henchies, partly based on what mood I'm in.

I was lucky enough to have a friend who was prepared to pull me through the earlier stages of the game; he was (is!) sufficiently skillful to cover for the screw-ups that I made in PUGs. Consequently I've been able to pick up experience on how (and how not) to do things, without ballsing things up too badly for other group members. PUGs are important here, 'cos henchies can't tell you what skill/spell combos they've used afterwards I'm pretty convinced that most, if not all, of the people that shout 'I've done the whole game with henchies' didn't do it with their first toon... (if you did - /bow).

So, I've learnt, I've picked up some good contacts on the friends list, I can generally have a good time. I try to put something back in to the game by returning to earlier areas and helping out as a kind of 'intelligent' henchman (and no, I don't charge either...). I know there are plenty of other folks that have this (altruistic? philanthropic?) attitude, so all is not lost. You can hear the 'but' coming, right?

The 'but' is trying to get into a PUG in earlier areas as a newbie when there are plenty of high-level characters around. Why take a level 8/10/12 guy in your group when there are L18/19/20s around? So (getting back to the original thread), that's where you tend to take henchies, and perhaps don't get on so well. And perhaps just follow the 'henchies r crap' herd... Well:

Point 5 in Vorlin's post hits the nail for me. Use the henchies for any length of time, and you know they're gonna do something stupid. Alesia? One brain cell sobbing quietly in a corner 'cos it's all alone... But then, they're consistently stupid. You know what to expect, so skill up accordingly. And play with different hench combinations so's you know what suits your style.

For me, it's all about how you manage their strengths and weaknesses - just like an all-human team, really. Except - they don't talk back. Or need to go to the bathroom. Or scribble on the radar. Or scream at you for not healing 'em. Or steal your drops. Or go chasing off after different red dots half a map away. Or bail out at a critical moment 'cos xxxxxxx has won the favour. Or change language. Or ignore pleas to wait until your mana is back somewhere sensible. Or bail out 'cos no-one knows where the bonus is. Or hurl abuse and (hopefully) bail 'cos 'player X is not my race/creed/colour/species'...

I guess you get my drift...

It's nowhere near as bad as some are saying. Difference is, that single bad person can make entire group fail, if he agros to much enemies. And henchies, even though they can get you in trouble sometimes, usually won't get 3 different groups to kill you. They might get *you* killed, but won't get entire party wiped out.
Sometimes I'm tempted to use Unyielding Aura as a leash for those who charge to far. I never did, but I'm sure it would work to calm them down a bit. You run away before I regen my energe = double click and you're dead. Simple.

However, I think that you could avoid majority of such people by properly preparing before entering a mission. Ask them about skills, who will call target, see if they talk in caps or use word "noob" You can guess if people know what they're doing, if, say, there are 2(insert class name) and they make sure their skills aren't redundant(say, 1 necro makes minions, other supplies mana/curses). See if they bring any interrupts - typically, people only care about killing stuff fastest way possible - as a result, I find myself being pseudo-mesmer with Diversion against some monk bosses. If I don't, they cry because "He is unkillable" and leave.

So, in short - there are bad players, but they are NOT in majority, and there are ways to avoid them.

Story:
I joined a PUG to fight to Copperhammer from Iron Mines. We end up with 2 actual warriors, I a ranger and rest where henches.

For some reason, we had an aggro problem. I was being blamed even though I am a ranger with a short bow (what self respecting ranger dont use short bows? ). Even called a 'retard' (people need to come up with better insults).

The leader of the group did not understand that one of the warrior hench tends to be a little up on front of the line and if they are hit or another ally gets hit it will attack on their own until you make an effort to run away. They died repeatedly. We eventually made it (when I got 'Charge' from one of the hench I ran for the portal).

Point is neither the hench nor the other warrior where doing well. The fact that the team leader lacked leadership skills was causing the team to collapse. He barely knew the way (end up fighting several groups, dying unecessarily) nor could not assign proper tasks to me (he never told me to bring or use traps or tell the other warrior to bring Balance Stance. etc.)

I could have easily led the team but since I was invited I receded leadership to him - assuming he knew what to do. He did not.

Time and time again, this is the cause of bad PUGs - bad or lack of leadership. And true leaders are hard to find. A good experienced leader can make up for most shortcomings - be it in skill or a bad member.

Yes some will not follow but if a leader shows them good results early, most will stay in line. Most players are not bad - they are mediocre. Good leadership can make them good, bad leadership can make them horrendous. Henches are only as good as the player it follows.

If PUGs where so bad they would not win HoH several times a day.

Its simple you see. Most the time in order to get through difficult missions people will call upon thier guild, more often they are short one or two spaces, this is where the terrible player/idiot gets in because instead of taking responsibilty and forming a party , he sits there spaming lfg for hours. Thus the guild defeats the mission and the terrible player/idiot is floated onto the next more challanging map. This ensues all the way up to the last level, and more importantly Surrows Furnace. Besides my stupid computer freezing for some odd reason once everytime I play the game, I have only been able to complete kilroy, and that was with a guild I was in. Other then that its the same crap. I play a monk, so instead of forming the group I am forced to spam the chat like every other idiot, since no one listens to the durections of a monk, plus its alot of work to lead a group not on vent/ts and keep them alive.

So long story short I've put about 37 hours into surrows since release of it, and still have not found that perfect group.

the first time i really thought like what am i doing here was at the frost gate
k im not the best healer there is but there was another monk in the group so i thought ok we can do this

well, while i was healing myself and other mebers of the group i also had to heal him cause he couldnt keep himself alive

i also had 1 time when i was attacked by 3 enemies so i kept on healing myself otherwise i woulf have died. So im waiting for people to help me
........................
..............

no one comes
then some warriors shouts "why arent you fighting back"
and im like what the hell you know
if i would fight back ill die
(ps. this was a char i made a while ago and didnt turned out to be very good)

"At some point..?" I feel that way a lot lol, though I am not sure I'd say morons or useless, many PUG players do at least seem to be. Was why I left the guild I was in too. Leaves me wandering around with henchmen a lot and wondering why when I pause for a sec to try and make a little humor, Stefan just crosses his arms and gives me that look.

Seriously though, PUGs suffer a bit from being a larger pool of people comprised of those that cant co-operate properly, dont wish to co-operate, wish to stir up trouble, havent found a decent guild and just therefore lack a bit of experience, guildies who are experienced but are alone atm online, and people like me who are decent players that havent found a good fit. Take that mix, stir it up and form a party out of it and you are challenged from the get go to make it work. It can, and its great when it does, but you need people willing to listen a bit before mission about roles and who does what and customize for a sec accordingly, provided they even wish to.

Stefan never listens to what I tell him and Alesia always dies, but somehow we manage.

If she cast HealingSeed on the tank, being close to it might be the safest place in battle.

Then again: 10 seconds pass quickly.

What I dislike about healing hench is: they seem to want to rez ppl. in one specific order.

Like Lina: she will only rez others, after rezing Mhenlo first.

The big problem with henchies is that they *always* follow you, it's perfect grouping for the mobs to aoe you, I'd want a few commands like:

Stay Here
Follow Me
Attack (I know we have this one already, but I'd also like to attack on my own without them joining in, and call them in at a later point)
Flee!
Split up
Heal <target>
Resurrect <target>

But mainly I wish they didn't load up the monks with range touch healing spells, or code the cultist to ignore the warrior energy levels ...

Henchmen seem complicated but the seem to take hints.

For instance if you run just out side of agro range and call the target and back up, they will run ahead and fight, most the time the casters bunch up and the healers seperate from them. if one dies i can click on that hench and call that its dead, most the time it then will et ressurected. on the other hand pulling is the only problem, along with running. the fighters are always dead meat when you run, and maybe a caster. unfortunetly those fighters can not be rezed with out agroing, even rebirth due to the henches surrounding you will agro the group. Running away with henchmen is none profitable in a fight, unless you are sure you can take out the one group after the patrol group that surprised you leaves.

I have been able to manipulate the fighters into using "Charge!" when i want to. i click on them and call target them, 80% of the time it results in Charge! Which is help full if you are just trying to get to one end of the map to the other, say if you died and rezed far away, other then that it would be pointless due to the amount of hench agro.

ah, but you are missing the point.

the point is a good leader can usually assemble a party of 100% non-morons. which is no easy feat, since most of the playerbase happen to be horrible players who play moronically. but a good leader can do it.

i used to merc myself out on Thunderhead Keep. i'd make people pay me in order for me to guarantee they win the mission. most of the time, the parties i made were successful. because i know a few tricks to "weed out the morons" as it were

just assembling a PUG randomly, well that's begging to lose on any of the moderately hard missions.

hence, what you should do is: accept that most players do suck. acknowledge this reality, then you can use it to your advantage by devising ways to filter them out from being in the same party as you

I've had some of the best moments in the game with PUGs. There was this one time, Gate of Kryta Mission, those people were just completely crazy. Fooling around in the chat, joking, just being plain silly, it was hilarious. But they were not stupid. Everybody did their job and we finished the mission ok. It could have went better if they'd been more serious, but that would have taken a lot of the fun out of it. On the other hand, I also had my worst moments in the game with PUGs. Like when in Ice Caves of Sorrows, where no-one is infused, they insist on attacking every Mursaat they come across and not after dieing a couple of times and being told by the more experienced players just to avoid the Mursaat don't stop. Or the guys that want to fight their way through a horde of 10 or so hydras on the way to Thirsty River, while it is obvious that this wouldn't work, instead of just fighting two or three and take the teleporter. That was the only time I actually left a group before it was wiped.

I have finished the game four times now and I find myself playing less and less with PUGs. My last char hasn't even been in a PUG once, so far. Yes, henchmen are stupid, and much worse, they are far less powerful than even a medicore player, but they are far less annoying than many players and they get the job done, too. And they are always availible.

I don't think of myself as a better player than most. I'm probably only medicore myself (I know that I'm not a very good tank when playing my Warrior and I just suck at PVP). It's not the medicore players that keep me from PUGing. I don't expect people to have the perfect build and know every nuance of how to play it, or not to make mistakes. All I expect is a little common sense and willingness to communicate. Sadly, many people are lacking those.

Granted, henchmen have neiter common sense, nor do they communicate at all, but it is not neccessary with them, because you know what they will do, there's no need to talk about it.

I agree 100%. I HATE PuG groups. Espicially in tombs. I refuse to do tombs with a random group. No one ever knows what to do it seems, and I hate loosing. Thats why I would rather do 4v4 with people I know or just do random 4v4 knowing that everyone is stuck in the same boat then do a PuG tombs team. Unfortunately I'm still looking for that good guild, so no option there.

Try dealing with that in a guild battle...

People just dont listen...

*huffs*

Someone on another forum(I wish I could remember who) once said this...

Not a truer statement could be said about GW.

Being a Mesmer primary I had a hard time getting into groups and used Henchmen most of the time. They actually can do a decent job and the only missions I had trouble completing with them was Elona Reach and Thunderhead Keep. The best part about henchmen is they never go afk or drop halfway through a mission.

Hencheman Power!
They are just WAY too good compared to average human players!

Whenever noone of my guild was there i did this char:
Just made it till Deldrimor War Camp, barely any runes on me, barely any skills undlocked with that character (only did ~3 quests to reach level 13 before fighting doppi), ascended (did all the desert missions as level 10 with hencheman only, and i didnt run trough), 200 attribute points to spend...

All that done with hencheman only, within 3 days.

I am doing some "advertising" campaign for mesmers atm. I join PUGs in lower levels (FortRanik, Sumria etc.) to show people, that it's ok to have a mesmer on the team, and that they are indeed quite usefull.

Ok, any lvl20 char will be superior in the lower levels, but that way, people can get used to having a mesmer around, so may, they'll invite one, when they reach higher levels.

GW is the first time I've ventured into online playing in any serious way and it has definitely been a mixed bag in terms of the playing experience. Some of the people I've met have been great, some of the PuG's I've been in have been awesome, most have been mediocre, some atrocious.
I enjoy the game a lot and I refuse to let the occasional moron, scammer, quitter or selfish git ruin it for me, I've made some good playing friends that I regularly team up with for UW and FoW so I cannot say its been all bad, definitely not in fact.

I think I'm a reasonably good player, not great in any way or in possesing of TEH MAD SKILLZ, I try to approach the game with respect for the fact that anything can be countered and a modicum of intelligence, seems to work for me. I've started a new char now that my gf is playing GW together with me, its a hell of a lot of fun for us both to go through the game together.

What I do not get is what the aforementioned morons actually get out of the game though, a lot of them will never ever complete the game because they simply cannot fathom the concept of 'team play', no offense but the worst offenders seem to be the W/Mo's who seem to labor under the belief that 15K armors and a gold sword/shield/axe and lots of running around and bashing stuff is all it takes. Oh yes, and bitching to teammates ofcourse.

For me the best times in the game have been in PuG's, doing Iron Mines with an excellent party with everyone doing their job, T'head Keep with a group of 'rejects', having 2 of the aforementioned moron class quit and STILL pull through it, now thats a rewarding experience.
The worst times have also come with PuG's, I can do the game with henches but then you miss both the highs and lows, it kinda makes the game a bit too predictable for me.

We all know which missions shows the morons up, its the missions which require a balanced party where everyone plays to their strenghts and uses a bit of intelligence.

I did that too... Joined a lvl 6 who had been asking for help for a long time without getting any. My level 20 Me/Mo swatted the low-level mobs he'd had so much trouble with like flies, and the lvl 6 was in awe. He hardly got to swing at an enemy before I'd killed them all. We flew through the mission.
Then it dawned on me that what I was doing wasn't so much helping him as spoiling his game.
I still help people from time to time, but I stick to areas where there is some challenge also to me.

I think of it as that they're role-playing...
By all accounts the attitude of real paladins/knights was much along those lines.

There's actually problems with the henchies, mainly related to their AI:

(Good things):
-Follows your target calls
-Extremely predictable
-Reliable in most cases
-Stays in a group

(Bad things):
-If you die, they lose all sense of targeting and it's basically game over
-They're perfectly happy standing in the middle of a Malestrom
-They get stuck
-Can't split into subgroups
-Some missions are virtually impossible with henchies (Alkar anyone?)

PuGs however generally lack co-ordination and co-operation. If the group works together, then it will be effective.
It can be seen at Thunderhead Keep the most clearly. Requiring a split into two teams, we can clearly sort out the co-ordinated and co-operative players from the disorganised ones.

The henchies have their moments. After reading Ashley Twig's moving but typical experience in Thunderhead, I tried to get into good PUGs to complete the mission, and get this....I was playing a healing monk!

All too often, someone else would talk to the king, I'd be trying to keep a strategic eye on who to heal when the shit was hitting the fan, and all too often, I'd get blatted at by someone who died asking why I didn't heal them (Chances are that I was trying to heal the other players who didn't stand and get pummelled, or my energy would bottom out from trying to back people up)

Breathing a sigh of desparation, I rebuilt my monk into a prot/smite, took all the henchies, and completed the mission first time round.

Same thing in RoF. First PUG i got, 2 people rushed the mursaat group. After 5 goes with supposedly "experienced" players, we couldn't even get past the first Ether seal.

A few goes with the hench team (It wasn't first time admittedly), and I completed it!

Having said that, I've been on some great PUGs. You know. The type where everyone has a laugh, where people seem to know what they're doing, where everything just "clicks" and where even a failed mission is an enjoyable experience.

I think I read somewhere in here, that Alkar is henchable.

The quest that I find truely impossible to do with hench would be Kryta.

Believing it would be a smart thing to do, I went to Droknar's loaded 7 hench and walked all the way back to Beacons.

Try that, und you're in for a big surprise. Thanks, aNet.

Don't tell me, let me guess....

You get to Beacon's perch, and your team of 7 level 20 henchies suddenly becomes a team of 3 level 12s.....

Close. They were ALL gone.

So, children: don't try that at home.

Couldnt have said it better myself..
I myself have completed the game 4 times (W.Mo.N.R.) And for the most part all this game takes is common sence..IMO the only noobs in this game are the ones that scream it and for the most part i have noticed that there the ones that mostly screw up for the simple fact they think there better then the team itself....

/signed in triplicate!

Wow.....got all the way to Hablion with a semi-n00b group ( but we still got there without too much problem. ) And then our "heroic" ( Read: n00b moron ) leader rushed him, aggroes the entire bodyguard and funnily enough im left alone with the corpses of my friends who charged after him, only a quickly dwindling wall of minions between me and them. Yes thats right, the corpses of my team was more use to me than when they were alive.

I feel that way all the time w/ henchies... They die and are more useful as bone fiends than as henchies...kinda sad, really.

Ye Minnions/Hench are sometimes better then humans

they always are for me, they do damage, DoT, Give me healing, Stop me taking damage and when they DO die I currently get 8 energy back.

The biggest problem with PUGs in this game, is dealing with the egotistical assholes that leave after 5 minutes into the mission.

I have beaten the game 3 times with all PUGs, and beaten missions that are hard (like T-Head) repeatedly with random PUGs.

If you cannot lead, then follow, if you cannot do that, get some hench, and talk about how bad everyone else is.

Yes, lots of people suck at this game, but leading those people to victory is far more rewarding than dragging 7 hench at a turtles pace through the missions.