Curse

Bryant Again · Jul 21, 2009, 03:49 PM // 15:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

That would clearly be a move in a WRONG WAY.

They should be encouraging multiplayer activities more instead, because it's not a single player game and it's pretty sucky as one.

I'd much rather like to see a limit to 1 hero per player, max 3 in a team than something as ridiculous as 7 heroes.

What would that encourage more: grouping, or quitting the game altogether?

If playing in PUGs was actually fun, I think we'd see more people migrating to them even if there were 7 heroes. As is, a lot of players would rather play with a party of henchmen - or not at all - than play in a PUG.

Making the PUG experience less dreadful is going to take a lot of work, but it comes with a great payoff.

eximiis · Jul 21, 2009, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

What would that encourage more: grouping, or quitting the game altogether?

If playing in PUGs was actually fun, I think we'd see more people migrating to them even if there were 7 heroes. As is, a lot of players would rather play with a party of henchmen - or not at all - than play in a PUG.

Making the PUG experience less dreadful is going to take a lot of work, but it comes with a great payoff.

So true, i'd rather quit the game then playing with pugs.

So that counts me out of the pug population, then why can't i use 7 heroes ?

stretchs · Jul 21, 2009, 04:31 PM // 16:31

I was bored the other day and decided to PUG several mish (Eternal Grove, Gyala Hatchery & GOLEM) I had a couple fail pugs, but really it was in the forming of the group. It was fun and all just to see players trying to figure things out. I dont think you would see less PUG'ing than you do now with 7 heroes because most of the places that people PUG (which is VERY few and far between) they would still do so. I think the 7 heroes wouldnt really change the amount of pugging.

DSN · Jul 21, 2009, 06:03 PM // 18:03

I really wish the people against seven heroes would come up with some argument other than "I don't want seven heroes, therefore no one should have them." I honestly don't get what gives you the right to tell me how I should play the game or even how I should have fun.
Let me explain something as clearly as I can here:
You. Don't. Have. To. Use. Heroes. At. All. You. Can. Play. However. You. Want.
Now I have to ask, why can't I? Why is it that when I want to play a game my own way, in a manner that gives me enjoyment, you try and tell me that I'm wrong? How I play the game has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on how you play. Now, please, try and tell me why your misguided imagination makes you think it makes sense to dictate how everyone should play? What's next? Do you want tell me that I can no longer dye my armor black? Or that my elite platemail is stupid and I can no longer play with it?
Seriously, all the arguments against seven heroes are as ridiculous as if the other side was arguing that everyone should be required to use seven heroes. Both of those are totally ludicrous, but there is nothing wrong with letting people play the game as they choose.

As for me, I have a very simple reason for wanting seven heroes. It would allow me to do more. The amount of fun in this game, for me, is linked to how much stuff there is to do. Currently, after about two years of playing, I've done most of what I want/can do. But if we were able to use more heroes I could do some extra random stuff, like messing with random new team builds, more elite areas, and more HM. I can't really see a good reason why this should be disallowed to me.

Mokeiro · Jul 21, 2009, 06:45 PM // 18:45

I'm not only want 7 heroes, also i want to use my other chars as heroes, as anet forces us to play with one char for not make all titles account wide, i miss my chars, so as they are a big family i demand to use them as heroes so i can grind those stupid titles with my Cough, cough (forced) "main" while i don't feel bad for leaving my others hardworked chars forgotten.

Targren · Jul 21, 2009, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by refer

you just get bad people. 7 heros would make the game forced heros for everybody, even if you didn't want to do it.

If that's the case, then that means less than 8 people don't want it.

So no, that logic doesn't work.

Lishy · Jul 21, 2009, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Refer, the game is already forced heroes. I never see people grouping for primary quests and most of the non-end missions.
"Guildies" is not an excuse, unless you have some super-guild that always groups with you for every darn thing.

Martin Firestorm · Jul 21, 2009, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by DSN

Let me explain something as clearly as I can here:
You. Don't. Have. To. Use. Heroes. At. All. You. Can. Play. However. You. Want.

If I can't get into a PUG because everyone is playing single player in 7 hero groups, then I would have to play with heroes. That's the issue here which you have to address if want to make this argument. You want to play single player so you don't care, but surely you can see how that would make already difficult to find PUGs even more scarce? Most people play MMOs at least in part for the player interaction, and thus do not want game changes that reduce or eliminate that.

I like playing both ways, but that definitely includes being able to PUG. I am grateful for the z missions and bounties for that reason, but wonder if people would even PUG those if they could load up 7 heroes. I think the current system is a decent compromise.

Improvavel · Jul 22, 2009, 12:52 AM // 00:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Firestorm

If I can't get into a PUG because everyone is playing single player in 7 hero groups, then I would have to play with heroes. That's the issue here which you have to address if want to make this argument. You want to play single player so you don't care, but surely you can see how that would make already difficult to find PUGs even more scarce? Most people play MMOs at least in part for the player interaction, and thus do not want game changes that reduce or eliminate that.

I like playing both ways, but that definitely includes being able to PUG. I am grateful for the z missions and bounties for that reason, but wonder if people would even PUG those if they could load up 7 heroes. I think the current system is a decent compromise.

Typical freedom problem - where does my freedom ends and the other person freedom starts.

You can't force someone playing with PUGs. On the other hand, if you make a certain area impossible to do without people what will happen?

Lets look at ursan blessing times.

Very hard areas could thenbe done quite easily with UB.

Loads of PUG around in DoA.

UB died, DoA PUGs died (or the large majority of them).

DoA HM. Really though to do with heroes. But you don't see pugs either cause it can still be tough (or tougher than UB times).

You don't see either loads of people with heroes, or even 2 players with heroes or 1 player using 2 accounts.

Most PUGs are about farming a certain area.

Then zaishen quests came to concentrate people in certain areas and promote pugging.

People that play generally with h/h or 6 heroes, still do those areas with 6 heroes.

PUG that pugged all game and/or can only farm, need to PUG to abuse 24 PvE-only skills. Others can now find PUG players to play with, because everyone wants to do the same missions/quests.

Now take a zaishen quest in a place like DoA or some HM dungeon - you will see a bit more activity but not that much more, and most you will see is guild/alliance groups.

GW became a multitude of games over the years - it is a PvP game, it is a PvE game.

PvE game also branched - it is a solo or small teams with AI support game; it is a solo/duo/trio farming game; it is a team farming game; it is a PUG game.

The best way to improve PUG game is focusing people in certain areas and have those areas beaten by a highly standardized team build.

The best way to improve solo play with h/h is to replace henchmen with heroes, which allow much more customization and build options. And if you think well, a h/h is so gimped vs a 2 players + 6 heroes that the game allows that is ridiculous. And the not being able to abuse PvE-only skills gimps so much the heroes that isn't even fun.

So, to conclude, you have a group saying "I want my game experience improved!". And other group saying "I don't want your gaming experience improved because then you will stop playing with me, destroying my game!". The first group will easily reply with "but I'm not playing with you anyway!".

Sincerely, I'm from the group "I already play with 6 heroes and another person and so have the best of the both worlds". Although I wouldn't mind if some of my heroes could bring SY!, TNTF and GDW.

Players that play h/h will keep playing h/h until they find someone it is in the same play skill plateau, in a guild for example, and then they will occasionally do some stuff that is annoying with h/h together.

Players that like to PUG can't PUG because there isn't enough PUGs in most of the places they want to play at any given moment.

If there was only a handful of quests and missions to do, a PUG person could expect to PUG a lot more easier and much more consistently.

H/H players simply don't play the same game PUG players play.

If GW can't cater to the H/H players, they will find some other game.

One thing is true - games with the complexity of team build/play GW offer aren't abundant. Typical solo RPGs like NWN, Elder Scrolls and Diablo II, don't offer it!

The people stating that the H/H players might as well play solo games need to indicate games that resemble GW - party based, with limited selection of skills, varied professions combos, attribute refunds, etc.

Imaginos · Jul 22, 2009, 02:00 AM // 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Firestorm

If I can't get into a PUG because everyone is playing single player in 7 hero groups, then I would have to play with heroes. That's the issue here which you have to address if want to make this argument. You want to play single player so you don't care, but surely you can see how that would make already difficult to find PUGs even more scarce? Most people play MMOs at least in part for the player interaction, and thus do not want game changes that reduce or eliminate that.

I like playing both ways, but that definitely includes being able to PUG. I am grateful for the z missions and bounties for that reason, but wonder if people would even PUG those if they could load up 7 heroes. I think the current system is a decent compromise.

Tons of people don't group now due to pug stupidity. In general, for myself, I'll grab default henchmen then put up with fail pugs. Default Henchmen are greater then Fail Pugs and many many people, as you can see by the votes here, feel the same way.

z missions were good because people are pugging more due to that. Before then there was little incentive to group up with random people for missions you've done a dozen times before, when others were off doing other missions so the people selection was very limited. What z missions did was dragged the player populous to one specific area with the same goal in mind, and thus forming a pug, for those who like doing that, is suddenly easier.

Bryant Again · Jul 22, 2009, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

The people stating that the H/H players might as well play solo games need to indicate games that resemble GW - party based, with limited selection of skills, varied professions combos, attribute refunds, etc.

I think the only game that could resemble it would have to be Baldur's Gate, but not only did it have a pause button it actually had depth. I wish soloing had the same kind of micro complexity I was experiencing when I was first H/H'ing, but the exact opposite turned out to be true. Because of that I would recommend a soloer play a solo game: there are many out there that are more

That's besides the point, though, since all of that could be amended by actually balancing the game. What's actually relevant is what I've been leading up to, and that's the experiences I've had that make me want to play through the boring playstyle of H/H rather than with people:

-Leaving Mid-Mission: If a player, especially a monk, leaves the party then you're screwed. There's not a thing you can do about it: you are down one player and it's going to stay that way until you restart the mission no matter your progress.

Sure you could restart, but that has the possibility of losing more and more players which leads to having to find more and more players. I'm sure many of us have been there: party starts mission, party fails mission, half of party leaves, party has to find more people, cycle continues.

-Failing: Yeah, losing sucks and it's how you get better. But there are a lot of set-backs that make it particularly annoying in Guild Wars. This isn't saying that the missions are hard, but that when you make that little mistake that you screw up the whole mission.

This can be high-lighted best through my experiences with THK: *all* of the failed groups I was part of made it all the way to where you have to protect the king, and all of them failed. Because we whiped once, we have to start to entire mission all over again. Couple that with the cycle I described above and it's easy to just "give up" on playing with other players.

-Just Starting the Mission: You have very specific roles and 8 spots you have to fill, and you can only stand there while you wait to find the set amount of people. That right there is a pain in the ass all by itself.

Awex Mafyews · Jul 22, 2009, 02:34 AM // 02:34

At the end of the day you can't please everyone, some people are going to miss out that's a fact. There is already a big divide in the PvE gameply, namely people who want to PUG or be in a player team and people who would rather go it alone with H/H. I highly doubt there is any way to make or force people back into making pugs and seeing as the majoirty would like the option of 7 heroes I think ANet will have to address this or face losing more and more players to rival MMOs.

EDIT: Just like Bryant said above, we've all been in failed PUG groups and eventually I got to the stage where I could not be bothered to be in another one, it's not that I'm antisocial it's just I play to have fun and being in failing PUG groups just isn't fun in any way.

Also people forget that there is PvP, Guilds, Alliances and Trading for player to player interaction, having 7 heroes would only kill pugging not the games ability to allow you to meet and talk to other people.

pinguinius · Jul 22, 2009, 02:50 AM // 02:50

"Having 7 heroes will kill what's left of pugging."

Uh, how? If the argument is that people pug things because they are forced to due to hero limitations, then that is wrong. Almost all content can be H/H'd as it is now. Having 7 heroes would do nothing to change the attitudes of the players who would already rather play by themselves (evidently 80% of the population). What it would do is give people more hero slots to customize, and thus more stuff to do, without adding any actual content to the game, something which ANet seems quite fond of. Seems like a win/win for the next quarterly update.

People whining about 7 heroes seem to be imagining some subset of the player population straddling the fence as whether to play with humans or AI, which I have not noticed to exist.

"Having 7 heroes will make henchmen useless."

Most missions can be completed solely by henchmen. When my friend bought Nightfall he didn't feel like customizing heroes so he just beat the game with henchmen instead. It's doable-- In normal mode. In hard mode, and possibly even normal mode EotN dungeons, henchmen don't cut it. But good luck getting that 8-man hard mode Arachni's Haunt group together at 2 am PST on a Wednesday. Or hell, even in peak hours. How often do you see a group getting together to do Bloodstone Fen HM? Even during peak hours with interdistrict travel available? Not often.

The henchmen are fine for NM, that is now largely their use. But for HM, they have poor energy management, do little more than auto attack dps, and come with poor skills. And people still would rather use them than either pug or sit waiting hours for a pug to show up.

"ANet has said no to 7 heroes."

Did they? Even if they did, so what? It's their game, they can make whatever decisions they want, and yes, even change their minds.

"Having 7 heroes will allow one person in PvP to bring a fully customizable AI team that abuses their abilities."

This is said to be slated to be changed in an upcoming update.

"Guild Wars is a multiplayer game! Heroes aren't players!"

Then why have I, since Prophecies, been able to solo the content? Diablo II is a multiplayer game, too, but you can certainly play it alone and then seek a group when you need help killing Duriel or get bored by your lonesome. I can't honestly expect to find groups for every silly, rewardless quest in Tyria, can I? What if I just want to aimlessly kill monsters for awhile? Not a lot of people lining up for that group.

Further, players do not tolerate my frequent piss breaks or my urge to constantly wiki things, get distracted and tab out for hours. Players are not always available, and not always hospitable. The heroes have never called me a noob and ragequit, even when I led them to their doom and back again.

"But, but... people will buy less of my 600/smite dungeon runs!"

Probably not. Even with 7 heroes, you would still have to equip, give skills to, and command them. Bad players will not becomes gods and good players will not forget how to play nicely with others. If the occasional guy sitting in the Great Northern Wall spamming for a run is any indication, people will always be willing to have the game played for them no matter how easy it is. Don't worry, you'll be able to buy your chaos gloves yet!

"Well, I'll quit the game if 7 heroes comes to pass. "

Well, I'll play more. To each his own, screaming about fictional changes doesn't really do anything. (neither does writing long posts which nobody will read).

"I'm not reading all that you moron."

tl;dr: 7 heroes will only serve to give those who would use it more options while only tangentially affecting those who won't

Improvavel · Jul 22, 2009, 02:54 AM // 02:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

I think the only game that could resemble it would have to be Baldur's Gate, but not only did it have a pause button it actually had depth. I wish soloing had the same kind of micro complexity I was experiencing when I was first H/H'ing, but the exact opposite turned out to be true. Because of that I would recommend a soloer play a solo game: there are many out there that are more

On the other hand, playing in a party also doesn't involve any micro.

I don't understand why playing with H/H makes you a lesser player than playing with people.

We talk about about playing with h/h - "ah but you don't micro", "you could send the heroes to do their stuff" - when in party filled with 8 human players all of that is the same.

Your own understanding of the game has 0 relation to playing with other people or AI party members.

Actually playing with players can be a lot easier!

But I guess people are admitting in this thread that the average player sucks more than a hench, hence playing with people being harder via gimping.

Having 32 extra slots to costumize adds more depth. And microing with a pause button is taxing...

Quote:

That's besides the point, though, since all of that could be amended by actually balancing the game. What's actually relevant is what I've been leading up to, and that's the experiences I've had that make me want to play through the boring playstyle of H/H rather than with people:

-Leaving Mid-Mission: If a player, especially a monk, leaves the party then you're screwed. There's not a thing you can do about it: you are down one player and it's going to stay that way until you restart the mission no matter your progress.

Sure you could restart, but that has the possibility of losing more and more players which leads to having to find more and more players. I'm sure many of us have been there: party starts mission, party fails mission, half of party leaves, party has to find more people, cycle continues.

-Failing: Yeah, losing sucks and it's how you get better. But there are a lot of set-backs that make it particularly annoying in Guild Wars. This isn't saying that the missions are hard, but that when you make that little mistake that you screw up the whole mission.

This can be high-lighted best through my experiences with THK: *all* of the failed groups I was part of made it all the way to where you have to protect the king, and all of them failed. Because we whiped once, we have to start to entire mission all over again. Couple that with the cycle I described above and it's easy to just "give up" on playing with other players.

-Just Starting the Mission: You have very specific roles and 8 spots you have to fill, and you can only stand there while you wait to find the set amount of people. That right there is a pain in the ass all by itself.

I agree with this.

Additionally, a party will rarely have the time or patience to try and retry, understanding their mistakes, improving as a party and overcoming the challenge.

You on the other hand, with heroes, can try, retry, and learn, analyse, etc.

Regardless of their position about 7 heroes, I guess no one can deny that if we had the choice to use 7 heroes and customizing them, learning and adapting to the challanges would be, not only much easier but also much more rewarding.

Trying to improve, only to see jamei cast healing breeze when that mind burn just dealt 200+ damage to you is frustrating.

Many people talk about the no monthly fee to justify the fact they play GW.

Some of the facts that attracted me was the instanced world, the "no waiting in a cue" to kill boss x, the fact I could play alone and still have a team.

I want to come and play. I don't want to come and only start playing 2 hours later and then after 30 minutes play I need to go.

On the other hand, sometimes I don't mind waiting those 2 hours, if I'm chatting in-game or in TS/Ventrillo.

I like options. GW give more than many other games. But sometimes, it feels Anet was just trying to feel the ground they were stepping in.

Bryant Again · Jul 22, 2009, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Improvavel

I don't understand why playing with H/H makes you a lesser player than playing with people.

It doesn't at all. Where'd you get that in my post???

The tidbit you did quote was in response to people telling soloers to find a different game - which, as a soloer, I actually recommend at this point. The only enjoyment that can be left to had is the varying experiences you go through when playing with friends.

Improvavel · Jul 22, 2009, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

It doesn't at all. Where'd you get that in my post???

The tidbit you did quote was in response to people telling soloers to find a different game - which, as a soloer, I actually recommend at this point. The only enjoyment that can be left to had is the varying experiences you go through when playing with friends.

Although I might have misunderstand your post (its late and english isn't my main), the fact is that many people will talk as if playing with h/h should be harder than playing with people and it is actually easier. I've never understand that. Sorry in that case.

Generally what happens is having more work by playing with h/h, since heroes sometimes don't "understand" their builds very well and have crappy positioning, don't run out of AoE fast enough and have a tendency to either overextend as warriors/frontliners or kite in to aggro range of a second close mob.

Bryant Again · Jul 22, 2009, 04:48 AM // 04:48

You have more work in the sense that you have to do everything by yourself, that is true. But there's technically "no work" since there's very little you yourself have to do. There's very little work required for all that you receive.

The most I've had to do is get killing orders down and do the occasional flag-and-pull.

And yes, it should be harder, but much moreso than what we have now.

EDIT: In case you're confused, we're on the same page.

Improvavel · Jul 22, 2009, 05:24 AM // 05:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

You have more work in the sense that you have to do everything by yourself, that is true. But there's technically "no work" since there's very little you yourself have to do. There's very little work required for all that you receive.

The most I've had to do is get killing orders down and do the occasional flag-and-pull.

And yes, it should be harder, but much moreso than what we have now.

Yeah, but basically it is the same work or even less you have in a party of players.

The work you have in a party of players is generally before playing - heroes just come with the profession we want them to and the build we deem best, while players you need to be more diplomatic to convince them to use what you want - and c'mon, should that be the deciding factor for a player skill?

And when UB was all the rage, you could see loads of PUG. Guess nothing like no setup time plus very reduced chance of failure.

Nereyda Shoaal · Jul 22, 2009, 08:03 AM // 08:03

I just can't believe how lazy people are

You want to put 7 heroes on "auto pilot" and do absolutely nothing. Computer program will do everything for you... full DoA run, UWSC, FoW, Urgoz... you name it

BenjZee · Jul 22, 2009, 09:09 AM // 09:09

Where's the option for doesn't mind either way?
..........